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TechnoratiSaving the Obama Revolution
The Obama revolution, and there was the hope of one, might still succeed. But only if Barack Obama follows the model of the incredibly successful Reagan revolution and heeds the political base that made his presidency possible.
Love him or not, Ronald Reagan had at least one outstanding political virtue-his respect for the concerns of those who placed their trust in him. And whenever the political vultures that feast on power tried to lead him astray, they were fired at the insistence of Reagan or his remarkably savvy wife, Nancy. Hopefully Obama and his no-less-impressive mate, Michelle, will do the same.
The first obligation of Obama as president is to be a peacemaker, since he as a candidate seized that mantle, successfully exploiting his early opposition to the Iraq war, which his closest rival, Hillary Clinton, had supported. Obama, as opposed to her flirtations with U.S. imperial arrogance, has stuck to a vision of a complex multipolar world in which the military option is to be chosen only as a last resort.
In that regard the president is making some progress, particularly with his decision to stop provoking the Russians with an unneeded and unworkable missile defense on their border. He also seems serious about getting the Israelis and Palestinians to peace negotiations, the one issue in the Mideast that must be solved if the region's religious fanatics are to be neutralized. And he will deserve credit if he backs his attorney general's quest to hold the enablers of a U.S. government torture policy accountable.
The deal breaker in foreign policy so far has been his escalation of the folly of U.S. nation-building in Afghanistan that feeds rather than mitigates terrorist recruitment. That is the unmistakable, if unintended, conclusion of the 66-page declassified report of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal that became public this week. It states: " ... many indicators suggest the overall situation is deteriorating. We face not only a resilient and growing insurgency; there is also a crisis of confidence among Afghans-in both their government and the international community-that undermines our credibility and emboldens the insurgents."
The report makes clear that the insurgents are deeply divided into three camps (one of which previously fought against the Taliban) and are basically homegrown, and provides no evidence that defeating them has anything to do with making us safer from attack by al-Qaida terrorists. Lest we forget, the 9/11 hijackers found it easier to operate from Germany, San Diego and Florida rather than forlorn Afghanistan.
The foreign influence behind the insurgency comes primarily from one of the countries we are allied with; as the report notes, "Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan." And the document goes on to say that the historical India-Pakistan rivalry has now been transferred to Afghanistan, where "the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian." Great, another Kashmir battlefield in the making.
Obama was right during his appearances Sunday on the TV political talk shows to put the emphasis on going after what remains of Osama bin Laden's forces in Pakistan and elsewhere rather than simply throwing more troops into the Afghanistan war. He raised the all-important question of what U.S. troops in Afghanistan are expected to do.
The McChrystal report agrees that the key is the question of mission rather than simply increasing troop numbers: "Success is achievable, but it will not be attained simply by trying harder or ‘doubling down' on the previous strategy. Additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way we think and operate."
There is a sobering honesty to McChrystal's report that those who want to "win" in Afghanistan must take into account. The mission the general outlines is one of nation-building with a vengeance by U.S. forces that must forsake the safety of their bases, learn the local languages and enter into the administration of local life without being able to count on the support of the hopelessly corrupt and, after the rigged election, illegitimate Afghan government. "Afghans are frustrated and weary after eight years without evidence of the progress they anticipated," the report says.
It's the old winning-hearts-and-minds strategy that has never worked-as Richard Holbrooke, Obama's point man in the region, should know from his failed efforts to win hearts and minds during the war in Vietnam, where he specialized in "rural pacification." That was a Democrat's war, and the base of the party, which knows better than to repeat that disastrous error, should tell the president so.
108 Comments so far
Show AllIf Obama were a Widescreen HD TV and didn't work we would have legal recourse. He ain't a TV.
Well, maybe we could trade him in for one!
· Yr Obd't Servant
It's good to see there are quite a few real progressives around, not just the Common Dreams official pretendgressives who get wheeled out whenever election time rolls around. Obomber always promised us more war--and only the fatally stupid portrayed him as a "peace candidate." The Democratic Party hacks, of course, never have and never will learn *anything* from history...which is why they keep supporting the warmakers and corporados who routinely fall out the anus of the donkey, into the top of the ticket.
You know, if the current crowd of faux progressives were magically transported back into history, there would have been no civil rights movement, no women's rights movement, and we'd probably still be a British colony. After all...you've got to be "realistic," and if you oppose the moderate Tories/racists/misogynists, you would just be helping the more extreme elements to take power.
I'm sure all our Dems-with-blinders understand...well, "understand."
---------------------------------
I would rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don't want and get that. -- Eugene V. Debs
d: i have to agree with you about the timidity of the "progressives" in this country and some of the folks here at cd
but there are a lot of tremendous posters as well
the timidity is learned in rockefeller schools
the progressives barely understand the current situation in this country - as evidenced by the continuing faith, despite of all the evidence, in obama
they watch rockefeller tv and see and buy into the re-written history of the united states
even the blacks have been neutered, in no small part, simply because obama is black. what is the old proverb: never judge a man by the color of his skin.
the progressives here at cd might be surprised to find that they are really tepid right wingers in any other country in the world. they have this ignorant and uninformed view, to a large extent, the double rockefeller bullshit lines:
1. markets are good
2. government is bad
the rockefellers are the biggest welfare bums in the united states and have been for a hundred years
they are steadfastly opposed to government handouts, unless they are the recipients
it is true that goldman sachs is encroaching on their territory but they remain in a leaugue of their own
ah, the american fascist/welfarebums/nwo/eugenicist/capitolist/nazi madmen
and the sheeple, despite their protestations look up to them, admire them, defer to them, and fear them all at the same time
having said all that d, don't tell the right wing lefties any of this - they get upset
you say: "f the current crowd of faux progressives were magically transported back into history, there would have been no civil rights movement, no women's rights movement, and we'd probably still be a British colony. After all...you've got to be "realistic," and if you oppose the moderate Tories/racists/misogynists, you would just be helping the more extreme elements to take power."
i say the reason why we have this mess on our hands today is because of the total destruction of the left - planned out and executed (pardon the pun) by the rockefellers - worse there is more fear than gumption in them
"people are fucked. they have been sucked into the consumerism and they are hooked on their big screen tvs and their football games. they are totally happy because they got a cell phone that makes pancakes."
george carlin
Here's a moral dilemma:
Someone you respect just did a horrible thing, for example, had some innocent people killed, including quite a few children, he keeps doing it so you know it isn't a mistake. Maybe the person is Charels Manson or maybe it's someone on a high horse, like Obama, Bush, Hillary, Kissinger, etc.
Do you continue to respect this person or turn away in disgust?
I think Robert Sheer would say, "That all depends on what political party he represents." Manson, he would turn away from. Obama, not a chance. He loves Obama! He wants so desperately to Stand by his Man! It is all so revolting, I have a hard time looking.
RvrWalker to Nation Magazine: End my subscription! You've gone over the top.
I am glad you reminded me as I I too have to cancel my subscription to "The Nation" Magazine.
Your reasoning for doing so hits all the right notes: It's in the "killing." Worse, in the killing by Predator drone.
Now courtesy (again!) of the Democratic party, a Democratic President and by a circuitous route, "The Nation Magazine."
Culpability has a long thread.
–(Jill Bains)
I'm working on an article about all the things Obama is doing right, congratulating him for it, and offering up my insider advice on what steps he needs to take now and in the near future. You know, just to basically insure his reelection and assure his loyal voters that they weren't blindsided by a total fraud, because we all know his overarching ambition relieves him of that charge. I hope to send it along to, where else?, the Democratic National Committee for vetting and imprimaturs. Don't want to step on any power toes. Maybe Robert Scheer could look it over and he could send it along to McChrystal for his McApproval. Obama's performing so splendidly, I can't think what I had in mind to even advise, now I think of it, because I've completely forgotten how to think. Now, wouldn't I fit right in, in the White House, I mean? As one of his trusted advisers? Maybe in 2012, after he rushes to another inspired victory.
I, too, have read the hagiographic profile of my first publisher, Richard Holbrooke, in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine. I was hoping to find some substance under the puff, some clue as to why the Al Qaeda reconstituted in the mountains of Aflac is more of a threat to us than Al Qaeda reconstituted anyplace else.
