Graeme Decarie
Well-Known Member
Kimmio, I so happy to see you are starting to use sources. Now you have to learn there are good ones and bad ones. If you have checked elelction spending for the last 30 years or so from good sources, you would have learned the real figures are way over the ones you found. And you would have learned that Obama did not get elected on pennies from Sunday Schools - or so bloggers.
The Guardian is still a good source (though not so good as it used to be). And, on this topic, the NY Times and the Wall St. Journal joins it to show that election costs (also for obama) are in the billions. And it gets worse because that's only the declared part. The owners of TV stations, for example, are extremely wealthy people with stakes in the election. It's easy for them to give 'special discount rates' for the man or woman of their choice.
And they all want Hillary. It's not an accident that she and hubby have some #200.000,000 (or more) in their private bank accounts. This comes from gifts, speaking fees, deposits offshore, etc.... And the people who give those gifts expect something more.
Right now, Hillary is riding on the biggest presidential campaign budget ever. Trump has, perhaps, 1% of what she has.
Get used to it. American 'democracy' has for many years been a sinkhole of corruption. The same has commonly been true of democracy in Canada.
And that's why it doesn't matter who wins in the U.S. If Clinton wins, it's because she and almost all the rest of her party has been bought. If Trump wins? Most of the Republicans in Congress have been bought by much the same people. There's no way Trump can win any real power.
And you keep speaking of the American obligation to spread democracy and to save people from cruel dictators. Read some history.
Over a century ago, the U.S. conquered, among others, Haiti, Cuba and The Phillipines. Until then, they were colonies of those cruel spaniards.) The Phillipines war was particularly terrible since the natives were tribal peoples who had no modern weapons.
That's also where the U.S. developed the 'waterboarding' torture. - Just about every army I have ever heard of uses torture - and always has.
The US promptly established dictatorships under notably cruel dictators in all three. When, fifty years later, Cubans dumped their dictator, the U.S. was furious at Cuba's insolence. It's dictator in Haiti lasted almost a century when Haiti revolted, and elected a leader. When they did, the U.S. said this could not be tolerated. Eventually, they overthrew the elected president and set up a hand-picked government (really a dictatorship, again.) And what they called the overthrew was a "peacekeeping" action which gutless Canada took part in.
The Phillipines were under an American dictator until the end of 1941. Then, from 1945, it was back to dictators - all of them buddies of the U.S. (The American invasion of The Phillipines was praised by Rudyard Kipling in a remarkably racist poem, The White Man's Burden. Check it out on the web.
The U.S. has supported dictatorships and murderous regimes all over the world. The U.S. doesn't fight these curses. It creates them.
We are now undergoiing climate change. Yes. We are. The oil industry wants no action on. Two of Hillary's biggest backers are the Koch brothers, the biggest oilmen in the U.S.
Gee. Do you think Hillary will come to grips with climate change? (The Koch brothers say it isn't happening. Nothing to worry about.)
The Guardian is still a good source (though not so good as it used to be). And, on this topic, the NY Times and the Wall St. Journal joins it to show that election costs (also for obama) are in the billions. And it gets worse because that's only the declared part. The owners of TV stations, for example, are extremely wealthy people with stakes in the election. It's easy for them to give 'special discount rates' for the man or woman of their choice.
And they all want Hillary. It's not an accident that she and hubby have some #200.000,000 (or more) in their private bank accounts. This comes from gifts, speaking fees, deposits offshore, etc.... And the people who give those gifts expect something more.
Right now, Hillary is riding on the biggest presidential campaign budget ever. Trump has, perhaps, 1% of what she has.
Get used to it. American 'democracy' has for many years been a sinkhole of corruption. The same has commonly been true of democracy in Canada.
And that's why it doesn't matter who wins in the U.S. If Clinton wins, it's because she and almost all the rest of her party has been bought. If Trump wins? Most of the Republicans in Congress have been bought by much the same people. There's no way Trump can win any real power.
And you keep speaking of the American obligation to spread democracy and to save people from cruel dictators. Read some history.
Over a century ago, the U.S. conquered, among others, Haiti, Cuba and The Phillipines. Until then, they were colonies of those cruel spaniards.) The Phillipines war was particularly terrible since the natives were tribal peoples who had no modern weapons.
That's also where the U.S. developed the 'waterboarding' torture. - Just about every army I have ever heard of uses torture - and always has.
The US promptly established dictatorships under notably cruel dictators in all three. When, fifty years later, Cubans dumped their dictator, the U.S. was furious at Cuba's insolence. It's dictator in Haiti lasted almost a century when Haiti revolted, and elected a leader. When they did, the U.S. said this could not be tolerated. Eventually, they overthrew the elected president and set up a hand-picked government (really a dictatorship, again.) And what they called the overthrew was a "peacekeeping" action which gutless Canada took part in.
The Phillipines were under an American dictator until the end of 1941. Then, from 1945, it was back to dictators - all of them buddies of the U.S. (The American invasion of The Phillipines was praised by Rudyard Kipling in a remarkably racist poem, The White Man's Burden. Check it out on the web.
The U.S. has supported dictatorships and murderous regimes all over the world. The U.S. doesn't fight these curses. It creates them.
We are now undergoiing climate change. Yes. We are. The oil industry wants no action on. Two of Hillary's biggest backers are the Koch brothers, the biggest oilmen in the U.S.
Gee. Do you think Hillary will come to grips with climate change? (The Koch brothers say it isn't happening. Nothing to worry about.)