Letters to the Editor
Uncle Fester
Published Letters: 1346 Editor's Choice: 12
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@Opus where does the movement go?
[Read the article: Obama advisor Power resigns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry- i warned you this isn't the most cohesive train of thought i've ever had.
Made sense to me. Here are some of my thoughts
I'll start with i am not a religious person, but here's the rub for me- who do we look to for leadership? Its kind of turning the MLK/LBJ thing upside down. MLK was a minister, he was a leader but he wasn't a politician.
I think the barriers between the different types of leaders, political, religious, corporate (etc) are somewhat porous. Maybe because I think this tribal leadership crap all comes from the same place in the human pysche. But I also look at the Founding Fathers. They combined politics, morality, and spirituality. The declaration of independence is a manifestation of all those aspects combined. I sometimes think our modern overspecialization makes it harder to see what's going on. And no, I don't consider Obama to be even in the same ballpark as the founders. At the moment, he's just a punk Senator.
It's almost a question of inevitability that your ideals will be corrupted by the act of implementing them. You will have to give something up in order to get it done, thats politics. The movement shouldn't be the one selling people out, thats for politicians to do.
Yes, but. Movements always peter out, get corrupted, or die. There's humans involved with their messy desires and bad habits. I think it was the 4th crusade that set out to liberate the Holy Land, and instead took a left turn to sack Constantinople instead, a fellow Christian city. Every movement has an end, and some end badly, but other movements leave positive change behind.
I am all for a movement, I just want it to be lead by someone who isn't at the same time seeking power (and in this case its A LOT of power being sought). Surfing the movement is power. I think we're stuck with that. But I think this movement is not about Obama, it's about re-engaging the people into the political process and reclaiming the constitution. If the power goes there, I think we'll be ok.
Everyone will have to make a judgement call on this point.
Personally, I'm reassured that Obama taught consitutional law and appears to have great respect for it. The chapter in Audacity of Hope on the constitution is worth reading. You'll get a very different view of the Obama thought process than as portrayed here on these threads.
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@Juliebird: intellectually deficient?
[Read the article: Former advisor: Obama's Iraq plan "best-case scenario"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would call them idiots, and yes, both sides have plenty of them. But getting someone to admit that they are an idiot seems like a sterile exercise to me. And I know that we've had threads here that attempted to count the number of local idiots and find out which side had more of them. But we couldn't agree on the entrance criteria for idiothood, so that fell apart. And every once in awhile even an idiot gets lucky and has something of value to contirbute. Some of this reminds me of www.foxsports.com, where posters say "I'd really like the [Steelers, Cowboys, Lakers, Packers,etc], but their fans are the worst. So I hate that team. Meh. It's a good way to be divided and conquered.
But ... it seems to me that many of Obama's supporters seem unwilling to admit he or his campaign have made mistakes, have used "negative" tactics, have made compromises on ideals to clinch the nomination, etc.
From a more realpolitik perspective I think Obama's biggest mistake so far was failing to win either Ohio or Texas. I don't know what judgements or calculations were made by the Obama camp, but in the end, Hillary's victories allowed her to redefine the campaign, at least in terms of the media.We'll see about future voters. Hillary's biggest mistake was to plan on it all being over by February 5th. That fact makes me nervous should she prevail. That's a biggie for someone who's supposed to be the reality candidate with the big political machine.
Can't Obama be a great candidate and *still* be capable of the above?[mistakes or negative campaigning] Can't HRC be capable of the above and *still* be a great candidate?
That's really the core question. It would be great if we all tried to spend more time answering that question, and ignored the spewers and bombthrowers. Clearly not all mistakes are equal. Maybe a candidate has done other things to offset those mistakes. And one person's mistake is another person's virtue. But it would be nice to talk about specific policy, like sending a predator after OBL in Waziristan, then the name calling we seem to be falling into.
Likewise with negative campaigning. A little of it serves to toughen up the candidates, Too much though, and it looks like the candidate is putting it's own interest ahead of the party and the voters. That's bad.
Once again, reasonable people are going to disagree on what crosses the line.
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Youth is wasted on the young, experience on the old
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Younger people don't tend to value experience because they don't have much, they don't even have the experience of having experience, so it's difficult to really value it.
Very true. As you get older, you get better at thinking inside the box; many lose sight of the need to throw the box away and start over.
The young will never understand the old, too much has changed. I think that's progress.