Rocky Anderson Compares Barack Obama To Gerald Ford

January 14th, 2012 | Posted by Truman in Alternative Parties | Barack Obama | Election 2012 | George W. Bush | Politics | Shirts - (4 Comments)

Yesterday, Rocky Anderson accepted the presidential nomination of the Justice Party. In his acceptance speech, made a claim that may at first be surprising to Democrats. Rocky Anderson compared Barack Obama to Gerald Ford.

Here’s what Anderson said:

brown justice party shirt 2012“With the complicity of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Bush administration marched our nation off a cliff – morally, legally, and economically – by perpetrating a disastrous war of aggression against Iraq. President Obama, for his political advantage, simply shrugged off war crimes committed in conjunction with that war, with the excuse that we “need to look forward not backward.” It is a trademark reminder – in the spirit of President Ford’s ignominious pardon of Richard M. Nixon – that, in our two-tiered system of injustice, the rich and powerful are above the law, which is applied, often with a crushing vengeance, against the rest of us.”

So, how is Barack Obama like Gerald Ford? The comparison Rocky Anderson makes is apt: Like President Ford, Barack Obama helped the President who came before him evade legal responsibility for serious crimes that were committed in the White House. Just as Gerald ford let Richard Nixon off the hook, Barack Obama let George W. Bush off the hook.

For those of us who worked for years to seek accountability for George W. Bush’s crimes, Obama’s assistance to Bush, Obama’s decision to put the matter into the “past” is especially troubling, given what we’ve seen of Obama’s own willingness to put our constitutional rights aside for the sake of increasing the power of Homeland Security.

Like Darcy Richardson and Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson is a great alternative presidential candidate for liberals who are tired of having their trust betrayed by Barack Obama.

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Government Knew Of Global Warming Threat 45 Years Ago

July 3rd, 2010 | Posted by Truman in Environment - (4 Comments)

September 17, 1969. That’s the date of a newly-uncovered memo by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a member of Richard Nixon’s White House, explaining that global warming caused by increases in carbon dioxide, created by human activities, were a problem that the government should take action on. The memo also reveals that the President of the United States was briefed on the problem back in 1965.

Moynihan wrote,

“As with so many of the more interesting environmental questions, we really don’t have very satisfactory measurements of the carbon dioxide problem. On the other hand, this very clearly is a problem, and, perhaps most particularly, is one that can seize the imagination of persons normally indifferent to projects of apocalyptic change. The process is a simple one. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has the effect of a pane of glass in a greenhouse. The C02 content is normally in a stable cycle, but recently man has begun to introduce instability through the burning of fossil fuels. At the turn of the century several persons raised the question whether this would change the temperature of the atmosphere. Over the years the hypothesis has been refined, and more evidence has come along to support it. It is now pretty clearly agreed that the C02 content will rise 25% by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth’ s surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter. We have no data on Seattle. It is entirely possible that there will be countervailing effects. For example, an increase of dust in the atmosphere would tend to lower temperatures, and might offset the C02 effect. Similarly, it is possible to conceive fairly mammoth man-made efforts to countervail the C02 rise. (E. g., stop burning fossil fuels. ) In any event, I would think this is a subject that the Administration ought to get involved with… The Environmental Pollution Panel of the President’ s Science Advisory Committee reported at length on the subject in 1965.”

Now, 45 years later, mountains of data has been collected, and it points clearly at the conclusion that was suggested nearly half a century ago. How can anyone seriously say that it is still too early to take action?

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