The Incomplete Greatness of Barack ObamaHe’s gotten more done in three years than any president in decades. Too bad the American public still thinks he hasn’t accomplished anything.
By Paul Glastris
Issues Pages:
The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama
Thu, 2012-03-15 18:49
#1
Sky Captain
The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama
Thu, 2012-03-15 20:26
#2
lmarvelously detailed description of a black man's record in a racist society.
But is this not news sown in a tight-sphinctered desert, here?
Thu, 2012-03-15 20:55
#3
knownothing
Is this supposed to be a joke?
Obama is not your friend. The Democrats are not your friends. Wake up people! Remember Mouseland!
Thu, 2012-03-15 21:26
#4
We have to go with what we've got, kn. In U.S. political circles, sanity is somethin'. Tommy would have understood.
Thu, 2012-03-15 22:43
#5
Thu, 2012-03-15 23:39
#6
Obama's Personal Role in A Journalist's Imprisonment - by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/obamas_personal_role_in_a_journalists_im...
"...President Obama's personal, direct role in ensuring the ongoing imprisonment of a Yemeni journalist may be his most important one yet; even for those inured to the abuses of the Obama administration, it's nothing short of infuriating.."
Fri, 2012-03-16 01:49
#7
Sky Captain
lmarvelously detailed description of a black man's record in a racist society. But is this not news sown in a tight-sphinctered desert, here?
It is a great summing up of a policitian who was revolutionary by dint of being the first black leader of a large WASP Western nation, and who did have successes despite what the far right and the left thought about him.
Everything else aside, you'd better hope that he does win the election this year, because if he dosen't, real facists will win the election, and then we'll all be screwed.
Fri, 2012-03-16 01:53
#8
Sky Captain
Is this supposed to be a joke?
Obama is not your friend. The Democrats are not your friends. Wake up people! Remember Mouseland!
What would be the realistically electable left-wing alternative? Do you even have one to give the rest of us? And one that could beat Santorum and the rest of the GOP? Tell me, and the rest of us, now.
Fri, 2012-03-16 02:12
#9
"What Americans refuse to acknowledge is that to vote for either the Democratic or Republican nominee for President later this year is to vote for these horrors. It is TO SUPPORT THEM. Just admit that you're voting for Hitler, OK?"
Fri, 2012-03-16 04:43
#10
Sky Captain
"What Americans refuse to acknowledge is that to vote for either the Democratic or Republican nominee for President later this year is to vote for these horrors. It is TO SUPPORT THEM. Just admit that you're voting for Hitler, OK?"
As I said before, if you have an alternative who can realsitically become President, then let the rest of us know. As it stands now, there isn't one. And calling Obama Hitler is only helping the left be considered as being just as extremist as the right.
Fri, 2012-03-16 10:57
#11
"What Americans refuse to acknowledge is that to vote for either the Democratic or Republican nominee for President later this year is to vote for these horrors. It is TO SUPPORT THEM. Just admit that you're voting for Hitler, OK?"
As I said before, if you have an alternative who can realsitically become President, then let the rest of us know. As it stands now, there isn't one. And calling Obama Hitler is only helping the left be considered as being just as extremist as the right.
I was told to vote for Chretien, Martin, Dion and Igantieff by people using the same logic. Never did vote for them for the same reason that if I was an American I wouldn't vote for Obama. The NDP has yet to run in a federal election where they stood a chance of winning so by your logic it would seem that all the people who voted for them for 50 years were fools and left wing extremists.
By following your logic the USA will never have a party on the left, only a choice between black and white cats. Left wing political wins don't come easy in North America and never come in one election cycle. Building a political party takes decades and will not happen if people follow your advice.
Fri, 2012-03-16 11:44
#12
M. Spector
What next? A thread on the Incomplete Greatness of Stephen Harper?
Fri, 2012-03-16 12:12
#13
Sky Captain, we do not post articles in their entirety here -- a link and brief quote is enough. I've edited your opening post to reflect that policy.
Fri, 2012-03-16 13:20
#14
Bec.De.Corbin
"What Americans refuse to acknowledge is that to vote for either the Democratic or Republican nominee for President later this year is to vote for these horrors. It is TO SUPPORT THEM. Just admit that you're voting for Hitler, OK?"
