(somethin that you folks also take to, strangely).
What do you mean? And what do you mean by that Mulroney dice reference?
Obama one year later
Sat, 2009-11-28 15:57
#52
Sat, 2009-11-28 15:58
#53
George:
"But I will never, never stop fearing his alternative waiting in the wings."
Al:
"So that's it? Obama's best qualification is his not being Sarah Palin or George Bush? Shouldn't one hope for better?"
U: "Thanks, George. I don't blame you for not answering my question. "
I will answer your loaded question, U, when you begin to speak to the issues I raise.
And Al, I add the Bageant bit, below, that I have already posted in another thread, because you will see that FEAR motivates me in my reluctance to roll the dice in Mulroney fashion (somethin that you folks also take to, strangely).
And here is the bit that you failed to comment on in the Sarah Palin thread, Al. And this is why I cannot be so sanguine about the outcome as yourself, ands U, and FM, and a lot of other folks who just don't get what's brewin' down there in the hills:
And as Bageant says in yesterday's blog (again describing Sarah country):
"When World War Two started 45% of Americans lived on farms or in farming based communities. Ten years after the war only 12% remained on farms, and not much later it dropped to six percent. And believe me, they did not all leave willingly.
"The result is that we are into our third generation of underclass whites -- around 60 million of them. At one point in the 1950s when unions were at their peak, a large portion of these people briefly constituted a legitimate working class. Since then they have been ground back down into a malleable disposable work force with no real contours, no vision, no philosophy or principles of labor, zero negotiation regarding the price of their labor, and no avenues for self determination as individuals or as a class.
"They are that great white unwashed that educated liberals just cannot get their heads around. Liberal audiences ask me, "Why are so many working class Americans non-union or anti-union?" Sometimes I reply that if you kick a dog hard enough and often enough, the dog will do any goddamned thing you want, whether it is "in his interests" or not. If the dog doesn't bite that union organizer, the poor fucking beast doesn't get fed at all.
Educated urban liberals never seem to grasp that most Americans no longer have access to the levers of self-determination. But then, I never expect the bourgeoisie to understand the legions of industrial serfs outside the gates. Nor do they much bother to try. After all, they've "got theirs." Education, safe working conditions, negotiable wages, access to real culture if they choose, progeny who will more or less continue their class patterns, even if on a somewhat lesser scale. When they look around their affinity groups and communities, they see only people like themselves. "Naw, we're not elites," they conclude.
"But the sheer gravitational pull of 60 million people circling the drain is starting to draw these elites who do not know they are elites toward the drainpipe. So now we are seeing academic papers with titles such as "Does a white American underclass really exist?" Lemme see now, are there any clues? Well, about 49.1 million people, most of them white, went without food at various times in 2008 (USDA). This is called "food insecurity" in government and academic circles. I suppose the 3.1 million folks sleeping under bridges, in cars, in shelters and cardboard boxes are experiencing "housing insecurity." This includes the 1.4 million homeless children attending our public schools. I suggest they start by asking these people if there is a white underclass in America. You know, get it straight from the horse's mouth. You don't know if you don't ask. I mean, hell, these people might all be just hobo-ing for a lark!
Whatever the case, I read a slew of these studies in the course of writing the new book. My conclusion is that the academic elites can hustle a grant out of any damned question you can think up, then write 70,000 words that not only do not answer the question, but lay the groundwork for further research into other ways to not answer the question.
Sat, 2009-11-28 16:04
#54
Al, read the Bageant bit and see if the demographics of Republicanism today don't bother you a bit too. And everyone recalls Brian at the time of the constitutional issue and his favouring a roll of the dice.
Sun, 2009-11-29 09:26
#55
GV: "Chaps, if he caves and blesses the "election" in Honduras I will join your merry band of chuckleheads. But I will never, never stop fearing his alternative waiting in the wings. (Which thought leads me to ask...can you name anyone in the Democratic Party that you might back? The senior senator from Vermont, perhaps?)"
