It's The Monday After An Epic Triumph for Democratic Policy

[berni_mccoy]

That triumph occurred over the weekend.

It was the repeal of DADT. This repeal will change more than just the military moving forward. It truly is an epic historical moment for America.

And yet, it's barely discussed on DU. It's certainly already off the front page. And of the handful of topics about the repeal of DADT, nearly all are negative.

In the not-so-distant past, this would have been a day of celebration at DU. Instead, it's right back to complaining about what Obama has or hasn't done.

What happened to this place?

[dionysus]

1. if it's not bashing the president, it's not worth discussing, apparently.

my how DU has changed... :(

[Lucky 13]

3. Read my post below. I can at least explain why gay servicepeople aren't singing from the rooftops.

And the vote took place Saturday... this is Monday. I don't know what it was like here when the vote came down...

[Lucky 13]

2. There is a lot of TEMPERED celebration.

I think most people are happy and excited. And also, it depends on when you logged in. Since this happened on Saturday, I bet a lot of posts are now no longer on the top of the lists. And I have only seen a handful of people here NOT excited about this.

I think for many gay people the reaction is muted right now. I was all excited about this on Saturday and, while at a Christmas party, was speaking to a lesbian servicewoman in the Army. I said, "Isn't this great?" and she said, "yeah, well, we've already been told not to come out right away. Yes the bill has passed, but it still has to be IMPLEMENTED. No one knows how that will happen or how long it will take. So we're just waiting to see..."

As far as Obama getting credit for this, at least on the surface, it appears that Joe Lieberman had more to do with getting the bill through than Obama did. (Saying that is a tough pill to swallow. I normally hate that little weasel.) In the end Obama left it up to Congress to get it done and they did. Thankfully we'll never know how he would have handled the pending legal case had the bill not passed.

[kenfrequed]

11. Lieberman needed this

I think Sen. Lieberman fought hard to ensure this action went through with him behind it. Failing some kind of progressive legislation he would be on his way to total defeat against a real Democrat and a Tea partier. This way he can actually seek and probably get the Democratic endorsement and probably get reelected.

I won't give him the credit because too many good congressmen did more to accomplish this and too many Americans lobbied and donated and were activists for this cause.

[kenfrequed]

12. But back to the topic at hand...

I am guardedly happy about this.

I really want to celebrate and dance in the streets, but I have been burned so often by the administration that I don't want to be disappointed again. I think the people that spend all their time railing against any policy critique forget how powerful disappointment can be.

[Iggo]

4. You shoulda been here Saturday. (n/t)

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Edweird]

6. It may have something to do with 'the big picture'.

[MineralMan]

7. I was here on Saturday. There were a few celebratory threads

on the repeal. What was missing was much comment from those who had decried President Obama for not doing enough to get DADT repealed. In most cases, there were no comments from those folks.

It could be just embarrassment, I guess.

A couple of people posted very strange things, saying that President Obama would exercise a pocket veto on the bill or otherwise negate the bill. What these were based on I have no idea, since it was his clearly-stated goal that repel be done by Congress.

That said, many DUers were, indeed, celebrating the passage of the repeal. It certainly didn't get the coverage that the fight for repeal did, and not everyone gave President Obama much credit for the bill's passage.

That's how things went on Saturday. Now, it appears to be forgotten. Go figure.

[Scurrilous]

8. "What happened to this place?"

It got new.

[Kahuna]

9. You'll always get crickets when people are wrong about something..

Rarely do people like to acknowledge it.

[liberal N proud]

10. There is a deafening silence of the detractors today

[Ikonoklast]

13. Because it doesn't fit well with the narrative.

President Obama is a failure, a homophobe, a corporatist, a killer of baby seals....


Take your pick, or better yet, just invent one. Seems to work with those with the agenda.

[PBS Poll-435]

14. Sounds like somebody has a case of the 'Mondays'. nt

[craigmatic]

15. It's a big achievement but there's more to be discussed and more prejudice to fight.

[Atypical Liberal]

16. Everything I've read...

Everything I've read makes it sound like the law change doesn't mean much.

It still has to be implemented, and I've heard things like, "...as long as it doesn't hurt troop strength, yadda yadda yadda."

In other words, it sure seems to me like even though the law got passed, it still has to be "implemented", and there sounds to be a lot of wiggle room in the implementation.

I think we are years away from real celebration on the issue.

[hfojvt]

17. it was talked about quite a bit - even made the front page

with EarlG's "WOOT!"

But you can only dance in the end zone for so long, especially when you are losing 7 - 1,008 it's kinda hard to keep celebrating, and the game goes on. Our team has the ball and seems to be threatening to fumble again on social security. Kind of important to stop that before the Obamination makes another deal and it is quickly called a fait accompli. Thanks to the budget agreement, we can expect to be held hostage again very soon, right after Obama announces/proposes cuts to social security in the State of the Union.

[tekisui]

18. There have been a ton of posts celebrating the end of DADT.

It is a great deal, and historic.

But, that doesn't end the discussion of what comes next or what has been done wrong.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

19. It's the least the Dems could do --

After all, it was with their help and a Democratic President that it was put in place to begin with.

They are just cleaning up their own mess.

[deaniac21]

20. The blanket party will still exist.

[racaulk]

21. I'm really afraid of this.

Repealing the DADT policy is a terrific and necessary step, but it's not a panacea and it doesn't do enough to address the underlying problem of homophobia in the military. I hate to say it, but I think there are still tough roads ahead for our gay and lesbian soldiers.

