dagblog - Comments for "Cornel West Retrogrades"

Well, they'll just change the

Resistance — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:38:58 +0000

In reply to Are you talking about

Well, they'll just change the Constitution then, won't they?

The Right to assemble, was so yesterday; everyone' got a phone, use them; so we can monitor your associations.

You can no longer go to the Church of Wright, they don't follow the NEW and Improved Constitution.

Those drones you see over your neighborhoods are not a standing army, stupid; their flying. Doh!

Are you talking about

Aaron Carine — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 03:09:29 +0000

In reply to Really? I doubt Chicago

Are you talking about "clearing" gang members out of a neighborhood if they haven't been convicted of a crime? I hope not, because the Constitution says you can't do that.

We have police to fight

rmrd0000 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:10:43 +0000

In reply to Really? I doubt Chicago

We have police to fight crime. We don't have troops treat citizens as the enemy. Communities want criminals arrested. No one want wants militarily patrolled urban neighborhoods.

Al Capone and the Chicago mob were brought down by law enforcement, not the military.

I'm not sure if you meant to

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 01:11:03 +0000

In reply to Feels like you are erasing an

I'm not sure if you meant to be responding to my comment or someone else's.

I've certainly noticed that Sierra Leone can be ignored while Libya takes front-and-center even for Obama-supporting "liberals".

I've brought up time and again our war in Yemen with ambassador-speaking-as-proxy-president, and occasionally note Somalia as part of our drone region. (as we have CIA projects in Mexico now, I don't know how much we're using drones & whatever other military techniques - but like most things drug war related, it won't receive too much review)

The long war in the Congo is the worst atrocity in recent times, but it's simply not in any big foreign policy equation, but we're supposed to get vapors over Qaddafi, Ahmadinejad.... And somehow that determination over Qaddafi failed to appear in an oil-less country like Syria trying to oust Assad - just like with Sierra Leone, we can suddenly wait a year no problem.

Rahm Emmanuel & others pushed a just-go-along pro-war or at least war-accomodating strategy in 2004. Didn't help - Democrats still got whacked as being soft on security and whatever, and meanwhile lost their moral compass. Some protests in 2006, but I think it was Bush fatigue & my pack vs. your back, as much as any principled disgust with war/surge, even though there was certainly a large bloc of principled liberals who never lost their opposition to our rush-to-war-on-terruh. Come 2008/9 and Obama's able to continue pretty much the same policies without too much howling - public seems to go along with loss of freedom and indefinite detention and what not.

As for Dagblog, YMMV - overall I just doubt that many liberals exist in ideas like liberal democracy and true tolerance - there always seems to be some catch that allows us to suspend our supposed principles and engage in or support petty vindictive or barbaric behavior this-time-only. Lots of "other side does it" rationale as well as simply allocating a whole lot of trust to government in areas you'd think we'd be skeptical.

Feels like you are erasing an

demunchained — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 23:16:01 +0000

In reply to Feels like you are erasing an

Feels like you are erasing an entire decade. Come 2006, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore that Democratic partisans were out in force decrying every single aspect of the Bush approach to foreign intervention. All of it. And very vocally.

"And very vocally".

Huh? I suppose that "partisan protest" had nothing to do with the upcoming election in 2008?

Who's rewriting history here? The fact is post 9/11, more than a few democrats in Congress jumped on the war mongering bandwagon with their repug brethren. voting for the AUMF which OK'd the invasion/occupation of Iraq-- all of this in spite of the fact "madman" Hussein had zero to do with 9/11, the state department indicated there was no al Qaeda in Iraq (Hussein's thugs kept them out), and nobody could actually prove Hussein had WMD's.

If the "partisans" protested Bush policy five years later-- it's more or less irrelevant, since the damage in Iraq had been done by then.

Really? I doubt Chicago

demunchained — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 23:02:10 +0000

In reply to 414 homicides in NYC is

Really?

I doubt Chicago citizens who recently endured their children cut down "accidentally" by gangs spraying bullets in their neighborhoods would protest the presence of the National Guard. This in the least is a response/action, whereas not much is being done right now.

And I'm not suggesting this as a permanent solution-- 60-90 days ought to be enough to clean up most, if not all of the gang problem. And the Chicago police department must step up too. Once a gang is cleared from a neighborhood, Chicago police need to monitor that neighborhood to ensure another gang does not move in.