Heard on CBC this AM that the U.S. is breaking ranks and approving the election in Honduras. Consider me a novitiate (with a naive, hopeful aspect).
Sun, 2009-11-29 09:41
#56
Still better than Palin though, eh George? She would have nuked Iran by now and imprisoned all the queers and invaded Canada.
Sun, 2009-11-29 10:08
#57
"So that's it? Obama's best qualification is his not being Sarah Palin or George Bush? Shouldn't one hope for better?"
One should hope to be able to define the POTUS in terms of what he is rather than what he is not. Unfortunately, much of the reason for his win was the fact that he wasn't Bush or Palin. That, together with a bunch of unrealistic expectations (fueled, at least in part, by his election promises) put him over the top.
But think about it. Obama was probably the most charismatic and personable candidate we've seen since Kennedy. He was running against a Republican ticket that was extremely weak. The incumbent President, a Republican, was the least popular President in recent history. The press regularly told everyone how dumb Palin is and refused to touch Obama. The US was engaged in two extremely unpopular wars and the economy was headed into the tank. Against that background you'd expect him to win by a landslide - instead he managed to eke out 53% of the popular vote. And many of the people voting for him did expect miracles.
Sun, 2009-11-29 14:31
#58
Exactly, Ab. Without economic collapse, Sarah would have been (as they say) "within a heartbeat" of the presidency. Aren't we all lucky ?(in some twisted sense of that word).
Being able to high-five it with some folks from Jamaica on election night was some compensation. Something was improved there.
Sun, 2009-11-29 14:51
#59
Congrats, U. You got it.
Sun, 2009-11-29 14:54
#60
Exactly, Ab. Without economic collapse, Sarah would have been (as they say) "within a heartbeat" of the presidency. Aren't we all lucky ?(in some twisted sense of that word).
Obama fans' litany:
"President Obama is powerless. He's just a small cog in a huge system."
"President Palin would destroy the world."
Sun, 2009-11-29 16:08
#61
Frustrated Mess
Mr O.'s record looks darn good to me, and to many people not as far Left as Babble:
http://www.slate.com/id/2236708/
The case for Obama's successful freshman year rests above all on the health care legislation now awaiting action in the Senate. Democrats have been trying to pass national health insurance for 60 years. Past presidents who tried to make it happen and failed include Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Through the summer, Obama caught flak for letting Congress lead the process, as opposed to setting out his own proposal. Now his political strategy is being vindicated. The bill he signs may be flawed in any number of ways-weak on cost control, too tied to the employer-based system, and inadequate in terms of consumer choice. But given the vastness of the enterprise and the political obstacles, passing an imperfect behemoth and improving it later is probably the only way to succeed where his predecessors failed.
[...]
Obama's claim to a fertile first year doesn't rest on health care alone. There's mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February-combined with the bank bailout package-prevented an economic depression. Should the stimulus have been larger? Should it have been more weighted to short-term spending, as opposed to long-term tax cuts? Would a second round be a good idea? Pundits and policymakers will argue these questions for years to come. But few mainstream economists seriously dispute that Obama's decisive action prevented a much deeper downturn and restored economic growth in the third quarter. The New York Times recently quoted Mark Zandi, who was one of candidate John McCain's economic advisers, on this point: "The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do-it is contributing to ending the recession," he said. "In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent."
The bankster bailout endorsed by McCain/Palin... And that's a positive? Few mainstream economists, huh? What about good economists? The issues that threaten the US economy, high debt, high energy costs, a contracting consumer market, and no productive economy not only remain, they are growing worse.
For George, as only he could truely appreciate it:
"Liberals may have interpreted Obama's campaign pledge to ramp up the U.S. military commitment to Afghanistan as calculated to insulate himself from the charge of being a national-security wimp. Events have exposed that interpretation as incorrect. It turns out - apparently - that the president genuinely views this remote, landlocked, primitive Central Asian country as a vital U.S. security interest.." ... President Obama made the war in Afghanistan his war. The anti-war people are silent because he's their man. Leading Democrats in the House are proposing a "surtax" on income to be used for paying the mounting costs of battling insurgents on the other side of the world. And we're reduced to shouting "C'mon man" as we are driven over that cliff.
