Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Do you think you can return the republic/economy/global order/planet after you have bought and paid for it, and you find out it's broken?
I would make the argument that this process is what voting is designed to acomplish. Put someone in office, and if they fail to live up to the rationale that resulted in your vote, vote for someone else.
What you seem to be advocating is that once someone has been elected to office, they are subject to the electorate's whim on every matter that comes before them. I suscribe to the opinion that they are not errand boys. In this regard, I side with Burke who offered that "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
My goal, therefore, in chosing which candiates to vote for is predicated on my assesment of their errudition and judgment untill proven otherwise. It is why I voted for Obama. If this fits your definition of "consumerism", then so be it.
I would also suggest (without harmful intent or hostility) attempting to stage manage the voting patterns of elected official, save through elections, is a fool's errand.
I agree with you on one point. No one man can do this. The real power lies with Congress. Obama provides the leadership and direction (missing in the Bush administration), but it is Congress that has the power to make change. The question is will the Democrats in Congress screw this up. Democrats have the power to make change now, but will they do it?
I fear with Hillary we will be led in the same direction on the Israel/Palestine issue. The advisers Hillary is surrounding herself with are the same ones who have crafted the last 16-20 years of failed middle east policies.
Obama needs to move away the "terrorist rhetoric. Every rebel or liberation group has now been called a terrorist. I saw an interview on News hour last night with various leaders on Lebonon. I was frankly more impressed with Hezbula(sp) leaders than the government leaders inshrined in their family country estates. To group Hezbula with Hamas is ridiculous.
I would make the argument that this process is what voting is designed to acomplish. Put someone in office, and if they fail to live up to the rationale that resulted in your vote, vote for someone else.
Sure. If you want to sit back and wait passively for 4 years. or 8. By all means.
"A march needs to be massive and halt traffic during business hours."
Nonsense. All you ever achieve by disrupting traffic is annoyed drivers (even drivers who aren't disrupted are sympathetic to the drivers). Effective marches need to be serious. The media have to pay attention if the march is composed of people who take it seriously, as opposed to simply appearing to be there because it's a nice day for a walk. It also helps if the marchers are different from the perceived "normal" marchers (essentially, students and middle-aged protesters who simply go because they love protesting). People marching down the street in suits and dresses get more attention. Stunts and costumes simply make the entire march seem like a parade in which people are there to have fun, not protest. If you take a look at pictures of old civil rights marches, people aren't casually dressed and laughing and having a good time. There are no people dressed oddly. They are dead serious and dressed as if they are going to an important event - which they are. Blocking traffic won't work - the focus will be on the traffic jam, with a brief mention (at best) of what the entire protest was about.
because they don't exist.
CasualObserver wrote: " I have not read the blind Obama apologists Greenwald refers to , but this comment from their Hero seems to indicate that Obama himself wants to hear input from a wide range of sources. To his credit, he has explicitly stated a fear of becoming walled off and isolated in the WH."
What Glenn is using is a familiar tactic at Salon. When you get criticsm regarding your column, imply that there are a vast number of people, unseen of course, who are unfairly attacking you because of their blind devotion to the subject. That way you can insult and ignore any criticsm.
Right on cue. By any chance are you the neighbor ZigoMandelbaum refers to here?
I'm also aware of a neighbor, a long time democratic party activist. My impression of her is that she is little other than giddy about the process of transplanting parties. She appeared to me eagerly focused on the convention/nomination then, the inauguration now. It feels like she likes the ostensible power of it all.
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/13/obama/permalink/4041b258955fd5d389e8a278ba50cbab.html
yes, actually---and you can send any complaints to g_d@burningbush.net.
(They'll just end up in His spam folder, though.)
I fear with Hillary we will be led in the same direction on the Israel/Palestine issue. The advisers Hillary is surrounding herself with are the same ones who have crafted the last 16-20 years of failed middle east policies.
Bernbart!--kudos on a good comment, imo. Don't agree with it, but it's a good comment I think.
I don't see Clinton or her staff as horrible problem, so much as the totally one-sided stance of the US favoring Israel. So long as that is policy, then the US won't ever contribute to 'sustainable peace' in the ME.
An anecdote from a former member of the LBJ administration.
ROGER WILKINS, April 28, 2008:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/uploaded_files/6671%20-%20042808_commonwealth_past_transcript.pdf
Now, let me just make two observations about presidents and getting things done. There is an old story that maybe some of you have heard. Sidney Hillman was a big labor leader. He had helped Roosevelt when Roosevelt was the governor and he helped him in the '32 campaign. So he went to the White House and he was welcomed as he should have been. He said, here is what you have to do Mr. President, da, da, da, da, da, da. And the story goes that President Roosevelt said, Sidney I agree with everything in your proposal, it is all exactly right, now you just go back home and make me do it.
And the same thing happened with Lyndon Johnson and the Voting Rights Act. He wanted to do the Voting Rights Act, he had used up a lot of chits on the Civil Rights Act and he just engaged in a very long romancing of Martin Luther King, Jr., to make sure that King put his people on the streets and kept the people's feet to the fire and move along and move along and he essentially said to King - - make me do it.
And King put the people on the street, and then there was pressure from inside the government on the president - - with which I was associated - - and it happened.
- - Roger Wilkins
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
