John Edwards More Progressive This Time Around

By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Thu Dec 28, 2006 at 10:04:07 PM EST
Tags: John Edwards (all tags)

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John Edwards is running a different campaign this time around. It's great to see him take such a strong progressive stand:

Edwards said it's not just Iraq that it is chaos and in need of moral leadership from the United States. He said the United States should be leading an end to genocide in Sudan and to atrocities in northern Uganda. He also said the United States should be part of the International Criminal Court, something that Bush has fought against to keep Americans from facing politically motivated prosecutions.

He also said the country should end its dependence on foreign oil. He said he would tax oil company profits and eliminate Bush's tax cuts to pay for his priorities.

Edwards said he will have a health care plan that will provide coverage for every American, something that few presidential candidates have considered a winning issue because of the high cost.

This is in addtion to, as we noted earlier,

... a more progressive campaign of eliminating poverty, reducing global warming and providing universal health care for all Americans.

He's apologizing for his vote to send troops to Iraq which he stood by steadfastly in the 2004 campaign and is calling for 40,000-50,000 troops to come home immediately.

As for his critics who say he lacks foreign policy experience,

He noted that the Bush administration has included such experienced foreign policy hands as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and "they've been an absolute disaster by any measure."

It's too bad the news will be all pomp and circumstance this weekend covering the late President Ford.

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John Edwards More Progressive This Time Around | 19 comments (19 topical)

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Ask David Walker about our monetary (4.00 / 0) (#14)
by Bill Arnett on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 02:05:31 PM EST

policy and where it has lead us. But this is off topic for this posting, so I won't present anymore on this subject today.

HERE.

And HERE.

It is interesting, but, again off-topic. Apologies to everyone.

You make some good points, peacrevol, but please read the above to find out how current monetary policy has become a "national security problem" on bush's watch.

I hope John Edwards can help solve this crisis (and keep me on topic!). LOL

Peace.

What a crock (1.00 / 3) (#2)
by jarober on Thu Dec 28, 2006 at 11:24:13 PM EST

Yeah, the ICC is a great idea - the Milosevich trial is a great example of the efficacy of that idea.

Raising taxes on oil companies? Great populism, but the net result will be less exploration and higher energy prices. The left, and Edwards, will end up stunned by this. Happened back in the 70's under Nixon, Ford, and Carter though, so it's not new.

Bold words about getting "off oil" are easy - an actual solution would be interesting to hear. He doesn't have one, which is why we hear only platitudes.

Of course we can't get off oil (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by Dadler on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 11:06:19 AM EST

We're America, that's just too hard. What a powerful lack of imagination all this freedom has helped you acheive.

We waste more in a day than some places use in a year. With simple and effective use of resources, instead of the abhorrent waste, and with a little of the ingenuity you obviously don't believe your country possesses we will be fine. But without leadership and belief in yourself, we have nothing.

Where I live, bud, the entire city could be solar. Why isn't it? Greed and laziness.

Don't be such a quitter. But if you must be, quit the bad habits, the waste, and the wanton murder of a people who did nothing to us.

Imagine what we could do if the entire community decided to invest in the kind of technology that, right now, only individual Americans are trying to get by with on their own, like my friend in LA with his grease-car.

He's one non-scientist. Try, just try, real hard, if only for a few seconds, what we could get done if the federal government wasn't in the pocket of big oil.

[ Parent ]

Other places (1.00 / 1) (#16)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 05:39:41 PM EST

Unfortunately there are other places. Seattle, Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks come immediately to mind...

dadler, we have went through this before. Solar power has many problems, the lack of sunlight is only one of them.

First, there is the cost of the solar panels themselves.

Secondly is the cost of storage batteries for when there isn't any sunshine.

Thirdly you must turn it into AC for transport and to work the existing base of 115/240 lights, machines, etc....

Bottom line, the best you could do is about 8 times higher than existing KHW pricing... That would put prices at about .56 cents per KWH.

[ Parent ]

: Okay (4.00 / 0) (#19)
by aw on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 11:42:39 PM EST

Pouring lives and money into Iraq is good. Investing in solar power is...not so good.

[ Parent ]

Interesting... (1.00 / 1) (#3)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 09:02:32 AM EST

On the foreign policy side I wonder how he can say we should spend money and have people killed in countries we have no national interest in, yet condemn our efforts in Iraq.

I guess any war that helps the US is bad.

National Health Care sounds good, it will be interesting to see how he will finance it. I favor NHC, but believe it should be financed by a national sales tax. If he tries to do it through a pay roll tax it would be DOA.

It should also keep the government out of it except for collecting the money, paying the bills and policing it for fraud. We have a huge infrastructure right now to do this and don't need another million or so government employees.

Global warming is a farce, and a net loser on the political scene. He'd be wise to stay away from it because everyone knows that what the Left means when he says Global Warming is higher taxes and slowed economy.

His plan on energy nets out to higher gasoline prices. As soon as he starts talking about using that as a means of forcing people to use public transportation he will have lost every Red state.

