If there were an Urgent button on HuffPost I would use it for this post.
Obama's undercutting his brand is he? He's moving to the center?
DUH!
Don't get me wrong. Attack him from the left. That's a good thing. The more MoveOn whacks him, the harder it will be for the Right to make the radical/liberal label stick to him. That's a good thing.
But let none of us be naïve in our hearts. Let none of us be dismayed by the moves he has to make. Barack knows what he's doing, his people know what they're doing, this is all very carefully calibrated.
C'mon everybody, wake up! We gotta win this thing. We are supposed to be ones who get it. All of us who made this happen need to accept what winning entails. This is a BLACK MAN who is daily being tarred and feathered as a Muslim Leftist Radical Marxist Elitist. And that will go on and on and on.
What country are you living in? Don't you understand the power of that slander? Get serious. Grow up. Let's win this thing -- then we hold him accountable.
If Barack moving to the middle is really giving you second thoughts then you are indistinguishable from fanatical Hillary supporters who are willing to sit out the election or even vote for McCain -- and the hell with overturning Roe v Wade and all the rest.
Please. We are so close now. Let's not blow it. Again.
I once got hit by a few well-meaning "leftists" in this website
when I said that progressive movements are not built in a day -
you got to move one step forward, two steps backward sometimes -
but the goal is to win it, dammit!
US progressives need to read into the histories of third world national democratic movements,
to understand this. Inasmuch as battles are waged through sometimes bloody wars, a lot
of nationalist progressives also recognize the need to fight in the electoral politics as well.
That is part of people's education.
In this case, Senator Obama needs all the help he can,
the progressive sector needs to engage in that meaningful conversation.
Though I agree with Arianna that he should always press the real issues above all else, still I trust Obama's instincts when he denounces Clark, votes for Fisa, applauds the Supreme Court gun decision - I don't like it much but I just hope it works.
We are dealing with REPUBLICANS here. Forget the high road and seize the tone you need to no matter what.
McCain is loving it when the dialogue gets into questions about his patriotism and "character".
Look at Clark's remarks. It distracted the media and gave McCain opportunities. Suddenly the spotlight was on..........Liebermann, fearmongering away.
Obama just HAS to come forward with this somewhat vacuous style when McCain is successful at getting it to veer away from real issues. Americans know anyone trying to put a good face on Iraq and Afghanistan is lying, but they still rally to the notion of the patriotic American soldier, guns, drilling for oil andfighting terrorists, so Obama is just being careful.
McCain has only political stunts, fear mongering, indignation and macho posturing in the hope he'll arrouse the baser instincts of the electorate that got us Bush and the Republicans in the first place.
Meanwhile Obama is fending all this off rather skillfully, awaiting his moment when the real issues become the focus - Iraq, the economy, the price of oil. Then it is all over for McCain.
1. The country will know, that there ARE American people who care about right from wrong.
2. The country will know that the Republican party, not the Democrats, if they end up in power again, are the BAD party.
3. We will finally come to grips with the fact that we ARE AND WILL BE MARGINALIZED until we can educate the rest of us, which we have NOT done. Then we can live and act like the marginalized revolutionaries we SHOULD BE.
4. We CAN accomplish TRUE CAPAIGN FINANCE REFORM. For example... You stab the Constitution in the back, the next day you get no money... Try it, it feels good.
5. The hillbillies might trust the Democrats again, maybe someday.
6. Reality will really set in, FOR REAL. Americans might finally stop being prescription drug zombies and worry about basic survival.
7. Realization will set in that there are so many more important things going on IN AMERICA than Michelle and Barak, and we will REALLY STOP watching the MSM.
8. It will be cut and dried to impeach this time, as many of the Blue Dogs will be shaken up or gone.
9. Someone like McCain will implode in the White House and it will be fun to watch.
10. It will be a cold day in hell when the Democrats try this sh** again, and it could happen in our lifetime.
All these ninnies who are so ready in every election to form the usual Progressive Circular Firing Squad the second they hear something they don't like are half a baby step away from being Naderites. Yes, our politicians -- even the Democratic ones -- are not perfect. But the only other option for THIS November is McCain. So we all need to get 100% behind the guy who's at least REASONABLY close to what we want him to be, and THEN when he gets elected, we go after him and hold him accountable.
Until then, just get him elected and shut up! Sheesh.
Pressure must be maintained on Obama or he will not feel it necessary to govern as a progressive. He should not be given a pass.
What progressives miss is there is an absolute need for a clear, progressive position to be put forward institutionally by a relatively serious organization that will not compromise with electoral politics in order to get funders of war crimes (like Obama) elected. The failure of the left to maintain such organizations has permitted the debate to move so far to the right that what was the right center only a few decades ago is now considered left. So people like Obama become identified as left when they are actually right-center.
