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Democrats in Revolt Over Obama’s Troop Surge
Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.
Anti-war activists take part in a rally near the U.S. embassy in Seoul November 18, 2009. (REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak) After almost three months of agonizing, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000, as many troops as the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan.
The carefully chosen backdrop cannot disguise Obama's dilemma. Somehow he has to convince his own public that the United States has an exit strategy and will not become bogged down, as it did in Vietnam, while making clear to the Taliban and Pakistan that it has not lost its resolve and will stay as long as it takes.
Obama's toughest challenge will be to win over his most loyal political supporters. He is facing a growing revolt in the Democratic party over why the US needs to be in Afghanistan at all when the real threat - Al-Qaeda - is in Pakistan, and over the spiraling cost in both lives and dollars.
"I think the operative question is why we're there," said Anna Eshoo, a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the House intelligence committee. "That's what I'll be wanting to hear from the president."
Eshoo, who represents a seat in California where unemployment is at a post-war high of 12.5%, is one of a growing number of voices in the party questioning whether the nation can afford the war.
The annual bill for the extra troops is estimated at $30 billion (£18.2 billion), on top of the $10 billion-a-month the war is costing. "We're still not out of Iraq and we're getting deeper into Afghanistan, both of which are hugely expensive," she said.
She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. "It doesn't seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families," she said.
In a sign of White House concern over the issue Obama invited Peter Orszag, the budget director, to sit in on his final round of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy last week. "There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?" said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.
Obey's proposal would impose a 1% surtax on anyone earning less than $150,000 a year, and up to 5% on those earning more. It was an idea put into practice by President Lyndon Johnson, who brought in a temporary 10% surtax to help pay for the Vietnam war.
Democrats fear that stepping up the conflict at a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high of 10.2% will rebound on them in the mid-term elections next November.
"I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. "That's what a lot of other Democrats like Pelosi are worried about right now."
For this reason Obama's speech will emphasize that sending more troops does not mean a never ending commitment to the war. "The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.
Obama has come under much criticism from the military at home and abroad and both sides of the political spectrum for the amount of time he has taken to decide whether to back recommendations made by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to send more troops "or risk failure".
Obama is expected to back a compromise proposal from Robert Gates, his defence secretary, to send 30,000 troops. This is less than the 40,000-plus requested by McChrystal, but he hopes to make up the shortfall with 10,000 extra soldiers from NATO countries. NATO defense ministers are meeting this week but an official admitted its contribution is likely to be more like 5,000.
There is still more backing for the war in the US than in Britain - a poll last week showed slightly more Americans in favor of escalating the war than cutting troop levels. But this support comes largely from Obama's political opponents, while those who voted for him and who will be crucial to re-electing Democrats in Congress next year are skeptical.
"Voters, particularly women, thought they had elected an anti-war president to get them out of Iraq, not to get them deeper into Afghanistan," said Karen O'Connor, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington.
With the 21,000 extra troops Obama agreed in February, he will have authorized more than 50,000 this year.
The situation in Afghanistan was far worse than he realized during the campaign and has deteriorated since his election last November.
The president will need all his resolve in the coming months. Military commanders admit that sending more troops will mean more casualties, though they hope that the McChrystal strategy of pulling troops back to the main cities and highways will show some results. The Americans are anxious to avoid getting entangled in remote valleys and villages fighting the Taliban.
The biggest obstacle to success may be the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who started his second term in office earlier this month after a deeply flawed election.
Officials will be watching closely to see whether he brings in warlords to his cabinet and what he does about his brother, Ahmed Wali, reputed to be heavily involved in opium smuggling.
Wali was in Mecca last week. "He went to repent," laughed a close adviser to Karzai. "He thinks that's enough."
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109 Comments so far
Show AllRemember all ye of the rose blinders Obomber appointed all these war criminals he is supposedly moderating.
taking it to the streets is the answer to this. massive marchs
in dc. everyday until our troops are home with their families
again and these fucks are in prison where they belong
until they die!
What "anti-war" president? Those of us who carefully scrutinized Obama's voting record knew long ago that he was just another apologist/enabler for the U.S. Empire of military and economic aggression. That's why we voted for Cynthia McKinney.
