I'm voting for Ron Nader or Ralph Paul.

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Full story at: http://www.votenader.org/issues/foreign-policy/israel/

Israel

To illustrate how little has changed in four years, other than conditions becoming worse, the 2008 Nader/Gonzalez campaign is posting these policy positions on various injustices, necessities, and redirections that were prepared initially for the 2004 Nader/Camejo campaign. Such a short historical context should give our supporters and viewers an even greater sense of urgency to stop the corporate interests' and the corporate governments' autocratic control -- and the resulting deterioration -- of our society and country.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader continued his dialogue with Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League. The dialogue, which began this summer when Foxman criticized Nader for questioning the militaristic approach of the Sharon government and the U.S. government's puppet-like support of Israel, has focused on whether criticizing Israel is akin to anti-semitism.

Nader favors a two-state solution and believes that the United States needs to highlight the broad and deep peace movement in Israel and its counterparts among Palestinians and among Americans of the Jewish faith. In this letter Nader urges Foxman to meet with these people so Foxman "can play a part in the historic effort to establish a broad and deep peace between the two Semitic peoples."


Criticizing the Israeli Government is not for Israelis Alone
October 12, 2004

Mr. Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
823 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017

Dear Mr. Foxman:

You started your last letter with the sentence: “We are not engaged in a dialogue about the issues you raised in your letter.” That is precisely the point, is it not, Mr. Foxman. For many years you have eschewed engaging in a dialogue with those in Israel and the United States who disagree with your views. Your mode of operation for years has been to make charges of racism or insinuation of racism designed to slander and evade. Because your pattern of making such charges, carefully calibrated for the occasion but of the same stigmatizing intent, has served to deter critical freedom of speech, you have become sloppy with your characterizations when it comes to attempts to hold you accountable. Of course citizen groups make charges all the time but their critics and corporate adversaries do review and rebut which keeps both sides more alert to accuracy especially when they desire press coverage. Few groups get the free ride that has been the case of the ADL when it ventures beyond its historic mission into covering the Israeli militaristic regime and its brutalization and slaughter of far more innocent Palestinians it occupies, than the reverse casualties inflicted on innocent Israelis.

Your insensitivity here is legion. You fail to understand that your studied refusal to reflect the condemnations of Israeli military action and mayhem against civilians, by the great Israeli human rights organization B’T selem and the major international human rights organizations, contributes to the stereotypic bigotry against Palestinian Arabs and the violent Gulag that imprisons them in the West Bank and Gaza. Yours is more than the “crime of silence” so deservedly condemned in other periods of modern history when despots reigned. You go out of your way to silence or chill others who are raising the same points that B’T selem and Rabbis for Justice and other U.S. and Israeli peace groups, such as Rabbi Lerner’s Tikkun initiative, do.

You are not above twisting words of those you take to task in order to be able to deploy the usual semantic vituperatives. My comments related to the Israeli government – with the fifth most powerful and second most modern military machine in the world – through its prime minister possessing the role of puppeteer to puppets in the White House and Congress. You distorted the comment into “Jews controlling the U.S. government.” Shame on you. You know better. If you do not see the difference between those two designations, you yourself are treading on racist grounds. Indeed, you are too willing to justify any violence against innocent Palestinian children, women and men in the mounting thousands on the grounds of inadvertence and security when such casualties are either direct or foreseeable results of planned military operations. Your refusal to condemn bigoted language, cartoons, articles and statements in Israel up to the highest government levels, can be called serious insensitivity to “the other anti-Semitism.” Both Jews and Arabs belong to the ancient Semitic tribes of the Middle East –either genealogically or metaphorically. There is, as you know so well, anti-Semitism against Jews in many places in the world. There is, as you always ignore, aggressive anti-Semitism against defenseless Arabs in many places in the world and in Israel whose military might and nuclear weapons could destroy the entire Middle East in a weekend.

Consider for example, one of many, many episodes of similar impact excerpted from a publication by Jules Rabin, “An Israeli Refusnik Visits Vermont, The Man Who Didn’t Walk By,” August 3, 2004:
The man who “didn’t walk by” is Yonatan Shapira, until recently pilot of a Blackhawk helicopter and captain in the elite Israeli Air Force. I met Yonatan not many days ago when he came to speak in my town, Montpelier, Vermont, about a major turning point in his life.

