DonCoquixote
DonCoquixote's JournalWhat syria reveals about the UN
Just like Kosovo before, the fact that Russia and China tag teamed made sure that no one on either side had any reason to seek peace. To paraphrase Kennedy, those who made peaceful dissent impossible made war inevitable.
What this means is that we need a UN that is more than just the victors of wwii and a nation that is too big to ignore, even though no one tyalks of giving korea, Japan, or any other Asian nations "permanent member status."
A UN that has no Islamic states as permanent members will ensure mid east violence.
a UN that has France, but not India or Australia as permanent members will ensure Asia is a mess.
a UN that has no African permanent members will ensure colonialism.
On syria, notice a pattern?
Hussein, Assad and Gadaffi may be/have been scum, but what do these three have in common?
(pause)
All three were secular states, ones Al-Q HATED!
Now, we get to go and wipe out another secular state, much to the joy of al-Q so that they can take over, again!
Remembering the Clintons on Syria
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/bill-clinton-obama-syria_n_3434393.htmlFormer President Bill Clinton offered a stinging critique of President Barack Obama's inaction in Syria during a closed-press event this week, Politico reported, arguing that Obama's hesitance to get involved in the lengthy conflict could end up making him look like a "total fool" and a "wuss."
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/hillary-clinton-syria-assad-16050179\
Hillary Clinton on Syria: 'Assad Must Go'
I know that some here, especially the 2016 crowd whose ads show up right here on DU, will ignore these things. They will also ignore back when Assad was considered a reformer by Hillary herself.
And yes, I am pissed at Obama, because, once again, I voted for him to be the alternative to Clinton, instead of being a clone of the Clintons. No one will dare mention that Bill and Hill lobbied for this war for years.
Hey Bill, you were the damned wuss for letting Zionists run your foreign policy, even though they would backstab you in a heartbeat.
Hey Barack, you are an even bigger wuss for leaping in the same pile of manure.
And Hillary, thank you for reminding me why I intend to make sure your primary makes the ninth level of Hell look like a vacation in Hawaii.
to quote Ben Franklin
"either we all hang together, or surely, we will all be hanged separately."
Despite what end of the Non-Gop people may be on, be they Libertarians or Marxists, there is one truth that we cannot blot out; that we have more in common with each other than the mob that the Plutocrats have raised against us. The only reason the right is still alive is that individual people have bought the illusion that somehow, they can tame the beast, and make sure it only bites "the other" not them.
Rest assured, it does not matter whether you are some "I would have been a Republican ten years ago" moderate, a die-hard Marxist, an "independent" or one of these folks that tries to mix their own concoction of social and economic liberalism:
The right wants us ALL DEAD.
Everyone of us that they do not perceive as them,
DEAD.
Even those that are not honest with themselves about what they want, will NEED to destroy us, because they have gotten behind a system that will NEVER, EVER have enough to be satisfied, so they will find another to throw into the fire. Yes, they will cannibalize themselves too, but after our bones have been tossed into the trash can, will that matter?
So, even if we here at DU sometimes get angry, get fearful, we need to stick together, because thanks to the pwer of the plutocrats, there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to.
No other help but from each other, period. The good news is though, in the end, that is all we will need, because if we can get halfway unified, the same circular firign squads we aim at eahc other will be used to blast the right into a red, bloody hash!
The ugly truth
The right is made up of many people that, if they had their way, would hang most of their comrades from trees, but they share a base hatred of the process of thinking, which keeps them from blowing away from each other. We, on the other hand, have the opposite issue, we are made of many groups that, if they had their way, would send everyone else to Gulags, but, since we emphasize thought, the pressure to blast apart is stronger.
I mean, Capitalists vs. Socialists vs Communists, Hillary Lovers versus Hillary haters, many of us found ourselves lumped into "Democrat" or "Liberal" because we had no other port in the storm. Now of course, we have had the illusion of winning because we have the Senate and WH. An illusion is what it was, as we realize that now, and as MannyGoldstein joked, what unites us now is that we are all more immune to the illusions, and demand something more solid than the props that have been hanging on the wall long after they needed to be torn down, props like Reid and Pelosi who still act supine to the GOP.
I do not despair, because frankly, it does not matter if we hate each other, any more than it matters to a bunch of cave dwellers trying not to freeze to death in a Blizzard. Americans tend to think they determine their identity, that they are the Captain of their souls, when often, circumstances define who we are, as the circumstances are turning to the point where will cannot help but work together against the fascist and the plutocrat. The issue is not if we will win, we have the numbers, it is whether or not we can stop the process by which we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Of libertarians and liberals
let me be blunt: I see a lot of straw man arguments saying that because the Pauls and GG are libertarians, they must be full of shit at best, evil at worst. I also see some crown them as heroes (like the way Medea Benjamin made a Valentine to Ron Paul, as well as entertain the idea that Libertarians might offer some hope.
Let's not take an ounce and make it a pound. The fact is, Obama is dead wrong on the NSA, as was Clinton. If Hillary did not want to enforce things, she could have left, and probably had roses thrown at her feet. The fact is, we hired Obama to STOP this crap, and he has not, for whatever reason. We need to tear down the machine, especially before the likes of a Christie or worse gets their hands on it.
Now, does this mean that we cannot see the libertarians trying to step into the void left, yes?
