Elizabeth Cable

Website: http://nineteenthofapril.blogspot.com/

Bio: I am a 16-year-old from the great state of Georgia (where the governor prays for rain and where it is against the law to sell alcohol on Sunday). I began to develop an avid interest in politics and government shortly after I began homeschooling, around the age of 12. Due to my newfound interest in politics, a whole new door then was opened to me, and I began to see the world more "clearly". The supposed clarity of my worldview was decreased ten-fold with my discovery of Mike Gravel (Former Democratic Senator from Alaska and current 2008 presidential candidate, running as an Libertarian). Gravel's teachings greatly increased my worldview in its measure of complexity, and I began to have many doubts about the United States, politics, government, and our society. And doubt is often the beginning of wisdom. I was a Democrat for the first 15 years of my life, as my parents were before me, until my newfound doubt and the wisdom which accompanied it compelled me to denounce the party system and become an Independent, because I now see that both major political parties are completely corrupt and represent corporations rather than their constituents. Since Mike Gravel has dropped out of the Presidential Race, I now support Ralph Nader for President.

Rep. Kucinich offers a Main Street recovery plan

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several weeks, you will know that the United States economy has continued its decline. This September 15th, Wall Street suffered its greatest losses since the September 11th terrorist attacks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipping down 500 points in one day. Since then, the Dow Jones has fluctuated in between losses as large as 450 points and gains of over 100 points, and other major aspects of the Stock Market have behaved similarly. These economic problems on Wall Street has sent our leaders and those others in power scrambling for a solution. The “economic recovery plan” put forth by the Bush Administration was one offering a $700 billion bail-out to corporations on Wall Street. This economic recovery plan will use the tax-dollars of those working on Main Street to bail out those speculating on Wall Street, and it, in my view, demonstrates that the dynamic of corporate engagement is strong in Washington. Though this number may be cut slightly by Democrats in Congress, it is very likely that hundreds of billions of dollars will still be spent to bail out Wall Street. In opposing such a Wall Street recovery plan, Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich has been working on an alternative, comprehensive plan for a “Main Street economic recovery”, in which, it is stated, both the economy will be stimulated and a fair deal will be provided to the American people.

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Why I support Ralph Nader for President

These days, everybody’s talking about Barack Obama and John McCain. It’s true that Barack Obama and John McCain are not without merit. They both have a measure of honor and integrity: McCain bravely served his country in the military, enduring torture, and Obama, by choice, became a community organizer in Chicago rather than a rich businessman or lawyer, as he could have done. I recognize that, for progressives, “Barack-my-world” Obama is the better, more viable alternative to John McInsane. I recognize that, for conservatives, John McDreamy is the better, more viable alternative to Barack Obama-mania. However, more importantly, I recognize that, for me, Ralph Nader is the best alternative to Barack Obama and John McCain. It seems to me that there is only one main viewpoint on this ThinkYouth website: Barack Obama for President—End of story. Political discussion is mostly limited to the Democratic and Republican nominees for President. In this country, both sides, Republicans and Democrats, dislike and are afraid of the other—enough to vote for one candidate for fear that the opposing candidate may get elected, which is something regarded as dangerous by both sides.

As a result, many people may be turned off by a third-party candidacy. You may be wondering why exactly I am supporting Ralph Nader, of all people, for President of the United States. The answer consists of two main aspects: Nader’s career and history serving citizens of the United States (taking on corporations and the powerful time after time, advocating for consumer safety); and his progressive, intelligent, and civic-minded thoughts on the issues. Frankly, these two aspects make Nader completely different from the two major-party candidates. These things make him unique, irreplaceable, independent, worthy of a vote.

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Election 2008: Ralph Nader in Athens, Georgia

On July 25th, 2008, my father, my thirteen-year-old brother, and I went to go see Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and 2008 Independent Presidential candidate, speak at “Master’s Hall” on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. I had been incredibly excited to see that Nader was coming to Georgia on his “Southern Tour”, and no more than forty miles away from my town, no less! My father, being the good open-minded fellow that he is, agreeably drove myself and my uninterested brother there and paid the $10 each to get in. We each received a free Nader/Gonzalez ‘08 pin for this payment. There was a long table set up just outside the hall for this practice of collecting money, and for collecting signatures on a petition to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in Georgia. The number of signatures necessary to get Nader, or any Independent candidate, on the ballot in Georgia is inane: 42,489 signatures by July 8th. Such ballot access laws are implemented so that independent candidates cannot make a significant challenge to the two major parties in power (who are the ones that make the laws, of course).