Combing carefully through the rambling account, I found this: The Al Qaeda operatives are carrying western passports. And I wondered, What if the Al Qaeda operatives in the Falkland Islands were carrying western passports, too? Would we bomb them there? And what if some member of the IRA had a British passport? Or any Algerian a French passport? Capital punishment all around-- right? Capital punishment, solution to everything always.
Admittedly, I didn't read every word of the overly long article and couldn't find anything about Holbrooke's Hungarian wife, which would have interested me, and nothing about Osama's underground airliners revving their jet engines day and night for quick flight through the worm hole in the back of his cave to San Francisco.
I learned about the cave from a Marine recruit here in Winston-Salem hoping to become hamburger. He was reading James Bond in the original, actual Ian Fleming, which I found impressive until I realized it had colored his entire view of
the Aflac War.
I wish the New Yorker had probed Holbrooke's fantasy life more, his visions of destruction if we don't bomb the mountains of Afflatus.
Just how will it happen, and where, and with how many deaths? At least with Condoleeza Rice we know it will happen in her snakelike eyes. But with Richard Holbrooke, how can we tell? Could it be in his gizzard? Does he have gall stones? Has he been sleeping badly-- is that where the bad dreams come from? Do give credit
where credit is due, however. The article slyly insinuates that it is Holbrooke who gave us the word "Af-Pak."
One thing the article makes pretty clear is that nobody convinces Holbrooke of anything. If he says an imminent attack is coming from Aflacia, then by God that's where it's coming from, and if not he'll go over there and personally wring the necks of those scrawny peasants.
Perfectly captures the same sense of dread I felt in reading the "New Yorker's " repellent hagiography of Richard Holbrooke.
"...that nobody convinces Holbrooke of anything."
Megalomania apotheosized as rationality.
The smirk of the state terrorist incarnate.–(Jill Bains)
Well, the comments have been brutal, but they still haven't quite got it.
Here is the reality ..... the masses are idiots and always will be, and the intellectuals are ineffective and always will be. Sheer is a main stream 'left' journalist, a Zionist, just another shill, to criticize him for this article is like criticizing a duck for quacking.
Now, if the masses are idiots, and the intellectuals are ineffective, what is the solution ? ??? ????
Only one, a charismatic leader that opposes the power structure. Can it happen in today's America? I doubt it.
Ref: MK
not: "Sheer is a main stream 'left' journalist, a Zionist, just another shill, to criticize him for this article is like criticizing a duck for quacking."
good line - good post
Were the masses "idiots" when they marched and struck throughout the land to win union-organizing rights? When they marched en masse for women's voting rights? against the war in Vietnam? for civil rights?
Harking back a bit--were they idiots when they overthrew the Czar? The ancien regime in France?
And exactly which intellectuals have been "ineffective"? Jefferson? Lincoln? Marx? Engels? Lenin? Trotsky? Keynes? Gandhi?
Your understanding of history is Glenn Beck stood on his head, dimestore cynicism of the sort often heard in the college dorms that house the overconfident and undereducated.
If you're really looking for an idiot, try the nearest mirror.
The masses are idiots - let's look at a current example.
The war in Iraq - most persons, before GB I launched Gulf War One, could not find Iraq on a map, and still can't. I remember when it started, the TV featured video shot over Baghdad when it was lit up like pin ball machine. Absolutely astounding. The oligarchy had launched a war in a place no one had heard of, and the next day polls were taken, and support for the 'war' (actually an unprovoked attack and slaughter) was overwhelming.
No need to discuss many similar examples starting with VietNam.
Or, the ultimate, which I'll just mention - what was the most important issue faced by the US government during the last half of the 20th century?
You do not EVEN know the answer to that question.
I'll tell you though, it was the development and deployment of the doomsday machine, thousands of nuclear weapons that can and may actually destroy civilization in 30 minutes. What did the masses have to say on the subject in our 'democracy'.
Another answer - absolutely nothing. The masses are 100% sheep, total idiots.
A few intellectuals did take a stab at it however, and referendums were run in 17 states calling for a nuclear weapons freeze. The referendums passes in all but one state.
What happened then?
Give up?
Reagan announced Star Wars and we were off to the races. The masses loved Reagan.
Thus, my second claim is also demonstrated - the intellectuals are TOTALLY ineffective.
You're the idiot--a ravening idiot.
How do you think all the major revolutions in human history came about?
All the major progressive steps toward civilization--the abolition of serfdom and slavery, the end of child labor, universal suffrage, the right to organize unions, etc., etc.
You think all this resulted from the enlightened beneficence of the rulers?
Sorry--they all arose from the aroused mass action of the "idiots."
You're a scowling cynic--an exemplar of the person who "knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
Moreover, you're a howling ignoramus--why don't you read Zinn's People's History of the United States or Harman's "People's History of the World.'
What you don't know about history could fill two big volumes--those two big volumes.
Why not address the specifics raised in my post, and skip the hysterical name calling?
What I don't know about history ain't the subject !
Skip the name calling? Right after you slime the entire population as "idiots"? I guess when you try that term on for size, you don't like it so well.
Yes, there are instances of people's complicity in their own oppression, but there are also major examples of people rising up en masse to protest, revolt, and win. You completely ignore--or don't know about--these instances.
That's where your historical ignorance is relevant.
Please read the books I suggested--I suggest you start with the Zinn.
ROFL
So you mean you're an idiot?
Looking at the numbers, the rich are getting richer and this group is getting smaller.
The poor are getting more poor and this group is growing.
Looks like the masses are idiots.
Excellent. (I agreed with every word, but particularly liked "Your understanding of history is Glenn Beck stood on his head.")
Clearly, Robert Scheer is a lesser evil imperialist. He's busy rallying the lesser evil troops to the lesser evil cause.
Robert Scheer continues his vertiginous descent into a thinly veiled apologia for Neo-fascism. His smarmy and silly 'pseudo' critical commentary no longer deserves to cited or posted on the Common Dreams Blog. Bilious pabulum posing as journalism is insulting to the intelligence of the site's readership. Suffering fools like Scheer gladly, should not be an option, as all it furnishes is a chance to vent in apoplectic disgust.
Robert Scheer exemplifies Liberal punditry in a crisis of terminal inanity; it has long lost any critical acuity and seems hopelessly and profoundly dated. Scheer should be consoled in the fact that he is not alone; other liberal pundits render the same torpor and obsequiousness: Tom Hayden, Rebbeca Solnit, William Grieder and now even Amy Goodman come to mind.
Scheer's methodology is to issue cautionary warnings about the failing Obama Presidency–proceeds to cite reasons why it has clearly failed– then claims it MAY YET FAIL, as if it has not failed already? Scheer has become superannuated– a moldy fig suffering from an almost relexive cognitive dysfunction. This mindset is reflective of terminal ideological flabbiness, spiraling into mediocrity, if not reaction. The thread's commentators have cited many examples of Scheer's idiocy; listing anymore would be redundant.
Obama represents no less than the "end of hope."
The "Obama Revolution" is indicative of a new proto-fascist synthesis, where formerly liberal aspects of American life and consciousness have been 'grafted' or perhaps even subsumed into something resembling a Neo-fascist 'superego.' Scheer is not too far off base when he commingles Obama and Ronald Reagan. –(Jill Bains)
"other liberal pundits render the same torpor and obsequiousness: Tom Hayden, Rebbeca Solnit, William Grieder and now even Amy Goodman come to mind."
Abso-fucking-lutely
Your ideas are right on the money, but as 'vanmungo' put it, you're going a lttle nuts with the "terminal overwriting." I know it's great fun to use a thesaurus, but phrases like "a moldy fig suffering from an almost reflexive cognitive dysfunction" are just going to obscure the admirable accuracy of your points.
"I know it's great fun to use a thesaurus, but..." –RichM.
Back handed compliments float my boat. "Great fun, indeed, those thesauruses! However, I don't use a thesaurus, since I don't have to. Perhaps much to your chagrin? I hope not. Many critics of my 'style' always trot out the hoary cliché about using a thesaurus– as if that some how, (even if it were true)– suffices as a substantive criticism rather than being indicative of the critics vague sense of their own lexical inadequacy: The words are in the dictionary. I use them.
One of the first 'tells' of the aspiring 'blog cop' is that he betrays his identity by criticizing other posters on the basis of their writing styles and their spelling errors. Take it on my advisement: That route is a terra incognita, from which few return except perhaps as a toad; there is no dignity there. We all write differently, let's leave it at that.