LOL, just because you and that guy can't see the difference between Democrats and Republicans while you obsess over international politics is on you guys, not us.
And here's the perfect example why the left always fails in the USA: calling president Obama Hitler makes you leftist look just as dumb as the Tea Party bunch... that's why the majority of people, in the center, don't like nether one of you and that's why your group will never really have political power here in the USA; nobody really supports you guys because your just opposite side of the same coin with the far right... just saying.
You guys are your own worst enemy and you don't even know it.
Fri, 2012-03-16 13:47
#15
"What Americans refuse to acknowledge is that to vote for either the Democratic or Republican nominee for President later this year is to vote for these horrors. It is TO SUPPORT THEM. Just admit that you're voting for Hitler, OK?"
LOL, just because you and that guy can't see the difference between Democrats and Republicans while you obsess over international politics is on you guys, not us.
And here's the perfect example why the left always fails in the USA: calling president Obama Hitler makes you leftist look just as dumb as the Tea Party bunch... that's why the majority of people, in the center, don't like nether one of you and that's why your group will never really have political power here in the USA; nobody really supports you guys because your just opposite side of the same coin with the far right... just saying.
You guys are your own worst enemy and you don't even know it.
the things is Bec - they never have to question if they correct because any people who disagree are either evil or brainwashed.
Fri, 2012-03-16 15:31
#16
M. Spector
And here's the perfect example why the left always fails in the USA: calling president Obama Hitler makes you leftist look just as dumb as the Tea Party bunch... that's why the majority of people, in the center, don't like nether one of you and that's why your group will never really have political power here in the USA; nobody really supports you guys because your just opposite side of the same coin with the far right... just saying.
You guys are your own worst enemy and you don't even know it.
Calling Obomba "a serious candidate for greatness", as that laughable piece of propaganda does, makes you limousine liberals look just as dumb as the Tea Party bunch... That's why U.S. leftists don't like either of your imperialist parties; you are just opposite sides of the same debased coin... just saying.
You are your own worst enemies and you don't even know it.
- - -
ETA: See [url=http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/the-ongoing-effort-t... Ongoing Effort to Sanitize Obama's Image[/url]
Fri, 2012-03-16 15:51
#17
Obama has done a fairly good job in office; he will be re-elected
one more time:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/barack-obamas-had-pretty-damn-good-presidency
Fri, 2012-03-16 16:12
#18
Bec.De.Corbin
Calling Obomba "a serious candidate for greatness", as that laughable piece of propaganda does, makes you limousine liberals look just as dumb as the Tea Party bunch... That's why U.S. leftists don't like either of your imperialist parties; you are just opposite sides of the same debased coin... just saying.
You are your own worst enemies and you don't even know it.
(Just to be clear to everyone else here there are the left and the right which is fine by me and then there's the Looney left/right, I'm referring to the later in these posts.)
Thank you for proving my point and the childishness was amusing, at least you didn't get all pious and self righteous. For the most part the US far left is as wacked out as the far right is. If a large segment of the US population believed in them then they would have real political power and a legitimate candidate that could run against those evil Democrats and Republicans. But... for some bizarre reason they don't. Why is that?
The unfortunate thing about US politics is the far right runs deeper in the Republican Party and there for has some real power as compared to the far left (which doesn't run as deep in the Democrats). As such, I'm much more concerned about the Tea Party idiots and their ilk than I am from the far left. My "rights" are being threatened more from them, the right, than from the left.
Oh, and I do not ride in a limousine, I drive a 10 year old Saturn, more proof you just don't know what you're talking about.
I'm out of here. Everyone have a great weekend, you included M Spector.
Fri, 2012-03-16 16:44
#19
Despair You Can Believe In - by Rob Urie
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/16/despair-you-can-believe-in/
"...My point is that increasingly institutionalized economic predation against US citizens combined with advanced police state powers will make life even more untenable for some fair number of us in coming years. Last, accept this trajectory of despair or do something."
Fri, 2012-03-16 16:48
#20
We are required to be more circumspect with our use of descriptors here, BDC, but you cut to the chase quite nicely.