Now that more liberals have begun to see Obama for who he really always was, instead of their deluded projections of him, what will they do?
Will they still vote for Democrats as "the lesser of two evils", further enabling evil to continue?
Will they justify those votes for Democratic warmongers over Republican warmongers because "the perfect is the enemy of the good"?
Do they still cling to the delusion that Democrats who fund and support illegal wars of aggression and oppose prosecution of the Bush/Cheney war crimes are "good"?
I can only speak for myself, of course, though I hope there are many like me...
For the past 30+ years I always voted democratic, sometimes holding my nose, but voting democratic nonetheless. I was protecting our advanced civilization from republicans, or some such thing; the lesser of two evils DID make a difference, I rationalized. Stupid, stupid me.
But the election of O has cured me of my fears of republicans and shown me how delusional I was. Who cares if sarah's strutting around the oval office in 2012? The fix is in, as someone said earlier, and the only possible way out, though it's not probable, is to participate in a progressive, populist 3rd party movement. Nothing else is worth the time or the effort.
In the meantime, I think boycotting, worldwide boycotting of all sorts of goods and services can have great impact. Of course, even if we can get the message out, getting people (i.e., Americans) to participate would be mindboggingly difficult. But it does offer some hope.
The democrats are indeed REVOLTING. They are becoming slicker than the republican pigs.
A surtax will ensure that they can fund portions of the war without having to repeatedly include the amount as part of that raised in their supplemental funding bills.
Thus, these funds won't be included in the congressional record.
The funds from these surtaxes will just become part of the already unknowable amount of excessive money going to the beastly Pentagon.
Another fraud perpetrated for Wall Street.
Like Canada, they've soiled themselves.
Except when the US poops, it poops BIG! We are still smelling VietNam. And then there's that little mess in Iraq.
Barack Obama's takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.
"I gotta win in 2012 . . . just gotta gotta gotta. I'm no pussy like Jimmy Carter. Man, this is one great friggin' job, I gotta tell ya. My ego's pumped up like a blimp an' I'm rakin' in the cash so fast . . . ooops, did I say that?"
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Otoken isn't rakin' in big money quite yet, but he and Rahm have gleamy-eyed dreams of platinum lobbyist positions and board memberships for some of the ugliest corporations out there, no doubt.
She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. "It doesn't seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families," she said.
The "sacrifice" of money hardly equals the sacrifice wrought on soldiers and families in the wars for profit. Let the children of privilege and the families of the corporations share the actual sacrifice of blood and grief.
Send shareholders, and their children, of the corporations that so love war to the front; and, let their children be 'sacrificed' to increase their profits from death.
All ceo's, general officers, politicians, and the CinC, should put in their time at the pointy end of things.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The broader public are consistently and deliberately dysinformed about these wars. This tax idea would only be just if it were a progressive tax with its highest impact on the CEO class with no loopholes for them.
Nice choice of location for his speech. It's the sort thing Bush would have done. Make your speech in front of an audience that will provide cheers for the media photo shoot. As a closed military base, it also lets you keep out dissenters. The thugs in training at West Point are all trying to figure out if they are the next General Grant or General Patton so they will all be applauding. Unfortunately, they will also wind up looking a lot more like Westmoreland in the years to come.
If Obama was a little more honest he would give his speech at Arlington, in front of the tombstones. At least that way, the public would get a little advance notice of what they are in for.
will 0 don one of junior's faux uniforms?
"will 0 don one of junior's faux uniforms?"
Of course not. Obama is anything but gauche.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
It is EXACTLY the same thing Bush would have done in terms of audience selection for this crap. Your uniform slam of West Pointers is uncalled for, however. In the WMD lies agit-prop campaign leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq several dozen West Pointers boldly and bravely pledged their "honor and their personal fortunes" to resist what they saw as a looming illegal war.
The corporate press made sure their stories were never heard.
odoco
Let's not forget people like Lt. Ehren Watada (refused to deploy to Iraq based on his belief that it is an unconstitional and illegal war); Camillo Mejia (refused to redeploy to Iraq), and so many more war resisters that we have never heard about. Every kid in America who is thinking of enlisting should go to YouTube and watch Watada's speech he gave in 2006 at the Veterans for Peace convention - his bravery is mindboggling. The backdrop to his speech consisted of about 25 Iraq and Afghanistan war vets mounting the stage behind him in a show of physical and emotional support. One of the most moving things I have ever witnessed - and I am 60 years old.