Robert Scheer's piece was offensive to me, overly offensive. He deserves to be slammed hard by the full power of the language I can muster. I do not feel the characterization you have cited from my posting is at all overwrought, but quite apropos, and entirely warranted. Scheer has been around too long and his writing is egregiously tiresome– hence the descriptive property of 'moldiness,' and the sense of a fruit long since past its prime in the throes of decomposing. Got that? So far, so good!
Scheer's silly use of the oxymoronic term "Obama Revolution" does seem cognitively tortured, if not absurd and hence "dysfunctional"– seeming to be disassociated from any reality I know of; his admonishment for Obama 'to be more like Ronald Reagan,' only attests to the seeming reflexivity of numerous serial malapropisms he indulges repetitively.
Having I hope explained to you and your more agitated cohort 'vanmungo' why my phraseology has both sense and sensibility, I hope we don't have to go through this discursive tutelary exercise in the future since it bores me. Since you know already, by your own admission, "it's great fun to use a thesaurus," I suggest you avail yourself of that advantage. Perhaps, after awhile, like me, you won't have to use one. –(Jill Bains)
Your writing is a disaster--a huge wreck of Latinate pretension and ghastly verbosity, utterly devoid of any notes of Anglo-Saxon vigor or pith. So you have all those pollysylabic SAT words at your fingertips--but ya gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.
This is not blog policing--it's sound literary criticism from your fellow progressives.
Three essential texts for you:
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
The Practical Stylist by Sheridan Baker
Jill: Right after BO was elected I posted a satire about him being the consummate con man but I used arcane language and esoteric words to make my point and some CD poster accused me of using a thesaurus and supporting BO ( I only use spell check) and was too sophomoric to understand that I was using satire as I never supported him. Yes, Jill I agree Obama Revolution is an moronic and oxymoron term.
Thanks messenger Revere!
Many blog commentators who are quick to criticize their fellow posters for an arcane or esoteric writing style, lack of spelling prowess or who use vaguely accusatory language to insinuate they might have used a thesaurus, seldom recover their credibility.
They have somehow, perhaps imperceptibly, indelibly diminished themselves by a gratuitous act of petty cruelty– however veiled or falsely mitigated by faint praise elsewhere. Once 'outed,' these tiny lapses have a way of amplifying themselves and become glaring, to the point where the accuser's entire future oeuvre, is held in less esteem–if not discredited entirely.
It is a classic formula, and a syndrome whose psychological motivations and provenance remain speculative. They are not worth conjecturing about.
It is insulting not because the accuser–who in attempting to embarrass or effect a 'take down' has 'hit a nerve' or is correct– but because his actions allow the recipient to involuntarily think less of him as a human being. That is always difficult to forget, if thankfully, easier to forgive. –(Jill Bains)
Your writing is a disaster--a huge wreck of Latinate pretension and ghastly verbosity, utterly devoid of any notes of Anglo-Saxon vigor or pith. So you have all those pollysylabic SAT words at your fingertips--but ya gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.
This is not blog policing--it's sound literary criticism from your fellow progressives.
Three essential texts for you:
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
The Practical Stylist by Sheridan Baker
The pitiful self abasement you seem compelled to practice is indeed, a seminal quality of 'the masses' in their more deleterious and baleful aspects of irascible stupidity; by that criteria alone–and by your own self-valorizing admission– you succeed in consigning yourself there. Your 'pithy' frothing makes my point exactly; you indulge your own abjection unashamedly–an ersatz 'literary critic' –chest thumping like a jungle ape, and in the process give 'the masses' a bad name. Bad tempered name calling just demeans you.
Feeling your own inferiority and needing to 'put someone down?' Then don't read me, as you can't do it. I don't care a whit about your 'writing style.' Reading your aggressively puerile comments, I can only observe that you have a decided penchant to indulge in distasteful, pugilistic vulgarity more akin to browbeating by insult and invective.
The petty, wannabe blog thug sings an unwitting dirge for himself at his own self immolation; the angry slob recommends 'good writing' treatises I've already read and found them all devoid of any real value. I must have been doing something right to elicit such a pathetic and uncalled for need for ego aggrandizement and a miserly, apoplectic dyspepsia.
I'm sorry that you can't write as well as I do and that you seem consumed, if I may conjecture, in a whorl of discomfiting envy; that you can't understand antithetical writing styles other than your own mongrel, brutalist and racist 'Anglo-Saxisms' is a pity. That failure shall remain yours. Tuelage and generosity would be wasted on your ilk.
"Fellow Progressive," my ass! Your draconian aspirations to 'style gangster' only reveals an abyss of jealousy, in the face of superior writing that is most unbecoming for you. It best avoided as it has a way of making you look fey, resentful and a bully–a sure sign of a closeted weakness.
Learn to read all styles, disparate as they may be and difficult for your admittedly simple tastes. Bowdlerize yourself and don't forget to put on your 'Brown shirt' on the way out. You'll have good company in the America you seem to be hell bent on creating. –(Jill Bains)
There used to be a national Bad Writing Award contest--anyone know if it's still in business?
If so, I nominate the following from Jill Bains:
"The petty, wannabe blog thug sings an unwitting dirge for himself at his own self immolation."
Or maybe:
"I must have been doing something right to elicit such a pathetic and uncalled for need for ego aggrandizement and a miserly, apoplectic dyspepsia."
For these stellar manglings of English I would create special subcategory: The Theodor Adorno Memorial Dialectical Convolution Trophy.
But Bains's corpus is is such a bulging treasure chest of verbal calamities--one hardly knows where to start.
Bains could be the Ken Jennings of the Bad Writing Awards for years to come.
I think we've found ourselves a star!
"The pitiful self abasement you seem compelled to practice is indeed, a seminal quality of 'the masses' in their more deleterious and baleful aspects of irascible stupidity"
Please, please--tell me that was self-parody! If not, someone needs to wheel you out in a straighjacket to the nearest loony bin.
And yes--I promise to bowdlerize myself--at least twice a day, right after I brush my teeth.
Just make sure to put the "Brown shirt" on after you brush your teeth, not before.
No mongrel drooling and toothpaste slobber on your petty fascist regalia.
Maintain your exigent standards of anal-retentiveness on the way to your dominatrix– all the while quoting William Strunk Jr. on 'proper' English for aspiring totalitarians.
He or she would want you to remain in an appropriate posture of Anglo-Saxon rectitude and beseeching supplication. All the easier to properly service your hilarious self abasement and failed career as an aspiring, wannabe sadist.
There is no need to be hold your writing in contempt or the paucity of your threadbare thinking. No one cares about that vacuous non entity on a public blog forum; it is beneath most people. Curiously, I've yet to see anything you've written except mediocre sarcasm. Why is that?
What you delight in projecting is a soulless vacuity inspired by a gratuitous cruelty. So be the insect you feel you are. Hilariously. An insect who has been stepped on. Repeatedly.
Theodor Adorno? Good man, though his nasty little essay on Jazz in "Prisms" was singularly ridiculous. Adorno's labored and incessant attacks on Igor Stravinsky, though for the most part spot on, eventually consumed themselves in a wretched mean spiritedness–quite similar to your sickly methodology: Abjection and inferiority exercised through petty sadism. Some sad shit.
You end up mocking yourself. Remember it's the Brown shirt, the pre 1939 issue. Wear that one! Look the part you play! Blog thug, be your inner animus. See you around the neighborhood.
And no slobberings!
–(Jill B.)
George Orwell on Jill Bains's writing (in a moment of amazing clairvoyance):
"I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."
The only problem with George is that the imaginary example he cites doesn't begin to rival Bains's disasters in throbbing awfulness.
Lessons in wordiness, Part I--Jill Bain's favorite redundancies (or near-redundancies:
"drooling . . . and slobber"
"exigent standards" (most standards imply some kind of exigency or limitation)
"beseeching supplication"
"paucity of threadbare thinking" (actually, this is more like a contradiction in terms--she really means that I show an abundance of threadbare thinking--I think!--but why let logic spoil a good orgy of mind-numbing prolixity?)
"vacuous nonentity"
"wretched mean-spiritedness" (is there any mean-spiritedness that is not wretched? As the New Yorker has it, "Block that adjective!")