Does this mean that we, as liberals can support them, no!
because for every little things they agree with us on, there are things far worse, especially considering they would get KILL of the very programs we get mad at the democrats for not protecting. Even someone like GG defended Citizens United; that alone means I will question his judgement and his motives, the same as I would someone that jumped into a Lion Cage at the zoo. However, that will not take away that fact he is right on the NSA, if anything, it would count even more against Obama, because right now, he is being clowned by GG and Snowden, two people whose conduct means they should not have enough respect to be hire to mow a lawn.
a golden quote
our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.a question for non USA internet users
Since the NSA has compromised the internet,it is very likely that the rest of the world will try to, at the very least, remove the hold the US has on it. I am hoping we do not have a Balkanized, divided internet as a result..
I ask, what sort of "global" internet would develop? Would it be organized by the UN,for example?
Part of me also wants to ask a question that might sound rude, but it not meant as such. Much has been made of Google being so powerful. I wanted to ask EU members, is there any plan to make an EU answer to Google?
What shocked me is that there was none that I knew of. If anything, being socialists, I could imagine the EU taking people from Oxford, the Sorbonne, Salamanca, and other EU Universities, and having them make one, using their advantage as Socialists, to make something that did NOT have shareholders gumming the works, to open the vast resources of Europe open for non profit, and using that to increase European culture. Is that possible?
Heroes and Villains, Patriots and Puppets
This is in response to all the posts I have seen where (insert blank) is a hero.
Part of the problem is that very few of the people are actually full blown heroes and villains of any sort. A lot of what people become depends on the choices they are given, and the circumstances that affect them, a lot of which they have NO control over. Does this excuse bad behavior?, absolutely not. It does mean that whatever control we do have in our lives comes only at the cost of analyzing everything about ourselves, especially the things that we take for granted.
Obama is someone who walked into the White House with some assumptions, like Clinton's famous line "there is nothign wrong with America that cannot be fixed with what is right in America." Unfortunately, his kept these assumptions, so that when Wall Street, the Pentagon, and the NSA came calling, he really believed that he could control them and set them right. Of course, they laughed because he was one more dupe who thought that America would not do things like other countries do. No, Clinton would not have done any better, because she would have thought she could keep Wall Street and the War Machine under control, forgetting that, despite all the WWE style Kabuki Theatre, the powers that be got most of what they wanted from her husband, and, just as they were set for Obama, so would they be set for her.
The point is that if we look for Heroes and Villains, we will miss the point. We need to keep an idea of who we are, minus the vanity that, if WE had the guns, we would be heroes. That is the trope our entertainment feeds us, although the better artworks turn that around. We do not need to look for heroes, as most people who do the things that matter are simply people whose illusions break, and who realize that illusion cannot work anymore. Snowden, at his best, is an example of such. If the lies that our enemies use will break, it will not be just because of some hero, or some moment, it will be bit by bit, where we as a mass, and as individuals, break a thousand little cracks that bring the wall down. Anything less willmean that those whose job it is to repair the illusion just sit back and wait with the reapir plan they have before any hero or heroine even steps near the office.
A presdient's power to reform
inspired by http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023390825
OK, I know Obama has shown, at the very least, a lot less willingness to fight than the candidate I elected. I am not posting this thread to say Obama could not have done a lot more, more aggressively, be it LGBT rights or attacking Wall Street, so put away the rotten tomatoes marked "obama-bot."
However, let's suppose he was a pitbull, coming out guns blazing for everything we want on the left, from Wall Street prosecutions to an executive order for LGBT marriage, to one that legalized Marijuana. Suppose he went on to sell it, reviving the fireside chat.
The fact is, the Congress, both Dinos and tea Party, would have said "NO" to everything. If you think popular pressure would have worked, well, it does not, but let's say it did. Heck, let's wave magic wands, lets say that every member of congress was replaced overnight, POOF!
The problem is twofold, there is a structure that writes the ending long before any congressperson is elected. The bills are written by Alec,and the Pacs determine who has TV time, which is more effective than putting armed guards that refuse to allow anyone but one chosen. The Tea Party types know that their voters will vote for them because their voters want an outlet for their hate,it's the Civil War, just fought with lawyers. The bottom line is, If Congress does not want to give you something, they won't, and today, the arm twisting an LBJ might do has a lot of competition from Pacs and other forces that do not even have to name themselves. For all we know, the Iranians could fund Pacs to ensure that the Mideast stays hot, and the Chinese could fund pacs to ensure our awful manufacturing policy stays in place.
Now, am I excusing Obama, NO NO NO. Even if he understood that congress would vote down EVERY SINGLE THING, he was obligated to resist. However, would we have thanked him for it? Or would we have said "he's a failure!" The reason I say this is thus. In America, we never quite understood how much power the congress had. The biggest shock was when we saw people like Reid and Pelosi, people who assured us that we would get our ponies once they had that super majority, suddenly slink off. If we are going to make changes, we will have to realize that a presidential election means less, when you have congress that have outlived presidential administrations the way rocks outlive cities. I say this as 2014 comes down the pike. 2014 will determine 2016, regardless of who wins, as the forces that control congress will gladly either villify or deify a Hillary or Christie, whatever suits their needs.
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Member since: Thu Apr 17, 2008, 05:51 PMNumber of posts: 13,616