If I had someone who spent over a year telling everyone how much I sucked and why I'm a bad person, I sure as hell wouldn't marry them when they proposed.
If he chooses her, I may have to reconsider voting for him.
htat's a terrible reason. What obama needs to do is bring the democratic party together, and win in november. He needs to be pragmatic about this.
Being an angry vindictive man is dumb. He won, and even if she says he is the devil he should pick her if it helps the ticket.
It will not help the ticket. Hillary has too many negatives. Obama has a lot of negatives too. And they aren't canceling out negatives either. Like if the president is old, and he picks a young VP a young vp will help cancel out the old president. Obama is black, Hillary is a woman, Hillary will bring out tremendous voters from republicans who only want to vote against her she mobilizes the opponent, Obama is a symbol of change, picking Hillary would negate that message, and show everyone it is politics as usual.
Now I want Obama to be a good politician not an idealist. So he should find a way to make this a win win situation. Maybe offer Hillary another appointment, perhaps a supreme court appointment. I don't know what he will do exactly, but if he is as talented as he pretends to be he will figure out a way to make her happy and bring together the democratic party.
If he can't of course, that means he's a lot dumber than he looks. I know he can talk good, but he might be all talk, we'll see.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that has got this country into the crappy state it currently exists in. "Be pragmatic, vote for who can win" is the exact WRONG idea. Vote for who inspires you, for who you think is actually a good guy. Take a fucking stand for what you believe in, not for the lowest common denominator. Take PERSONAL responsibility for doing the right thing rather than the most convenient.
Now I want Obama to be a good politician not an idealist.
I want him to be a good GUY. If that means being an idealist, more power to him! It's been too long that the choice in presidential elections was "Evil" or "MORE EVIL!" If Obama picks Hillary, it really is just politics as usual, and I will have to consider voting third party. "Who can win" is the wrong guy to vote for if "Who can win" == "Who plays the game best at the expense of the country".
for the lsat 7 years we have had zero pragmatism. George Bush was famous for saying any risk at all is too much risk, that's why we need to torture people, that we need to spread democracy to the middle east for idealistic reasons that today we are in a battle between good and evil.
He even called three nations the axis of evil. He's an idealist.
You want idealism we have had 7 years of it. I want pragmatism. Please. I have had enough of senseless wars for patriotic ideals, of torture not in the name of pragmatism but in the name of idealism, and isn't that the way with torture? Because it doesn't actually work.
Pragmatism means finding a way to go over and work with republicans and find issues that both sides can agree it. It means compromise. For the past 7 years we have been living in the 51% rule. If you get 51% of the votes you get to rule over the other 49% with impunity. That's what I mean by pragmatism.
Look, "Politics as usual" doesn't mean anything. It's just a slogan. Don't be tricked by slogans into thinking that this is a battle between good and evil. This is a battle between some republican idealists, democratic idealists and everyone else.
Everyone else just wants to pay their taxes, have their kids go to college and not get into any more wars. Fixing health care would be good too. Both democrats and republicans want these pragmatic fixes. Idealists, especially republican ones are the same sort of forces which lead to Mao's "Cultural Revolution". I distrust democratic idealists just as much. But they haven't been in power for so long we forget that they can start wars too. After all, the democrats started the vietnam war, to save the world from communism.
jfk had the president of south vietnam, diem assassinated in 1963, and in 1964, president johnson manufactured the gulf of tonkin incident to really start the war.
if you involve ike, you are really asking to go back to when the french tried to control vietnam as part of their colonial aspirations in the middle east.
I really don't think you can blame ike for it, you have to put the blame on jfk and johnson.
When the Vietnamese Nationalist (and Communist-led) Vietminh army defeated French forces at Dienbienphu in 1954, the French were compelled to accede to the creation of a Communist Vietnam north of the 17th parallel while leaving a non-Communist entity south of that line. The United States refused to accept the arrangement. The administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower undertook instead to build a nation from the spurious political entity that was South Vietnam by fabricating a government there, taking over control from the French, dispatching military advisers to train a South Vietnamese army, and unleashing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct psychological warfare against the North.
At that time the french were the main players and they wanted vietnam for their own reasons, specifically to remain a world colonial power, the same way that the spanish had held sway over the americas, then the english over india. The french wanted to control the middle east as a colonial superpower.
We had our own reason for being in vietnam, to confront the soviets, and ike wasn't the first truman was the first, he supported the french to fight communism, and formed the MAAG if you want to go back to the 50's why not blame truman, or if you like you can go back to churchill who first stated how the iron curtain had fallen over the continent and that it was the responsibility of the west to fight communism and their pawns.
I'm just saying how far back do you want to go? How about the national history of Vietnam and its relationship to the french?
Do you really blame Ike more than Johnson? Johnson was the one who created the gulf of tonkin incident and started the war for real.
