dagblog - Comments for "Pandering to Naysayers & Radicals: Democratic Primary Fever "

I thought of editing away the

Flavius — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 04:05:50 +0000

I thought of editing away the penultimate paragraph ,too facile. But I wrote it so I suppose I should live with it

But its insulting for me to dismiss in a sentence the pay for play environment which Sleeping Jesus attacks

Not that I've changed my pessimism but I think that if I'm going to take it on.. I should do that properly rather than in a couple of sentences,

Well I was all set to say

Flavius — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:53:07 +0000

In reply to And don't even THINK of

Well I was all set to say that Baucus, Lieberman and Conrad wouldn..........but I caught myself.

We're ships passing in the night. One subject is whether or why Obama walked away from his campaign promises. Another is the policies he actually implemented to deal with the crisis.

I was discussing the first and you replied about the second.

I won't take on ..oh well, the hell with it, I will take on the additional two issues raised by your final paragraph. You're absolutely right in your description of our pay for play politics. I happen to think they will never get any better no matter what we do, that ship has sailed. It's gone, finito- to quote the Pythons it's an ex-democracy. And it ain't resting.

I won't make this terrible situation worse by also throwing in the Presidency as a little extra trinket for the ones who destroyed our democracy.

Maybe the idea of a

Bruce Levine — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:44:33 +0000

In reply to I didn't notice any insult.

Maybe the idea of a Democratic primary, though theoretically admirable, is nothing more than a pandering gesture to the amateurs, misfits, naysayers and radicals who misinterpreted “Change We Can Believe In” not as a sane, even-handed and bipartisan approach to governing, but as a promise to ban the term “Merry Christmas,” to plant trees on the floor of the New York stock exchange, and to abolish the Department of Defense and turn the Pentagon into a pot plantation.

This is what I find insulting, not to me because I have written in support of rallying behind the president time and again, and so it isn't directed to me. If you believe that this is what Dagblog needs, so be it. I disagree with you.

And don't even THINK of

SleepinJeezus — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:22:30 +0000

In reply to Sorry, Flavius, but your

And don't even THINK of responding with the shopworn "I would have acted upon that, but Baucus (or Liebermann, or Conrad, etc.) wouldn't allow it, danggit!" defense on behalf of the President. Even in his rhetoric, he never went after the banksters. And Baucus and the rest of the corporate whores only served to give him (not so) plausible cover for his own negligence/whoring.

Do we need to reelect Obama? That's a discussion for another day, but I think it prompts your desire to sugarcoat just how corrupt our politics are in defense of your chosen candidate. There really are TWO different issues here, and we would do well to acknowledge reality in both cases. Obama is the only reasonable option we have in terms of who gets our vote in 2012. And our political system is severely trashed and democracy has long ago sold out to corporate money. The latter reality will never get any better for so long as we keep deluding ourselves and others out of some sense of loyalty to the person or the party. In a word, this pay-to-play shit has simply got to stop. Period. End of story.

Sorry, Flavius, but your

SleepinJeezus — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:05:58 +0000

In reply to Neither we nor Obama knew

Sorry, Flavius, but your stretch to suggest that the "unforeseen" failure of Lehman represents "a whole 'nother ball" game is a lazy way to apologize for Obama's failings, at best.

You imply that it somehow follows intuitively that such a failure would prevent Obama from pushing for tighter fin/regs or for accountability from those who were responsible for that and for the other catastrophes in our financial markets and industry.

Sorry, Dude, but it ain't that intuitively obvious.

In fact, there are some like me who would expect that to be a part of his job description: addressing crises and making effort to prevent reoccurrence. Instead, Obama's negligent failure to effectively address the problem is quite transparently related to his reliance upon these same Wall Street banksters for his own political sustenance, meaning the campaign cash that got him into office in the first place. And were he ever even tempted to move against the criminals (even rhetorically, for chrissakes!), he had Geithner & Co. right there beside him to "dissuade" him of any such foolishness.

You're smarter than this, Flavius. You can do better.

I didn't notice any insult.

trkingmomoe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:20:42 +0000

In reply to If I sound like this in

I didn't notice any insult. Muddy adds something new to this site and keeps it from being stale. BANG!

I listen to my quilting

trkingmomoe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:07:14 +0000

In reply to Pandering to Naysayers & Radicals: Democratic Primary Fever

I listen to my quilting friends complain that campaigns are now too long. They have debate fatigue from the Republican schedule. Average voter don't pay attention until a couple of weeks before an election. OWS has caught my freinds interest and support. Some of them are Republicans. People in the street protesting has got voters thinking about real issues. I feel that Obama has been forced to play a careful game of chess with the nasty mean Republicans in Congress. I wasn't surprised that Nader hit a wall with his effort.

SweetJeezus! For the second

SleepinJeezus — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:48:46 +0000

In reply to Thanks VA, what you think

SweetJeezus! For the second time in two weeks, we can't even get THAT right! I'd say it's heartbreaking, but we deserved both losses. Great games, MI State and the Buckeyes. They played their hearts out!

too dull; did not read.

Qnonymous — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:12:00 +0000

In reply to Pandering to Naysayers & Radicals: Democratic Primary Fever

too dull; did not read.

Good idea.

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 02:53:17 +0000

In reply to What if the debate series

Good idea.