Jeevee
WHY IS IT SO EASY TO BE TAKEN IN BY FALSE CAMPAIGN "PROMISES" WHEN VOTING RECORDS ARE EASILY OBTAINED THROUGH THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS or/and THE LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS?
Exactly! Several of Obama's campaign volunteers told the people they contacted that Obama was an anti-war candidate, voted against funding the Iraq war, and actually voted against the war from the beginning. In my liberal, progressively active college town, I was told this by two separate volunteers on two separate occasions. I imagine hundreds were told the same thing. When I challenged these Obama cheerleaders, they argued with me until I became weary and suggested that they look it up immediately. They were spreading untruths. I actually know the volunteers and know they weren't lying. They were ignorant of the truth. That's almost as bad!
"There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?" said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.
--This is the only criterion this Congress can even dream of applying--whether we can afford paying for more of this criminal action. If Obey's surtax met with little opposition and sailed thru, there would be maybe three members who still might object to prolonging the crime. Kucinich, Lee and maybe one other. Everyone else would go along for the ride, straight into the abyss. "Polls" would show a 50/50 split for support, like every one of these tweaked, fraudulent devices for keeping the fascistic agenda humming smoothly along. Taxpayers would object and not be heard, like always where war is concerned. Moral arguments against this obscenity, this serial murder of a dirt poor country and its defenseless people, would fall on the deaf ears of Washington power brokers and corporate media alike, just as they have since 2002. Obama listens to no one but elites who stand to gain by war profiteering, the warlords at the Pentagon, and politicians on the Right. Exactly like his imbecilic predecessor puppet. No difference, no change.
"The situation in Afghanistan was far worse than he realized during the campaign and has deteriorated since his election last November."
--That's only because he has refused to listen for one fucking minute to anyone actually opposing this disaster forged by Bush/Cheney and adopted as the defining cause of his administration by Obama the Fool. Nearly everyone who participates in this forum KNEW beyond the slightest doubt exactly how catastrophic the situation in Afghanistan was years ago, because of the damage and destruction, the murder and mayhem Bush had wreaked, and the fact that Obama DID NOT see or understand this only shows how fundamentally stupid he is about all such things as wars perpetrated under a mountainous pretext of LIES. This makes him precisely as "anti-war" as Bush was. We have absolutely no just cause for being there at all and never did have, and since he either cannot or will not comprehend this, he is as much a war criminal as Bush and Cheney and their mafia.
During the spring of 2008 I averred on this site that the imperialist Senator Obama would start his own "new" war in Afghanistan/Pakistan if he became our next President. Ergo, nothing what he will say nor the choice of venue will surprise me next Tuesday. I am not angry but I will not give him the honor of listening to the litany of lies and hot air (I am so sorry that I have to do this....)which he will undoubtedly sprout.
What does surprise me is the following. Can you believe that General Eisenhower would have told the world, hence Adolf Hitler, that several hundred thousand American soldiers would land in Normandy on D-Day in 1944 before the landings even occurred? No way! Yet the Pentagon has already announced that 9000 marines will go to Helmand Province in Afghanistan almost immediately after the President's speech. The insurgents do not have to move heavy armaments hence they can already be gone elsewhere when the first marine arrives at Baghram airbase. Is this "aiding and abetting the enemy"?
Crowsnest 2:55 -- It goes beyond that. Besides USA contracters paying the resistence protection money. There are rumors in Kabul that helicopters ferried some resistence forces to Kunduz recently to oppose Nato forces. Who has helicoptors on the scene?
Truly beyond psychopathic dystopia. So much so it sounds like the truth and probably is.
–(Jill Bains)
Deduction: the war in Afghanistan is even "dumber" than the Iraq war.