The event was at 5:30 in the afternoon; we three were situated in our seats by 5:00, and we watched as the hall filled up with likely about two hundred people. Since Ralph Nader had held an event in Columbia, South Carolina, at 12 o’clock that afternoon, and since he had run into some bad traffic on the way to Athens, he did not arrive at the hall until about 6 o’clock that evening.

After giving a brief press conference upstairs, Nader arrived, amidst a burst of applause. He walked down the aisle, right next to where I was sitting (close enough that I could have touched him, if I lacked judgement and prudence), towards the podium. Nader sat down and briefly rested from his busy schedule while a young African American campaign volunteer, a “concerned citizen”, gave an earnest introductory speech. In this speech, the young man affirmed how much he cared about the country and the issues at hand, and how important it is for everyone to care and be civically involved. And then he said, “And now I am proud to present a more-than-worthy 2008 presidential candidate, Mr. Ralph Nader.” The crowd erupted into applause. This was the moment that we had all been waiting for. We three were not disappointed.
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The Fourth of July

The sounds of fireworks, exploding and popping like gunfire in the American Revolution centuries ago, reach my ears—going off in the distance, and near at hand, the sounds of a raucus celebration. Each year, on the fourth of July, we imitate the celebrations that took place on the first day of independence, 232 years ago. Each year, we celebrate our independence anew. It was on a warm July day in 1776 that our forefathers first gave us this gift—and, in addition to renewing the celebrations, we must also honor their sacrifices in the name of independence and liberty by making our own sacrifices in the name of independence and liberty. More than celebrating, each year we must renew our commitment to our collective liberty as a nation. Each successive generation has committed themselves to, forwarded the cause and progress of, and defended—from forces within and without—this nation’s independence and freedom.

But, I am fearful that, for many, the 4th has become a mere opportunity to celebrate—or just another day—rather than anything close to reaffirming our commitment to the priniciples and goals of our founding fathers. The day is made great and beautiful and symbolic and celebratory due to the principles behind it. It is those principles which we celebrate and commit to—the principles that state that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is on this fine occassion, the anniversary of our independence, upon which we, as a nation, “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” in the pursuit of these great principles and ideals.

Have a happy fourth of July.

Hersh: Congress Agreed to Bush Request to Fund Major Escalation in Secret Operations Against Iran

Veteran Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh has published an article in the New Yorker Magazine that asserts that congressional leaders agreed to a request from President Bush last year to greatly increase funding, to 400 million dollars, for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran. This escalation of these covert and secret activities is meant to destabilize the religious leadership of Iran. Hersh wrote his article based upon information from “current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.” The article notes that covert activities by the United States are not new in Iran–we have been conducting cross-border operations from Southern Iraq since last year.

The request for the $400 million was described in something called a “Presidential Finding”, signed by President Bush, and, under Federal Law, these Presidential Findings “must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees”. The article by Hersh noted later that, “In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.” This is a glaring contradiction and hypocrisy that is certainly not unfamiliar to the politics of the United States.

I hope that we all can now clearly see that the Republican Party is a war-like party of imperialists and interventionists. And I hope that we can now also clearly see that the Democratic Party is a war-like party of imperialists and interventionists, through their aiding and abetting of policies that are as such. I hope that we can now clearly see that both political parties are about policing the world, and spending huge amounts of taxpayer dollars to do so. We are spending 400 million dollars alone on trying to destabilize one single country. That money could have gone to education. That money could have gone to healthcare. That money could have gone to infrastructure. But, out of all of the needy areas of our country, our political leaders, of both parties, decided to direct the money instead towards destabilizing another country. 400 million dollars! That could not be described as “spare change”. Obviously, though, there is no “change” that our leaders can spare. And the small, superficial change that they do provide is worthless.

But Iran is not the only country targeted by the United States. According to Dennis Kucinich’s 35 Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, “On September 30, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of overturning the regime in Iran, as well as those in Iraq, Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted in then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith’s book, ‘War and Decision’.” The four other countries in the Middle East were, according to Wesley Clark, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Lebanon.

It is my opinion that the United States has been the interventionist policeman of the world for too long. And especially covert interventions, because that promotes “blowback”, defined as a term used in espionage to describe the unintended consequences of covert operations. Hatred in the Middle East towards the United States as a result of our covert operations targeting Middle-Easterners, and then Middle-Easterners demonstrating their hatred in a terrorist attack, is an example of blowback.