"numerous serial malapropisms" (I guess if they're serial, they are by definition numerous)
Jill B.'s favorite fancy word of derogation--used twice in this thread alone:
"apoplectic"
Jill B.'s favorite hysterical leap of illogic:
Anyone who calls attention to her preposterous frenzies of overwriting is a "Brown Shirt" and Nazi. So--if embarrassing this loon into silence is Nazism, I say make the most of it!
Now don't even get me started on her clueless blizzard of passive-voice constructions--not enough bandwidth for that.
Remember, everyone: "Bowdlerize yourself!"
Anal "New Yorker' middle-brow establishment palaver.
Grammatically correct blather designed solely to embarrass and silence. Bereft of any human resonance. Your style. Your being.
Succeeding in neither. Your dirge is metallic, hysteric and shrill. No grace notes. A rendered brittleness pitched to crack.
Purely crypto fascist, and histrionic, sarcastic twaddle despite your entreaties to the contrary.
Fey and effete is your funeral pyre. An involution of malice externalized. Hollows you out. Walk in the petrified forest. Serpentine.
Reptile. Heart.
You can't obscure that your technical criticisms are just that, vapidly technical and exercises in a sterile academic fatuity. Defense of canonic standards now so dated as to be irrelevant.
Except to living fossils.
Preposterous. Like you.
Reactionary. Like you.
The shirt is brown. Wear it. "God, it must be cold up there in that frigid mausoleum you call academia."
March to the song Horst Wessel used to sing. Fight off the chill of the dead soul! March Horst, march!
Have you read Susan Howe's book on Emily Dickinson? Then you won't demean Dickinson's genius by praising her concision as a virtue in itself.
It was a language of exploding boundaries and limits, not the twittering anal retentive mot juste which is your squirming and true amour propre,
"Architecture of Meaning"
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple with a malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored
Its edge at one more victim gained thereby.
March Host, march, sing Horst sing! Find your victims elsewhere. Sing your sadist reverie. Alone.
You can have the lost and the last word. The insectoid one you alone in the dead thread.
Performing Reich's "Six Marimbas" tomorrow. A fun piece. Great acoustic venue.
Cripple.
But knows his grammar.
–(Jill B.)
My examples pertained not to grammar but to semantics--redundancies are needless, inelegant, and essentialy stupid rehashings of meaning. Your grammar is OK, although sloppy and indifferent at times. It's your diction and semantics that are appalling.
Study the contrasting examples I furnished from Orwell. Compare the "bad" version to your own stilted ramblings and you'll see what I mean.
In the meantime, try throttling back on the eye-bulging, red-faced, hysterics, the windup-doll hyperbole. You're only making a fool of yourself.
Finally, next time you begin to form a sentence, consider these words from Shaw, spoken by Professor Higgins in Pygmalion:
"Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and
The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon."
Whoever Jill Bains is, I hope her medical policy covers her alarming case of terminal overwriting.
Sioux Rose
JIll BAINS: Excuse the vernacular, but "Girl you sure got IT goin on!" Great work and words of brutally frank analysis.
Thanks Sioux Rose. Your generosity of spirit has become uncommon and in short supply, so its good when one can come across it. –(Jill Bains)
Sioux Rose
Good evening, Jill. I was surprised by this thread's interaction and critique of your writing by otherwise highly intelligent posters. I may get hammered for it, but I wonder if it's possible that intellectual, well-read women prefer flowery language and the use of colorful allusions, whereas some of the intelligent men in our forum may resonate more strongly with language that is straight, narrow, and more to the point? One exception, if I might be so bold to point it out would be "Obedient Servant" who makes quite imaginative use of metaphors in his writing. Another example is the guy I date who can't handle poetry. This is a clear case of "opposites attract," and/or the universe evidencing its sense of humor. He actually says, "Why can't they just get to THE point." Could it be that the vaginal cavity going round and round to simulate the great unknowns of our endless universe prompt women to express themselves in a resonant matter? Whereas the phallos, being a finite object that can be measured, predisposes many of its bearers to language that is more direct, succinct, and intact? Too sexist? In any event, the bottom line appears to be that some people like language that dances, and others want it to march in straight rows. I see value in BOTH! I have been attacked in this forum for presenting ideas that don't conform to rational equations based on logic and what can be measured with linear tools. Perhaps the lesson for ALL of us is to extend more tolerance. WE are a highly creative, intelligent group of posters and I know MANY of us return to this forum because it is to "food for thought" what a great restaurant is for the baser forms of nutrition. In my view, a great restaurant has more than a functional menu, one only offering predictable items. The chef (in this case, that's all of us stirring this virtual soup kettle of ideas) that takes off on winged inspiration can cook up stuff that surprises! By sharing here we dare to invite inspiration into our midsts. Who can predict which styles of expression can ultimately enrich our palates?
Rich: I still "love" you. And Vanmungo, I appreciate YOUR style, too.
I wonder if we sometimes aim at each other's jugulars in this forum due to our relative sense of powerlessness towards a national regime (gone global) that threatens all the things we love, while casting our ideals into a virtual basement. Nonetheless there's something to be said for a strong shared ideal rooted in a deep humanism and how its articulation can ease the darkness we face. To any who return to this thread, peace and sweet dreams.
Sioux Rose,
Again, thanks. I think your points are well taken. I too see value in both modes of attempting to communicate. I value the prolix and the concise equally and am able to take aesthetic pleasure in both styles. As a medical doctor and a professional musician specializing in modern music performance, I have to work in radically disparate situations with differing aesthetics; this is especially true in music, where the repertoire is now so expansive and variegated one has to be conversant in a blizzard of differing styles. I have long since disabused myself of the notion of the 'right note.' In fact, more often than not, 'wrong is right.' The same goes with tastes. Medicine as poetry works similarly, even in the functional sterility of a hospital.
I consider it beneath me to criticize or brow beat a fellow poster, regardless of political differences, on the basis of style or technical writing abilities, or lack there of. This is a blog, not an academic seminar. vanmungo is a gifted writing technician and certainly from his perspective, how I write is offensive. I actually value his technical attacks, (they are not criticisms!) and see the validity (from his perspective) in many of his points– but I feel they remain designed more to embarrass and punish, and certainly not to edify. That is tacitly unacceptable. They are unnecessary acts of bullying with a desire for domination, and as he readily admits, to SILENCE.
Scurrilously he proceeds to let that end justify a self admitted 'Nazi' methodology. Blog thuggery is what it is despite any justifications it may profess to. But all in all, as I point out, that is really HIS problem. My writing style and any deficiencies I see fit to correct are in comparison, relatively minor problems. Sadly, his are I surmise, similar to psychiatric personality disorders and far more grave than my rampant verbal prolixity. I resent he has made me think less of him. So in that sense, he has indeed won. A pyrrhic victory of no real consequence. But he has forced a feeling into me I find alien.
This extremism, this is what I feel is a gratuitous over reaction with murky, suspect motivations accounts for my responses to his attempts at bullying. Usually disagreements over substantive matters compel similar responses, not writing not to one's tastes; not purely formalistic caveats? Wouldn't it be easier simply not to read my postings or just overlook them? Clearly I detect some perverse motivation, behind his overly technical criticisms, which frankly are more than vaguely fascistic and obsessively anal in spirit. I think you were intimating at something like this, but approaching it in your own, less combative way. His response to your communique was not compelling. Jousting and macho style 'one upmanship' is a moral cul de sac. Hope to get back to you soon. Busy but fun day ahead today ! . Between reading this score, blogging, got to sleep Your friend. –(Jill Bains).
Sioux Rose
Jill: I was impressed with your writing from the get-go, and yet I realize that words that make us think, that bring to mind difficult analogies, may seem hard work for some. Although I was an English major in college, I had to look up a few words that you posted! And I sensed you had a very high IQ. Relating that you are both a medical professional AND a musician is fascinating. To my way of thinking genius is (borrowing from Shakespeare) the "marriage of minds," and by that I mean, a good blend between serious, disciplined, rational deduction, coupled with the more diffusive qualities of what stems from the right brain. Music is a perfect example.
