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Post by Tenarke on Oct 12, 2009 13:16:07 GMT -5
At this point in time; "None of the above" would be a safe bet.
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Post by Wyndham on Oct 13, 2009 19:42:11 GMT -5
I can't shake the feeling that this is make-believe -- hope as a method. FDR didn't get one, even as a lifetime achievement award. Two weeks! There was no achievement, and couldn't have been. This is all hope.
Were I Obama, I would have run. This isn't the first of that sort of thing. If he proves to be just a Hoover, then he's done. Not just a failure, but a joke.
I read through some of the candidates. One was a doctor, the only gynecologist in the DRC. He's been there along for decades and has done 10,000 surgeries to correct the impacts of a violent rape, in a country much addicted to that. He also runs a clinic where the women stay until they feel ready to go. He does this with nothing.
I guess I'd have voted for him.
You'd think, for Obama, being Pres would have been enough given actual performance.
This just feeds existing perceptions.
No good will come of it.
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Post by RobertGraves on Oct 14, 2009 16:31:39 GMT -5
I'd vote for the doctor too.
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Post by RobertGraves on Nov 2, 2009 14:26:21 GMT -5
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Post by Wyndham on Nov 3, 2009 18:21:35 GMT -5
That was interest Robert, and I think true enough.
What do you think of poor Obama? Papers here have him starting to slide, the gilt started to wear a little thin.
It had to happen, but I'm just glad I'm not him. Its going to get alot worse before it gets better and he wasn't left much in the cupboard. Who would want to become President just as a whole flock of chickens come home to roost? I just hope that people do remember who let them out.
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Post by RobertGraves on Nov 4, 2009 15:09:15 GMT -5
Yes, a bit of a catch-22! He needed to raise expectations to get elected and then lower that high bar on gaining office (which has happened ;O)
He needs some wins, big wins - and they'd need to be value for money.
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Post by Wyndham on Nov 6, 2009 23:14:55 GMT -5
The hell of it is that there are no big wins. Spending is better than cutting, declaring war is more fun than losing one, flipping the bird is better than eating crow.
I think these are pretty much political constants.
Alas, the locust Bush pretty much did a job on whoever followed him before (s)he started.
Imagine. Being destined to be the Pres who surrenders US financial primacy (and Obama will: he has no choice), withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan without clear victory (and Obama will: he has no choice), sucks up to the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians etc. (and Obama will: he has no choice). Domestically, the bank bail out, the auto bail out and all the write downs -- trillions in dollars -- can only hurt. Oh yes. Coming fast up the chute is all the unscheduled liability, as the baby boomers hit retirement age.
Nothing to be done. Obama will manage decline. There are no victories. He's like Ney managing the withdrawal from Moscow. Sometimes you do well just to get away.
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Post by Tenarke on Nov 10, 2009 17:05:47 GMT -5
I’ve been looking at this for about a week, wanting to add my two cent’s worth, but still wanting to avoid getting off on another rant.
On the one hand, a health care reform bill, with a public option, has finally made it out of the House. But, it has just squeaked by in spite of a nominally strong Democratic majority. It is now up to the Senate where a filibuster proof plurality is most unlikely. All this is in spite of public polls indicating that a significant majority of our citizens want national health care with government participation. Even the American Medical Association is in support – finally! The probable cause is that the Pharmaceuticals and HMO’s have now succeeded in buying off enough Democrats to replace their missing Republican lawmakers. The political reality facing US politicians regardless of party is that their re-elections cost money and lots of it; and there ain’t no quid without no quo. My elected representatives represent my interests only when it’s OK with their financial backers.
Reading and listening I find that I am not alone. The center of today’s Democratic Party has now shifted to the right of Eisenhower’s Republicans. Who represents me? I am politically liberal , but I don’t think radically so. I do believe in evolution, not simply as a zoological theory but as a more universal truth. The entire universe is in an evolutionary process. The so called “fixed” stars – aren’t. Our whole world is in a continuing process of decay and rebirth and our bodies politic are caught up in the dance as well. Yesterday’s answers don’t solve today’s problems, nor will today’s answer tomorrow’s. To be a progressive is simply to accept this reality.
It was once said the politics is the art of the possible. I believe this to be true as far as it goes. Much as I admire president Obama, he is after all a politician, so I suppose he’s stuck with it; but changes are due – fundamental changes.
It would be fun to live long enough to see someof these.
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Post by Wyndham on Nov 10, 2009 18:07:36 GMT -5
Alas, Tenarke, I think you're right in your assessment, both counts. People have long been aware of the 'military industrial complex' so when GD says 'you need more planes' we're on to them. Big pharm, and big med, and insurance companies are much, much more powerful (3X the expenditure) and nobody quite gets 'we need to spend LESS on health care'. If its any comfort, you're not alone. The most powerful union in Canada is the college of physicians and surgeons. Funny thing is that whenever there's a health care debate it always resolves itself as 'more money to doctors'. I could write their advise before they tender it. Wait lines are too long (give us more money). Insufficient access to specialists (there wouldn't be . . . if you gave us more money) etc.