Is it honestly in our best interest to undertake operations such as this, especially when domestic issues are in such dire need of attention? And, ask yourself, do we even have the right to interfere in and destabilize another country, someone else’s country, as such? My personal opinion is that we have neither the right nor the obligation to try to destablize the governments of other countries and throw them into political chaos. Aside from the concerns of blowback and the misplacement of tax money, it is very important to do unto others as you would want done unto yourself.

Kucinich reads Bush Articles of Impeachment on the House floor

I flipped on my television at approximately ten-thirty Eastern time on Monday night, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) speaking on C-Span. Kucinich was talking about President Bush and his various crimes against the United States, and I soon became aware that the Representative was introducing Articles of Impeachment against President Bush (also known as House Resolution 1258).

Dennis Kucinich had begun his long trudge through the Articles two hours earlier, and he would continue his reading, to an almost empty House chamber, for nearly another three hours. There were 35 Articles in total, each one detailing a crime that Bush had committed that warranted impeachment. I congratulate Kucinich for having the courage and conviction to undertake this task.

A summary of each offense for each Article, as provided by the index of the Articles of Impeachment, reads as follows: Read more

The End

Former Senator Mike Gravel, on May 25th, 2008, acknowledged the truth for the last time in his political career. “This is the end. I started in politics at 15 years old, and this is the end of my political career. Right today. Right this afternoon.”

Asked if there was anything that he would have liked to have done differently in this campaign, Gravel said, “No, no, no, we played it straight. My style of politics is just to tell people what you are, what you believe in, and what you want to lead to.”

Mike Gravel’s political career may have ended on a warm day in May 2008, but it began when, in 1945, as a young man at age 15, he began passing out flyers and volunteering with local political campaigns in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. It continued when he headed to Alaska in 1956, leaving the Kennedy-controlled politics of Massachusetts, in the hopes of launching his own political career. Alaska was the perfect place to do it; when Gravel first arrived there, it was in the pre-statehood phase and didn’t even have any Senators yet.

Mike Gravel was elected to the Alaska House of Representative in 1962, and he tried to make the most of the power of his office in order to help people. Gravel said at the HRC/LOGO debate in August 2007, “My first piece of legislation in the State Legislature was the creation of the Human Rights Commission of Alaska. I fought hard, I used political capital. And what I learned is that when you use political capital, more capital comes to you. The Human Rights Commission dealt with gays and dealt with the black community. That was my first accomplishment, and I felt it deeply.”
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Libertarian Debate at 9:00 EST Tonight on C-Span

It is May 24th, and the Libertarians are in the midst of their National Convention in Denver. The Convention started on May 22nd, and will continue until May 26th. This year, there are many candidates for Libertarians to choose from. Six of those candidates acquired enough “tokens” today to participate in a Live Libertarian Debate on C-Span tonight, at 9-11 o’clock Eastern time, 6-8 o’clock Pacific time.

Concerning “tokens” the Libertarian Party website clarifies, “The 12 presidential candidates who made the trip to Denver for the National Convention have been petitioning Libertarian delegates for their support in the form of delegate tokens, which go towards qualifying candidates for certain events at the national convention.”

The candidates debating will be Former Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel, Former Congressman Bob Barr, Mary Ruwart (a Libertarian party activist), George Phillies (Libertarian activist and professor of physics), Steve Kubby (Libertarian activist and cancer patient), Michael Jingozian, and Wayne Allyn Root (business mogul). Other Libertarian candidates who did not acquire enough tokens to debate were Christine Smith, Daniel Imperato, and Alden Link.

If you have any interest in the campaign for the 2008 Libertarian nomination, be sure to tune in tonight. Again, it starts this evening at 9 o’clock Eastern time on C-Span, and goes on until 11 o’clock. If you had the interest to watch the debate, please leave a comment here on what you thought about it.

Politics of Insanity

Over the past couple decades, the American people have seen the incompetence, corruption, and inability to get anything done among the collective group of their elected officials. These elected officials find themselves indebted to lobbyists and corporations who donate to their political campaigns, rather than their constituents, and so they often find it necessary to represent and work for their corporations rather than their constituents. Many Americans these days are probably now wondering, “How do I go about picking a candidate who is competent and able and who is not corrupt, so that I can then vote for them and work for them, so that they can get into office and work for me?”