Does anyone know what the intention behind the proposed surtax is? I don't know much about Reps Obey or Eshoo. Is this effort similar in intention to efforts to impose a draft by pro-peace Representatives early in the Iraq war? Or is it motivated by deficit concerns? Beyond intent of the bill, do you think the existence of a "surtax" might actually rouse the disengaged majority of America from their apathetic slumber and forge a common cause between demoralized peace activists and the anti-tax tea party types? Or would it just be an expansion of the blank check Congress regularly hands out for never-ending military engagement?
zea 3:21 ------- The exact questions we should all be asking.
The only thing that will defeat this corporate dictatorship is a unified populist oppossition.
To your last question, a resounding YES. Obey is head of House Appropriations Committee and all he's really concerned about is the Numbers. The current budget can't stand the added strain of all the billions that will be poured down the shithole euphemistically called the War on Terror. This is the shithole Obama wants desperately to keep digging and throwing the economy and countless lives into. As for rousing the majority of Americans from their apathetic slumber and forging a common cause with the tea-baggers and peace activists, no such common cause exist between these groups and cannot by definition. If apathetic Americans were rousable they would have risen to action during the hideous lying years under Bush the Insane and Murdering Idiot. Nothing can rouse these zombies.
"Nothing can rouse these zombies." –(Ephraim)
This is true.
Someone told me today that the unemployment rate in California is 'officially' near 13%, which means it is actually much more.
One wonders what would happen if the rate was actually double, or not triple that? I suspect, little if anything. The opacity in America remains astonishing, so much so that conclusive evidence of a crisis remains indecipherable, and premonitions are all but undetectable– if not shrouded in coding.
The real truth is that– as you presciently point out– we have been living through an ongoing crisis (at the very least since Reagan) that has all but arrived. 'Obamaism,' to the discerning spectator, represents the end of Progressive hope and reveals such sentimental wishful thinking as the nonsensical and illusory claptrap it is: That will be Obama's enduring legacy.
Are Americans going to get something 'better' in America? Someone who would make a difference? Don't make me laugh. Not unless we are talking about a more advanced form of fascism as something that is seen as the 'good?'
In a more or less absolute economic or political crisis–one that was materially palpable–I suspect Americans would be blissfully unprepared and clueless. Expect them–even the most liberal or 'enlightened' ones– to embrace some variant of fascism, one not so different from the one that presently exists. But it will remain discretely subliminal in appearance, at least in the beginning.
"Indeed, who needs direct repression when one can convince the chicken to walk freely to the slaughterhouse?"
–(Slavoj Žižik, "First As Tragedy, Then As Farce," Verso Books, 2009).
Nor will the houses of the rich be consumed in flames: They will, instead, be protected 'round the clock' by high tech Special police forces. Blackwater could even be brought in!
Even my local bookstore has a specifically designated "Zombie Section." (No BS here!) There must be a reason for that, and I think we all know–if we are honest enough to admit it–what that 'reason' is.
The filmaker George Romero's zombie apocalypse in the shopping mall presents the 'afterlife' of consumer entropy? Metaphor or reality? Even if there is nothing they can buy, the American people will still go, lurching into paradise.
–(Jill Bains).
" a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan."
How dumb can you get? Obama PROMISED during his campaign to increase the war in Afganistan.....
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/afghanistan/
Don't believe the slant that there is internal opposition among Democratic leaders over the Afghanistan war. The Dems support this war with the exception of a tiny minority (Kucinich, Lee, and maybe a few more).
The idea that the Dems are ambiguous about supporting the Af-Pak wars comes mostly from news accounts. If these antiwar representatives actually exist, we don't really hear much from them on this issue.
Pelosi is cited in this article as noting "serious unrest" in the Dem caucus and questioning the war's cost. However, we've seen many such misleading statements from Pelosi concerning the Iraq war, which she heartily supported. Her comment seems to be a repeat performance, confusing people about her pro-war stance.
The article cites Representative Anna Eshoo showing concern, but she just supports Obey's tax scheme to fund and continue the Afghanistan war. Is that supposed to constitute internal Dem Party opposition? By the way, Obey was the guy caught on camera cussing out an antiwar activist who asked him a few questions about the Iraq war, which Obey supported.
Obama promised to escalate the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan during his 2008 Presidential campaign and he's actually giving the voters just what he promised. I'm not sure why people were confused about that. His very first action as President was to order Predator drone attacks in Pakistan.
