While some of Barack Obama's proposed appointments may have caused disappointment amongst 'liberals/progressives', Glenn Greenwald is, I belive, largely correct in his reaction:

Obama's appointment are pragmatically sound, and they will work in the real world, so we should not have too many complaints at this point. In any case, the Obama policies and practices are likely to be largely acceptable to liberals and progressives - and they will surely be far better than anything the US has seen over the past eight years, and they will surely be far better than what John McBush + Sarah Moosehunter would have been doing had they been elected. In the real world we inhabit, that is something to be thankful for.

There are practical ways that liberals + progressives can ensure that a sizable bit of what they really want would be enforced on the coming government (regardless of who Obama appoints in various positions). The first thing is to ensure that that there is no hysterical 'name-calling' that he (Obama) has betrayed a cause, and so on and so forth. Much better would be to write down, in the simplest possible language, the 'elements' of what might constitute acceptable governmence of your nation (the US). Like so (I provide herewith a few possibly appropriate elements, culled from Glenn Greenwald's blog and from some of the responses to it):

Let's say that Obama Mission is "To recreate the US as a real beacon of liberty in the world"

Some of the ideas that progressives and liberals have had:

1. To get as many progressives appointed as possible to Obama's government, at least at the second rung

2. To ensure that the US government will be competent at what it does

3. To ensure that the Obama administration will not behave in the unacceptable ways that the Bush administration did (list the items of unacceptable behaviours of the Bush Gang)

4. To list all elements of importance in the progressive agenda

5. To prove that the liberal+progressive agenda will be best for US citizens

6. To ensure the US government will not serve only the 'Israel lobby'

7. To ensure that health and welfare in the US are effectively nurtured

8. To overcome poverty in the US during the next four years (or at least make a serious dent in existing US poverty)!/b>

9. To ensure that the US government works seriously on issues such as global warming; energy; ecological collapse

10. To ensure the US government gets serious about climate change

11. To close down Guantanamo

12. To end torture by the US government (direct and indirect support of torture0

13. To engage the world through diplomacy rather than by force

14. To ensure that the US government tries to use good judgement in all it does

15. To ensure that our government (and we citizens) get over this attachment to ideologies which all too often prevent effective work where it can be achieved

16. To ensure that government actually does all that is reasonable and possible to lift the less fortunate in the USA beyond subsistence levels - through productive and worthwhile projects and programs (Many Republicans may have some objections to this kind of objective - to enable them to register their objections and to ensure that public monies are not wasted, see No. 17 below)

17. To ensure an effective educational system for the US

18. To motivate people through the long, hard work ahead of digging ourselves out of the hole that GW Bush and Gang have dug for the US and for the world

Etc, etc, etc.

Let's also ensure that Republicans who do not subscribe to the criminal ideas of GW Bush and Gang should also be enabled to have their say. We do NOT enable or allow the neocon Republicans to have any say - they've already had eight years and they have brought the US (and the world) to the brink of disaster. However, we do seek the collaboration of Republicans who may be reasonable in their aims and objectives: they may come out with elements such as the following:

19. To ensure that huge financial resources are NOT wasted on fruitless 'pork-barrel' projects. (This is a worthwhile objective to which many liberals and progressives may also subscribe - so long as the social controls are designed to prevent wastage and looting, and not to prevent worthwhile social expenditure of itself).

19. Etc, etc

There could be any number of such elements.

The issue is how to put these elements together effectively, to integrate the elements in such a way that we can create an Action Plan to do all of the above.

John N. Warfield, Professor Emeritus at George Mason University, has created truly practical means to enable the effective integration of various diverse elements such as the above into a realistic Action Plan. More information about Warfield's seminal contributions to the design of effective systems is available at http://www.jnwarfield.com. In other messages of mine, I've indicated some powerful developments from Warfield's work that simplifies Action Planning so that any individual or group can use it for his/her/their real Missions of all kinds. More information available on writing to me at gs (underscore) chandy (at yahoo (dot) com.

-- GSC