Sun, 2009-11-29 16:54
#62
Exactly, Ab. Without economic collapse, Sarah would have been (as they say) "within a heartbeat" of the presidency. Aren't we all lucky ?(in some twisted sense of that word).
To be completely honest, I'm not sure we really were that lucky.
But next time, Obama won't be able to blame Bush - the Messiah, the miracle worker, the hopey changey man, had better deliver or he'll be gone.
Sun, 2009-11-29 21:13
#63
Yeah, FM. I don't really "appreciate it", mate. But wiser men than you and I, Gunga Din, do not isolate themselves from the powers at work in that country. Graeme's news that Rory Stewart is now both working on his restoration of old Kabul (he had to remove 7 feet of trash accumulated over the centuries in the streets to improve access to the buildings) and some of its ancient woodworking crafts, but is also teaching at Harvard, is hopeful. He knows the language and customs of Afghanistan and the surrounding states so well that he will bring enlightenment to the core of the U.S. establishment where only vast ignorance reigned. If people of his wisdom can carry on with hope, who the hell am I to cross them off?
And I think, abnormal, we see our luck in all this in equal proportions.
Sun, 2009-11-29 23:42
#64
Compared to Obama Bush was a good guy. Expanding the wars, new military bases, and a coup in South America.
Mon, 2009-11-30 09:02
#65
See what you have started, FM? Sky's the limit. :D
Mon, 2009-11-30 15:10
#66
N.Beltov
The unrepentant Marxist has a good piece called Barak Hoover Obama.
Very early on in Obama's administration, you heard many of his supporters on the left begin to call for pressure from the mass movement in order for him to promote progressive legislation. Analogies were made with FDR, who was elected on a fairly centrist platform. ....The left has a tendency to lag one step behind history when it is in the midst of a financial crisis or some other cataclysmic event. By analogizing with FDR's New Deal, we fail to account for the material forces that make such an outcome so unlikely.
While it is very difficult to predict what forms struggle will take in the future, we will be in a poor position to lead them if we do not understand class relationships as they exist rather than as as ghosts of crises past.
Proyect (the unrepentant one) concludes that Obama is more like Hoover than like FDR. Read the article for more details.
Mon, 2009-11-30 17:14
#67
Frustrated Mess
So, here we are four years, thousands of U.S. troops deaths and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths later, and the Pope of Hope, the Dalai O'bama, the Nobel Laureate will soon be condemning thousands of more to the same fate and his supporters have given him permission to do so, no matter how many letters they write, petitions they sign or phone calls they make.
In the end, you always get what you vote for.
Mon, 2009-11-30 19:32
#68
N.Beltov
The supporters of Barak Obama should APOLOGIZE, says Rich Gibson, for getting it all so terribly wrong. Sounds good to me.
The One who I named The Obamagogue (rhymes with demagogue - N.Beltov) seeks to use Keynesian measures to solve the waterfall of economic collapse and lost wars. Keynes was an elitist and an active racist who despised working people, who thought only the most favored should rule, but he sought to save capitalism. The myth is that he did.He didn't. Henry Morganthau, Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury recognized that in the late thirties when he wrote that all that Keynesian spending had done little or nothing....
What ended the Great Depression was WW 2. Capitalism loves outright destruction ...
The following makes reference to Obama's appointment to Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.