A lot of people theorize that if JFK had not been killed we never would have gone to war in vietnam. I'm not so sure about that. It is easy for a president to start a war. It takes an extraordinary president to decide not to.
So, sure if Ike or Truman had been president in the 60's they probably would have done it too. But I still want to blame them man at the helm when the Gulf of Tokin incident was manufactured (much in the way that president bush manufactured weapons of mass destruction to start the Iraq war).
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-04 08:56 pm (UTC)If I had someone who spent over a year telling everyone how much I sucked and why I'm a bad person, I sure as hell wouldn't marry them when they proposed.
If he chooses her, I may have to reconsider voting for him.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-05 12:47 am (UTC)Being an angry vindictive man is dumb. He won, and even if she says he is the devil he should pick her if it helps the ticket.
It will not help the ticket. Hillary has too many negatives. Obama has a lot of negatives too. And they aren't canceling out negatives either. Like if the president is old, and he picks a young VP a young vp will help cancel out the old president. Obama is black, Hillary is a woman, Hillary will bring out tremendous voters from republicans who only want to vote against her she mobilizes the opponent, Obama is a symbol of change, picking Hillary would negate that message, and show everyone it is politics as usual.
Now I want Obama to be a good politician not an idealist. So he should find a way to make this a win win situation. Maybe offer Hillary another appointment, perhaps a supreme court appointment. I don't know what he will do exactly, but if he is as talented as he pretends to be he will figure out a way to make her happy and bring together the democratic party.
If he can't of course, that means he's a lot dumber than he looks. I know he can talk good, but he might be all talk, we'll see.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-05 04:22 am (UTC)Now I want Obama to be a good politician not an idealist.
I want him to be a good GUY. If that means being an idealist, more power to him! It's been too long that the choice in presidential elections was "Evil" or "MORE EVIL!" If Obama picks Hillary, it really is just politics as usual, and I will have to consider voting third party. "Who can win" is the wrong guy to vote for if "Who can win" == "Who plays the game best at the expense of the country".
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-05 04:53 am (UTC)for the lsat 7 years we have had zero pragmatism. George Bush was famous for saying any risk at all is too much risk, that's why we need to torture people, that we need to spread democracy to the middle east for idealistic reasons that today we are in a battle between good and evil.
He even called three nations the axis of evil. He's an idealist.
You want idealism we have had 7 years of it. I want pragmatism. Please. I have had enough of senseless wars for patriotic ideals, of torture not in the name of pragmatism but in the name of idealism, and isn't that the way with torture? Because it doesn't actually work.
Pragmatism means finding a way to go over and work with republicans and find issues that both sides can agree it. It means compromise. For the past 7 years we have been living in the 51% rule. If you get 51% of the votes you get to rule over the other 49% with impunity. That's what I mean by pragmatism.
Look, "Politics as usual" doesn't mean anything. It's just a slogan. Don't be tricked by slogans into thinking that this is a battle between good and evil. This is a battle between some republican idealists, democratic idealists and everyone else.
Everyone else just wants to pay their taxes, have their kids go to college and not get into any more wars. Fixing health care would be good too. Both democrats and republicans want these pragmatic fixes. Idealists, especially republican ones are the same sort of forces which lead to Mao's "Cultural Revolution". I distrust democratic idealists just as much. But they haven't been in power for so long we forget that they can start wars too. After all, the democrats started the vietnam war, to save the world from communism.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-05 08:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-05 12:50 pm (UTC)if you involve ike, you are really asking to go back to when the french tried to control vietnam as part of their colonial aspirations in the middle east.
I really don't think you can blame ike for it, you have to put the blame on jfk and johnson.
from the first link
Date: 2008-06-05 01:21 pm (UTC)Sounds like Ike had a huge hand in it.
Re: from the first link
Date: 2008-06-05 02:24 pm (UTC)We had our own reason for being in vietnam, to confront the soviets, and ike wasn't the first truman was the first, he supported the french to fight communism, and formed the MAAG if you want to go back to the 50's why not blame truman, or if you like you can go back to churchill who first stated how the iron curtain had fallen over the continent and that it was the responsibility of the west to fight communism and their pawns.
I'm just saying how far back do you want to go? How about the national history of Vietnam and its relationship to the french?
Do you really blame Ike more than Johnson? Johnson was the one who created the gulf of tonkin incident and started the war for real.
A lot of people theorize that if JFK had not been killed we never would have gone to war in vietnam. I'm not so sure about that. It is easy for a president to start a war. It takes an extraordinary president to decide not to.
So, sure if Ike or Truman had been president in the 60's they probably would have done it too. But I still want to blame them man at the helm when the Gulf of Tokin incident was manufactured (much in the way that president bush manufactured weapons of mass destruction to start the Iraq war).