About that 414 number: Short

A Guy Called LULU — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 20:39:54 +0000

In reply to 414 homicides in NYC is

About that 414 number:
Short term variations in homicide rates have significance and they can be used as evidence when evaluating recent policy changes. When you compare such rates over a long term such as forty years the figures must be adjusted to be meaningful. Whereas dollar cost of a product can be adjusted for inflation over time quite accurately, homicide rates have been subject to variables that must be quite hard to accurately quantify but which direction can be known definitely.
Battlefield deaths have dropped greatly because of the ability to get the wounded to high level care quickly. Injuries that used to kill very often do not do so any more. Similarly, when someone is gunned down on a city street there is likely a 911 call going in before the victim hits the ground. An ambulance with well trained EMT's or a helicopter is quickly dispatched to get the victim to better facilities with more experienced and better trained physicians. I have seen an estimate that homicides might be ten times higher in the U.S. if assault victims died at the same rate from similar injuries as they did in the late fifties. Now, many of them are saved. I expect that that ten-times estimate is high but am confident that it is in the right direction. The exact same shootings would have killed many more people in times not that far past.

414 homicides in NYC is

rmrd0000 — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:44:51 +0000

In reply to Again, gun violence/deaths in

414 homicides in NYC is considered a “record” 40 year low.

Bringing in troops harkens back to the military presence in urban areas during the roits. I doubt that troops would be welcomed with open arms. Remember the cheers that Gen. Russell Honore received when NOLA police officers were ordered to lower weapons trained on unarmed Katrina victims? A military presence would worsen tensions.

Kass, the Tribune columnist, suggests that the city’s financial straits make increased policing impossible. Rev. Jackson points to poverty, a lack of jobs and poor education. I think the solution lies in removing criminals while letting the community know that the educational system and employment situations are being improved.

Again, gun violence/deaths in

demunchained — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:01:41 +0000

In reply to In the aftermath of Newtown,

Again, gun violence/deaths in cities like Chicago and Oakland, CA appear to just be accepted as a "normal" state of affairs in our nation-- and nothing much can be done about it; sort of like acts of nature like a hurricane or tornado.

Making things worse of course is the bogus war on drugs-- I recently read one of Mexico's more notorious drug cartels has made Chicago one of their major distribution hubs for the midwest.

Thus what we have really is a perfect storm of stupid/bad policies and laws, near total lack of economic opportunity, combined with ineffective law enforcement-- and this has been going on for decades and has now turned into a Frankenstein monster.

if the answer is to bring in 2,000 National Guardsmen and finally clean up Chicago's gang problem, then that's what should happen. Obviously for whatever reason(s) there's a lack of political will/leadership to make this happen.

Feels like you are erasing an

kgb999 — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:34:06 +0000

In reply to I think a good deal of the

While perhaps a generalized royal "we" tends to make their values assessments primarily based on US casualties, the specific Democratic-liberal "we" has traditionally tended to a bit loftier ideal, no? Their rhetoric certainly has.

Anyhow. You don't address my primary point. Here we have a direct issue raised by Dr. West asserting that African casualties of our drone policy are completely ignored. Regardless national tendencies, the point was *specifically* placed front-and center to the extent that Orion decided to write an article addressing it directly. This article simply highlights the "not blackness" of Pakistanis and the fact that individual humans in Pakistan have shown empathy for the suffering of Americans, ostensibly to negate West's point.

As far as that goes, it is not really a question of the issues you address here. You can't pretend Dagbolggers live in some dispassionate vacuum where their own actions/beliefs are isolated from the rest of Americana. It really seems that West was talking specifically about you guys - not the random "stupid American voter" that serves as preferred proxy for personal accountability in Democratic circles these days.

So, let's leave aside this imaginary mass of people that none of us know, who's motivations none could possible truly fathom and discuss the specific case of those politically active within the Democratic family - such as those at here at Dagblog. You know ... folks that are fully engaged and well informed about the actions of our government who spend no small quantity of time discussing such actions.

How do you explain the case we're dealing with here in the specific? This is a proactive article that acknowledges West's criticism and addresses our drone program specifically. At the same time this post pretty much flat-out denies that black casualties of such a program even exist. Wouldn't you agree that this appears to exactly personify West's criticism?

Do you think this is a product of legitimate ignorance? If so, how does a group of formerly well-informed political activists fall so far behind what is common knowledge within the entire spectrum of other political watchers? Or is it something else at work? As one who has participated with many of y'all in political discussions for years ... the increasing ignorance (or ignoring) of basic pertinent information in analysis seems rather inexplicable.