As you see, Canada's multi-party system is not perfect, and the fringe still rails at the inadequacies of the language of proseletization rather than the vulnerability of the Great Misled, but it's clear we are not in such desperate straits as the U.S. political system.
Please keep us plugged in with man-on-the-street reportage.It's likely to grow ever more bizaare and frightening.
Fri, 2012-03-16 17:15
#21
Last, accept this trajectory of despair or do something.
Or both. But the dystopia in evidence tells us it ain't gonna be easy.
Fri, 2012-03-16 17:49
#22
We are required to be more circumspect with our use of descriptors here, BDC, but you cut to the chase quite nicely. As you see, Canada's multi-party system is not perfect, and the fringe still rails at the inadequacies of the language of proseletization rather than the vulnerability of the Great Misled, but it's clear we are not in such desperate straits as the U.S. political system. Please keep us plugged in with man-on-the-street reportage.It's likely to grow ever more bizaare and frightening.
You do realize that "Great Misled" is no different than saying "Ignorant, brainwashed, suckers, ect. You're trying to use a descriptor which implies an innocence on the part of the population and a sinister shadowy "group" who deliberately mislead them.
I'm sure it boosts your ego to think of them down there wallowing in their simple mindedness while you preach the glorious "truth".
Fri, 2012-03-16 20:10
#23
The Koch brothers fund the Tea Party with enough money to give them a voice. What else is there to understand about the far right's superior clout in the US system?
Fri, 2012-03-16 21:29
#24
Obama has done a fairly good job in office; he will be re-elected
one more time:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/barack-obamas-had-pretty-damn-good-presidency
Pfft, Mother Jones?
Everyone knows they're just a mouth-piece for neo-con propaganda 
Fri, 2012-03-16 22:52
#25
M. Spector
(Just to be clear to everyone else here there are the left and the right which is fine by me and then there's the Looney left/right, I'm referring to the later in these posts.)...
For the most part the US far left is as wacked out as the far right is....
The people you refer to as the "far left" (the "looney", "wacked-out" ones who don't worship at the altar of the Democratic Party) include people like the following:
• most of the social democrats and left liberals who write for, and read, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Tom Dispatch, and Dissident Voice.
• wacked-out loonies like John Pilger, Chris Hedges, Chris Floyd, William Blum, Glenn Greenwald, Richard Falk, Paul Street, the late Howard Zinn, Cindy Sheehan, Roseanne Barr, Dave Lindorff, Joshua Frank, John V. Walsh, Kathy Kelly, David Swanson, and Paul Craig Roberts.
• the 900,000 or so who voted for Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader in 2008.
Your inability to see beyond the two-party shell game blinds you to the fact that there is a substantial left current in the United States that is ready and willing to dump the Democratic Party if given half a chance.
Fri, 2012-03-16 23:35
#26
M. Spector
It is these successes that he should be congratulated and celebrated for by the extreme left and right, as well as the middle; instead, he's been pilloried by all sides, as if he was supposed to be a great wizard that would reverse everything wrong with America and the world in one term. Newsflash, my fellow humans; change dosen't happen that way, Obama is not an imperial president (and can't be one for the left), plus last time I checked, the USA, flawed though it is, was still a democracy.
This kind of obscenity does not belong on a progressive discussion forum. Also, it runs completely against the anti-imperialist and anti-war-crimes political culture of babble.
Fri, 2012-03-16 23:36
#27
Sky Captain
I was told to vote for Chretien, Martin, Dion and Igantieff by people using the same logic. Never did vote for them for the same reason that if I was an American I wouldn't vote for Obama. The NDP has yet to run in a federal election where they stood a chance of winning so by your logic it would seem that all the people who voted for them for 50 years were fools and left wing extremists.By following your logic the USA will never have a party on the left, only a choice between black and white cats. Left wing political wins don't come easy in North America and never come in one election cycle. Building a political party takes decades and will not happen if people follow your advice.
