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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
...they're all cheering for whichever leader tells them what they want to hear, no matter how stupid it is. No matter how ridiculous it is, and no matter how insane it is.
It's the same thing on each side. Criticism of their own? That consists of nagging the leaders until they say the correct words, while avoiding to challenge their collectively held religious views - i.e, the mythical superiority of the "us". Criticism of the others? Harping on dreamt up imagery that is intranslateable when it comes to actual political work. And only useful for being applied internally. And the breakouts? Those with actual views - now they are scorned for their lack of palatable views. Real fucking American, isn't it.
Really. What a shameful waste of perfectly breatheable air, the lot of you.
You wrote: "I think it's quite possible that if Gore had become president, he would have invaded Iraq just as Bush did, not because he believed in it but because the Republican-led Congress (and the media) would have forced him to do it and he wouldn't want to appear weak."
I honestly find that incredibly hard to believe. With respect, I couldn't disagree more. I don't think you are taking into consideration how much lying and spinning the Bush administration has done to get us into this. If you read Richard Clark's book "Against All Enemies," it explaines how Bush's own head of counter-terrorism, a man who worked under Clinton, Bush Senior, and Reagan, and a Republican, understood the morning of September 12, 2001 that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, and Bush's top cabinet leaders didn't care. They wanted to invade Iraq, they fixed eveidence, they lied about WMD's. They predicted we would be greeted as liberators. They predicted that Iraqi oil would pay for the war. Lie after lie after lie. If you think Al Gore would have done all those things out of being "pressured" by Congress, You have to first explaine why Congress would pressure him. Congress gave the authorization to invade Iraq based on the information Bush gave them. Bush pressured Congress. Congress didn't pressure Bush. I just don't understand how you can think Gore would ever consider attacking Iraq. We may have to just agree to disagree because I guess we can't prove it either way, but I still find it amazing that you even think it. (all due respect)
You also wrote: "This Congress has the opportunity to show us that they really are different from Republicans, rather than just saying so. I'm still waiting."
Have you ever heard the expression "No news is good news"? To me the best thing about this Congress is it doesn't rubberstamp everything Bush wants to do, which again, is why we are in Iraq.
You have to judge a politician's performance not just by what they make happen, but also what they prevent from happening. It's much harder to give a President credit for the second item, because we can never really know what could've happened vs. what actually did. But I will tell you this, I sure as hell worry a lot less about Bush nuking Iran then I would be if Republicans still had control of Congress! Even if this Congress can't impeach Bush or force him out of Iraq, at least they are keeping him from making thing even worse.
After the way the dems just caved into Bush, can one of the bloggers who booed Kucinich explain again just how the dems are different from the repubs?
You owe him an apology.
"Picking apart the photo in these posts, you'd swear we want a Ceylon from Battlestar Galactica as Prez."
I believe that it's abundantly clear that In any television-based fantasy elections, Law & Order's Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy has earned your vote.
He's certainly more deserving than Arthur Branch.
excellent reference to that essay. However, I disagree with your conclusion that it doesn't matter who votes. I don't know if I can put my hand on it, but I read a study recently that indicates that virtually 100% of people with a net worth in excess of $1 million vote. They also give money at very high rates to politicians and interest groups. They vote because they understand that it matters who votes - and who doesn't.
Too many working class, poor, and middle class people have bought into the myth that it doesn't matter if they vote. Bull shit! They have been told repeatedly that it doesn't matter, and our fearless infotainment media can't be bothered to explain the connection between political ideology and say, the collapse of that bridge in MN. It took more than 150 years from the time of the establishment of the US before we started getting decent social and economic justice for more than a handful of Americans. The backlash began immediately and the battle has been raging ever since. Voting and getting politicians into office to represent all but the top 5% of the population is a lifetime effort. We need to educate ourselves on our labor history, and work to make non-voters understand the connection between who is elected and say, the absence of defined benefit pension plans and soaring tuition bills, and our steep regressive taxes.
Come on! If it didn't matter who voted, then why have the republicans spent the last 50 years trying to keep poor and black people from voting??
There is no distinction between the parties, and the ones who do try to make a difference are booed.
The liberal bloggers have gone sot and they're as blind and singleminded as the mainstream. The fact that they booed Kucinich and now think HRC is the new Dean is proof.
She's just another Washington clone, jsut in a different package.
The Nation's Ari Melber did a good, discerning write-up of the Kosvention...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070813/melber
This part was interesting, very telling in Clinton's arm's length approach...
Yet Clinton strained to mold her meeting back into a controlled event. She was the only candidate to use her staff as a buffer, tapping her Internet director, Peter Daou, to pick questions and bringing three other senior aides onstage, though none of them spoke. She filibustered most of the time, taking more than eleven minutes to answer the first question alone--a simple query about fixing the unpopular No Child Left Behind Act. That softball came from an official with the National Education Association, who either didn't know or didn't care that this scarce time was carved out for bloggers and activists without insider access, not for interest-group sponsors.
Then Clinton only took five more questions.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