Too bad he can't be progesssive and say we're gonna fix this through technology.

Basically he is a populist and we can expect to hear how his father worked in a factory time and again. He'll never mention that he is a very rich lawyer who made his money suing Doctors and hospital for people who got pennies of the settlements.

Don't want to rain on anyone's parade but, (1.00 / 1) (#4)
by vwbug on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 09:20:02 AM EST

has it occured to anyone that this is Edwards version of Mission Accomplished.
The finding of an 'issue' by the consultant, the costume, the backdrop and the appropriate human props.
I just cannot help but, feel this is alittle staged and fake. maybe because I'm reading the Greatest Story Ever Sold and so look for the acting and stagey effects and the sincere acting. And the fact that pols are so image and packaged.

Bullsh!t! (1.00 / 1) (#9)
by aahpat on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 11:26:19 AM EST

Edwards is just another right wing Democrat. He cynically used to poor of New Orleans as a photo-op. Now he fawns great concern for oppressed peoples all over the planet but not in America.

I have refused to vote for both Democrats and Republicans since 1995 in my committment to drug war oppressed Americans. I will vote for any individual politician who vocally opposes the drug war. I will not vote for anyone who supports the drug war. PERIOD!

John Edwards willingly ran with John Kerry. Kerry is one of the most intolerant and intransigent of the career Jim Crow drug warriors in the Democratic leadership.

Bring up the drug war and 'Mr. Progressive' John Edwards will immediately start into the Democratic Party line of 'escalate, escalate, escalate.....' as the only solution. Screw him.

Edwards and universal health care (none / 0) (#1)
by Madison Guy on Thu Dec 28, 2006 at 10:37:31 PM EST

If Edwards can deliver universal health care, he's got my vote: Energetic young people with ideas can't afford to pursue their dreams by leaving the jobs that provide their health insurance for themselves and their families. Boomers who would love to retire from jobs that have grown tiresome -- perhaps to start part-time businesses of their own -- grimly hold on to ride out the years until Medicare kicks in, because of the sky-high cost of individual health insurance premiums a their age. It's a progressive hardening of the arteries of an economy that was long regarded as the most dynamic in the world. Want to jump start the economy? Unclog our economic arteries with health insurance reform.

The foreign policy angle (none / 0) (#5)
by peacrevol on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 09:57:49 AM EST

No...any war that is not for the sole purpose of saving lives AND protecting more US interest/lives than it risks is bad.

He said the United States should be leading an end to genocide in Sudan and to atrocities in northern Uganda.

How about we mind our own business a little bit. There's always some kind of something going on somewhere in the world that we dont agree with and if we try to fix everybody else's problems, it's going to string us out causing more problems for us than we can handle.

I agree with the beattle...he can say what he wants to in an effort to make us think he's got great plans, but we cant take any stock in them until he gives us an idea of how he plans to implement them. How do you get off of foreign dependancy on oil? He's talking about taking on a whole host of new expenses and paying for it out marginal tax cut repeals? I dont think it's going to work w/o some money from somewhere else. His plan to tax oil companies contradicts his ideas of being independant of foreign oil. New exploration and research is going to cost the oil companies money and if they're out having to do that instead of just production, they'll likely have very little income on which to pay taxes. Either that or the rest of the economy will have less income with which to pay taxes. That plan for increased revenue can at best result in a wash.

Dude, money has no intrinsic value (none / 0) (#8)
by Dadler on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 11:12:28 AM EST

When the country decides, as a whole, to engage in a massive program to make the country much better, believe me, the value of money will change for our benefit. That's all money does, react to people's beliefs. It's not a seed, you can't plant it; it's not a cow, you can't milk it. It is paper with numbers, only having value because WE THINK IT HAS. What do they say when the dollar is strong -- that CONFIDENCE in it is high.

But if we really don't want to get off oil to a great degree, if too many of us just don't want to make the sacrifice, then you're right, a bunch of paper with numbers having no real meaning or value, will stop us.

That's very pathetic if you think about it.

[ Parent ]

What? (none / 0) (#10)
by peacrevol on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 11:56:02 AM EST

It is paper with numbers, only having value because WE THINK IT HAS.

Exactly...and the people with the power to think that money has a certain value will value that money based on what it will get them. If they have to work harder to make more money to buy more groceries b/c they're paying high taxes, high gas prices, and high energy prices, then the perceived value of the paper money is going to go down. I realize that money is not directly tied to gold, or anything else for that matter, but the perceived value makes it nearly the same b/c it is accepted by all. Also, the dollar is strong when it is strong in relationship to other currencies. How are we going to get the entire country to say "we're going to get off of oil by 20xx at whatever the cost out of my pocket?" In the end, the money comes out of the pockets of the regular tax payer one way or another.