So, let's stay realistic that the Dems are not on your side and they want to continue Bush's wars, even while the country becomes more bankrupt day after day, and while more and more people lose their jobs. This is not a "guns and butter" approach - it's all guns and profits for the military industrial complex. It's senseless, stupid and venal and it reflects the reality of the corporate-owned Democratic Party.
-TIA
"Don't believe the slant that there is internal opposition among Democratic leaders over the Afghanistan war." (TIA)
Of course, you are absolutely correct here.
It is obscene to even countenance the absurdity that there could be real "internal opposition" within the corpse that calls itself the Democratic Party.
But what remains astonishing is that so many will continue to debate this as if it were not already a foregone conclusion?
There, in a 'nutshell,' is the problem which remains intractable in America: Bad faith thrown after bad faith and one that is continually renewed!
–(Jill Bains)
So if we now know thar the Dems are corporate-owned and we already knew that the Repubs were corporate-owned, what does that thell you about our political process?
Hoa binh
Yep, they're a tricky bunch, they are. Do they get their political strategy from psyop experts?
Half-witted Democratic voters were sufficiently warned at least 2 years ago by many McKinney and Nader supporters on this site alone, who saw the Black Bush for what he truly was: an Uncle Tom of the slickest order dying to please his white masters. But their brains span is too narrow, you can still witness their stupidity on a daily basis on Democratic Underground.
So now we have to put up with the first African-American war criminal to occupy the Oval Office for another 7 years. Will voters ever learn?
The only evil is ignorance. You need to open your eyes to the truth, it is seldom as simple as black and white. If we are to survive, we must get past this hatred that has taken us over, and stop demonizing what we don't understand. The truth is all we really have, and it is also all that we really need to wake up. Peace.
Sorry, blindman, but uncle charlie is a thousand times more honest and perceptive than you are. If ignorance is "the only evil" then you are willfully evil, since it's most apparent how willfully ignorant you are, and self-righteously so. You say "the truth is all we need to wake up," and yet you cling to the Big Lie so many "liberals" do that Obama and his phony party of "opposition" somehow reside in the halls of truth, justice and the Imperialist American Way.
There may be a difference between propagating outright lies and simply being so deluded as to be constitutionally incapable of distinguishing lies from one's fear of the real truth. In that event, maybe you're simply too afraid to acknowledge how wrong you've been about these despicable Democrats you persist in having faith in. Oh, but the Republicans are worse! So we must support the Democrats, no matter how foolish we may be doing it! Well, hang on to your delusions since they're so important to your mental health. Don't expect anyone else to sit in your padded cell.
"The only evil is ignorance." –(genierae)
So true!
Then let me sign up for your classes! I unhesitatingly acknowledge you as the primary exponent and expert on "evil" and "ignorance" both. –(Jill Bains)
What on Earth are you referring to? My eyes have been open to the truth, and so have the eyes of many progressives. Your post sounds like a convoluted attempt to apologize for Obama's repeated broken promises, lies, crimes and failures as president.
It seems like no matter what a pres or any elected official thinks he/she can do originally, it gets twisted into almost the opposite, once they are in office. I don't know if Obama was more pro-war expansion of the war than he campaigned on or if, as the article states, the situation was worse than he thought. So, to me that means, get to hell out, you can't fix it. Not, let's throw some more bodies at it and see if that'll work.
I did vote for Obama. But, ya know, it's becoming more obvious everyday, that what I have been thinking for the last few years is true. That we are so screwed up in this world, that there is no fix. I really think that there are so many issues and everything is linked that it's a done deal, no way out. It's not that I'm not optimistic really. I just think that if the stuctures by which civilization come crumbling down, we can start over. It won't be pretty at firstBut neither is what we have now. It may take a generation or two to put together something better.
I agree with you. I think that the Bush administration pretty well destroyed every part of the US gov't, and I also think that they intended to do just that. They want this country to be one gigantic corporation, of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. The problem with that mindset is that it doesn't work. Left to itself, without regulation and oversight, capitalism does not work. It should have been a means, not an end. The better world that is coming will put the common good first, with capitalism as the means to sustain it. Make no mistake, we shall overcome. (As long as we don't vote for Republicans.)