Because I know what it feels like to BE attacked in this forum, it's easy for me to play the role of mediator. You, Rich M, and Vanmungo ALL make worthwhile contributions. Each of us is gifted in our own unique ways; and since, as the Buddhists relate, time is the most precious of resources, THAT we elect to spend our precious allotment here in this forum, giving of ourselves, is worthy of our mutual appreciation. The sun just left analysis-oriented Virgo for peacekeeping Libra, and I feel THAT spirit, and hope to bring it into this forum.
Sioux Rose--
Your yin-yang speculations here, though interesting, are beside the point. And your psychologizing is borderline offensive. Besides--in nominating her for the Theodor Adorno Convoluted Dialectic Award--or whatever I called it--I was likening her tower of babble to the notoriously crabbed, difficult style of a MALE writer.
The stylistic grotesqueries perpetrated by JB would attract the same opprobrium irrespective of race, creed, color, gender, or species.
C. S. Lewis wrote elegantly concise, eloquent prose. So did Abraham Lincoln. Emily Dickinson was miraculously economical in her effects. Jean Rhys was a beautiful writer. Good writing and bad writing know no bounds of gender. This is a big-time, PC red herring--the kind of wrongheaded conjecture that gives identity politics a bad name.
This person should be arrested for crimes against the English language--her writing is that bad.
There should be PSAs on late-night radio warning kids not to write like her.
Her passages should be cited in composition texts in the DO NOT EVER section.
And so on.
Sioux Rose
VANMUNGO: Can we allow for different tastes? You know, different strokes for different folks? I asked someone in this forum whom I respect deeply to critique one of my books and he did so graciously. From the suggestions he made it was clear that he, too, preferred simplicity to what I thought, took for, my gift for colorful analogies. Some people like to drive from point A to point B in a RACE to get "there," and others meander realizing the JOURNEY is what's important.
You and Jill could quite probably own some astrological features that abrade. I think you were quite hard on her, and I think she quite deftly threw some of your own stuff back at you. The best way for anyone to hone their own game, shades of martial arts, is to find a worthy opponent. Sometimes the person that really presses our buttons is the one that brings us a gift in disguise. It shows us where our own weakness, or propensity to over-react exists. I am as vulnerable to that prospect as anyone else in this forum.
There is so much hatred and antipathy in our world. I think it falls upon progressives, we who have awakened to many truths about our nation and its dark deceptions, to live by a higher ethic, one that extends respect to one another. Correcting information that is not correct, or responding to the merits of an argument is one thing; but all this character assassination, making differences too personal is hardly reflective of conversation at its highest or best "octave."
This message comes in peace. In closing, there's a line from the book, "Love is Letting Go of Fear," by Gerald Jampolsky where he wisely asks, "Would you rather be right, or happy?" Interesting question of relevance to some posters in this forum.
Please cite any passage where Jill did anything deftly, including throwing anything back at me.
This woman is quite delusional.
Your writing is that of a sane person--hers is that of a hopeless nutcase--a random pile of turgid, dissociated, stilted burbling. You are doing her a disservice by pandering to her--she obviously is delusional and needs some kind of professional counseling.
You regard yourself as a spiritually evolved person--yet you sit by in silence while someone hurls accusations like "Brown shirt" and Nazi just because I tried to call her attention to her preposterous writing style? (And I wasn't the only one!) Her tossing around this kind of hysterical muck elicits not even a syllable of reproach from you?
If you can sit on your hands for that torrent of abuse, you have discredited yourself as a judicious commentator on this or any other issue, for that matter.
Sioux Rose
You know VAN, if peoples' feelings were not involved, the verbal to and fro between you and Jill would be almost funny. And by humor, I mean in a 21st century revision of that spirit of writing found in "School for Scandal." (I can't recall the author's name.)
I think you threw the first stone, my friend, and she had a right to defend herself. Am I pandering because I find her writing of interest? Maybe my tastes are diversified. I can find merit in the bare bones articulations of some who routinely post in this forum; but also enjoy those who take liberties with language. In my view Jill falls into that group.
One area where I do believe I could provide a unique basis for analysis would be utilizing my area of expertise: astrology. If you and Jill provided your birth dates, with times (if known) and locations (since place factors into the math that pertains to these symbolic maps), I believe I could locate WHY your STYLES of expression seem to clash. (If I could back up a sufficient distance, I'd make the same recommendation for my own chemistry with respect to one or two in this forum.)
It's not for me to say one of you is right at the other's expense. And since she made the perfectly reasonable request that you bypass her posts if they don't resonate with you (as I have extended a similar offer to someone who enjoys attacking me), perhaps that is where "the matter" might be best dropped. OR "we" deploy the astrological lift-off for a "higher" view of what otherwise seems opposed.
Then too:
"There ain't no good guys.
There ain't no bad guys.
There's only me and you
and we both disagree.
So let's... leave it alone,
'Cause we can't see eye to eye..."
Good medicine. N'est-ce pas? The heavenly circle has NO sides!
Here's the essential hypocrisy of your intervention:
You've been endlesslly chastising me for having presumed to note her absurdly overwrought writing style--essentially an exercise in crass exhibitionism (look how impossibly smart and erudite I am!) rather than a sincere effort to contribute to dialogue on this list.
But when she unleashes a hair-curling spree of almost unprecedented verbal abuse against me--Brown shirt this, Nazi that, blah blah, you sit on your hands.
You should be studying your own astrological chart to attempt to analyze your ethical failure on that score, your glaring double standards, and your presumptions in lecturing me on ANYTHING when you sit on your hands in the face of such foul, ugly invective.
Physician, heal thyself.
Scheer, old boy, you need to retire.
Well! That summed it up nicely. Thanks.
Well! That summed it up nicely. Thanks.
Well, well . . . another contribution to that ever-mushrooming genre among weak-kneed faux progressives: the "Obama-should/Obama-must" genre of political cud-chewing.
Here's the short reply to that entire genre: Obama won't.
WHAT revolution? Obama's domestic policy is Clinton's third term, and his foreign and civil liberties policies are Bush's third term.
Bingo
Scheer meant emulate Reagan's desire to please his rt. wing base above all. I'm not sure Scheer is right about that. Reagan was no Christian fundie like BV$H. He never really delivered on what they wanted. Oh, he paid them lip service but the only issue he delivered ion for them was raising the drinking age nat'lly to 21. That had the unfortunate side effect of putting fire under the drug epidemic in the country. BV$h on the other hand did the hard rights bidding in everything and he also did the Corp. rights bidding as well. The reason the rt. is so up in arms now is simple..RACE hatred. They woke up on Jan 21st and realized a YOUNG BLACK man was now in the WH. This was their worst nightmare. Turns out though that Obama is a right of center Dem. and really very little threat to the right. He's a bitter disappointment to the rest of us though.
"The Obama revolution, and there was the hope of one, might still succeed."
Do I laugh or cry? Scheer is either stupid, deluded, getting old or being paid off. Pathetic, sickening and sad.
Back at the 1968 Democratic Convention there was a popular button floating around that said: "George McGovern Is The Real Eugene McCarthy" - still true all these years later:
"George McGovern Is The Real Barack Obama"
Maybe not a revolution exactly, but it could've been a refutation of Bush. Instead, it was a passing fad.
Robert Scheer's history is distinctly progressive, but this article is pure bilge. If you judged Scheer by this article alone, you'd be justified in thinking he was a lifelong proponent of US imperialism.
- Nancy Reagan was "remarkably savvy"?
- Ronald Reagan had "respect for the concerns of those who placed their trust in him"? {Iran-Contra, anyone?}
- Obama demonstrated "...early opposition to the Iraq war"? {The 'opposition' was fake, Scheer. You didn't know?}
- "There is a sobering honesty to McChrystal's report"? {Here Scheer applauds the notion of US "nation-building" by military force.}
- "Obama was right during his appearances Sunday...to put the emphasis on going after what remains of Osama bin Laden's forces in Pakistan and elsewhere..."?
- This last comment makes it sound like Scheer's become a cheerleader for imperialism, while also peddling the lie that the "war" is really about Osama.
RichM (September 23rd, 2009 12:17 pm) -- Right. And don't leave out "he will deserve credit if he backs his attorney general's quest to hold the enablers of a U.S. government torture policy accountable." Even Holder supporters know he's doing nothing of the kind. [After writing the above I found glenn ford's apt comment on this at 9:05]
Obama is the devil. Dems are evildoers. Vote Repub...oops I mean third party.
Just another day at Karl Rove's day camp.
