Obama has responded to the truly insane idealists who don't properly understand why he must vote for the new FISA bill (as it has come to be known).
Some choice cuts, courtesy of Huffpo:
Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention -- once I'm sworn in as president -- to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.
hmm... it's so... logical...
Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I'm happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions.
awww.... love for the haters....
I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I'm not exempt from that. I'm certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too. I cannot promise to agree with you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the country.
dude... owned.
So basically, I'm gonna lay it out right now. People got their panties in a bunch over this. They overreacted, and they showed themselves to be the same kind of zealots I've watched dictate the decisions of the executive branch of my government for the last eight years.
Barack Obama, when he is President, will not work directly for any one of us. It is not his job to do what you want him to do. You want to dictate policy? Get off your ass, go to law school and start your own political career. Or just throw your vote away on some guy named Barr.
I have been watching for awhile. Hanging back, I've noticed some patterns. And one thing that has bothered me is the progressive movement shouting out that Barack Obama is a turncoat because he refuses to become their version of GWB.
Barack Obama ran in the primaries on a platform of change and unity. So far, I don't believe I've seen anything from him to tell me he's deviated from that course.
In conclusion, quit your bitching.
(Look, I'm sorry this is so aggressive. I haven't had much presence here lately, and I'm about to leave. But I am trying to incite a debate/riot. So hit it up, and I'll be back later.)
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Obama Don't Drink No Haterade
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 responses:
Yo Rupert, I guess I am one of those bitchy progressives who is slowly becoming disillusioned with Obama's 90 degree tilt towards the centre now that he is nominee. I understand that this is par for the course for all political campaigns post primaries but some of the stuff I am hearing is really making me sit up and take notice.
The aquiscence on the supreme court decision on the second amendment for starters gives me pause. He simply tried to square that away with his older position calling for common sense gun ownership laws even though its plain to see that this decision is going to hamper that from ever happening.
Second - he has now started inserting riders into the Iraq withdrawal plan saying that he will have to take into account Iraqi stability when he starts withdrawing troops. Earlier his only conditions were troop safety and a time limit of 16 months. Now he seems to be giving himself some leeway as regards future flip flops on this issue.
Now he seems to be criticising Moveon.org for their Gen Betrayus ad last year in his patriotism speech a few days back. Granted that ad was extremely partisan and uncalled for.However why bring it up now. At the time the ad came out Obama walked on the bill condemning the ad. A year or more later he turns around and criticises it in order to earn points from the center right and tries to pacify McCain. Why turn around and stab his core supporters in the back? I get the feeling that his present political triangulation is going to cost him his integrity and ability to enact change when the elections are over.
mino - personally, i'm much more willing to accept this shift given the apparent transparency with which it is done. while i can understand why you're mad ideologically (fisa and the gun thing both bother me a bit), the fact of the matter is that if the man wants to be the leader of a republic of 300 million, he's gonna have to make at least 150 million happy.
don't hate the player, hate the game. at least he's capable of rationally explaining such shifts.
I have absolutely no problem with the Supreme Court's decision to give every single American citizen the right to own a handgun. This decision is not going to have to effects that some radical progressives are intimating. Such rabble-rousing has no place in this political season, as there is so much more at stake than our stances on divisive issues.
What is really lost with the Supreme Court's gun decision? The door for this to lead to a right to conceal a weapon at all times outside the home or a right to own an automatic weapon has already been slammed shut by the Supreme Court majority decision anyway. I don't understand how a final opinion on the second amendment being delivered is a bad thing.
As for the FISA bill - I hate it. But I also know that there are plenty of people out there who believe that we need a very consistent and dedicated surveillance system in place in order to protect America from another attack on U.S. soil.
While this is not my first concern in the election, it is a concern - and high on the list for many still - to which Barack Obama must be sensitive.
Beyond that, the idea that the government could actually do anything with all the information they compiled in the Orwellian "secret room" at AT&T is as paranoid as it is oversimplified. It also implies a complicit self-aggrandizing on the part of the believer in such a conspiracy theory. I don't believe anyone here is nearly interesting enough for the government to give a fuck what we do with our time.
The old way was more problematic in its inefficiency that in its insidiousness, but it was also certainly illegal and unconstitutional - both issues that many of us who count ourselves outside the realm of "Bush supporters" have had for nearly a decade now with the current administration.
However, to blame the phone companies and become upset over things like retroactive immunity and the like is an unfortunate folly of misplaced aggression. These phone companies were not acting on the behalf of evil. It is nearly certain that the men who pulled the trigger on this project at AT&T were likely doing what they simply felt (likely because they were told so) was their patriotic duty to protect their country from another 9/11.
Not granting these companies retroactive immunity would gain us what? The country's largest open-and-shut class action lawsuit ever? The dissolution of AT&T? In case you haven't noticed, we're heading for a pretty severe recession. Losing AT&T is not a viable option. We lose far more than we gain by being idealists in this situation.
I admire Barack Obama for his pragmatism. Since 2006, when the Dems had their first big win in years in the congressional and gubernatorial elections, it was assumed that both the selections in this year's primary season by each respective party would have to heavily court those in the middle. This signaled the swing of the pendulum and the moderates' desire to lean slightly left, as they felt the right had let them down.
What is mind-boggling (and makes the Obama shift stand out even more) has been John McCain's shift further right. It makes Barack Obama seem a bit more like the slick politician than Senator McCainn (hilarious, given the length of time/number of deep-rooted scandalous political connections McCain has on Obama), which may have been the aim. However, ultimately I believe that what Barack Obama is doing is the right thing for him to do to lead this country to a Barack Obama presidency. That, to me, is the ultimate prize now.