Arne Duncan is no mistake. He will intensify the three pronged project of most schooling: more curricula regimentation to regulate what is taught and how it is taught, to use high stakes tests to sort kids, and to deepen the militarization of schools. Where privatization is serviceable, Duncan will back privatization. Where he can get the working class to pay, through their taxes, for the mis-education of our children, he will do that. Arne Duncan leads, not public schools, but capitalist schools. Those who did not foresee this before The Obamagogue came to power should see it now, and say so.Those who now claim The Obamagogue "betrayed them," after a year of supporting his demagogic campaign and contributing to what only can be called national hysteria, should own up to the fact that their entire method of analysis was wrong, that they betrayed hundreds, maybe thousands of people themselves, and issue a self criticism about exactly why they got things completely wrong.
Of course, the Obama moonies will be making no apologies anytime soon. After all, Sarah Palin would have been worse, blah blah ...
Mon, 2009-11-30 19:44
#69
Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.
I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.
Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"
Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.
We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?
Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.
The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by abandoning the rest of us.
President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."
What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.
All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.
When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.
Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.
Tonight we still have hope.
Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.
We're counting on you.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/open-letter-president-obama-michael-moore
Mon, 2009-11-30 20:45
#70
Frustrated Mess
So yes, Sarah Palin could be president and no, a Palin administration wouldn’t be much worse than anything else we have experienced. Barack Obama is now planning to escalate the war against the Afghan people. He and his administration are about to preside over what can only be described as a show trial of 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his codefendants. The president and his attorney general have both predicted a guilty verdict and an execution, all before one word of testimony has been heard. Palin is anti choice on abortion, but congressional Democrats threw women under the bus in striking abortion coverage from any health care legislation. Is a Republican presidential administration really any worse than a democratic one?
There are voters who supported Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008. If there is sufficient disillusionment with Obama, he and the Democrats could lose support to a Republican in 2012. That Republican could be Palin or someone else. There should be little surprise or alarm if that is the case.
Black Agenda Report
Another quote worth highlighting from the linked article: "Say what you will about the Republicans, unlike the Democrats, they know the importance of pleasing their most loyal party members."
Tue, 2009-12-01 00:50
#71
The supporters of Barak Obama should APOLOGIZE, says Rich Gibson, for getting it all so terribly wrong. Sounds good to me.
OK, I'll bite. How exactly did Obama supporters get it all so terribly wrong? What should they be apologizing for?
I think that's a straw man. I think many Obama supporters knew that taking back a country takes more than one election. And while I doubt Obama supproters are generally satisfied with his performance so far I don't think many of them are too shocked. Or i guess maybe we'd agree that those who are shocked might've been pretty naive.
One tactic for bringing about change is simply to vote act towards the best of the current viable options. Whether that's a tactic you might agree with I don't think it's a tactic you could reasonably expect people to apologize for holding.
Personally i think for those who would make requests of Obama's supporters, tangible requests for specific action are generally better than rhetorical requests.
What do you think the Obama supporters should've done instead that would've led to a better situation than where things are at now?
ETA: This is my favourite of the riffs i've seen so far:
Tue, 2009-12-01 01:50
#72
N.Beltov
They got it wrong by their capitulation to Obamagogery, by sidetracking a fightback into Obama backwaters, by waging war on the left (as well as the right - give 'em credit for that, OK) and claiming real and fundamental differences between the multimillionaires of the GOP and the multimillionaires of the Democractic Party, and so on. And, if the author is correct and Obama's failures will lead to a GOP President in 2012, then the gains are doubtful at best.
Incidently, the author writes for the Rouge Forum which is a group concerned about right wing atrocities to education in the US. And there are plenty of those. It seems the Democratic atrocities are much the same as the Republican atrocities. And that's the heart of what Gibson seems to be saying.
But don't take my word for it. Send a note to the author directly and I'm sure he will provide a more thorough answer than me.
Try [email protected] and check out his webpage at http://richgibson.com/
Tue, 2009-12-01 02:05
#73
N.Beltov
Incidently, President Obama will be laying out the reasons why he thinks 30,000 more US troops in Afghanistan is a good thing. That'll be on Wednesday.
Ooh rah.