NoMoreForCorps -- Here's a tip for you. No one here is going to start crying just because you claim that criticizing Democrats "helps Karl Rove." That approach might work at Democratic Underground, but it won't work here.
If you can't defend Obama on the merits, this means you have nothing to say. In that case, please refrain from wasting bandwidth by asserting that Dems can't be criticized simply because it would "help Republicans."
This assertion is utterly bogus. It amounts to prohibiting criticism of a party that very obviously is continuing most of what made the Bush regime so loathesome. Your position boils down to the propositions that 1) Republicans are monsters, therefore 2) we musn't criticize Democrats -- even if they do pretty much all the same things.
If you contemplate that logic for a while, I'm sure you'll figure out what's wrong with it.
Go Rich!
Yeah, go Team Rove! Go Fight Win! Gosh, college Repubs are fun.
Gosh, I would say its more like fol-de-rol that has suddenly come up against the lower portion of the upper valve header on the steam fitting that suddenly got beytter from its original malfunction when the fuel changed from gas to coal crushed slurry.
C'mon guys, let's all go over to Huff post and tell stories. Like how sometimes we walk up Broadway in New York where we're from and our parents are conservative but we don't like labels and stuff. And how people are mean to us when we speak from our hearts in rural Missouri where we're from but we're tough cookies and we don't care.
Above, I wrote to you, "If you can't defend Obama on the merits, this means you have nothing to say."
Your 3:15 comment indicates you're unable to defend Obama on the merits. If you can't even do that, why are you wasting bandwidth on pitiful substance-free attempts to be cute?
This is a false dichotomy to serve your purposes. Defending Obama is not the issue. Rather, the issue is whether the Repub PR machine should be unchallenged in its effort to demonize Obama and encourage third party votes to help Repubs win elections. The issue is also whether the writing styles, with engaging personal tales and careful mispellings to evoke the working class, should go un-laughed-at.
You make no sense at all, except to yourself. "The issue" is whatever you say it is. So you think every criticism of Obama, no matter WHAT he does, is ipso facto a way to "demonize" him and help Republicans get elected? Can you possibly get more one-dimensional? And if you're going to evoke writing styles and "careful mispellings", maybe you could at least spell *misspellings* correctly. Your working class credentials are threadbare.
dang you got me. me make misssstake. ipso facto, you win. Fox Channel's one-dimensional war on Obama is nothing to be concerned about. I'm the only one who considers Beck and his legions to be an issue.
YES ! Thank you RichM !
P.S.: Alternet could use tough cookies like you to combat the Obamabots there. That site would have a lot of great articles and people but the Obamabots are sooooo irritating to everyone. I wonder how we all could counter-infiltrate the Obamabots on huffpost. They give Obama and even worse name than he already has.
RichM:
Well said!
Obama . . . heeds the political base that made his presidency possible.
He is heeding it. That base is the obscenity of Big Money and the steam roller of the lives of ordinary people.
There was never really an Obama Revolution to begin with. All it was was a pretend to "change" and blissfully ignorant false "hope" package only to whither the minute the election was over. Those of us who cried and warned voters about Obama and Mccain were ignored. If you look at everything politically, you'll still think that the Obama Revolution is still there and must be salvaged. Otherwise, those of you who are non-political, independent, moderate, or a combination thereof would figure that this was just a placeholder designed to "bail out" the morally bankrupt status quo. Well, the Obama Revolution is already doing one hell of a job bailing out the morally bankrupted status quo ! The Obama Revolution is also doing one hell of a job of preparing to crush the lives of those sweetheart civilians in Af/Pak who have nothing to do with terrorism. They and their subsequent generations will HATE US for this. If this author wants us to "save" this kind of a revolution, I'm not buying it. A real counter-Raygun revolution would have involved real and bold leadership from people ala Nader, Mckinney, Kucinch, etc ... Even Paul and Gravel despite some of their controversial economic stands would have been a good start.
Jennifer: I agree with your post!
I usually read Robert Sheer's articles on his website, truthdig.com, and comment, if I have comments. This morning, my reaction to his writing was similar to your reaction, and the responses on truthdig reflect similar reasoned replies.
“The Obama revolution, and there was the hope of one, might still succeed.”—Robert Sheer
Does anyone really think Obama has been, or will, lead a revolution?
By now, his “health insurance reform”—instead of health care reform—is a mandate for another upwards shift of wealth to the already massively wealthy health industry executives, and Obama has made backdoor deals with PhRMA’s Billy Tauzin to NOT negotiate the price of prescription drugs—along with other deals.
The mantra of our fearful leaders is always about national security and keeping us safe. However, what does being and feeling safe really mean? If 45,000 U.S. citizens, and others living in the U.S., die every year due to lack of health care, how safe are we?
Certainly, our elected officials, along with others in power, know how to distract us, obfuscate, and to change the subject, don’t they?
As far as I am concerned, the thought of revolution is nothing less than laughable—if only we had real leadership from our own government, our elected officials, a government, BTW, that “we the people” fund.
The U.S. continues to occupy Iraq with 130,000 troops. What happened to getting out of that country? In addition, Obama, currently, is considering sending more troops, again, to Afghanistan. But now, with the new polls showing that “we the people,” 57% of us, oppose that decision, he is back to posturing and acting with caution, while drones continue to kill innocent civilians in Pakistan. Then, there are the 7 military bases he wants to build in Columbia. And, for these acts, he is called a peacemaker? In what dictionary?
The way I see it, Obama is fighting for the other side—the corporations and the IMC, not for “we the people,” or in the public interest. As Bill Moyers so eloquently stated, he'd rather see Obama go down fighting, than to watch him capitulate to the powers that be. Sadly, the status quo keeps ticking on -- as so many critical issues are literally battered by well-paid lobbyists working for the corporations.
Yesterday, the big news on the electronic ticker tape in Times Square was that the F.D.I.C. is going to borrow money from the “HEALTHY” banks.
Since Mr. Sheer is so very good at unraveling financial issues, I was hoping, this morning, to find his column addressing this new revelation which seems rather circular to me—the way the money keeps passing through the hands of the same men on Wall Street. There must be money to be made, or they wouldn’t be doing it!
I’d be ecstatic to give Obama credit, if and when he deserves credit, but I’m not nearly as hopeful, or optimistic, as Mr. Sheer appears to be. With his experience, too, I find it impossible to believe that he is as naive as this column makes him seem.
Hi Kay,
This thought occurred to me this morning after I got into a political vs non-political fight with someone yesterday who thought I was one of those conspiring to push for third parties to give Republican conservatives power and fulfill their agenda. After he argued with me that I have no intention for political success and that I would rather throw away my hope to what he called "third party foolhardiness", that's when I put foot down and admitted that yes, I don't care for political success of one party or another but that I cared to see leaders and representatives get some things done right where they can find common ground. I was finally able to get him to answer why he was hooked on to thinking in terms of party after I admitted to being and Eugene Debs addict of voting for something that most of us want even if none of us get it vs voting for what most of us don't really want and getting it. He thought it was dangerous and gave the typical lecture on being "practical" by trying to push the Democrat Party to the left. I told him that I don't trust all this "compromising" stuff since it's nothing but concessions in the end. He finally made a dumb joke that I'm getting too tight about everything and joked about my being dressed to tight. Bleh ! So what? I think I'm finally realizing why I just can't say yes to running for office.
"Whenever we compromised, we lost." Arch Druid, David Brower.
John McPhee wrote a book about Brower entitled, "Encounters With the Arch Druid. Historically, Brower was the Sierra Club's first president. He left the organization in the 70s because the board had decided to support nuclear power. They were after corportate support - all that money! Brower knew that nuclear power was a big mistake and refused to compromise on it. He went on to found Friends of the Earth, which became what an environmental organization should be - stalwart defenders of the earth's natural systems. (Sierra Club since changed their position, I believe.)
Brower died a few days after casting his vote for Ralph Nader. We're losing many of our great leaders and who will replace them? It's sad.
I always thought that there was a major difference between compromising and conceding and I still do. It's just that politics allows any word to be fudged just like that. It's not wonder "compromise" = conceding. But then again, even in my life time, I ran into those difficult moments of deciding whether to look at a choice as compromising or actually conceding. Three times, I avoided conceding to be what I thought would amount to being a slave wife. Being single isn't always easy either but just like voting, I still think that when it comes to picking between getting nothing vs getting what I don't want, I'll take the former.