[jonnyblitz]

22. the celebration occured when the billed passed. don't yell

at us because YOU are two days late. :eyes:

[Jim Lane]

23. I agree, I saw quite a few threads about it over the weekend

And the celebration began even before the bill actually passed. Everyone knew that the key vote was the vote on cloture. The corks were popped when the Democrats broke the Republican filibuster.

[berni_mccoy]

26. Oh, I see... you should tell Rachel Maddow that

because she was celebrating and talking about how important it was last (Monday) night. Are we to only celebrate on the day of the vote now? As I said in my OP, there was a time when this place would have been celebrating for a week or more, there would be endless discussion on the implications of it. Not now. Not anymore.

[Time for change]

24. I'll try to answer this as best I can

I can only speak for myself of course, but I suspect that there are a lot of DUers who feel as I do about this.

I'll try an analogy: Suppose I came home from work one day to find that my wife of 39 years had left me, and stolen everything I owned as well. I would feel terribly betrayed. What could she do to make up for that? Nothing that I can think of, and if she did make some gesture to make up for it, I doubt I'd give much credence to it, no matter what it was.

Well, that's about how I feel about our president. I've tried to like him, and once I did. But after one betrayal after another for two years, my sense of betrayal at him overshadows anything that I can conceive of him doing. I have lost all trust in and respect for him. I feel that he is well into the process of destroying our country, and the world as well. What could make up for that?

So, I consider the repeal of DADT in that wider context. I have almost no doubt whatsoever that if Wall Street or the health insurance industry were against the repeal of DADT he wouldn't have lifted a finger to repeal it, and he would have even fought against it. But Wall Street, the insurance industry, and other powerful interests didn't care about DADT. All they care about is their bottom line. They probably wanted DADT repealed because they felt that it would take some of the pressure off of them. Obama supported the repeal of DADT IMHO because he felt a need to do something to regain some credibility with progressives, and he didn't have to fight any powerful interests to do it.

That's how I feel about him from a personal standpoint. But shouldn't I nevertheless feel really good about the repeal of DADT because of the good that it does for our country? No, I can't feel that either because, as I said, I believe that our country and the world is in the process of being utterly destroyed. The repeal of DADT doesn't make much of a dent in that. The world's wealth is progressively being concentrated into fewer hands, as many tens of millions face drought and starvation because the corporatocracy doesn't feel any responsibility for taking measures to halt the destruction of our planet because that would cut into their profits. And our elected officials -- there are exceptions, but not enough -- just sit by, lie to us, and let them get away with it. Life on earth is going to be living hell for our children and grandchildren, and I am selfishly just glad that I (maybe) won't be around to suffer through it. The repeal of DADT doesn't make up for that -- not close.

[superduperfarleft]

25. I do see a lot of straights running around here acting like this is some great victory for

THEM, and going out of their way to make GLBT posters who rightfully distrusted the Obama administration's record on GLBT issues "eat crow."

And, no, it was talked about in great length this weekend. But don't let that get in the way of your attempt to scold us all.

[berni_mccoy]

27. You should take that up with Rachel Maddow... who is celebrating it as a great victory

oh and she is a lesbian too.

Oh, and you may want to watch this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908//vp/40759665#40759665

[superduperfarleft]

30. What does Rachel Maddow have anything to do with what I said?

This is the second time I've engaged with you and found you utterly incapable of following a conversation (either intentionally or otherwise). It can't possibly be that hard to keep up.

[Democat]

33. Those damn "straights" celebrating a victory for the "gays".

Obama is one of those so-called "straights".

[superduperfarleft]

34. So maybe those certain straights on DU

(and we all know the ones I'm talking about, that same crowd that whined and wondered for so long how GLBT posters could be such meanie-poopie-pants to such "steadfast allies" :rofl: all this time.) should simply celebrate a huge civil rights victory alongside the GLBT posters, as opposed to trying turn this into an attempt to scold gay posters with, "See! Told you so! Obama is teh awesome!"

If only Obama could see how classless some of his most steadfast supporters on DU are...

[DainBramaged]

28. And today net neutrality dies. SO much for Democracy....

[justiceischeap]

29. There was lots of celebratory threads on Saturday but they were mostly in GD:P

That said, I've been around DU long enough to know that sometimes waving the LGBT flag around here can be inflammatory. I'm not calling ANYONE out but I've seen my share of derisive threads -- blaming the LGBT for this, that or the other. So, don't yell at us now because in your mind we aren't celebrating appropriately. Just because the Bill was passed, and will be signed into law tomorrow, doesn't mean the fight is over. The Bill, after it's signed into law, has to be certified by Obama, Gates and the other military head honcho. There is no timeline for that and today it's being reported that it will be up to the military when and how it's implemented. So, if we, the LGBT community, aren't celebrating in the correct way for you, I'm sorry but once burned, twice shy and all that other crap.

It's an unfortunate trait within the LGBT community that we temper our joy because all too often we get excited over promises only to have Lucy pull away the football at the last minute.

[superduperfarleft]

31. No kidding.

Derision directed towards GLBT posters? Just look at the OP to which you're responding.

[Bragi]

32. Personally, I'm anti-war and have mixed feelings about this

1. I absolutely support equality rights without reservation, including same-sex marriage and full adoption rights.

2. I therefore support ending DADT in the military, but I have difficulty getting overly-excited about it. It's like if you told me that women have now been given equal rights to join death squads and torture units. I'm okay with the equality part, but not really supportive of the new area of activity to which equality will be applied.

I suspect there are others who share my ambivalence on this.