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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:13 pm Post subject: Obama and change? |
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As I've mentioned before, I think Obama is an act. He just claims he is about change, yet in reality he's like all the other politicians.
Thought I'd provide this op-ed from Paul Krugman, who summarizes the candidates proposals to minimize or avoid a recession. Let's just say he isn't that impressed by Mr. Obama's ideas.
Obama tilts to the right |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:30 pm Post subject: Re: Obama and change? |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
As I've mentioned before, I think Obama is an act. He just claims he is about change, yet in reality he's like all the other politicians.
Thought I'd provide this op-ed from Paul Krugman, who summarizes the candidates proposals to minimize or avoid a recession. Let's just say he isn't that impressed by Mr. Obama's ideas.
Obama tilts to the right |
It's a fair bet that any successful politician is going to be, well, a successful politician. That means managing the difficult trick of getting more than 50% of a divided electorate to think you're one of them.
All politicians make decisions on the basis of calculation as well as principle. The two aren't always in opposition, either. I'm sure Obama is currently calculating that things are looking good for him in the primary, and therefore it's time to move right in anticipation of the general election. That's probably a smart strategy. And in his heart, he's a moderate; he comes across as more liberal than Hillary, but whether that's true or not is another story. (On the basis of voting record, it's actually pretty hard to be more liberal than Hillary. She routinely gets high-90s ratings from liberal interest groups. I did see that one of them had rated Obama a perfect 100, though, so I guess we'll see.)
My prediction is that Obama becomes the Dem nominee, and the Dem roots go on to experience a certain degree of... disenchantment when they realize he isn't as progressive as they imagined. |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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Can you be progressive and fiscally responsible at the same time?
I always thought progressive meant the ability to understand the
societies values and then to invest in those values.
What are a societies values?
Let's take the preamble to the US constitution, a rather old piece of
paper in some circle, relevant today? Maybe. But, in my view the first
document that outlined the goals and aspirations that a group high
minded rugged individuals had for a nation during it's birth.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings
of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America."
Taking a progressive view what do we see as the "original priorities" set
forth for this society or nation or as it is referred to in the document
the "Union"?
It seem the overall goal is to form a "More perfect Union".
The first Priority, to Establish Justice.
The second to insure Domestic Tranquility.
Third provide for the Common Defence.
Fourth promote the General Welfare.
Fifth secure the Blessings of Liberty.
In understanding this set of priorities where does the progressive
investment lay?
Where does education fall into these priorities?
Health care?
Mortgage relief?
Railways, Highways and transportation infrastructure?
Civil Rights?
Arts and crafts?
Maybe some of these ideas and investment meet more than one of
these priorities.
Oh, do I ramble sometimes. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm sure Obama is currently calculating that things are looking good for him in the primary, and therefore it's time to move right in anticipation of the general election. |
I suspect Obama feels his pigmentation is enough of a change and is shying away from scaring the bejeezus out of the more conservative ones among us. Kind of 'one step at a time, folks. One step at a time'.
I hope someone else understands what cb is posting about. I didn't. |
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marmotkorea
Joined: 12 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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...
Last edited by marmotkorea on Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:41 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Is that the Marmot, out of his hole? You leavin Korea? What will happen to the blog? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:38 pm Post subject: Re: Obama and change? |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
As I've mentioned before, I think Obama is an act. He just claims he is about change, yet in reality he's like all the other politicians.
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I think that's clear. That hidden conservativism is the asset, but its the hypocrisy of his stumping for change that I find distasteful. On the issues, he and Hillary are almost twins.
But I find Obama reminds me strikingly of JFK, whom I'm convinced remains a viable figure in the public mind only because he was martyred. Here's a great piece on Dr. MLK Jr., and just how much Kennedy frustrated his dream.
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"King's whole career was a petition to the federal government. He was appealing to Americans through their government to keep faith and be true to democratic ideals. So it was never contemplated that the movement could accomplish these things alone. And it was never contemplated that the government was going to make these changes on its own without a movement of its citizens."
Here's what Branch wrote about King and Johnson in the third part of his trilogy, "At Canaan's Edge":
By far the most critical figure for him to read was President Lyndon Johnson, whose relations with King contrasted sharply with President John F. Kennedy's sympathetic, sophisticated aloofness. Whereas Kennedy had charmed King while keeping him at a safe distance, harping in private on the political dangers of alleged subversives in the civil rights movement, Johnson in the White House was intensely personal but unpredictable -- treating King variously to a Texas bearhug of shared dreams or a towering, wounded snit.
After Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Johnson telephoned King, as Branch writes, pledging to demonstrate "how worthy I'm going to try to be of all of your hopes." Johnson, a former Senate majority leader, skillfully arm-twisted and cajoled lawmakers into passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination in public facilities and employment. But even in the legislative arena, Johnson needed help, enlisting movement veterans such as NAACP lobbyist Clarence Mitchell and the nascent Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. That legislation was followed up with enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Says Branch of King and Johnson: "I don't think either one of them could have done what they did without the other."