It is difficult attempting to scrutinize each candidate to try to determine what exactly they are thinking, so I have come up with a better solution to ascertain that the candidate that you elect will work for you, and work hard. For those candidates running for elected office, what the constituents need to do is to all get together, have the candidates in front of them, and then everyone stand back and each throw one dart towards the candidates. I almost can guarantee you that the candidate who receives the most darts will work, and work hard, for his or her constituents. They shan’t want any darts thrown at them again.

But, seriously, friends, there is an incompetence, corruption, and ineffectiveness that seems to be held collectively among our elected officials, with a few exceptions. It also seems to be held, generally, among both of the major political parties. What we, the American people, have essentially been doing these past several decades is swinging back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans, reverting from one to the other when one does not satisfactorily execute its promises. When we tire of one party, the other party shouts, “Here! We can do all of the things that you want, and more! We shall be a ‘change’ from this other useless party!” But this new party does not deliver on its promises either.

We switch back and forth, finding each party unsatisfactory over and over again, and we expect different results each time the Democrats or each time the Republicans promise to bring different results. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is, according to Albert Einstein, the very definition of insanity.
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The Essentiality of Love in the World

Love is such an essential element to the lives of all human beings living all around the world. I shall articulate in this article some of the ways that, in my view, love is essential to all individuals and to the collective world. However, the word “love” has so many different definitions and translations (one of them being a description of my usual tennis score of zero), so I suppose to clarify I had better first provide a definition of its general meaning in my article: a feeling of warm personal attachment to, or a deep affection or regard for, a person (or group of persons), a pet, an idea, or an object.

In this article, I hope to answer the question, “Why is love so essential in the world?” I have seven ideas (the magic number, right?) that might perhaps shed some light on the subject. I’ll launch into it right away.

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In favor of exercising caution with Sanctions

Did you know that, during the 1990’s, the foreign policies of the United States killed hundreds of thousands of innocents just in the country of Iraq alone? You might be wondering what kind of terrible policy could have caused that measure of destruction. Well, the policy is the use of sanctions, and it can be just as harmful to other countries as all-out war would be.

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A Greater Appreciation for Peace

Eric Hall hailed from the fine city of Jeffersonville, Indiana. Jeffersonville is a city located on the Ohio River, just north of Louisville, Kentucky. “Jeff”, as its inhabitants have affectionately termed it, is part of Clark County, which was named for General George Rogers Clark (brother of William Clark of the Lewis & Clark expedition). The city of Jeffersonville itself was named for Thomas Jefferson, whose grid design was used as the layout for the city. Some of the localities that Eric Hall grew up with, in Jeffersonville, are Schimpff’s Confectionary (where you can get some of the best chocolate in the country, in my opinion), the Howard Steamboat Museum, and Mick’s Lounge (where the Papa John’s pizza restaurant chain was founded). Eric went to school at Jeffersonville High School, and he graduated from it in 2002. A little while after graduating high school, Eric joined the United States Army, as did many others from small towns where there were few opportunities. He found himself in favor of the goals of the Iraq War and desirous of contributing to the cause. My cousin went to the same school (from first grade through high school) and was friends with Eric, and that is how I first became aquainted with the story of Eric Hall’s Post Traumatic Stress disorder and the events resulting from it.

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Executive Efficacy Expanded

Many, many people in these united states long for the day upon which George W. Bush will vacate the Presidency. During Bush’s terms in office, he has gotten us into a Quagmire in Iraq (and has engaged in a generally arrogant and foolish foreign policy), deftly removed many of our civil liberties from us, racked up record deficits, exploited the people’s fear of terrorism (which helped him to win elections, achieve his agenda, and rob us of our apparently undeserved liberties), and, most importantly, greatly increased the power and influence of the Executive Branch. The People long for Bush’s exit because they are tired of these repeated abuses and usurpations, and with the hope that, once Dubya leaves, we’ll be able to get a Democrat or at least a moderate in office and get America back onto the right track. This perspective is not in agreement with my own; in point of fact, I disagree with it very strongly. It seems to me that this belief is the product of the very ignorance which allowed Bush to expand his office and worsen the state of the country in the first place. Let me take just a few moments in order to explain my thoughts more clearly on this matter. Read more

Corporate Control

It is a well-known and unfortunate fact in the United States that businesses, corporations, and special interests play a much greater role in our politics and government than we would certainly like it to. There has been, for decades, if not centuries, the element to our politics that is the corrupting influence of money. It has become particularly pronounced in recent years, especially in this 2008 Presidential Election, where candidates of both political parties are raising millions and millions of dollars each in campaign cash. In fact, this could be the first billion-dollar presidential campaign in our country’s history. That is, assuredly, not a positive sign.

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