Getting off of oil is a good idea, but my point is that it's more complicated than just finding the technology or whatever. How are you going to convince people that are just scraping by to sacrafice a little bit more to get off of oil? We wont have time to drain the swamp for fighting with the alligators. How much of a sacrafice is enough of a sacrafice for you? We have to prioritize what we want b/c like you said, you cant plant or milk money. It doesnt just come from nowhere and you cant just print more of it to have as much as you need. Mr. Edwards seems to want to put too many govt hands into too many pockets and I'm not convinced that any of his strategies a)hold any merit b) are sincerely what he believes will work. Hence, I take very little stock in Edwards right now.

[ Parent ]

: I believe you have completely misstated... (5.00 / 1) (#11)
by Bill Arnett on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 12:57:55 PM EST

...U.S. monetery policy where you say:

It [money] doesnt just come from nowhere and you cant just print more of it to have as much as you need.
This is precisely what the U.S. does and unless we elect intelligent people who can grasp the fact that we can no longer afford to just keep printing money, that the budget must be brought under control, that the dollar is sinking at a fairly rapid pace as countries no longer want to loan money to the world's biggest debtor nation, and that petro-dollars will soon be a thing of the past as the petro-euro becomes the currency of choice for oil producers.
I believe a self-made millionaire - which some people actually consider a FLAW - may be savvy enough to understand all this and help bring stability back to American monetary policy and our obligations BEFORE WE GO BROKE WITHIN THE SPAN OF A SINGLE GENERATION.
Rethuglicans have proven beyond all doubt that they are the party of big spenders while borrowing the money instead of providing for it in a fiscally sound manner.
Edwards is right, there are two Americas, one for the uber-rich and one for the rest of us that has been in steady - and disastrous - decline at a break-neck pace ever since bush took office.
If he is our candidate I will proudly vote for him. He is a decent man, something that cannot truthfully be said about boy king bush.

[ Parent ]
: What are you afraid of? (5.00 / 1) (#17)
by Dadler on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 11:15:54 PM EST

Living with less? Giving up extraneous bullsh*t?
We have all the means in the world to get off oil, it merely takes will and leadership with brass balls, as opposed to the cotton balls we have now.
Come on, man, just stop for a second and look around your house and take in all the stuff that is completely unnecessary.

[ Parent ]
: And you still don't get it (none / 0) (#18)
by Dadler on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 11:18:14 PM EST

Ask yourself why there's not an alternative domestic currency to compete with the dollar.
Don't get it still?
Foreign currency only affects our dollar when Americans don't have faith in the philosophy that supports the dollar, and they don't have that faith very stronly now. It's a strong subconscious vibe running through the country.

[ Parent ]

We are being asked to lead on Darfur, not invade (none / 0) (#6)
by aw on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 10:41:26 AM EST

This is what is being asked of George Bush re Darfur (and probably what Edwards is talking about):

1. Push for the immediate deployment of the already-authorized UN peacekeeping force.

Strengthen the understaffed African Union force already in Darfur until the UN force can be deployed.

Establish a no-fly zone.

Increase humanitarian aid and ensure access for delivery.

SaveDarfur

: EU problem (1.00 / 1) (#15)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 05:30:36 PM EST

This looks like an EU problem to me. I say we give'em nothing and let the Europeans demonstrate their leadership.

[ Parent ]

I believe that you've misstated monetary policy (none / 0) (#12)
by peacrevol on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 01:32:27 PM EST

Monetary policy rests on the relationship between the rates of interest in an economy, that is the price at which money can be borrowed, and the total supply of money. Monetary policy uses a variety of tools to control one or both of these, to influence outcomes like economic growth, inflation, exchange rates with other currencies and unemployment. Where currency is under a monopoly of issuance, or where there is a regulated system of issuing currency through banks which are tied to a central bank, the monetary authority has the ability to alter the interest rate and the money supply in order to achieve policy goals...
...There are several monetary policy tools available to achieve these ends. Increasing interest rates by fiat, reducing the monetary base or increasing reserve requirements all have the effect of contracting the money supply, and, if reversed, expand the money supply.
...The primary tool of monetary policy is open market operations. This entails managing the quantity of money in circulation through the buying and selling of various credit instruments, foreign currencies or commodities. All of these purchases or sales result in more or less base currency entering or leaving market circulation.
-Wikipedia

Monetary policy only means adjusting interest rates to affect the amount of money in circulation. It has nothing to do with printing the money. Fiscal policy is the issuance of bonds or changing in taxes to control the amount of money in circulation.

Just to be sure that we understand that in modern economic terms "printing money" does not literally mean that physically cranking out more paper currency influences economic functioning to any real extent. The concept of money, in all forms, is an abstraction developed to represent value or need to allow the easy operation of commerce and banking. Most financial exchanges are done using electronic means, not paper notes.
In the US, as was previously stated, the Federal Reserve Board controls the money supply. When the US government spends more than it collects in revenues, it must meet this obligation by borrowing money or "printing money." Printing money in this sense does not mean adding a second shift at the mint, it means paying bills using a "tab" that will hopefully be covered by future tax revenues.
http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061222110022AAzyhK8

OOOOPPPPSSSS (none / 0) (#13)
by peacrevol on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 01:33:29 PM EST

My last post was supposed to be a reply to Bill Arnett's post above...My bad