What often is missing from some of the wonderful King birthday reminiscing is how complex the fight for rights was, and the push-pull that existed within the movement and outside of it. Take the 1963 March on Washington, which everybody now seems to have attended or embraced. Malcolm X had called it "the Farce on Washington," and John Lewis, now a Democratic congressman from Atlanta and a prominent supporter of Hillary Clinton, had been one of the movement's rabble-rousers, someone whose impending speech at the march worried the Kennedys, who appealed to emissaries to get Lewis to tone it down. He did, while still making forceful remarks against the federal government. Today, Lewis is considered a symbol of reconciliation. And the Kennedys still have a Camelot glow. But civil rights was not initially a JFK priority.
This from historian Kenneth O'Reilly's book, "Nixon's Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton":
John and Robert Kennedy remained civil rights minimalists for the whole thousand days, holding as best they could to the basic rules learned in the Massachusetts politics of the 1940s and 1950s: Cultivate the handful of people who could deliver the black vote, make an occasional symbolic gesture, never risk any political capital on behalf of anyone's civil rights. To the extent that the Kennedys pushed the envelope on minority hiring, voting rights, federal housing, and combating segregationist violence, they did so because the civil rights movement forced their hand. |
Obama may rise above Kennedy, but its hard for me to buy into the hope. I see just at least as much promise in a Clinton Presidency. |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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Nice marmot, man. |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| jkelly80 wrote: |
Nice marmot, man. |
Oh, and keeping an aquatic mammal, within...city limits...ahem...that's not legal either. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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| JFK, whom I'm convinced remains a viable figure in the public mind only because he was martyred |
I entirely agree. LBJ was the far more important historical figure, but gets ignored. Had he resisted the pull of Vietnam, he would stand as tall as FDR and possibly Lincoln in our history. If it weren't for the conspiracy theorists, I suspect JFK would have been forgotten by now. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| JFK, whom I'm convinced remains a viable figure in the public mind only because he was martyred |
I entirely agree. LBJ was the far more important historical figure, but gets ignored. Had he resisted the pull of Vietnam, he would stand as tall as FDR and possibly Lincoln in our history. If it weren't for the conspiracy theorists, I suspect JFK would have been forgotten by now. |
Alas, he couldn't resist and became that tragic hero figure instead.
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I suspect Obama feels his pigmentation is enough of a change and is shying away from scaring the bejeezus out of the more conservative ones among us. Kind of 'one step at a time, folks. One step at a time'. |
yeah. I think that's the only noticeable change we'll get from Obama: a change in skin color. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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Bucheon Bum wrote:
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As I've mentioned before, I think Obama is an act. He just claims he is about change, yet in reality he's like all the other politicians.
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Yeah, that pretty much jibes with my impressions of the guy. Whenever I've heard him give a stump speech, it usually just sounds like the same boilerplate that politicians have been delivering since time in memorial. People talk about Hillary stealing his themes, but as far as I'm concerned, stuff like "time for a change" and "rejecting the old politics" is about as public domain as you can get.
He did impress me once, however, when the Scooter Libby pardon was announced, and he compared the treatment of Libby to that meted out to a 17-year old African-American guy in the South who had gotten serious jail time for having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend. Whatever you think about those respective cases, it's not often that you see a mainstream politician discussing, on his own volition, a "hot button" moral issue like that.
So he does seem to be a thoughtful, philosophical sort of a guy, a bit more so than the average politician. But yeah, his overall themes are pretty run-of-the-mill. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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| I think that's the only noticeable change we'll get from Obama: a change in skin color. |
Which I confidently predict would lead to at least some change in the way that the USA is perceived in the world, at least among the more shallow elements. I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn't hear a peep out of French leftists about how awful America is as long as Obama and Sarkozy remained presidents of their respective jurisdictions. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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| I think that's the only noticeable change we'll get from Obama: a change in skin color. |
Which I confidently predict would lead to at least some change in the way that the USA is perceived in the world, at least among the more shallow elements. I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn't hear a peep out of French leftists about how awful America is as long as Obama and Sarkozy remained presidents of their respective jurisdictions. |
Yes, that is true. It will help the US image, at least in the beginning. Obviously that could change, depending on Obama's actions. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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I think his election would have profound long-term effects both domestically and abroad. Domestically, it would forever be impossible for any minority to claim 'the system' only makes superficial changes and that real power is forever beyond attainment. That faction of the black community represented by Bill Cosby would be immensely strengthened. The moment he puts his hand on the Bible and raisies his right hand and says, "I Barack H. Obama do solemnly swear...", we will begin to see a seachange in attitudes among minority kids who never believed they could rise so high.
Internationally, a lot of people would gain a visible symbol that hate and fear of other races can be overcome and multiethnic societies are viable. Think of the pressure it would put on Europeans to get their act together in how they've been dealing with their immigrants. That alone should be reason enough to elect Obama. "Elect Obama--Discomfort the French". Not quite snappy enough for a bumper sticker, but... |
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