What's with all the hate?

[minivan2]

What is going on with DU? Listen, I have my criticisms about the president also, but this has gotten out of control. Calling the president a republican is uncalled for. I might be a little more moderate than everybody else, but I'm still a part of the far left. I hate the NSA, I hate drones, wars are awful. Can we cut the name calling and can't we all just get along?

[shenmue]

1. I'm okay with that.

[Rex]

2. Which OP in GD are you talking about?

I don't see a single negative OP in GD right now about Obama. Page 2?

[Andy823]

5. Really?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025006297

[Rex]

6. SO is that the one thread this OP is about?

Where is all this hatred I am supposed to be seeing?

[Andy823]

7. Maybe

You need to see your eye doctor.

[Rex]

8. So you don't have anything else, just what I thought.

[Andy823]

17. Sure I could provide links

But it would be a waste of my time.

[ProSense]

11. That thread is absurd.

The links are to some lame speculation and inaccurate characterizations.

Post things the administration has actually done, and it's mostly ignored.

A lot can happen in 30 days.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025007788

[Andy823]

20. I agree

I always find it funny how the same people post things like that, all negative things, and for the life of me I never seem to see them acknowledge all good things that the president has done since he took office.

[bemildred]

3. The pleasure of hating,

like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness, and a narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over the actions and motives of others. What have the different sects, creeds, doctrines in religion been but so many pretexts set up for men to wrangle, to quarrel, to tear one another in pieces about, like a target as a mark to shoot at? Does any one suppose that the love of country in an Englishman implies any friendly feeling or disposition to serve another bearing the same name? No, it means only hatred to the French or the inhabitants of any other country that we happen to be at war with for the time. Does the love of virtue denote any wish to discover or amend our own faults? No, but it atones for an obstinate adherence to our own vices by the most virulent intolerance to human frailties. This principle is of a most universal application. It extends to good as well as evil: if it makes us hate folly, it makes us no less dissatisfied with distinguished merit. If it inclines us to resent the wrongs of others, it impels us to be as impatient of their prosperity. We revenge injuries: we repay benefits with ingratitude. Even our strongest partialities and likings soon take this turn. "That which was luscious as locusts, anon becomes bitter as coloquintida;" and love and friendship melt in their own fires. We hate old friends: we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves.

-- An excerpt from Wm Hazlitt, 1826

Mark Twain's "War Prayer" is not bad either.

[longship]

4. But, but, but, but...

People disagree with me. So I have to take them down HARD! And if they do not align with my opinion, I must call them names, and use ad hominem attacks.

Those are the techniques used by the right wing, and sadly, by many here who profess to be Democrats, instead of having of having intelligent and rational discussions.

[MohRokTah]

9. DU has become AOU.

Anti-Obama Underground.

[Union Scribe]

10. So when you got here...a month ago...

it was much different?

[djean111]

15. The thing is, this is not Obama Underground.

It is Democratic Underground.
If Obama is not acting like what used to be a Democrat, it will be mentioned.

[RKP5637]

27. Agree! Leadership should always be questioned regardless of the party. I could never follow

my president right or wrong, and no questioning allowed.

[Lasher]

33. +1

[840high]

34. Yhank you.

[quinnox]

12. Not seeing the hate

I'm seeing many good progressives voicing their disappointments with how Obama has conducted the "business" of running the nation, and these seem like very legit and real complaints to me.

As to calling Obama a republican, well guess what, he himself admitted he would have been considered a republican in past years.

President Obama said his economic policies are "so mainstream" he'd be considered a moderate Republican in the 1980s.

In a Thursday interview with a Miami-based local television station, Obama said he thinks few people believe he wants to impose socialism on the country.

"The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican," he told Noticias Univision 23 in a White House interview.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/272957-obama-says-his-economic-policies-so-mainstream-hed-be-seen-as-moderate-republican-in-1980s#ixzz32xiryCcA
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

[Andy823]

19. Very funny

Thanks for the laugh!

[mwrguy]

13. There is some terrible Obama bashing on this site

None of it is particularly democratic

[TransitJohn]

14. POTUS' policies aren't terribly Democratic.

Ergo, policy bashing (entirely distinct from what you, in my opinion erroneously, labeled Obama bashing).

