Greenwald supports the bad guys with arguments like that.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
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![]() Greenwald supports the bad guys with arguments like that. HTH. Cheers, Scott. |
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![]() Is that why Obama felt emboldened to move to the Left after the election in 2008? |
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![]() Note his framing (roughly) "bad guys and 'little bit worse' guys". Republicans these days (since 2008) aren't "a little bit worse" than Democrats. They're just not. Greenwald's "logic" about voting 3rd party or not voting at all helps Republicans. It's bad. He's not stupid - he knows the result logical result of his high and mighty advocacy. It's not about moving Obama to the Left, it's about keeping the know-nothing reactionaries from destroying the government (and the country in the process). We know you think that such destruction would be good, but I think 99.99% of us don't. HTH. ;-) Cheers, Scott. |
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![]() I thought these election things were supposed to be about acheiving representative government. I said this back in 07 but it merits repetition: If the likes of Clinton and Obama are allowed to pass as Progressives, then this whole charade needs a giant do-over that can only come from the rebuild after the destruction. I really think this difference we have over consciously choosing not to support the Wall Street Lackies - R and D alike - is a difference in how passionately each of us cares about getting the genuine representative government the founders had in mind. You seem to be willing to sacrifice that (true, representative government) so that things will be slightly less bad. I and the 1/2 of all eligible voters who see this sham for what it is and choose not to play along are unwilling to abandon the very principles that define us as a people and as a nation. Your way led us to where we are today. Are you truly proud of the results? As far as your claim that, "Republicans these days (since 2008) aren't "a little bit worse" than Democrats. They're just not" I hasten to point out that this Democratic President is the first we've had that claimed when it comes to assassinating American citizens on the say so of the President alone - he is much, much worse. Not even Dubya claimed that. |
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![]() http://www.salon.com/2010/01/27/yemen_3/ After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. . . . The way to move the national government to the left is to elect more Democrats. Electing more Republicans isn't going to do it. Greens or whatever who would agree to caucus with the Democrats would too, of course (look at Bernie). But fringe candidates who have no chance of being elected won't move the country to the left. It's only when there is a large-enough majority will nuances in opinion and policy develop. You know this. When a party has a bare majority, unity is what drives policy and that unity is driven by the leadership. There's no space for movement. (In the House, Boehner is hemmed in by the Teabaggers who have taken control. They may be a minority in some respects, but they control everyone as if they were the majority.) You keep talking as if you believe that Obama is the one standing in the way of the Grand and Glorious Progressive Future ™ that we want (though we differ in the details I'm sure). Obama isn't the problem. The problem is there aren't enough Democrats in the House and Senate. If there were 70 Democrats in the Senate, and 300 Democrats in the House, do you really think that Wall Street's 0.01% would be happy? Do you really think that Obama would stand in the way of progressive legislation? (Insert standard response to "public option" rebuttal - Obama needed 60 votes and wouldn't get them with a "public option".) FWIW. HTH. Cheers, Scott. |
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![]() You keep talking as if you believe that Obama is the one standing in the way of the Grand and Glorious Progressive Future ™ that we want (though we differ in the details I'm sure). Obama isn't the problem. The problem is there aren't enough Democrats in the House and Senate. After 2008 - recall Obama won even in Indiana and was the first Democrat to win Indiana in the General since LBJ - he had majorities in both houses. That happened because Obama is a gifted DoubleSpeaker. But if he had taken that mandate, there well may have been 80 Democrats in the Senate and 325 Democrats in the House. He lost his true-believers (read: younger voters) in two years because he was just exactly what I always knew he was: YAN Wall Street Asshat. So, in large measure, heck yes! Obama is a rather large obstruction. |
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![]() Medscape: Age Groups in the 2010 Election Cook Political Report: In 2012 - according to exit polls - House Democrats won 60 percent of voters ages 18-29, 51 percent of voters ages 30-44, 47 percent of voters ages 45-64, and 44 percent of voters ages 65 and older. That combination was enough to win them a 49 percent to 48 percent plurality of all votes cast for House (even if Republicans still kept a comfortable majority thanks to Democrats' inefficient distribution on the map and redistricting). (Emphasis added.) I don't have the time to get the relevant numbers and do the calculations - you're welcome to if you're interested. ;-) Lots of reasons accounted for the Democrats losses in 2010 - the deadly slow recovery, the Obamacare hysteria, etc. Pointing to Obama's dead batteries in his Green Lantern isn't a very good one. FWIW. Cheers, Scott. |