Building a political party does indeed take decades. But I've not seen any evidence of hard work recently on the part of most North Americans to accomplish what's happened in Denmark, for example-all that I've seen is mass protests and 'Occupy' movements that end up getting crushed because the left couldn't do any detective work and keep the ultra thuggish extremist Black Block from harming the left-wing movement and scaring law enforcement/ordinary people/governments into supporting the draconian measures now used to handle protests. If people workd as hard to canvass, get votes and create a genuine party as they protested, then maybe they would get what they want, but they haven't done so. American leftists in general didn't seem to work hard enough to get Ralph Nader in office, and they even believed the idea that voting for him would have spoiled the election and caused McCain/Palin to be in office-what does that tell you about the left generally? (Another example: the supposedly left-wing rock group Rage Against The Machine-back in it's 90s heyday when they were signed to Epic/Sony-could have used whatever fame they had to get people to vote for the Green Party and the Socialist Party by setting up booth/tables at each concert and get a ton of votes for either party [they could have also got other groups/musicians similarly inclined to do the same thing.] Did they do this? No, they didn't! Instead, they went on singing the same stuff they always sing, believing that just singing about oppression will change things. Of course, we all know how that's worked out...)
The reason the center and the right have won in the USA (and will always probably do so) is because they knew how to play the game enough to get who they wanted to be elected get elected- a lesson the left has yet to learn from, IMHO. Running out in the streets and protesting didn't get Obama elected, or McCain and Palin where they almost were-it was getting out the vote, 'rocking' the vote, etc. that made Obama president. It was not extremist retoric that won the election; it was a sure message, and statements of policy that made this all happen for him and got him in power (plus the fact that the neocons and the GOP have nobody worthy enough to be president shooting themselves in the foot with every statement made.) Did the left do anything different? No, it did the same thing it always does, with the same result. So, here we are now in 2012 with nobody worth voting for from the left, again, (and the same thing happening on the extreme right! 
) What 'logic' has been used by both sides here-the logic of doing the same thing for the same result? You know what's been said about that.
The thing is, Obama did have successes in what he was elected to do, as mentioned in this article and in the previous article that I posted about him (What The "Do Nothing" Obama Has Accomplished That We Choose To Ignore Or Fail To Acknowledge) last year. It is these successes that he should be congratulated and celebrated for by the extreme left and right, as well as the middle; instead, he's been pilloried by all sides, as if he was supposed to be a great wizard that would reverse everything wrong with America and the world in one term. Newsflash, my fellow humans; change dosen't happen that way, Obama is not an imperial president (and can't be one for the left), plus last time I checked, the USA, flawed though it is, was still a democracy.
If the left there in the USA or here wants to get what it wants, it will have to take lessons from the right and the center in how to set up parties, field candadates, and win elections. That's the maximum and the minimum. It also has to realize when somebody that's a sure bet of getting things done does comes along, that person should be supported even though their policies may not be as super radical as one would want.
The people you refer to as the "far left" (the "looney", "wacked-out" ones who don't worship at the altar of the Democratic Party) include people like the following:• most of the social democrats and left liberals who write for, and read, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Tom Dispatch, and Dissident Voice.
• wacked-out loonies like John Pilger, Chris Hedges, Chris Floyd, William Blum, Glenn Greenwald, Richard Falk, Paul Street, the late Howard Zinn, Cindy Sheehan, Roseanne Barr, Dave Lindorff, Joshua Frank, John V. Walsh, Kathy Kelly, David Swanson, and Paul Craig Roberts.
• the 900,000 or so who voted for Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader in 2008.
Your inability to see beyond the two-party shell game blinds you to the fact that there is a substantial left current in the United States that is ready and willing to dump the Democratic Party if given half a chance.
The people mentioned can either do what I've said must be done to get a party started and a candidate fielded, or they will continue to wimper and weep as they've been doing now for the past while. It's their collective call.
Fri, 2012-03-16 23:52
#28
Sky Captain
How is what I've said an obscenity? The real thing is, you've not been able to counter what was said in the article, and just decided to blatantly call it obscene.
From a response to the Mother Jones article posted by Dave W above:
Some progressives refuse to be bound by this silly "actual, existing human being" metric you propose, Kevin. They await the Kwisatz Haderach.
True here, as in the USA, sadly.