Yonatan is a lover of his country, a composer, and a handler of extraordinary machines. He was dismissed from Israel’s air force in 2003 because he refused to take part in aerial attacks in areas of the Occupied Territories of Palestine where there exist large concentrations of civilians liable to become a “collateral damage.” In Yonatan’s view, such attacks are both illegal and immoral because of the near-inevitability of their killing innocent civilians. In support of his position, Yonatan cites the authority of the Israeli army’s own code of ethical behavior, and the fact that, (by a recent reckoning) of 2,289 Palestinians killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in the current Intifada, less than a quarter (550) were bearing arms or were fighters.

At the same time, Yonatan has declared himself absolutely ready to fight in the defense of Israel proper.

Yonatan was shocked into his refusal to obey orders by two occurrences, among others.

One was the action of a fellow Israeli pilot who fired a 1-ton bomb from his F16 fighter jet, as ordered, at a house in Al-Deredg, where a suspected Palestinian terrorist was staying. Yonatan identifies Al-Deredg as one of the most crowded districts of Gaza, and indeed of the world. Besides the targeted Palestinian, 13 local people were killed in that attack: 2 men, 2 women, and 9 children, one of whom was 2 years old. 160 other people were wounded in the explosion. A 1-ton bomb, Yonatan calculates, has approximately 100 times the explosive power of the type of lethal belts worn by Palestinian suicide bombers. In proportion to the US population and the fatalities of the original 9/11 disaster, now an icon and classic measure of terrorist devastation, the fatalities of that single attack on tiny Gaza (population 1,200,000) were greater by 10% than the fatalities in America’s own 9/11.

Nor was the bombing of Al-Deredg unique in the scale of its impact on civilian life. Yonatan has cited the casualties resulting from 7 other targeted assassinations conducted in Palestine by the Israel Defense Forces, where, along with 7 other targeted individuals, 44 bystanders were killed. Taking Palestine’s overall population at 3,500,000 and that of the US at 290 million, those 44 bystander deaths would represent, in proportion to the US population, another one and a-third 9/11’s.

As a volunteer in Selah, a group that assists victims of Palestinian terror, Yonatan has first-hand knowledge of the appalling effects of the multiple 9/11-scale attacks that Israel has itself experienced, at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. He was nevertheless – or – consequently – appalled by the action in Al-Deredg of his fellow pilot. He considered the means used in the attack, a 1-ton bomb, and its goal, the assassination of one man, to be wildly disproportionate to the attack’s predictable collateral effects, and a violation of the rules of engagement concerning which all Israeli soldiers are instructed. Those rules, as Yonatan has understood them, include the obligation to refuse to obey orders that are clearly illegal and immoral.

This is a good alternative to picking sides in a country we have no business sticking our noses in. This is a Christian standpoint in international politics to choose to side with Ireal. The Palestinians live there equally, so because they are a muslim religion, the US Christians say they have no rights there.

The obvious choice is to seperate them like they were in the 60s? Everyone lived peacefully then. We are planning to bomb the Palestinians to get them out and allow the Jews to take everything.

Religion has no place in this decision, and using it to take sides is a violation of everyone's rights.

http://www.votenader.org/issues/poli...ctoral-reform/

Instant Run-off Voting
Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) is an approach that needs to be tested at the local level and, if successful, applied to state and national elections as well. The US electoral system is in crisis; less than half the potential voters vote - the lowest in the western, industrialized world. The winner-take-all election system often pushes voters to vote their fears and not their beliefs. We have not had a President win an election with majority support of voters since the first President Bush. It undermines the perceived voter mandate of the government to have a president with less than majority support of actual votes. IRV may help fix both of these problems and allow more voters to vote for the candidates they support. Nobody knows how IRV will actually work in the United States - no matter what its fervent supporters may hope for. It has to be tested and also clarified within the context of local, state and national campaign funding laws.

On June 14, 2004, the Ferndale, MI City Council unanimously voted for a proposal to place IRV on the November 2004 ballot. The proposal would amend the city's charter to use IRV in future mayoral elections. A citizen's group, Ferndale for Instant Run-off Voting, asserts that with IRV the winner always has a majority vote and minor-party and independent candidates are no longer viewed as "spoilers," unfair as that sneeringly selective noun is in our rigged two party system.

Instant Run-off Voting allows voters to rank their vote -- voters indicate a one for a first choice, two for a second choice, and three for a third choice. This simple but ground-breaking advance in elections ensures that in an election with more than two candidates, your vote can count for your second choice if your first choice can't win. Here's how it works: if a candidate receives a majority of first choices, that candidate wins. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and a second round of counting occurs wherein the eliminated candidate's votes go to each voter's next choice. Rounds of counting continue until there is a majority winner.