"I think I'm finally realizing why I just can't say yes to running for office." -- Jennifer
Ditto!
Yesterday, as I recall, and I don't remember the thread, but someone lumped you and I together -- our style of writing intertwined with our belief in third parties, and our use of subversive tactics to defeat the Democrats by promoting those third parties. Suddenly, I realized that the blogger was accusing me -- and you -- in an off-handed way of being Republican plants. If they were to read it, my close friends would get a big hoot out of that commentary.
Last night, I went to hear Andrew Cockburn (counterpunch.org) speak at the Cuny Graduate Center here in NYC. Laura Flanders moderated the conversations between writer and professor David Harvey and Mr. Cockburn. I was uplifted that the auditorium was nearly filled. Lately, I have attended several events and found few people sitting in the audience with me, and few people marching with me in the streets.
Andrew Cockburn offered one suggestion about debt repudiation that was interesting -- hiring a truck that makes its way across the country, and at each stop along the way, "we the people" load up the truck with our credit card bills instead of paying them. Eventually, the truck rolls into D.C. with a load delivered to our elected officials.
Kay: "Eventually the truck roll into DC with a load delivered..."
There's a load being delivered all right, but it's here on CD haha!
On your first paragraph about the lumping together of people and falsely accusing them of being the same person, this appears to be common on most progressive/liberal blogs from the Obama die-hards. It is completely childish, cowardly, and means that they don't want to talk about the issues especially where Obama is failing miserably. They keep insisting on some lame conspiracy theory that it's being to bring Republicans to power. They have no credibility doing this and I wonder if they realize just how much more damage they are doing to Obama in the process. On Alternet, there was a flame war almost every day on all this association and lumping people together and the Independent folks have been fighting back and challenging the Obama die-hards.
I have to get back to counterpunch.org. It's been a while since I was last there.
That mean sexist joke wasn't very nice. Where you wearing like jeans or what? And then what did he say after you said Bleh? Gosh, I can just picture that political vs non-political fight you had with someone who thought you were one of those conspiring to push for third parties to give Republican conservatives power.
I didn't say bleh in front of him. I was just tired after trying to knock some sense into him. And stop saying that I'm blindly supporting third parties. I am not. I vote with my heart and mind on the issues. That may result in my voting third parties but so what? Maybe if more Democrats acted like Kucinich and took the issues as seriously as him I might take the party as a whole seriously but you see I cannot and will not.
I want to know who paid off Scheer to write this crap.
Really, I think the pundit class is just looking for an in at all the cocktail parties in D.C. so they can rub elbows with ObSavior. Why all the fawning?
Ob never intended to engage a "revolution." Well, I guess his version of a revolution would be one that would exploit the workers and entrench even further the ruling class. With Obama as their bagman.
Honestly, Scheer, this is an embarrassment.
The "Obama Revolution" wass over the minute he lost the trust of the American people. And he has. He and his cohorts in Congress have managed to dissapoint, insult, lie to and anger almost every faction in our country, left, right and dead center.
So far the only intelligent thing this administration has done is cancel the Missle defense program and they even managed to handle that in a ham handed way.
Agreed, but even the missile defense wasn't cancelled. It was moved.
I'm embarrassed for Mr. Scheer. Some simple googling before the election would have removed so many illusions. One thing I learned then was about the extraordinary interests of some in our government in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Seems the Great Game is of much more interest to Biden, Hagel, Obama, Lugar, McCain and Lieberman than the welfare of the United States. I just don't know if they're into it because they like playing with toy soldiers or the money or Israel or Iran... who knows, but it is ambition at our expense.
several years ago -- I stumbled upon a website that placed a photo copy of a Pentagon document...it had since disappeared (long ago also) and i forget the name of that website. maybe it was leaked..who knows.
BUT i recall that it said something to this effect: something concerning the chaos in the former USSR when it was overran by oligarchs with western ties and was then considered a great example of "democratic reform" - BEFORE Vladimir Putin stepped in a kicked out the western interests (including EXXONMobil doing some speculations in eastern russia) .
what the document that was from the midnineties said was something like this:
"the fall of the soviet union has rendered Russia so vulnerable - and her military so weakened that it is NOW POSSIBLE to Contemplate a massive LAND INVASION"
connect this with madeleine Albright's remark in the midnineties - as well as remember the pattern of US Imperial actions through the centuries:
"IT IS SO UNFAIR..........that a single country has ALL those rich resources.....something ought to be done about it"
SHE was of course refering TO Russia which possesses perhaps the world's largest undeveloped Diamond mines, great deposits of copper, steel, many other minerals, perhaps the world's largest deposit of Uranium, oil, large gas untapped fields, the world's largest collection fo RUNNING FRESH WATER resources, freshwater FISHERIES resources, the world's LARGEST northern hemisphere forestry and related bio and other sphere resources...and of course that world's largest REAL ESTATE country . PLUS sitting right smack across parts of Europe, Central Asia, and Asia.
and you get a picture of what I long suspected was an OLD LUST of the USA;
TO INVADE and CONTROL RUSSIA ITSELF as the "great trophy" of RESOURCES and geostrategic control spanning EUROPE and ASIA.
WHY is the USA , under pretext of NATO , in RUSSIA's NEIGHBORHOOD?
even the entire premise of controlling the central asian regions - is PART merely of a greater strategic imperial quest -
TAKE RUSSIA itself , by FIRST encircling russia through Georgia, Estonia, Ukraine, and the various "istans" that were once russian/soviet territory..and then of course try to "isolate" china while controlling all the energy routes and resources...both oil, gas - as well of course as the landmasses and water and other natural resources and real estate.
THAT"s the US imperial plan. there is NO question in my mind about it.
several years ago -- I stumbled upon a website that placed a photo copy of a Pentagon document...it had since disappeared (long ago also) and i forget the name of that website. maybe it was leaked..who knows.
BUT i recall that it said something to this effect: something concerning the chaos in the former USSR when it was overran by oligarchs with western ties and was then considered a great example of "democratic reform" - BEFORE Vladimir Putin stepped in a kicked out the western interests (including EXXONMobil doing some speculations in eastern russia) .
what the document that was from the midnineties said was something like this:
"the fall of the soviet union has rendered Russia so vulnerable - and her military so weakened that it is NOW POSSIBLE to Contemplate a massive LAND INVASION"
connect this with madeleine Albright's remark in the midnineties - as well as remember the pattern of US Imperial actions through the centuries:
"IT IS SO UNFAIR..........that a single country has ALL those rich resources.....something ought to be done about it"
SHE was of course refering TO Russia which possesses perhaps the world's largest undeveloped Diamond mines, great deposits of copper, steel, many other minerals, perhaps the world's largest deposit of Uranium, oil, large gas untapped fields, the world's largest collection fo RUNNING FRESH WATER resources, freshwater FISHERIES resources, the world's LARGEST northern hemisphere forestry and related bio and other sphere resources...and of course that world's largest REAL ESTATE country . PLUS sitting right smack across parts of Europe, Central Asia, and Asia.
and you get a picture of what I long suspected was an OLD LUST of the USA;
TO INVADE and CONTROL RUSSIA ITSELF as the "great trophy" of RESOURCES and geostrategic control spanning EUROPE and ASIA.
WHY is the USA , under pretext of NATO , in RUSSIA's NEIGHBORHOOD?
even the entire premise of controlling the central asian regions - are PART merely of a greater strategic imperial quest -
TAKE RUSSIA itself , by FIRST encircling russia through Georgia, Estonia, Ukraine, and the various "istans" that were once russian/soviet territory..and then of course try to "isolate" china while controlling all the energy routes and resources...both oil, gas - as well of course as the landmasses and water and other natural resources and real estate.
THAT"s the US imperial plan. there is NO question in my mind about it.
"Agreed, but even the missile defense wasn't cancelled. It was moved."
Good point! I really don't know why they are doing anything at this point. As you say, who knows?
Somebody always has to cop the scene.... It's our Freakin revolution!
Mr. Scheer,
Sorry, you must not have received the memo. The Obama Revolution was cancelled before anything was actually implemented. Have a nice day.