Sat, 2012-03-17 01:35
#29
We are required to be more circumspect with our use of descriptors here, BDC, but you cut to the chase quite nicely. As you see, Canada's multi-party system is not perfect, and the fringe still rails at the inadequacies of the language of proseletization rather than the vulnerability of the Great Misled, but it's clear we are not in such desperate straits as the U.S. political system. Please keep us plugged in with man-on-the-street reportage.It's likely to grow ever more bizaare and frightening.You do realize that "Great Misled" is no different than saying "Ignorant, brainwashed, suckers, ect. You're trying to use a descriptor which implies an innocence on the part of the population and a sinister shadowy "group" who deliberately mislead them.
I'm sure it boosts your ego to think of them down there wallowing in their simple mindedness while you preach the glorious "truth".
I've had tussles with some folks about the use of that term, even when they had only a few minutes before written despairingly about the effect of TV and radio on the minds of their audiences.
I await your more refined definition that will not offend liberal sensibilities. But please don't just leave a blank space where ";political consciousness" used to be the central area of discussion for the classic socialist. Political correctness will do that to you.
Read something about the glorious art of successful propagandists sometime - Richard Viguerie and David Franke's America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power. Lwearn how a majority of Mississippi Re;publicans came to believe (polled two weeks ago)) that Obama is a Muslim. I don't take any satisfaction in taqlking about that kind of induced ignorance, but I do feel the need to stress that IT IS INDUCED.
And through extensive reading, I'm not reduced to making ignorant effing remarks about others in this fashion: "I'm sure it;boosts your ego to think of them down there wallowing in their simple mindedness while you preach the glorious "truth".
Understand how you have been conditioned in your PC cocoon.
Sat, 2012-03-17 08:51
#30
The people you refer to as the "far left" (the "looney", "wacked-out" ones who don't worship at the altar of the Democratic Party) include people like the following:
• most of the social democrats and left liberals who write for, and read, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Tom Dispatch, and Dissident Voice.
• wacked-out loonies like John Pilger, Chris Hedges, Chris Floyd, William Blum, Glenn Greenwald, Richard Falk, Paul Street, the late Howard Zinn, Cindy Sheehan, Roseanne Barr, Dave Lindorff, Joshua Frank, John V. Walsh, Kathy Kelly, David Swanson, and Paul Craig Roberts.
• the 900,000 or so who voted for Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader in 2008.
Your inability to see beyond the two-party shell game blinds you to the fact that there is a substantial left current in the United States that is ready and willing to dump the Democratic Party if given half a chance.
So all told, we're talking what? 1 million? Maybe 2 or 3 million in a nation of 313 million people?
By the way, Nader/McKinney got 738,475 votes in 2008, not 900,000.
Sat, 2012-03-17 11:57
#31
M. Spector
So all told, we're talking what? 1 million? Maybe 2 or 3 million in a nation of 313 million people?
There were only 131 million voters. Still, it was less than 1 percent. How many more millions felt the same way but voted for Obama out of irrational fear or ignorance?
To hear the way you and your fellow Obamapologists talk, those million or so people are all far-left wack-jobs because they refused to vote for a war criminal.
By the way, Nader/McKinney got 738,475 votes in 2008, not 900,000.
Those were Nader's numbers. McKinney got 161,603. You do the math.
Sat, 2012-03-17 12:30
#32
Isn't Obama the same man who violated international law by violating Pakistan's border to murder OBL?
Isn't Obama the same man who violated US law by murdering a US citizen suspected of being an Al Queda apologist/speaker?
He's got the principles of a Tory.
Sat, 2012-03-17 14:23
#33
Obama has done a fairly good job in office; he will be re-elected
one more time:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/barack-obamas-had-pretty-damn-good-presidency
Pfft, Mother Jones?
Everyone knows they're just a mouth-piece for neo-con propaganda
No, Mother Jones is not a "neocon magazine", yet the writer of the article, Kevin Drum, supports Obama's continued imprisonment (and apparant torture) of a journalist because, well, because he's a faithful Democrat who would be deploring the same action if it was done by Bush:
The one thing I will note is this truly amazing and indescribably revealing defense of President Obama on this story from Mother Jones‘s Kevin Drum. Drum simplistically posits that there are only two choices — you either (1) believe that the imprisoned journalist really is an Al Qaeda member or (2) believe that Obama is a “muderous sociopath” — and since Kevin simply does not believe that the good, kind, noble President Obama would ever want a journalist imprisoned unless he believed he really were really a Terrorist, he’s willing to disregard all of the evidence Scahill gathered in Yemen, as well as the consensus of human rights groups and journalist associations that he was engaged in pure journalism, and simply believe — with zero evidence – that Shaye is a Terrorist. Read it for yourself:...