It also helps the Obamas of the world for the clear left to vigorously attack Obama. When Obama gets attacked by what is a clear left organization, it gives him cover to move to the left. But when nearly all of the so-called progressive organizations are thinly-guised fronts for the Democratic Party, their refusal to push what all know is both the morally correct and progressive position and hold Obama accountable means that Obama does not have any pressure or argument to which he must respond. If he does, he looks radical.
How do you know that, Mr. De Zengotita? He seems to be surrounding himself with all of Clinton's DLC people. At least, the stances he taking (as opposed to his earlier stances) seem to come right out of the old "don't take a stand on anything" playbook. With that mindset, we got the spineless 2006 Democratic Congress.
What I'm taking away from your post is: "Trust him. He'll fix it." That's child-like thinking. After seven years, "trust me" doesn't work, anymore.
You know, this current administration has shredded far more than just the 4th amendment...so why do you only care about this particular one?
NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. The 4th Amendment protects against GOVERNMENT searches of your home, your car, your physical body, the content of your medical records, your financial records, your political affiliations, who our friends are, things you've put in written documents, what you've said on the phone (about Bush, the price of gas or your next door neighbor), what your travel plans are, where you're going and why, political discussions.
If the government wants to go snooping in your private affairs, the 4th amendment says
its 'not OK'. If the government says 'gosh, its an emergency', the government has to prove that to a court. A real court - not a paper tiger 'FISA court' which can't even INQUIRE into the government's basis for snooping.
Officer Bythebook has to convince a neutral Magistrate that he should be allowed to search for the marijuana plants Irainformant saw growing in Howardhigh's basement
last weekend. If Sammyspook wants to be indiscriminately snooping through emails between Aunt Sally and her 'flaming liberal' niece Lorna in Austria, that he needs to meet at least the same burden as Bythebook.
The FISA amendments are a cow wearing a dress. They're wholly unnecessary to situations where there's actually a REASON to suspect 'terrorist activity'. Obama knows
that full well. The amendments are just a means of legalizing formerly illegal conduct
for the future, so congress doesn't have to deal with any more messy public
- McCain alternative is horrible
- Americans are too stupid to see the light
- Adult reasoning won't work with them
- Barack *must* win
- Wake up people, tactics are better than principles, gotta put some beef in the cattle
Remind me ...
Who said "What's important is not how we could win, but why we should" ?
Who said "You have done what the cynics said we couldn't do" ?
I "hope" you'll have the sense to understand that while your reasoning make a lot of sense, people that came to him as a refuge agaisnt precisely this kind of cynical but politically savvy calculations may feel a lil let down now.
Had he compromised without taking us as idiots, had he find the words (that's his job) to explain more clearly the things you're trying to explain with crude words, maybe things would be different.
But he hasn't.
He's bringing back cynism, spin and tactics on the table and asking us to 'trust' him ?
In name of what ?
But to make it clear ... I do believe there's still a lot of essential reasons for sticking with Barack instead of McCain. In my opinion, we simply cannot afford to carry on the many neo/con policies McCain agrees with anymore.
So my intent is not to stir a call to defection. This is a call to principles and reason.
I have watched this election season very carefully and tried to access and evaluate info about all of the candidates from numerous traditional and non-traditional sources. I have seen nothing so far to justify your above statement. While I have not agreed with everything that Sen. Obama has done (example: kowtowing to Bill, Hillary, and her Clintonistas), I have never yet seen or supported ANY candidate that has agreed with my own positions 100%.
I am sure it took a great deal of backbone to even DARE to run against the most powerful political machine the Dem Party has seen in decades-- and to actually defeat them. It took quite a bit of backbone to start out with a grand total of $00.00 against $millions accrued by HRC before the race even began. And, Obama has not, IMO, demonstrated a propensity to favor corporations while screwing the average American. Is it not possible that Sen. Obama simply has a different outlook on the FISA bill than you or I? What's your alternative? Are McCain and Barr also "empty suits"? Are they willing to screw big business in order to elevate the plight of average Americans?
I contributed this morning and will do so again...
A Democrat Senate and Congress and White House will right this ship....
DRAFT, ROE V WADE, INTELLIGENT DESIGN, BOMB BOMB IRAN, NO HEALTH COVERAGE. Just a couple of thoughts.
While there is certainly a surplus of opportunistic politicians who really seek only their own personal gain and manipulate people with bogus issues and fear, there are others who truly serve and sacrifice to make this a better world for all of us and our children.
So don't be so quick to react. What if we really considered the issues -- even the FISA compromise and the gun control decision -- and looked for ways to navigate through that to a better solution.