Letters to the Editor
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Not Specific?
Look back on the speeches that have moved and inspired America. "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself", "I have a dream", "The torch has been passed to a new generation". All pretty light on "policy initiatives," at least none that anyone remembers.
And be honest. Obama could lay out an exhaustively researched multi-point plan with charts and Powerpoint and you Obama bashers still wouldn't be satisfied, or you'd call him boring.
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To Aycharaych on Obama and What to Do With Drug Offenders
I heard him say yesterday to put drug offenders in treatment. I take it he meant, adjudicate them and treat them as lesser beings but don't necessarily put them in prison. I wanted someone to ask him to explain how these people he calls "offenders" differ from him, and whether he needed or needs "treatment." He's given a total pass on it--as Glenn Greenwald points out, in our oligarchical decay, it's well understood that the law is only for the masses. Obama can smugly talk about what to do with "offenders" wihout batting an eye. He knows his acolytes won't challenge him, and neither will what Glenn refers to as the political establishment. It would be bigoted and uncool to ask him why he calls the unlucky folks who get caught "offenders," while he calls himself the audacity of hope.
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Huh? Treatment is bad?
[quote]I heard him say yesterday to put drug offenders in treatment. I take it he meant, adjudicate them and treat them as lesser beings but don't necessarily put them in prison.[/quote]
How did you possibly read that he meant "treat them like lesser beings"? Unless you have some distaste from him to begin with that is clouding the statement, I can't figure it out.
Alot of the negatives I am hearing from people about him have the same kind of slant to it, so I am not surprised.
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you missed his point, darknesse
The writer just before you wasn't suggesting that treatment is bad. He's saying what about Obama himself. He did the things he's wanting these people treated for, yet apparently Obama never was treated. That could be taken as hypocritical. Of course, the whole friggin' "war on drugs" is nothing but inanity and hypocrisy.
--Ron
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How does involuntary "treatment" differ from prison?
Not all drug offenders are addicts, in fact the majority are not.
Not everyone who tokes a joint or does a little blow needs treatment, just as not everyone who drinks a beer or has a scotch and water needs treatment.
Speak to the hypocrisy Obamaphiles, speak to the hypocrisy.
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As Silenced pointed out on another thread..
The entire drug war has now become the state religion of the USA, supported almost to a man by politicians of both major parties.
I define religion as a belief in something despite a lack of evidence for the existence of that thing.
Not only is there no evidence for the efficacy of the drug war, there is indeed a veritable Everest of evidence showing the undesirable consequences of such a war.
Not the least of this evidence being that the eighteenth and twentieth amendments are only thirteen years apart.
That is an astoundingly short time for public opinion to change in such a dramatic fashion as to enable the passage of a Constitutional Amendment completely reversing a previous one. In fact it has never happened before or since.
There must have been some powerful reasons for the public to make such a u turn in their opinion so quickly.
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Aycharaych
Excellent point about even the need for treatment. I'd vaguely thought that, but it's good to have crystalized so well as you have done. I'd also never thought about that 13-year difference in amendments quite that way. I appreciate your effective and thoughtful commentary.
--Ron
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Never Satisfied
Over the years, Democratic pundits have complained that our candidates don't know how to speak to people to inspire them to vote Democratic.
They argued that people like Sen. John Kerry spoke in Senate-speak. He spent too many of his speeches describing the legislation he cared about and too often referred to them by their bill names. People tuned out.
We haven't seen the end of that problem yet as many Democratic politicians talk to voters today about SCHIP not being fully funded instead of the Bush administration barring innocent children from getting the health care they need to survive.
Joe Biden is a man of true substance, and talks about it, but hasn't inspired enough people to move into double digits in Iowa.
Now, we have a candidate who speaks in a way that inspires folks and in a way that they can understand so what do they do? They say he's vague and tear him down. I guess pundits have to complain about something or they won't be paid but this is ridiculous.
Perhaps these pundits are more concerned with their own jobs than who wins the Presidency, but we voters know our priority - it's winning in November. Vote Obama!
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To Ron Robertson (et al)
I'm not sure if I have all the answers (in fact, I KNOW I don't!) but I will give you my take on the four subjects you bring up.