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/democracy_now_on_the_imprisoned_yemeni_j...
Faithful Democrats have heartily endorsed Obama's furthering the Bush agenda including dismantling the Constitution, including the legalized assassination of US citizens without evidence or due process; his advancing of the police state status of the US on many fronts.
The argument that Obama could be better than the Republican alternative is an argument that could be made in a rational and somewhat plausible manner.
Yet, to talk about the "greatness" of this murderous and destructive thug is a sick joke.
Sat, 2012-03-17 14:31
#34
M. Spector
Isn't Obama the same man who violated international law by violating Pakistan's border to murder OBL?
Isn't Obama the same man who violated US law by murdering a US citizen suspected of being an Al Queda apologist/speaker?
He's got the principles of a Tory.
True, but apparently it's acceptable for people to start babble threads for the purpose of congratulating and admiring mass murderers and war criminals, while dismissing millions of U.S. social democrats who refuse to vote for Stephen Harper's mentor in Washington as some kind of far-left crackpots.
Many of the same babblers get all bent out of shape at anyone who dares to criticize certain Canadian social democrat politicians, but apparently foreign social democrats are fair game for hyperbolic abuse.
Sat, 2012-03-17 22:03
#35
M. Spector
Speaking of far-left wack-jobs, Dennis Kucinich, whom the establishment liberal journal American Prospect has called “among the wackiest members of Congress”, was recently defeated in a Democratic primary in Ohio, and as a result he will no longer sit in the House of Representatives after this year.
So let’s recap the state of mental health in establishment Democratic circles: the President who claims (and exercises) the power to target American citizens for execution-by-CIA in total secrecy and with no charges — as well as those who dutifully follow him — are sane, sober and Serious, meriting great respect. By contrast, one of the very few members of Congress who stands up and vehemently objects to this most radical power — “The idea that the United States has the ability to summarily execute a US citizen ought to send chills racing up and down the spines of every person of conscience” — is a total wackjob, meriting patronizing mockery.
Mon, 2012-03-19 12:42
#36
Bec.De.Corbin
To hear the way you and your fellow Obamapologists talk, those million or so people are all far-left wack-jobs because they refused to vote for a war criminal.
No, that's you trying to put words in everyone's mouths (again). Only a hand full are like that; the rest are just fine as is Ralph Natter.
You just don't get it; they are considered that for the stuff they post on the internet, write in books and say in speeches... like Obama is Hitler. Not voting for him or criticizing him for policies you don't agree with or like is fine by me and I totally understand that, that's how the system works. What I'm saying is when you start using all that drama queen rhetoric to do it you end up preaching to the choir more than winning over any new support. The 99% in the USA is worried about jobs, the economy and the future for their children in this country; that's what this election is about; that's what we want from our leaders.
International events are secondary to most these days and it's for outsiders like you and that handfull of distrated individuals to insist those issues take a front seat to us here in the USA. I don't think too many are listening right now and it could have to do with how the message is being sent.
Oh and where's the Socialist Democratic Party in the USA you're talking about?
Mon, 2012-03-19 13:32
#37
Obama's Delusions of Sanctity
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/19/obamas+delusions+of+sanctity/
"...The Obama administration's aggressive, interventionist instinct in on open display. To me, the latest events in AFghanistan are disgusting, and the timing of the president's attempt to invoke parallels with Gandhi and Mandela is sickening. Great people like Gandhi and Mandela use power to curb power. Barack Oama stands among those who use power to accumulate more of it.."