"the initiate" and "genierae"
Many of the worst aspects of the Bush administration were made possible through the actions of the Clinton administration.
There is a clear and constant erosion of this nation easily traceable from Reagan through all of the presidents up to this very moment. Some of the most egregious assaults on the Constitution were done under Clinton and Obama. If you chose to continue to primarily blame the republicans, who do indeed deserve disdain, and ignore the terrible actions of the democrats, then you can only be seen as disingenuous or, at best, foolish.
I honestly think that between the democrats and the republicans, there is no longer a lesser of evils.
I agree with you Bird. Our whole political system is the problem. Lobbyists have replaced the "We the people" in the political process. "We" can't even talk with our government anymore.
Hoa binh
So you actually still believe the Democrats and Obama do not represent capitalism at its very worst, in equal measure with Republicans? That they and this miserable president aren't equally culpable of all the ills in the country you decry, along with everyone else here? Then you are decidedly unable to learn from even the most recent history.
"They want this country to be one big gigantic corporation, of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich."
And now they have realized their wish. This is exactly what we have become.
The destruction of the US Govt. started long before Bush, even before Bush Sr.
Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes (now Obama) all systematically worked to transfer public funds to private hands. That's the very first priority of every/any US president. If you think Democrats are any better, or less worse, than Republicans, you're deranged.
Mr. President, at least mention Pipelinistan, the WOD and the MIC. Don't give us any more sorry excuses why we should be pouring more money into that rat hole instead of healthcare, education, infrastructure, high speed trains, green energy, family planning, pollution controls, jobs, organic agriculture, nuke decommissioning, etc. Don't insult our intelligence with more Bush fearmongering.
"Don't insult our intelligence with more Bush fearmongering."
The "Obama phenomenon" is all about insulting our intelligence.
Can you feel it now?
I'm waiting to be convinced by Obama that this is not a war of choice. Regardless, rich people should pay for this, since their likely the only ones to benefit.
Watch for a lot of "fiscal responsibility" posturing by Blue Dogs. They will need to try to restore some "cred" on this, since this image has been pretty much shattered in the healthcare reform debate.
[Democrats in Revolt .....]
Do we laugh or cry over that idiocy? Why does CD print such drivel? It's not only that it is false, it is that everyone knows it to be false.
That is one of the interesting things about effective propaganda. It is not only false, it is obviously false. No one believes it. Like the entire WMD scam. And yet, it works. We read, and believe that we have done our part, we've felt sad at what is happening. It's bad of course, but what can we do? We've done all we can.
We read and commiserate. Is that enough? Is this type of idiocy helping anyone understand what is happening? What purpose does it fill? Is it a palliative? Something to occupy our minds to keep us from looking for the truth? Is it part of the War Effort?
Of course, we really cannot do a damn thing to change the course of events. But, for crying out loud, we can at least try to understand what is happening. So, there is something we can do. We can understand. But not by reading drivel like this. And, I by no means think it is easy to understand what is happening, it's a big surprise to me, but I really have no freaking idea myself (and I have a high opinion of my intellect).
I don't just read CD, Salon, Truthdig, and the like, which I think are all basically coming from the same place. I also read Karl Denninger, William Engdahl, Michael Hudson, Michel Choussodovsky, Webster Tarpley, and others farther out, but it's still a mystery. But lordy, this endless wailing, Obama and the Dems done us wrong, with nothing to follow but more complaining, does seem a little pointless.
not allan damn right i read these folks too. truth is the dems are the
enemy! we elected them and still can't take their tools out of our
a...s. problem is this takes at least 2 fronts to fght the govt. on
1st. we need to have mass demonstrations until we break them down.
2 we need candidates who we can trust to write lasting regulation
that will be impervious to the rapacious bastards who really run this
planet! these candidates have to be straight shooters who don't have any serious
skeletons in their closets. can't be bribed blackmailed or or
the like! this will start to move things back where we can do the rest!
and we need this to be our friends family and neighbors- people
who have the backbone to get it done! not professional slick
talkers like OBAMA real folks not some lightweight wimps!
I really like the bit about 'risk failure'.
Ha ha hah ahh a aaahhhaa!
McChrystal has a great sense of humour.