1. I believe in single-payer insurance just like Dennis Kucinich. I have looked at the three front-runners and I think Obama has this tell-them-what-they don't want to hear approach. Does anyone think that insurance companies will NOT come to the table with Hillary or with Edwards? Kucinich is really the candidate to vote for if you don't want insurance companies at the table. Yes, I realize this means that I'm compromising and I don't feel great about it. But I think Obama admitting he's talking to insurance companies makes me feel better than Clinton or Edwards not admitting precisely the same thing.
2. Much of the same as one. It sounds nice to not talk to Republicans ("nah-na-na-na-na!") except that it reminds me too much of ann coulter's "how to talk to liberals if you must" or whatever the title of her horrible book was. I think that anger is running high and I'm a social worker who's broke and has no insurance. So I'm angry too, but I think that the candidate who keeps his cool is the most likely to achieve his (or her) goals. Talking to Republicans for a President is part of the job....Please, let's be serious. One of the worst things about Bush is that he did not consider himself president of the whole american people but president of the people who elected him. I actually want a leader and a leader talks and listens to both sides and then votes with his or her heart and conscience. I see the strongest correlation between message and voting record with Obama. People will say that this is because he's inexperienced, but given more time I think people will quickly say "he's too liberal" to elect. Both his message (other than the honesty of "I'm going to talk to insurance companies and republicans...) and his record are to the left of the voting record/message of Clinton or Edwards. Obama is a leader and he listens to people but this is not the same thing as saying that he's a centrist compromiser (the Clintons, let's not forget, proudly called themselves centrist compromisers although when Bill signed NAFTA and welfare reform without really the proper safeguards for the poor on either side of the border I took it as a betrayal of even "centrist" "third way" Democratic values...)
3. Mandates for Insurance. I think there should be mandates. I can't really tell you why Obama is critiquing Edwards or Clinton on this subject, except maybe he's trying to be realistic in what can be achieved in this political climate. He seems to me to be the candidate LEAST likely to make promises that he will not keep. Both Edwards and Clinton have made more promises than Obama, but I don't see either of them with enough political power to achieve the goals they have set for themselves. For example, Clinton's plan for health care may include more Americans as she has written it, but even if she achieves the white house her plan will be subject to change. I think Obama is saying he thinks he can achieve at least as much as he promises on healthcare, and if he can he will try to exceed his promises, instead of undermeeting them. I actually kind of think this is a brilliant strategy.
4. Repeating Republican talking points. I'm not sure I always think this is bad since the talking points are going to get their space in the national media anyway once we choose a candidate. How the candidates should attack one another at this point in the election is something I don't quite understand. If they aren't tough enough they are criticised--the last article I read slammed Obama for not being tougher on Clinton in the debates. I googled this article : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/31/obama-slugs-back-at-tria_n_78921.html
from the Huffington Post and do you notice the way something is framed makes a difference? Obama says that he didn't take the easy way out getting rich after Harvard Law School by becoming a corporate or a trial lawyer....and suddenly the frame is that he is targeting poor Edwards. In fact, Obama's comments come in response, apparently, to Edwards accusing Obama of being too nice to be president, so if there was a dig there, I politely suggest that Edwards invited it.
This is getting too long and I don't mean to take up more than my fair space, but I suggest being careful about reading the frame around the discussion without reading the discussion in its context. I think Obama has a point that although Edwards has helped the poor, he has done it primarily from a position of wealth and although Obama doesn't say it, his family is not wealthy. Without wealth, he still has a background of working in poor communities as a community builder. He, like Edwards, is a reformer candidate, and I actually like them both. But Obama's message and his track record are more in sync. He is more authentic in everything he says and in every vote he has taken. Edwards voting record and his message are more artificial and cliche. Despite so many media reporters telling me Obama doesn't have a real message--look at his website. Listen to him speak. Look at his voting record. He's not just offering hope.
Have you read the candidates' stances on the issues on their websites? Do you think that there are major policy differences based on their descriptions of the issues?
I'm just wondering if anyone has done this and what their thoughts are. I refuse to say that it doesn't matter. (Policy that is). Thank-you to anyone who's still listening!