Pentagon officials hope NATO member-states eventually will supplement the U.S. surge with up to 10,000 of their own troops and trainers, pushing the overall number of extra troops close to 40,000, the number recommended by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.
If the Harper regime agrees - as undoubtedly it will - this will mean more dead Canadians thanks to the foreign policy of President Obama.
Reuters - Obama to lay out long awaited plan re Afghanistan, etc.
Tue, 2009-12-01 07:48
#74
a Palin administration wouldn't be much worse than anything else we have experienced ... Palin is anti choice on abortion, but congressional Democrats threw women under the bus in striking abortion coverage from any health care legislation.
One big difference - and a very big one at that. During the next few years a number of Supreme Court Justices will retire. The question is who exactly gets appointed to replace them. If Palin gets to select the candidates I'd be very surprised if her picks weren't either anti-abortion or, at best, literalists who believe in interpretting the Constitution exactly as written. While the latter doesn't sound bad, I do have to say that every US lawyer I've talked to about Roe v Wade will tell you that it's simply bad law (and that's coming from pro-abortion lawyers, not pro-lifers). It's pretty much a given that, if the Court is full of Palin appointees that somebody, sooner or later, will manage to bring a carefully selected case to the Supreme Court and that will be the end of Roe v Wade.
Tue, 2009-12-01 08:34
#75
It's pretty sad when the best you can say about a president is that he can name Supreme Court justices - which of course is not entirely true either, because he doesn't have the final word.
It's even sadder that the right to abortion hangs by the fragile thread of an old court decision which could be reversed at any moment by another set of judges.
The people of the U.S. want serious progressive change. That's why they elected Obama and a Democratic Congress. It's sad to see babblers telling them that the best change they can hope for is a few court appointments. Legislation? Executive action? Forget it.
And then, we blame the people for being backward and getting the government they deserve. I don't. I blame a political system that functions on a constant cycle of promises and betrayal.
Tue, 2009-12-01 09:25
#76
Saying a people are the product of their culture is not to call them backward or deserving of "what they get", U. Neither can you dismiss the meaning of the Supreme Court in either country. The right to abortion hangs by a thread in both. The "people of the U.S." do no want serious progressive change - he barely scraped by in an atmosphere where war and economic collapse dominated, and despite the appearance of someone who could somehow appeal to the marginalized and Christian right as authentic. The people want to be saved from the patently pathalogical.
And no babbler has said the best they can hope for is "a few court appointments." Yer over the top with yer exaggerated, populist appeals, old son.
Tue, 2009-12-01 09:40
#77
Snert
It's so hard to believe that a whole 365 days has gone by since his inauguration! I bet if he had more time, maybe he'd be able to turn that big ship around, but at this rate, he should be out of the Oval Office by May, when his four years are up. If only there were more time!
Tue, 2009-12-01 09:40
#78
The right to abortion hangs by a thread in both.
We always have to fight to consolidate our gains. But to suggest that a court case could come along in Canada that re-criminalizes abortion is ridiculous. Yet, abnormal's scenario for the U.S. is not ridiculous at all. Social comparisons between the U.S. and Canada are like comparing the 19th with the 21st centuries. We shouldn't be smug, but we're not climbing down out of the trees the way they are down in that Inferno.
The "people of the U.S." do no want serious progressive change...
We'll have to agree to disagree on that. George, I think we generally have the same disagreement about the Canadian people.
And no babbler has said the best they can hope for is "a few court appointments."
That is literally - exactly - what several babblers said during the lead-up to the election last year. I can understand that you might have forgotten that, but I can't understand why you would vociferously deny it.
Tue, 2009-12-01 09:46
#79
I still thank that this thread, "Obama one year later", should not be allowed to go over to exaggerated statements without inspection of the society in question. And you do use exaggeration very freely, U. You are also very selective in your quotations during an exchange. Great debating style - but, of course, we must not rely on style, in presidential debate or down here on earth. :D
Tue, 2009-12-01 10:00
#80
And you do use exaggeration very freely, U.