While I do respect everyone's right to their own opinion on the matter (it may not have appeared as such in my previous post, but I promise you sincerely that I do), I simply want to point out the inherent hypocrisy in judging Barack Obama based on a couple of policy decisions he's made that fall outside of one's own very personal and idiosyncratic political beliefs.
I find this type off thinking to be akin to not voting for a particular candidate because of they are pro-choice, anti-gun or perceived to be soft on terror and patriotism.
We have all looked down our noses at some point or another at someone for making a political decision based on such divisive issues, and I won't sit idly by and watch the men I consider to be my peers and intellectual equals pat each other on the back for doing exactly the same thing.
I'm just trying to keep everyone here extremely honest. None of us has all the answers.
I misspelled McCain in there and forgot to talk about Obama's stance on the war. however I believe I'll let others weigh in if they like before I start pelting the board with more blowhardiness.
Rupert, there are somethings seriously troubling about your point of view. Firstly you seem to be suggesting that we give Obama a free pass just because the alternative is so horrendous that we have no choice in the matter. To a certain extent it is true that a third republican term would be a disaster but I also believe that is no reason to stifle left wing dissent to Obama's more centrist policies.
This guy is a politician like all other politicians. He still retains a lot of his dealism because he is still new to the game. Unless people call him out for comprising at this crucial stage in his career he is going to find that its much easier to appeal to the middle of the spectrum masses and toss out unwanted ideological components of his philosophy in ways that Bill Clinton mastered.
What you suggest is a totalitarian mandate in favour of his presidency that will ensure that he becomes a demagogue just like Bush did. What is even more troubling about your pique at the dissent is the extremely small amount of it that has come out so far. You are turning out as a party man even before the real internal muck raking has started on other core democratic issues like the Gay marriage ban or harsher gun violation penalties or handgun safety measures. Unless the "fringe progressives" as you call them raise their voices now a number of more radical proposals will be the first to get thrown under the bus and instead of change what we will have a new paint job covering the same of old mess.
Oh, and the assault weapon ban expired in 2004. Maybe Obama will remember sometime after November to do something about rewriting and passing it so that it doesn't expire anytime soon.
excuse me?
I'm not going to lie. I'm pissed off.
First of all, the weapons ban is being revived as we speak. Something about a republican congress and executive branch letting our country fall into disrepair and disarray just didn't lend itself to really looking back into this until now.
Beyond that, I'm just going to let fly.
FUCK DEMOCRATS WHO MAKE THE GOP'S JOB EASIER.
there. i said it. fuck anybody who legitimately doesn't have the historical hindsight to look back through at least 1980 and realize that the reason we've had so many shitty republican presidents is because the fucking left can't get its shit together.
you want to call obama out? you'll have at least four years to do so IF YOU'RE FUCKING LUCKY.
read that again. then read this.
PRESIDENT JOHN MCCAIN.
so yeah. my point is this - pull your heads out of your asses. We haven't won yet. And all this "making obama stronger" rhetoric doesn't mean shit if he DOESN'T GET ELECTED.
am i fucking surrounded by idiots? Am i the only one who doesn't realize that we still have an incredibly long election process to go through?
This guy is black. He's got ties to some dudes who used to blow up buildings. His ex-pastor is insane. He might be Muslim. Oh yeah, and he's soft on crime and war and everything else anyone can be soft on.
Barack Obama will have plenty of people lobbing shit his way the next few months. If he endures that struggle and wins, THEN YOU CAN CALL HIM OUT FOR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT.
until then, for fuck's sake. SUPPORT THE MAN. YOUR COUNTRY'S VERY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON JOHN MCCAIN NOT BEING OUR NEXT PRESIDENT.
are you people mental?
seriously. Are you so goddamn myopic that you don't understand that this is not a sure thing? That we still have a long way to go? That once the ultimate prize is won, THEN AND ONLY THEN can we begin to nitpick?
the democratic party has way too many smart fuckers high on the smell of their own shit for its own good.
To quote The Dude:
You're not wrong, Walter. You're just an asshole.
First of all Rupert, relax. You are getting way to heated and self righteous about this issue. You are not the only one concerned about the outcome of this election. I agree this election is far from over. However that is no excuse to stifle protests against flip flops. You seem to be so obsessed with presenting a (perhaps non existent?) united democratic front that you forget that the real aim of elections is to get opposing points of view heard and discussed.
There is a difference between opposing a candidate's position before the election in debates and voting against him. The Hillary supporters were right to a certain extent when they said that all they wanted was to be heard and for their candidate to express her point of view despite there being no mathematical possibility of her winning the candidacy. The process is set up in such a way that people can be heard, despite them not always being winners. At this point in the general election campaign it is important that the candidates hear people's issues and react to them instead of triangulating and politicking only in the middle of the political spectrum because that's where the votes come in.
The rest of us count too and we cannot just sit around and keep silent until the elections are over. It is much better if all opinions are laid out in the open and the candidates allowed to make their choices now so that there is less of a chance of them making 180 degree turns later on once they have our votes. More important than just an Obama presidency is an Obama presidency that sticks to its principals and promises.
Those things you mentioned such as Obama's race, church and fringe political affiliations are non issues in the larger sense of things. Sure it is important to address them and assuage the swing voter's concerns but to me those things are distractions. I want to see this guy make a firm stand on gun rights and regulations.
It was disturbing to me that he seemed to be kowtowing to the court's fatuous decision without saying anything in opposition. I also believe that phone companies should be held liable for collaborating with an illegal directive by the government. I agreed with Pat Buchanan today when he said on Hardball that it is laughable that Obama is claiming that his recent manuervers are not political ones. He is a politician and needs to be vetted carefully. No one should get the kind of free pass you are suggesting. Remember I am not suggesting voting for another candidate - I believe he is our bet shot but that doesn't make him impervious to criticism.
Post a Comment