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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"I'm guessin' MOTUS is Messiah of the U.S."
"Media", perhaps.
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.
This is pretty much the worst concept of democracy ever developed: democracy with the least amount of demos possible.
Lukewarm, wishy-washy change, was not what I was led to believe in...
For the first time I am getting quite worried about OB. The main problem of going "to the center" is that it means leaving the group that has been the moral voice of this country since the Bush administration, the left. Its not that we have taken sides for no reason. War, prisons, rendition, spying, torture, and so on. The issues reflect the basic moral core. There should NEVER be imprisonment without a trial and there should NEVER be a trial with tainted evidence. Thats a concentration camp. The Iraq war veterans will tell you that even the US government refers to the camps as concentration camps. Not only is this WRONG but it is the ONE OF THE UNDERLYING CAUSES OF TERRORISM AGAINST THE WEST. That tells me that its nothing but lack of nerve on the part of OB. He must know its wrong. Thats not good and he is actually endangering us by his pathetic attitude.
You could quit whining online and call or e-mail your House or Senate representatives on issues.
No shit! Man, I would never have thought of that one. Which brings me to this--why do you assume no one's done this?
Shooter McGavin:
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."
This is pure blather. Edmund Burke represented an 18th century sensibility. You might just as well cite "good order is the foundation of all things."
A sure recipe for perpetuation of the status quo.
There are several 'camps' at Guantanamo in which conditions are extreme isolation. At one of those, at least, there is enough noise to prevent sleep. Damage from extreme isolation and sleep deprivation takes less than 10 days to start, no more than 30 to have permanent effects.
I started to write something similar to Shooter McGavin's comment, but got interupted:
If he after a month or two in office, he fails to close Gitmo, or makes a move towards the establishment of some court with evidentiary rules that diverge from our legal traditions or moral principle, you and I can link arms and scream bloody murder together.
People haven't been paying attention if they think that these folk can afford any more time at all under the conditions they are being held in.
Your comment was much more eloquent and informed than any I could have written.
I quoted you. But I think if people are going to make the claim that there is this vast network of Obama supporters who are unwilling to criticize him than point me to that site. I go to Salon and I see criticism, TPM criticism, DailyKos criticism, Crooks and Liars criticism, NY Times criticism - that is pretty much every blog I read. Now, I'm not saying the criticism is unfair. I just think its a cheap tactic to constantly make note of "blind Obama supporters" when really Glenn is talking about 5 or 6 people who post in his blog, who may or may not be blind Obama supporters, but who usually just disagree with Glenn's point or his framing of the issue. Its the labeling I have a problem with. Just as Glenn doesn't like to be marginalized as some leftist with fantasies about civil liberty abuses, I don't believe he should marginalize criticism with such broad and dismissive labeling. And frankly, I think there are some things worthy of criticism in Glenn's columns.
For the record I think people were right to criticize Obama on FISA, on Gates at Defense, on his economic policy he just laid out. I just hate this tactic of complaining about people criticizing your work. It reeks of Joan Walsh style whining. Either address their concerns or ignore them. But to imply that there are vasts number of people trying to stop others from criticizing Obama - not on the websites I read, the news that I watch, or the papers I read. On any issue there are going be people who support one side or another, I mean Bush still has a 29% approval rating... address there concerns or don't. I feel like Glenn prefers to preach to the choir in his blog anyway.
When you succeed, will the lobbyists help draft the legislation?
Yes.
In fact, lobbyists don't just help draft the legislation, they draft it; resolutions too.
I thought the purpose of the political party, or the particular politician, was to work for us. It's a myth, but it's our myth...
But, in order to understand what we'd like our representatives to do for us, we should argue about, chat over, and generally debate, all the aspects of what we need, or want, and how best to get those things done.
Armed with a fair to middlin understanding of what our direction should be, inevitably, we should be able to tell when our leaders are not doing what we think they should be. So, when Obama isn't doing what he's supposed to be, we have to tell him. We have to argue for what we think is in our best interests. For someone to say that we ought not give him such direction is surely undemocratic from a very deep level.
The problem is the Democrats are torn. They are asked by their corporate donors, those with really deep pockets, to go one way, and their base consisting of most of the voters, are asking them to go in a completely other direction.
The corporations want to preserve the status quo involving insurance companies getting their cut. The people would like a single payer health care system. The corporations want the government to spend a lot on military hardware. The people don't want the waste involved and the wars used to justify the continual expenditures for guns instead of butter. The corporations want gov. handouts when they are going under. This does not seem to leave any money left for the people when they are going under.
And Glenn seems to be pointing out other such tensions.
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
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
