It is interesting to read so many venomous comments on Hillary Clinton. One would think she started the war in Iraq or was the causal agent for the Patriot Act.

The only benefit from the fall election will be the ouster of Bush. Otherwise it will be business as usual. The agents of the plutocracy shall be fully vested with the reins of power. Welcome to the new facade. A change of veneer allows the core to remain in place.

What you say re the veneer and the core may be true, but at this point, with such animus for change alive in the electorate, you position is cynical and defeatist. i think we should express our fears as such rather than as convictions unless we are prepared to offer a few more sentences of reasoning.

I hardly consider realism to be defeatist. I am cynical. But it is with the perception of the world that is black and white.

The nation needs real change. To believe that real change is possible only with one candidate or another is delusional when those very candidates are agents of the same elite.

This nation needs a populist movement and the formation of third parties if the plutocracy is ever to break its grip on the throat of the body politic.

I admit to more than slight bemusement reading posts crucifying Clinton for being adroit in the world of politics and the inference-- if not outright declaration-- that Obama would be different.

Regardless of who prevails the prospects for hope and change will not be any less or greater. The winner will need to be guided by the needs of the electorate. That is a task all of us must take on.

Where is the defeatism in that?

The defeatism is in the refusal to give anybody - who has a chance to win - a chance to do some good. You have given up on the system as it is. You have lost perspective and the capacity to discriminate. Bush was very very likely alot worse for the world than Gore or Kerry would have been, and people with your perspective, by backing Nader, really helped put Bush in the White House, big....time.

I hardly consider realism

You can't say, honestly, that no good could come from any of the regualr party candidates. No one knows what kind of president Obama, for instance, would be. How can you say backing Nader is realistic? It's gestural, quixotic, trouble making. Nader should be a man and run for congress.

to be defeatist. I am cynical. But it is with the perception of the world that is black and white.

The nation needs real change. To believe that real change is possible only with one candidate or another is delusional when those very candidates are agents of the same elite.

Change happens slowly, in increments.

This nation needs a populist movement and the formation of third parties if the plutocracy is ever to break its grip on the throat of the body politic.

You say. You're pontificating here.

I admit to more than slight bemusement reading posts crucifying Clinton for being adroit in the world of politics and the inference-- if not outright declaration-- that Obama would be different.

Regardless of who prevails the prospects for hope and change will not be any less or greater.

Than is cynicism. You can't know that. And Obama, for one, has indicated he is willing to go in very different directions.