Odd about the Dems too. The slide right is frightening. I don't know how much of that is just people being 'mind f***'ed' (we get that too here, although mainly about oil and the environment -- where there's money to be made, there's confusion), and how much is reaction to so much big spending (unavoidable, but there you are). I wouldn't be Obama to save my life . . . Ok, to save my life, but not otherwise.
What you really need is a TR. Teddy would sort it out. I still remember a story I read once about the West Virginia coal strike back in the day. Synopsis. Miners are striking. Owners are fighting back, and how, and dirty. Miners want to organise. Owners won't hire union men. Stalemate. TR summoned the union leaders and the mine owners to Washington. All the way up, the mine owners were terrifying the union leaders with the prospect of the spanking surely awaiting. TR brings them into the oval office (in my vision its has to be the Oval Office, although I don't know that for sure). Short direction ensues: mines will be unionised forthwith; owners will be held liable for any violence; if owners don't like it, the mines will be nationalised and run on that basis. Case closed: America needs coal. Owner protests: but the business of America is business . . . . TR answers: 'there's not one goddamn (in my vision, he uses that word: this is TR) word about business in the Constitution about business. I remember a passage about the 'common good'. Settle, or I expropriate". All the way back the union leaders celebrate the United States, while the owners are silent.
Too cool. That's what Obama needs to learn to be.
Don't despair though Tenarke. Maybe he's got the parts. Remember: even Father Abraham grew into the office (I'm remembering now Stanton's eulogy . . .).
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Post by Wyndham on Nov 22, 2009 14:05:35 GMT -5
Paper today indicates that the health care bill might squeak through . . .
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Post by Tenarke on Dec 6, 2009 20:29:47 GMT -5
Looking at this, it has been nearly a month since my last post. Then I was expressing some anxiety regarding President Obama and his promised health care reform. Now I am feeling if anything, increased angst in light of the proposed Afghanistan “surge”. It was so easy to deride “W”, an obvious chucklehead and very likely corrupt to boot, but to doubt the current President brings into question my own judgment of the man. Clearly the man is no fool and, I had thought from his past life and current speeches, to be a person of considerable integrity. What gives then? This article in the NY Times seems well researched a may well reflect what is on the President’s mind. www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/asia/06reconstruct.html?th&emc=thWhat Colin Powell said of Iraq is true; “If you break it you’ve bought it.” This perhaps applies to Afghanistan as well. We did go into Afghanistan far enough to remove the Taliban from its capitol city, but we failed to control the corrupt government that moved in to fill the resulting vacuum or to enable it to actually govern beyond that city’s limits. But can we succeed where both Great Britain and the late Soviet Union failed? Obama as our principal politician must address the art of the possible. Is a stable and Taliban free Afghanistan possible within the present state of our economy and the mess left behind in the stables by Bush and associates? And what about the military industrial complex? Looking out the window now it is beginning to snow. Damn!
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Post by Aravis on Dec 24, 2009 14:56:26 GMT -5
I had to take part in a group presentation on the Afghanistan question for my Moral Development class, presenting both sides. Interestingly, going into this all 4 of us were against the surge. By the time we'd finished our research, all 4 of us thought that we needed to stay there a little longer after all. The difference is the plan of action to be taken. We need to stay not as a patronizing nation, but as partners. We need to not only shut down the poppy fields, but help them replace with other cash crops. We need to help them set up democratic government and educational systems that fit with their own belief system, not ours. I came across a great article by someone at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, written in Oct. 2008 to the "next President" which outlined this and other things. When the Obama gave his address on Afghanistan recently it was interesting to note that almost everything he said matched the Endowments recommendations. You can find the article at: www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22337 Scroll down to get the full pdf version. It's worth the read.
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Post by Tenarke on Dec 25, 2009 18:12:40 GMT -5
Thanks, Aravis. Your article does somewhat allay my concerns. One question does remain however regarding Karzai’s commitment to eliminate Afghanistan’s opium trade; namely his own brother’s involvement in this. I suppose my lingering doubts depend on how one defines “possible”. This also applies to the severely compromised version of health care reform that has staggered its way through the Senate. Here Paul Krugman is urging me not to give up hope: www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/opinion/25krugman.html?th&emc=thI don’t much like the thing and I’ll wager that it will now take a few more decades and a few more tries to really get it right, but this may be all that the Right will now permit. “Possible”? Well maybe.
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Post by Tenarke on Jan 13, 2010 19:13:40 GMT -5
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Post by RobertGraves on Jan 17, 2010 18:25:19 GMT -5
Wonder what the story is with this 'assassination' reported by the ABC here in Australia:
Security beefed up after scientist's assassination
By Middle East correspondent Anne Barker
Iran is tightening security to protect its nuclear experts after the assassination of a top atomic scientist last week.
Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a professor of quantum physics, died when a remote-controlled bomb exploded in a motorbike outside his home in the northern Tehran neighbourhood of Qeytariyeh.
Iran accused America's CIA or Mossad agents from Israel of involvement in the murder.
State-run media reports Iran has beefed up its security measures to safeguard other nuclear scientists.
The United States has denied any involvement in the assassination. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any role, as is standard practice.
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