George, I'll tell you again to stop commenting about [b]ME[/b] and start commenting on views or opinions of mine that I post here. If you have something in mind by the above statement - state it - otherwise keep it to yourself.
You are also very selective in your quotations during an exchange.
Same goes for this. Your analysis of my debating style is frankly boring, dull, obtuse. Do you have some selective quotation in mind that you'd like to challenge? If not, how about leaving me alone? I attack Obama, and you attack me. That's frankly childish and pathetic, besides being contrary to the rules around here. Re-read them if you don't believe me.
Tue, 2009-12-01 11:31
#81
Somehow, the misuse of quotations is okay. And the interminable, unrelenting, unfair but adult, Obama rant.And everyone else is out to lunch:
"It's pretty sad when the best you can say about a president is that he can name Supreme Court justices - which of course is not entirely true either, because he doesn't have the final word.
It's even sadder that the right to abortion hangs by the fragile thread of an old court decision which could be reversed at any moment by another set of judges.
The people of the U.S. want serious progressive change. That's why they elected Obama and a Democratic Congress. It's sad to see babblers telling them that the best change they can hope for is a few court appointments. Legislation? Executive action? Forget it.
And then, we blame the people for being backward and getting the government they deserve. I don't. I blame a political system that functions on a constant cycle of promises and betrayal."
Can't wait to hear some intelligent prescription for change, some analysis of the electoral picture...if that's an okay request, not out of bounds in this "system". Or are you bound to use the system's "rules" to silence an appeal for rational opinion and justice? That's been done before hereabouts...really narrowing the discussion. "Forget it" indeed, U.
Tue, 2009-12-01 11:34
#82
Snert
The supporters of Barak Obama should APOLOGIZE, says Rich Gibson, for getting it all so terribly wrong. Sounds good to me.
They could pattern it after the heartfelt apology the left gave to the province of Ontario after the ONDP reneged on all of their lofty promises. Obama's failing to bring about world peace, but the ONDP couldn't even insure cars!
Anyone have a copy of that apology??
Tue, 2009-12-01 14:26
#83
They got it wrong by their capitulation to Obamagogery, by sidetracking a fightback into Obama backwaters, by waging war on the left (as well as the right - give 'em credit for that, OK) and claiming real and fundamental differences between the multimillionaires of the GOP and the multimillionaires of the Democractic Party, and so on.
So what should they have done differently? Just not gotten involved?
"by sidetracking a fightback into Obama backwaters"? What does this mean?
But don't take my word for it. Send a note to the author directly and I'm sure he will provide a more thorough answer than me.
I asked you because you posted about it here on babble. I'm a pretty busy person and so having an email exchange with a writer in the US isn't really much of a priority. You said you agreed that Obama supporters should apologize, i'm just wondering what it is they should be apologizing for. Do you think they should be apologizing for getting involved in the political process?
Tue, 2009-12-01 23:51
#84
N.Beltov
Gibson outlined the Keynsian failures of the Obama regime, the horrific education atrocities by Obama's hand picked education gauliter, Arne Duncan, and so on. He claims this failure was predictable and, furthermore, that (in his country, the USA) the Obama "Moonies" directly denied that things would come out this way at the time. Seems pretty clear to me. Sorry if you're too "busy" to read my reply.
Wed, 2009-12-02 01:22
#85
Obama Issues Order for Escalation in Afghanistan
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/pers-d01.shtml
Obama's Exceedingly Familiar Justifications for Escalation
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
Oppose Obama's Escalation of the Afghan Pakistan War!
Wed, 2009-12-02 18:56
#86
Frustrated Mess
Sorry, I stopped reading at some point above. The Obama narrative has gone like this:
During the campaign when Obama began reversing his positions (i.e. Illegal surveillance), Obama-ites told us we must support Obama and put pressure on him after he's elected. He must take positions in opposition to his base to get elected.
When Obama was elected we were told not to put pressure on him or be to critical because he can only do so much even as be betrayed his own vows.