Rogue Soldier? Rogue Superpower - by George Capaccio
http://www.countercurrents.org/capaccio180312.htm
"President Obama authorizes an attack which leads to the deaths of 14 women and 21 children in Yemen. A deeply troubled staff sergeant in Afghanistan personally murders 16 civilians. Which one of these warriors has more blood on his hands? Which man bears a greater responsibility for the violence he has committed? The brain damaged soldier whose trauma may have left him incapable of distinguishing friend from foe, or the leader of the 'free world' who ordered some commander in the Persian Gulf to target an impoverished village in Yemen?"
Mon, 2012-03-19 17:15
#38
Did Obama Sign A Martial Law Executive Order?
http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-executive-order-national-929/
"As folks headed out to happy hour last Friday evening, President Obama signed an executive order that could potentially give him the power to institute martial law in the UN in times of peace or during a national threat. The National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order will give Obama power over 'resources and services needed to support such plans and programs.'
Many Americans were shocked to find out that this order gives the president practically unlimited power over US citizens and their property. All in the name of national security of course..."
Mon, 2012-03-19 17:57
#39
I've had tussles with some folks about the use of that term, even when they had only a few minutes before written despairingly about the effect of TV and radio on the minds of their audiences. I await your more refined definition that will not offend liberal sensibilities. But please don't just leave a blank space where ";political consciousness" used to be the central area of discussion for the classic socialist. Political correctness will do that to you. Read something about the glorious art of successful propagandists sometime - Richard Viguerie and David Franke's America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power. Lwearn how a majority of Mississippi Re;publicans came to believe (polled two weeks ago)) that Obama is a Muslim. I don't take any satisfaction in taqlking about that kind of induced ignorance, but I do feel the need to stress that IT IS INDUCED. And through extensive reading, I'm not reduced to making ignorant effing remarks about others in this fashion: "I'm sure it;boosts your ego to think of them down there wallowing in their simple mindedness while you preach the glorious "truth". Understand how you have been conditioned in your PC cocoon.We are required to be more circumspect with our use of descriptors here, BDC, but you cut to the chase quite nicely. As you see, Canada's multi-party system is not perfect, and the fringe still rails at the inadequacies of the language of proseletization rather than the vulnerability of the Great Misled, but it's clear we are not in such desperate straits as the U.S. political system. Please keep us plugged in with man-on-the-street reportage.It's likely to grow ever more bizaare and frightening.You do realize that "Great Misled" is no different than saying "Ignorant, brainwashed, suckers, ect. You're trying to use a descriptor which implies an innocence on the part of the population and a sinister shadowy "group" who deliberately mislead them.
I'm sure it boosts your ego to think of them down there wallowing in their simple mindedness while you preach the glorious "truth".
I'm sorry you were insulted by my amateur pychological of you but I felt you were insulting to milliions of people I identify with. I don't believe in judging people, you can disagree but thinking better of yourself by judging others as lesser isn't the way to build solidarity. to be continued
Mon, 2012-03-19 23:05
#40
M. Spector
...he ended the war in Iraq...
President Obama's most swooning supporters love to credit him with "ending the war in Iraq," but that is simply not what happened. It was President Bush who entered into an agreement with the Iraqi government mandating the removal of all US forces by the end of 2011. Rather than comply with that agreement, the Obama administration tried desperately to persuade and pressure the Iraqis to allow American troops to remain beyond that deadline. But those efforts failed because of one cause: the refusal (or, more accurately, the inability) of the Malaki government to agree that US troops would be immunized and shielded from Iraqi law for any future crimes they commit on Iraqi soil.
Tue, 2012-03-20 06:57
#41
I don't know why they didn't just apply their Afghanistan policy to the Iraq situation, which involves flying their war criminals out.
Tue, 2012-03-20 09:19
#42
To hear the way you and your fellow Obamapologists talk, those million or so people are all far-left wack-jobs because they refused to vote for a war criminal.
No, that's you trying to put words in everyone's mouths (again). Only a hand full are like that; the rest are just fine as is Ralph Natter.
You just don't get it; they are considered that for the stuff they post on the internet, write in books and say in speeches... like Obama is Hitler. Not voting for him or criticizing him for policies you don't agree with or like is fine by me and I totally understand that, that's how the system works. What I'm saying is when you start using all that drama queen rhetoric to do it you end up preaching to the choir more than winning over any new support. The 99% in the USA is worried about jobs, the economy and the future for their children in this country; that's what this election is about; that's what we want from our leaders.