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![]() Hoist by your fervent-hope-Petard. The charade will continue unabated, with a soupçon of ~2%-'advertised-fixes' on this or that screeeching-un-oiled-wheel. For a time.. (as things move even faster.. unnoticed in the DC-sandbox or in many households.) When the USSC is 'corrupt'--on various levels/by whichever metaphor; when the HR is replete with groups who are manifestly nemeses of Reason, Science (and also too, unBelievers of the Founding documents' content)--while the Senate hangs-by-a-thread: over the chasm of Two Thirds! of our tripartite Government; Dysfunctional and Anti-democracy. (Name any two Corporations.. able and Willing to reform-selves. Or more than two near-Trillionaires/Rulers-via-$$$.) Might as well debate with Mephistopheles over the absence of air-conditioning? Mike may be quite right: that First the Fall.. then with fingers/toes/eyes crossed: one might hope not to get Robespierre back-from-the dead: in that interim after the blood has been sanded-over and the bodies taken out of sight. ... So SHOCK! Me ... reveal (finally!) how it can *happen: that a couple-hundred million, legally-'adults' can be--in Time--inculcated into a state nearing-Adulthood! Go ahead: all means are on the table, (chemical, physical, emotional or psychological--you can't count-on Reason being prevalent) as, survival is a-sort-of issue, (however rarely is that tie-in noticed by the aforementioned adults.) I'm All Ears. * ..amidst the incessant-NOISE which all are now inured-to (or are blessedly-deaf.) Why do Muricans adore Violence-in-all-its forms, love disaster-flics, tie their penii to the hair-triggers on guns and store billions of rounds, at-the-ready? We used to call such factoids: a litmus for some underlying psyche. (Now: 'we avert our Eyes'.) |
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![]() How long it will take is anyone's guess, but things will get better. The Koch Brothers aren't winning. Cantor was thrown out of office by a few thousand people who bothered to vote. It's not hopeless. People need to double-down and fight the reactionary elements who only try to appeal to our lizard brains. It is happening; not uniformly of course, but it is happening. Events in 2014 are tilting toward the Democrats. The US economy is finally gaining steam. Russia's belligerence in Ukraine is winding down. Iraq is falling apart, but it's doing so more slowly than it was a few weeks ago. Obama may be able to convince Bibi that invading Gaza again would be stupid and a cease-fire may happen soon. Even things that are are blowing up in the US and are problems, like the VA and the influx of Central American children, seems to be breaking Obama's way - he'll get a larger budget to address the problems, and it forces the Republicans to work with him to address real problems (or face even more marginalization from the voters). 2016 is highly likely to be another Democratic year. Nothing is a given, of course, but things are looking up. If you want to be depressed, think back to 1972 - 1974 or so. The seemingly never-ending quagmire in Vietnam and SE Asia was finally winding down but causing a huge amount of angst and anger ("the first war we lost!!!"). The Yom Kippur war. The oil price shocks. The corruption and venality of Nixon and his cronies. The crap cars. The decimation of NASA. Wounded Knee. The coup against Allende in Chile. And on and on. We eventually got through that. We'll get through this, too. Hang in there. Cheers, Scott. (Who isn't always an optimist, but when he is... :-) |
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![]() (Whistling past the cemetery) oft ends-down on a 12-Tone dirge in C#-minor, accompanied by the gnashing of teeth, self-administered scourging and sobbing into something like Coors-Light-ugh. :-/ :-) Yes, it is possible that your hopeful-list could converge; I mean, ya can't throw 66 straight snake-eyes.. without an expectation next: of an occasional 7 ... and today IS er, 7/11. And like that Other set of brothers ~ end of '70s, who fancied to corner the Ag Market and lost a %huge of their ill-gotten spoils in the attempt: all may hope to see the Kochs receive their just-desserts of hemlock-laced bon-bons. But I believe-in {some} math: n! suggests the daunting synergy which intensifies each [-], especially when the zeitgeist is saturated with gasoline-soaked Nutters-carrying-torches, intent on, ..if I can't have it All My Way--I'll break it All up! (Such was not the enviro with Nixon bombing Cambodia/ignoring Our mobs-with-torches: and we had then, at least One gutsy Special Prosecutor ... thus Nixon's seppuku was sealed. Banker-thieves have yet to get even a wrist-slap, [etc.-a-Lot\--and any next burst of 'prosperity' shall sink memories of the Shogunate and that-all, deeper into the fuzzy collective-memories. Maybe a National-epidemic of cheery ebullience! Can so ridicule/confound the utter-nihilism du jour, that Normality just.. Strikes !?! (But I just got another %#&@$ Robo-call from "Cardholder Services"--all illegal for us No-Call-registered and.. despite the BS re 'minimal inflation cha cha cha', prices for edible food continue to skyrocket, for no parse-able Reasons.) Soo.. We'll See if.. A red sky at night Means it went-off alright --A Leaden Treasury of English Verse by Paul Dehn; Drawings by Edward Gorey ©1958 |