Barrak Insane Obama
It's pathetic, another wishful article in the face of the harsh reality of a con-job. It's the second act to the Democrat's grand tragedy--the first act being the 06 election to end these occupations and restore honor(if there is any left) to the USA. Before they were even installed nanny piglously immediately scraps the investigation and probable impeachment of "W" for war monger Bush, by saying that it's off the table--then they all dance around the subject of stopping funding of these illegal and immoral conflicts and try(right) to pass ball-less bills that impede nothing so that the shit continues till the second act--enter stage right change you can believe in O'bomber. The absolute only way that we have any chance to stop this evil which is destroying us and our nation is to rise up and demand with all our collective might and that's right, left , and middle--sort of like the Ross Perot movement, an eclectic group of Americans concerned about our future existence--make it perfectly clear that we will not be moved towards the same crap any longer--that it--if we don't they won't--it will continue till we die.
As someone said, there was no "Obama revolution," there were masses of hopeful, duped followers with nowhere else to turn for hope, and Obama has proven to be the card carrying corporate capitalist he is. He'll get some crappy healthcare bill passed, hail it as a victory for "the people," but in fact it will be a victory for HMOs and make everything worse.
Obama does not have a political base outside Goldman Sachs. His only attraction as a candidate was that he was the "serious" candidate who was not-Clinton.
Obama does not control the world. Social and biological evolution controls the big and little things beyond our personal life encounters.
The world was in the beginning stage of revolution when little George set it off, and he gets much of the credit for the bloodshed. Obama is making little changes...like hints of the direction he wants to go....
I hope that he will see that negotiating with "terrorists" or the "enemy" is the way to go for real security. If you are talking to them you are getting new names and addresses...new connections... negotiate a pullout with the Taliban and ask for a fair trial of bin laden in a neutral country if he wants a trial... revolutionaries need a trail.
Somebody might even prove he is dead and if we asked around we might find out.
The Taliban did not do 9/11 any more than Iraq did.... As the article says the operation was trained and run here in the states with help from agents in Germany and Pakistan who of course were connected to former "freedom fighters" with the help of the CIA and were being watched by the CIA and military and some FBI.
It is hard for a president to do things like order things get done... it is easy with the military...they will at least want you to think they are following orders.
With events changing so fast it is easier for Obama to react on these events and I think he realizes by now that the world is in a revolution. He is movin real Slow.... but look at all that he is facing.... ya gotta be nuts to want that job.
very sensible post
Obama ... has stuck to a vision of a complex multipolar world in which the military option is to be chosen only as a last resort.
----------------------
1) Obama is launching illegal immoral drone attacks in sovereign Palistan
2) Obama last week launched an attack into Somalia
3) Obama gave the nod to built bases in Colombia from which to threaten liberal Latin America
Are these the actions of a peacemaker?
Agreed Cygnus,
Don't forget that he 'negotiated' and paid twice the ransom demanded by the banksters during the on-going financial crisis. He allowed 'loans' to foreign central banks via a cash export mechanism to the IMF and other non-US entites. He funded the enemy of the people (Goldman Sachs) so that that firm would survive to steal from us again. He gives a blank check to the Fed so that it can print money to re-purchase Treasury borrowing. He quotes fudged unemployment data, admits things will get worse, allows rank amatuers to write the stimulus package that is dribbling in effectiveness, and seems willfully clueless as to propose any economic remedy which would help the population. Rather, he allows the banksters,lobbyists, and corporations to continue their economic predations.
And what does he do in response? He fronts for a sham social program which will further the aims of big money big gubbamint big pharma big Wall St. His betrayal of the people by enabling the banksters is reason enough to NEVER trust him on ANY topic.
cygnus: you have got that right
to say we are nation building is a tired and cynical refrain
that is unless you ar talking about re-building the nation - because we bombed the hell out of them
this old canard was used by the brits for hundreds of years as comaflage for their imperial raping and robbing
same old same old
here's an idea - why don't we get to hell home and let them build their own nation
i know the answer: we are building pipelines through that god forsaken place to transport our stolen gas and oil - ah yes
the cia makes a lot of hard cash for wall street with the afghan heroin they sell
funny how none of that has anything to do with nation building
finally, if nation building is what it is then why is it that obama has put a special ops assassin in charge of the operation
why is that holbrooke - obama's point man for the project can't even define what it is they (we) are doing in that country
holbrooke assures us that when it comes to this undefined success in afghanistan "we'll know it when we see it"
pathetic shit pile of lies and deceit
if this author hasn't figured out that obama is a fraud yet - if he's still waiting for the revolution well i hope he's got a comfortable chair
as for reagan - he brought being a puppet of the nwo to its all time zenith - uninterested in foreign policy, unintersted in domestic policy he was descending into senilty while he snoozed through his entire presidency, literally
this author doesn't understand - it seems - either president
Maybe what Holbrook meant by "we will know it when we see it"
Is a way for him to really say, I am lookin for any plausible excuse to get us the Hell out.
more likely to stay in....
because we are never gonna leave
The problem is that Obama was never aligned with his "base." His base were kidding themselves, allowing themselves to be duped.
This is weird, but not uncommon in recent American politics. For example, the Bush II Administration played the religious right.
One might have hoped progressives would be smarter. Obama represents a really embarrassing chapter in the history of progressivism, not to menton the almost certain demise of the Democratic Party.
These comparisons to the Bush the Infantile terms are growing and they should be elaborated upon.
As to the concept of 'progressivism', that is becoming as repulsive as 'conservatism.' Both are meaningless words in the face of a bankrupt nation which is staggering toward failed state status.
Robert Scheer refuses to accept reality. Just like so many other Americans with Stockholm Syndrome.
Never underestimate the power of denial.
Now, I think I'll go throw up.
I respect Robert Scheer. He has been involved in movements for social change most of his life, and has done more than merely offer just another rubber stamp on the long parade of sordid characters falling out of the donkey's backside. That said, I think this article is simply wishful thinking. There never was an "Obama revolution," nor the possibility of one. I think that Scheer knows this, so the only reason I can come up with for this sighing article, is the pain of his having to face up to the fact that even a black mask on business as usual, does nothing to alter the flow of profits and blood.
Obama was, is, and will remain the current representative of war and Wall Street. That's really his story, in a nutshell. The rest is extrapolation--and sighing.
---------------------------------
I would rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don't want and get that. -- Eugene V. Debs
Yep. Right on the money.
I remember a debate between Sheer and Nader. Nader said, "Robert, where will you draw the line?"
Sheer's reply: "the war" Obama is using drones to kill innocents, he's escalating the wars.
I seems to me Robert Sheer lacks self awareness, allowing himself to be jerked around and betrayed by his "betters," which is often the plight of sycophants. Does he not know how he contradicts himself? It's very sad to watch. I'm rather embarrassed for him.
Absolutely right. A foolish article like this comes from Obama's hesitation about McChrystal's massive build-up plan. This hesitation does not come out of anything but his political problems involving health care and the budget. You can bet your bottom dollar if he had gotten some sort health care bill through, he would be jumping on the chance to escalate the war. You don't choose Stan McChrystal and hand Afghanistan over to him unless you are nothing less than a warmonger yourself.
Holder never said he was investigating the enablers of torture in fact he is validating and setting precedent for the enablers by limiting his investigation to CIA agents who went beyond the torture memos.
More drones in Pakistan, which have a 80-90% civilian kill rate, is an ignorant and cruel nonsolution.
I do not condone bloodshed but if people are intent on it, the Helicoptor raids, as in Somalia, can be the least harmful.
Then again we still do not know what links the neocons and al Qaeda have.
This is another hold Obama's feet to the fire article, as another poster wrote your only going to get charred hands and notice that the feet are cloven.
Yeah, I don't get this article. The Obama "revolution"? It must succeed DESPITE Obama? Obama needs to emulate Ronald Reagan? You got to be kiddin'?
This is not an Obama or a Reagan phenomena...its a Democratic vs. Republican Party Strategy issue.
Reagan, Papa Bush and Dubya pandered to their base and told the people who would never vote for them in a million years to take a hike.
Clinton and Obama abandoned their base and pander to people who would never vote for them in a million years.
The Republicans have a winning strategy, the Democrats a losing strategy.
Don't be deluded into thinking Obama would now be president if the financial meltdown has occurred in Nov. 2008 instead of Sept. 2008. Fortuitous timing and a revolution don't always occur simultaneously.