Now we're told, as he expands the Bush wars and engages in the same rhetoric of fear that he is better than the alternative.
And when a US activist writer says, no, the alternative would be much the same, the bogeyman of supreme court appointments are raised.
I can almost hear them sayin already, before the election cycle begins anew in 2012, the time to put pressure on Obama is after the election ...
Wed, 2009-12-02 20:30
#87
Frustrated Mess
Linked on the other Obama thread: http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/12/deadly-liar-and-manipulator...
Thu, 2009-12-03 01:46
#88
From Gitmo to Bagram: Bad to Worse?
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/gitmo-bagram-bad-worse
"Thanksgiving weekend's big national security story was the continuing operation of a 'black jail' at Bagram, where detainees [POWs] are held for weeks in completely secret detention. Not even the Red Cross are notified..."
Has Canada sent any 'detainees' there I wonder..?
Thu, 2009-12-03 02:47
#89
The Obama Puppet
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12022009.html
"It didn't take the Israel lobby long to bring President Obama to heel..."
Sat, 2009-12-05 22:25
#90
Frustrated Mess
Like Bush, Obama looked straight ahead into the camera to address the people of a country he’s about to inflict more hell upon, and said: “I want the Afghan people to understand—America seeks an end to this war and suffering.” And like Bush, he added: “We have no interest in occupying your country.” He even went further out on a flimsy rhetorical limb by saying the United States wants to “forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner, and never your patron.”
![http://i48.tinypic.com/anlzk6.jpg[/IMG]](http://i48.tinypic.com/anlzk6.jpg[/IMG]){kind=link}
Sun, 2009-12-06 06:06
#92
I wonder if the Dems will still have a majority in both houses this time next year? or I guuess a year January.
Obama has done a dexcent job so far.
Although I am still annoyed Gitmo is still open and he sounded like Bush with his speech on Afghanistan this week. I also wish he would of put his foot down more on Karzai and that fraudulent election. I also do not like his unquestionable love for Israel either.
I hope he gets his health care passed and not a watered down version but it will be tough as many conservative democrats in the House and Senate.
But I would give him overall a 'C+ to a B minus' so far. It can go up depending on Health Care and what he does on the environment.
Sun, 2009-12-06 07:22
#93
I wonder if the Dems will still have a majority in both houses this time next year? or I guuess a year January.
Obama has done a decent job so far.
Although I am still annoyed Gitmo is still open and he sounded like Bush with his speech on Afghanistan this week. I also wish he would of put his foot down more on Karzai and that fraudulent election. I also do not like his unquestionable love for Israel either.
I hope he gets his health care passed and not a watered down version but it will be tough as many conservative democrats in the House and Senate.
But I would give him overall a 'C+ to a B minus' so far. It can go up depending on Health Care and what he does on the environment.
up that mark to a B/B+ and I agree ....
Sun, 2009-12-06 11:23
#94
I'd go with a C- but that's only because I'm feeling generous.
Meanwhile, he's beginning to duck the press.
After months of what some critics called overexposure, Obama has of late avoided questions from the White House press corps at large, closing the Oval Office to traditionally informal question-and-answer sessions with reporters and pulling back from the fast pace of news conferences he established when taking office.Obama, whose job-approval ratings have been on a steady slide, hasn't held a formal news conference in 19 weeks, since July 22. That one ended badly, when Mr. Obama waded into a racial controversy by saying a white police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested a black Harvard professor.
"It can't be a total coincidence that the last time he faced the press corps, we ended with beers in the Rose Garden with Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley, when the focus was supposed to be health care," said Julie Mason, a White House reporter for the Washington Examiner who also covered the Bush administration for the Houston Chronicle.
"It does seem like they are responding to the overexposure argument and trying to exert more control over his appearances," she said.
Veteran White House reporters have been grumbling about the lack of access to the president, who as a candidate vowed an unprecedented level of transparency.