Advances for IRV are being made around the world and around the United States. In 2002 San Franciscans voted 55%-45% to adopt instant runoff voting. A Vermont League of Women Voters proposal to use instant runoff voting for statewide elections was debated in over 50 town meetings in 2002; of the 51 towns reporting results, 49 supported adoption of instant runoff voting, most by overwhelming margins. And Oakland, California voted 75.9 to 24.0 in favor if IRV on March 5, 2002 but it has not yet been implemented. IRV is used in major elections in Australia, Ireland and Great Britain. A few examples:


This spring, the Utah Republican Party made effective use of IRV at its state convention in battles for the gubernatorial and congressional nomination.
San Francisco is in the process of educating voters on the use of IRV for use in this November's seven Board of Supervisors district elections. The use of IRV, backers say, will have a big impact on voter turnout which has been declining.
As former Independent candidate John Anderson said in an article about the Ralph Nader 2004 Independent campaign: "Having an election between two candidates is obviously better than a one-party dictatorship, but having an election among more than two candidates is better than a two-party duopoly." He went on to highlight how Ross Perot's candidacy increased voter interest in the presidential election and how that was healthy for our democracy. Anderson concluded: "With Instant Run-off Voting, we would determine a true majority winner in one election and banish the spoiler concept. Voters would not have to calculate possible perverse consequences of voting for their favorite candidate. They could vote their hopes, not their fears."

Let us see. Let some demonstrations begin so we can find out what we don't know.

For more information visit:


The Center on Voting and Democracy
Ferndale for Instant Runoff Voting
Instant Runoff Voting (A project of the Midwest Democracy Center)
Reclaim Democracy
Massachusetts Citizens for Instant Runoff Voting
Citizens for Instant Runoff Voting in New York State

This is a good voting option. They are experimenting with it, so maybe we will get some feedback.

If you didn't know Ron Paul and Ralph Nader have two VERY different interpretations of the Constitution. So "protecting" isn't a legitimate jump from one candidate to the other since they are VASTLY different on policy issues.

So you still didn't answer my question on how you made such a large leap unless you didn't understand what the hell Ron Paul was all about.

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Signature:

I answered the question. Nader was the best one left of all the other options and maybe Nader and Paul have entirely different interpretations, but they mean to fix the problems. None of the other candidates seem to notice there are any and plan to continue what is left by Bush.

Nader is the next best option to Ron Paul, but Nader is too religious.

How can you not understand the similarities?

http://blogs.courant.com/on_backgrou...ul-voters.html


http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/06/13/RonPaul/

"Ron Paul was a lightning rod for millions of Americans against the war in Iraq and for the protection of personal liberties that the two major parties have turned their back on--by continuing to support the illegal criminal war and the PATRIOT Act.

Now that Dr Paul has formally withdrawn his candidacy for the G.O.P. nomination and is no longer seeking the Presidency, there is a clear choice for those who want to support a candidate who will stand up against the war and stand up for personal liberties and privacy that have been trampled by the notorious, misnamed, PATRIOT Act.

The people want the next President to immediately withdraw our soldiers and corporate mercenaries from Iraq in the safest manner possible.

I would veto any attempt to extend the so-called PATRIOT Act or anything else that came across my desk that was designed to circumvent the civil liberties of the American People. The PATRIOT Act grants excessive power to the government to abuse civil liberties through wiretaps, monitoring internet usage, authorized 'sneak and peek' of our homes, and forces libraries to turn over records of the books read by their patrons--and those abuses of power have been used repeatedly by Bush and his Justice Department. We need more politicians, like Dr Paul, who are not afraid to stand up for our civil liberties."

http://www.newsgroper.com/ralph-nade...ma-for-america

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/39560

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/wash...ul-fans-r.html

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/45883

I'm voting for Ron Paul

Is he even going to be on the ballot? I thought Barr was going to be the libertarian on the ticket...

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He's going to be a write in if he gets as least one state and I think he got Nevada on a recount of some sort or revote. There are still 3 states left and it is just as easy for him to go to the reform party and become their candidate at the end of this month. They haven't chosen one yet because their party is about dead, so they will between 18 and 20th.

It still puts their names on a ballot, so if Ron Paul goes there, he might be their representative.