International events are secondary to most these days and it's for outsiders like you and that handfull of distrated individuals to insist those issues take a front seat to us here in the USA. I don't think too many are listening right now and it could have to do with how the message is being sent.
Oh and where's the Socialist Democratic Party in the USA you're talking about?
Keep the faith, BDC. As you can see from the entry of a brand new babbler, fresh thoughts are on the way in the form of someone from Georgia with really marvelous credentials.
At least, I hope he can abide the name-calling.
Tue, 2012-03-20 12:00
#43
"....someone from Georgia with really marvelous credentials."
Credentials indeed.
Torture, imprisionment and murder without evidence, and the re-establishment of a corrupt kleptocracy of an imploding banking system by the only president who had a real opportunity to change it for the better.
What's not to like?
Tue, 2012-03-20 12:14
#44
What's not to like?
The kind of devotion to a political line that leaves out evidence of the very humanity that it PROPOSES to INSTILL. Seen it all before.
Tue, 2012-03-20 12:36
#45
"...Seen it all before"
No doubt, since elsewhere you have sung praises of Chris Hedges:
Journalist Chris Hedges sues Obama over National Defense Authorization Act
....
“I spent many years in countries where the military had the power to arrest and detain citizens without charge,” Hedges explained at TruthDig. “I have been in some of these jails. I have friends and colleagues who have ‘disappeared’ into military gulags. I know the consequences of granting sweeping and unrestricted policing power to the armed forces of any nation. And while my battle may be quixotic, it is one that has to be fought if we are to have any hope of pulling this country back from corporate fascism.”...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/16/journalist-chris-hedges-sues-obama...
Tue, 2012-03-20 13:06
#46
To repeat:
"Keep the faith, BDC. As you can see from the entry of a brand new babbler, fresh thoughts are on the way in the form of someone from Georgia with really marvelous credentials.
At least, I hope he can abide the name-calling."
That's the humanity that I was referring to, C. An individual who wishes to join this noisy forum and who I think might even have something to tell us from experience. (Your boilerplate response to the name of Obama duly noted).
And you should watch a WestWing from the early years, sometime, to see what a Democratic president had to do to stay alive against an ignorant opposition, congress people of both persuasions bought by corporate money, and a thoroughly ignorant electorate away back in 2000. Apparently the 18 - 25 age group were no more revolutionary then. I'd forgotten.
It's only become a worse problem for the high-minded, since. At least, when Chris Hedges solves that one - and IF ONLY his thoughts and actions were reflected in the mainstream - we'll all feel more comfortable about the future.In the meantime, the Republican threat hangs like the sword of Damocles over us all.
Tue, 2012-03-20 13:35
#47
M. Spector
...right next to the Obomba sword, which is much bigger and even better-financed.
Tue, 2012-03-20 21:57
#48
And he should simply fall on it...for some mysterious reason...and let the deliciously loopy inherit control of bedlam.
Of course.
Tue, 2012-03-20 23:28
#49
Big Nuclear's Cozy Relationship With the Obama Administration - by Amy Goodman
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002406996
"One year on from Fukushima, the US is rewarding the nuclear energy lobby by underwriting new investment - regardless of risk. Lamented by many for breaking key campaign promises (like closing Guantanamo, or accepting Super Pac money), President Obama is fulfilling his promise to push nuclear power..."
Wed, 2012-03-21 00:27
#50
M. Spector
And he should simply fall on it...
Try to stick with the metaphor that you started. There are not one but two Damoclean swords hanging over the United States - a Republican one and a Democratic one. Both are lethal. The election will decide which one will fall on their heads.
Thu, 2012-03-22 17:55
#51
Barack Obama: Democratic Expectations and the Magic Wand - by Bruce Dixon
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obama-democratic-expecta...
"What are the people who tell us President Obama hasn't got a 'magic wand' really saying? That we have no right to expect a president to use the power of his office to address mass incarceration, housing, foreclosure, student and consumer debt crises, or end our murderous colonial wars around the world? That we're immature and unsophisticated to demand or expect much of anything more than his pretty black face in that big white house?"