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313 comments on DrumBeat: October 24, 2008

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emdeef on October 24, 2008 - 9:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

No mainstream candidate rocks the boat up to an election. The test comes with how whoever wins behaves afterwards.

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Leanan on October 24, 2008 - 9:57am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I don't buy it.

"Not rocking the boat" would be voting yes. Twisting other people's arms (probably by promising pork if elected) is an extra step above "not rocking the boat."

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Dragonfly41 on October 24, 2008 - 11:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I agree with this and I think we will be surprised by Obama when he gets sworn in. He may be the last hope to pull something out of this mess. No matter what you think about what he has done in the past, he is the only choice that has the personality and mass appeal to get people to go along with it.

In terms of getting elected, if he had proposed something drastically different than what the "experts" proposed, he would have never gotten elected. Now, he can blame the experts (under Bush's watch) for anything that did not work.

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Leanan on October 24, 2008 - 11:37am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

he is the only choice that has the personality and mass appeal to get people to go along with it.

That's only a good thing if you think he'll lead us in the right direction.

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Mark Twain on October 24, 2008 - 12:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Pardon my frankness, but who are you and what have you done with Leanan?

You're not usually this filled with doom and gloom (and the market isn't Crashing! - at least, not yet - *only* down ~350).

Did Dave Robert's article on Obama and energy policy strike the wrong chord yesterday?

To my old eyes, you get some good and some bad when you get involved with politicians - even if their name is Obama or Clinton.

History has tried hard to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians. Now, to go and stick one at the very head of the government couldn't be wise.

- Mark Twain, letter to "New York Herald"

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Leanan on October 24, 2008 - 1:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You're not usually this filled with doom and gloom

The world has changed in the past month or so, and so has my outlook for the immediate future.

Did Dave Robert's article on Obama and energy policy strike the wrong chord yesterday?

No, because I didn't read it.

Four years ago, I was a political junkie. Now...I don't care. I don't think national level politics matters in the crisis we're facing. Many of the issues that loomed so large for me four years ago just don't matter any more.

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thecitruskid on October 24, 2008 - 1:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I find myself in pretty much the same boat. I too was fascinated by Washington politics until I realized it was all just window dressing concealing a very nasty machine. But I think Dmitry Orlov gives the best advice on how to handle this:

Please don't send me to Washington: it's not the place to go to get anything useful accomplished. Centralized, political efforts are about as likely to succeed as Gorbachev's Perestroika. There, there was the one Communist party, which killed all private initiative and entrepreneurship. Here, we have the two Capitalist parties, which kill all public initiatives that impinge on the prerogatives of private capital or the free market. This makes just about any good proposal politically impossible. The best thing to do about national politicians is to completely ignore them and wait until they go away. This approach worked really well with the Communists in Russia.

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Mark Twain on October 24, 2008 - 1:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Four years ago, I was a political junkie. Now...I don't care. I don't think national level politics matters in the crisis we're facing. Many of the issues that loomed so large for me four years ago just don't matter any more.

I understand your sentiment. At times, I entertain the same thoughts.

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.

- Mark Twain, "Mark Twain in Eruption"

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Twilight on October 24, 2008 - 1:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

My thoughts are similar, only it was the coup of 2000 that finalized my opinion. However, I guess I'm hoping that Obama wins - if not, then all those who cling to the belief that he would have really changed things will persist in this delusion. If he wins, then he'll have the chance to show us just what kind of change a candidate financed by the establishment and surrounded by decades long DC insiders can bring.

No, really; all these folks have just been waiting until the right time - nevermind their entire voting history to date - they're really radical populists and are just gonna go nuts and pull out all the stops. Really. Only they can't say that now, because then they'd never get elected.

We'll need to move past the illusion the the existing system can respond in the interests of the populace, and this cannot happen while people still believe in fairy tales.

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Leanan on October 24, 2008 - 2:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Even after 2000, I thought working within the system was possible. After all, look at the great changes we saw in the 20th century. There are people alive now who were born before the 19th amendment allowed women to vote. We have a Democratic senator who used to be a member of the KKK. There's a black guy running for president, and he's likely to win. Gay marriage is legal in parts of the U.S., when only 40 years ago, interracial marriage was illegal in some states.

But sometime after 2000, I started realizing we were running out of time. By the time the primaries begun, I had almost no interest. And this financial crisis has been the nail in the coffin. It's going to tie the hands of the new president, whoever he is.

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s_yajaman on October 25, 2008 - 8:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Someday you might actually have a woman as President! It is quite shocking that after 232 years this will the first time an African American has come this close to becoming President. For that alone I support Obama. It shows us in the rest of the world that the USA is getting rid of bigotry even if slowly.

It is even more shocking that no woman has been President of the USA this long. Consider that Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India have all had women Prime Ministers just 30-40 years after independence (the chief executive) and it shows that something is wrong with the political system in the USA.

Srivathsa

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davebygolly on October 24, 2008 - 2:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I agree and disagree with Leanan. Disagree in that there's no choice in this election, whatever differences there are favor Obama. But agree that Obama is also a spear carrier for the elite, although a somewhat different faction.

The reason I think it's important for Obama to win is that there is one thing he won't do that is very important: he won't (or will find it difficult to) spew or incite ethnic and religious hatred in the way the other side will. And that's what TPTB need in order to pursue their agenda, which will be wider war and crushing domestic opposition.

Third party candidates are for the moment irrelevant. There's no mass movement behing them. We NEED a third party, an anti-war, pro-people party that tells people the truth (or at least debates) about PO and other critical issues and guides and supports them onto the path of survival, i.e retrenchment, relocalization, etc, but allows everyone to survive on the down slope.

The idea that we can somehow keep everyone in their McMansions cum SUV in the burbs is totally nuts. But we can survive in dense, walkable, bikeable towns, that go up several floors, with shared bathrooms, laundry facilities, common kitchens, etc, near agriculture -- that's totally feasible except for the issue of profitability. There has to be a reasonable trajectory toward this goal, that allows everyone to survive and have a role.

Instead, we'll have starvation, suicide, mass unemployment and misery, and even greater inequality.

But the people who want to change things for the better are still within the Democratic party, not in a third party. This has to be recognized. There is no way to get to where we want or should want to go other than thru politics.

I will vote for Obama, but with few illusions (I hope).

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Dragonfly41 on October 24, 2008 - 4:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

dave...I agree with your assessment of the situation. Obama is in the "system", but will at least make the appearances of being fair and rational and not derogatory. Plus, I believe he will at least treat other nations (in public) better than we have seen in the last 8 years. He is not exactly what the world will need to survive, but he is better than going full tilt with guns raised like McCain would.

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TrueKaiser on October 24, 2008 - 10:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Third party candidates are for the moment irrelevant. There's no mass movement behing them. We NEED a third party, an anti-war, pro-people party that tells people the truth (or at least debates) about PO and other critical issues and guides and supports them onto the path of survival, i.e retrenchment, relocalization, etc, but allows everyone to survive on the down slope.

third party's are not real party's, though no one told them that. they are allowed to do what they do because there mere presence no matter how small is used as a example to discredit people who correctly point out the nature of the so called two major party's.

IF any one of those parties steps out of line and gains more then a token following(not from the media because they are ignoring them) they will share the same fate as left leaning parties in Europe during the cold war. that is they will be infiltrated by the fbi, their job is to factionalize the party. Basically causing it to fall apart into smaller and smaller party's all hostile to each other. If that doesn't work or maybe to make sure it fails, at the same time the cia will carry out stuff like bombings and other acts to frame said party.

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313 comments on DrumBeat: October 24, 2008

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