[1StrongBlackMan]

16. No ...

it's just good progressives voicing their disappointments with how Obama has conducted the "business" of running the nation, while holding up Sanders and Warren as shining, unblemished, examples of the way forward, despite their having publically supported and voted with President Obama on every vote.

[Andy823]

18. Good point

And it seems it's always the same crowd "voicing" their opinion on how bad a job he has done since he took office.

[Whisp]

36. and a lot of that same crowd read the Greenwald/Snowden fan version of 'Tiger Beat'.

GG and Snow = HEROES! Saviours of the world! They are Truthtellers. Nothing they say is to be suspected or questioned. YOU MUST BELEEEEEEEEEEEEVE.

President Obama = Hater of all that is good in the world and steals money from the poor and sick to hand over to banksters and streetsters. Hey, did you know Obama's Mom was CIA, and that his grandmother was one of those Banksters? Sure thing.

[Skittles]

21. it is un-Dem policy that is being attacked

we're not freepers here - most of us actually have CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

[Egnever]

30. Oh there are plenty of freepers here

Dont be confused.

[Skittles]

31. well yeah

but it more disturbing to see so-called progressives emulating their mindset

[GeorgeGist]

22. Totally uncalled for ...

"The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican."

Barack Obama, 2012

[minivan2]

23. I wish his policies were more left

But think about what he's done so far, ACA, Iraq: over, Bin Laden: dead, and here's a website because there are way too many things I can list. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_2012/features/obamas_top_50_accomplishments035755.php?page=all

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. Sorry, but...

I don't really see "killing Bin Laden" as being much of an accomplishment. In point of fact, considering that the way it was done (with CIA assets posing as health workers conducting vaccinations collecting blood samples for DNA matching and identification) has caused some significant blowback, is seriously harming polio eradication efforts, and has led to genuine health workers in Pakistan and Afghanistan etc being targeted and killed by the Taliban. More kids with polio doesn't seem like a good tradeoff for a moment of largely symbolic crowing American triumphalism.

[pa28]

25. I compared Obama to a "moderate Republican" in the thread at issue here.

That hardly seems like an insult considering he did the same thing.

"The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican,"

[m-lekktor]

26. obama told bill o'reilly in a superbowl interview that nixon was to the left of him

somebody mentioned that on a thread and folks went into a MELTDOWN over it even though Obama himself said it for the whole superbowl world to see.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. Tsk, tsk.

[randome]

29. Could it all be related to the 2008 economic crash?

In prosperous times, people are less vituperative. In less pleasant times...
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Doctor_J]

32. The president called himself a republican.

I believe that makes it fair game for us to point out that his policies are republican in nature

[Whisp]

37. No he did not.

If you mean that bullshit Hillary said in the debates of 2008 about Obama admiring Reagan and republicans (when he called him a tranformational President, which is true - the Reagan admin transformed a whole lot of things and not for the good) - Obama straightened that shit out clearly but people still want to believe the twisted lie.

[djean111]

35. Thing is, I believe DU is here for the purpose of supporting Democratic CANDIDATES and helping to

get them elected. Obama got elected both times, and cannot run again. (Sometimes I get the creepy feeling his fans sincerely believe he will get appointed prez for life or get a third term or something.)

Even if someone is so besotted as to forget that, and seamlessly switches from supporting someone's candidacy and election to supporting that elected official's every move, no matter what, merely because of the "D" - a lot of that elected official's policies can, IMO, be used against new candidates during campaigns. Look! A Democrat put cutting Social Security on the table! Look how bad this TPP thing really is! The GOP will decry things that they would be thrilled about if they had proposed them.
Doesn't matter if it was eleventy-dimensional chess. (I don't think it was.)
It looks bad.
This does not help get more Democrats elected.
Pretty much what we have now is the lesser of two evils mantra, and the inane idea that if we elect enough DINOs, the DINOs will magically become progressive or liberal. Right.
So what that leaves, IMO, is that the Third Way and corporate Democrats are pushing liberals and progressives out of the party, but trying to keep their votes, because hey, who ya gonna vote for.

Doesn't help that criticizing any policy brings out accusations of racism and hating.

Another thing that is worrisome is that it seems that for some people, getting elected is the only thing that matters, and actual policy that helps people is only seen as good or bad politics for the purpose of getting reelected. Except for the money, politics seems totally disassociated from the people, now.

"I hate the NSA, I hate drones" - me too.

[AverageJoe90]

38. Good post. nt