On his recent trip to Asia, Mr. Obama took few questions - and none during a session with Chinese President Hu Jintao that the White House dubbed "joint press statements."
Mr. Obama has taken to limiting questions during press conferences with foreign leaders to one question each fromU.S. reporters and foreign correspondents, as he did last week when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in Washington. He did the same "one-and-one" with the Japanese prime minister and the South Korean president while in Asia.
In a more unusual move, the president has altered the practice of allowing reporters into the Oval Office for what is called a "pool spray" - a few informal questions after a presidential meeting, often with a foreign leader. Mr. Obama's meeting Monday with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was closed to the press, even photographers, the White House said.
"It's surprising and quite unusual that President Obama meets with an allied leader like the prime minister of Australia and there's no photo op at the beginning or end of the session," said Mark Knoller, a longtime White House reporter for CBS Radio.
"I get the strong impression this president just doesn't relish the spontaneous question," Miss Mason said.
Reality is, I don't think Obama has ever allowed uncanned Q&A with the press. Whenever he stops reading from a teleprompter he manages to make Bush look coherent.
Sun, 2009-12-06 17:08
#95
Ah, "reality." A U.S.president with the erudition of Big Bill depends on a teleprompter? You haven't read his bios or been concerned with background, right?
Sun, 2009-12-06 17:31
#96
He may be erudite, but he doesn't impress me as being all that bright.
Sun, 2009-12-06 17:54
#97
Yeah, Magna Cum Laude fron Harvard Law School is just another document, and his two autobiographies - which everyone here has read, I'm sure - were clearly penned by ghost writers.
Sun, 2009-12-06 18:44
#98
Ah, "reality." A U.S.president with the erudition of Big Bill depends on a teleprompter? You haven't read his bios or been concerned with background, right?
As someone else has already stated, it's pretty clear that his autobiographies were ghostwritten and, if you've ever listened to him when he ends up "off prompter" he makes the worst of Chretien sound positively coherent [plenty of examples on YouTube].
As far as his background goes, we really don't know much beyond what he's told us in his books (and that doesn't hold together all that well).
Sun, 2009-12-06 18:59
#99
Frustrated Mess
He is the War President.
By mid-2010, Obama will have more than doubled the number of American troops in Afghanistan since he became president; he will have empowered his general, Stanley McChrystal, to fight the war pretty much as he thinks necessary to in order to win; and he will have retroactively, as it were, acknowledged that he and his party were wrong about the Iraq surge in 2007 -- after all, the rationale for this surge is identical to Bush’s, and the hope is for a similar success. He will also have embraced the use of military force as a key instrument of national power.
Sun, 2009-12-06 19:01
#100
Whoops. Conspiracy stuff. Have fun.
Sun, 2009-12-06 19:08
#101
Frustrated Mess
Facts, George, facts ... Oh, and this:
Yet that caveat was buried in the larger message of the withdrawal date. Mr Gates and Mrs Clinton focused much more on how conditional the withdrawal date is, suggesting that the deadline was little more than a gesture to assuage anti-war liberals in Mr Obama’s own Democratic Party.
BTW, George, I would've sworn, up there in the thread somewhere, you said you too, despite Afghanistan, Iraq, torture, human rights, etc..., would stop supporting Obama if he backed off on Honduras. Well, guess what?
But the Obama administration called the election "a step forward."
This looks and smells like traditional U.S. policy toward Latin America. It is a policy that traditionally supports power-hungry elites that control most of the wealth at the expense of the majority of the population.
For decades, Washington has carried out this policy by supporting repressive governments, taking the side of the wealthy in civil wars and rubber-stamping elections marred by rampant civil and human rights violations, repression of the press and military intimidation.
The administration's approach to the Honduran crisis is not the only disappointing policy direction Obama has taken when it comes to Latin America.
He has maintained the draconian embargo on Cuba, criticized progressive governments in Latin America and cemented ties with the repressive government in Colombia.