Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
There's a common tendency to confuse politics with reality television shows or to imagine that politicians are, even more than fictional heroes, your own personal friends. This tendency is only compounded by the partisan framework in which we are instructed to imagine half the politicians as purely evil and the other half as essentially good. So, let's be clear. There's very little question that Barack Obama speaks more eloquently than Bush, and that Obama at times (and more so as a candidate than as a president) expresses far kinder and wiser sentiments than Bush. It seems quite likely to me that had Obama been made president in 2000 he would have done far less damage than Bush by 2008. Obama is probably a fun guy to play basketball with, while Bush might be expected to throw elbows, kick opponents, and pull your shorts down. But I'm interested in something more important than the spectacle of personality here. I think Obama would make a wonderful powerless figurehead, and I dearly wish that were what he was. I think Americans clearly need one.
Three rough ways of looking at a president might be as follows. First, in the unimaginable circumstance in which a president encountered a homeless person on the street, would he invite him to live in the White House, or help him find a home, be nice and give him $1, ignore him, shout at him to get a job, kick him in the guts, or help him into a van and take him off to be tortured? I don't care about that way of looking at presidents. Second, do the policies the president pursues lead to massive numbers of people becoming homeless or worse? Third, do the policies the president pursues empower all future presidents to make unfathomable numbers of people suffer horribly? My contention is that Obama has not yet done as much damage as Bush in the second view but has, in a certain sense, done worse in the third view.
Richard Nixon's White House Counsel John Dean, while Bush was president, predicted that Bush's successor would be one of two things, either the best or the worst president in history. He, or she, would either undo the damage and prosecute the crimes, or protect the criminals and continue the abuses. Obama has protected the criminals, continued many of the abuses, more firmly established the power to commit those abuses, and expanded abusive powers beyond what Bush ever attempted. I'm not trying to quantify and determine whether Obama has grabbed "more" new abusive powers than Bush did. I'm simply pointing out that, as with previous presidents, Obama has retained the powers bequeathed him and added some.
Comments
David, how is this a news story? It looks like a blog post to me.
by Ramona on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 8:56am
I cannot say where on dagblog this piece belongs but I can say that I wish it would be read by every voter in this country.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:27pm
Swanson blogs at www.opednews.com, too. Good, isn't he? We all might like this piece about channelling citizen solidarity into productive channels:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Channeling-Citizen-Solidar-by-Michael-Richards-110313-203.html
I'd made the remark a few days ago that unions and other grassroots group might want to build their own banks and credit unions, or as Emma says, sovereign wealth funds.
by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:36pm
Sounds good to me.
by cmaukonen on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:51pm
But then anything that keeps it out of the hands of Wall Street sounds good. Like my over stuffed mattress or buried on some remote island. Aye matey ! (hobbles away on wooden leg)
by cmaukonen on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:54pm
I was just getting ready to comment I found the opinion a surprisingly interesting take - especially considering the title (which can only be described as a canard by now). Different strokes I guess.
Ghengis is right. Mention Obama ... someone's gotta start a flame war.
(From a content management perspective ... considering it's offered with zero commentary from the poster, it seems this fits better over here on the news side than taking up a whole blog post, no? This is hardly the first time an opinion piece has been highlighted in the news section.)
by kgb999 on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 2:26pm
David's world is black and white. Mine isn't so I'm glad Obama's been the president for the last two years and hope therell be another six.,And that David will keep on harassing him.
by Flavius on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:10pm
Yeah, my response to the blog's title is: NO!!
by Richard Day on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:33pm