Glenn Thrush has written a good-quality profile of Joe Biden and his presidential aspirations for Politico Magazine. The article starts out quite strong and peters out a bit, which I blame on whoever edited the piece. Thrush shows some real ability for top quality writing, but I think he needs to be pushed to keep his stuff at a high level.
If you’re like me, you’re preternaturally predisposed to want to root for Joe Biden even if it cuts against your better judgment. I just like the guy, even if I can find a whole host of reasons to criticize him.
He’ll probably never be the president, and I think that is probably a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that part of me doesn’t wish that he could fulfill his dream.
There really isn’t anybody who I’d prefer to see in the Oval Office over its current occupant. And I can apply that retrospectively to every president since at least Eisenhower and, perhaps, Franklin Roosevelt. Partly, that’s because our presidents have been so awful, but I feel comfortable saying that Obama is easily the best president we’ve had in my lifetime.
Biden is probably the best vice-president of my lifetime, too. But, I can’t honestly say that I’d trust him to be a good president. The thing is, his competitors have similar or worse problems.
There but for Vietnam goes LBJ as a giant among presidents…
That goes for so many Presidents. Is you’re fighting Nazis, your war improves your long term standing. But generally, wars – while providing a short term political boost – ultimately degrade a President’s historical standing. Wilson accomplished great things, but he resegregated the federal govt and oversaw a host of civil liberty restrictions during WWI. Truman desegregated the military, oversaw the creation of NATO and the Marshall Plan, but he also put in loyalty oaths. FDR interred the Japanese, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus and intimidated voters in the border states.
Cycles of wars have their own logic. The World Wars came from essentially the same place. The Cold War led to Vietnam and Afghanistan 1.0. The logic of the GWOT lead to over a decade of fruitless occupation of faraway countries.
What I will give Obama credit for is he is trying to change the logic of counter-terrorist imperialism.
LBJ is a genuinely tragic figure, in the full-on, larger than life ancient Greek sense.
Nah — if not VN, Lyndon would have found another distant country to invade to prove his manhood. He was a cold warrior hawk to the bone, and probably felt he needed to compensate for his lack of combat heroism in WW2 compared to JFK.
Escalating in VN after the RW had been thoroughly discredited after Dallas and the Goldwater massive defeat made no sense,, and still worse was the fact LBJ knew he was sending troops into a quagmire.
Emotionally unstable too — per the first-hand accounts of aides Bill Moyers and Dick Goodwin. Both independently sought outside psychiatric input about the situation, and the latter thought at one point he might need to take action to save the country from Johnson’s erratic mental state.
We had two mental-case presidents back-to-back: Lyndon and Nixon. No wonder this country was so badly split apart during that time.
As for Obama, he has a major problem on his plate with Russia-Ukraine. Let’s see if he wisely deals w/it by de-escalating the rising tension and tit-for-tat behavior on both sides. Let’s see if he’s as courageous as JFK in saying no to the nat’l security hawks in the WH, Pentagon and media establishment and instead defusing the crisis with diplomacy and recognition of the reality of Russia’s sphere of influence.
So far he and his admin have been stumbling their way into eventual inevitable military confrontation with the Russkies, a year from now, five years from now.
I’m beginning to wonder if the far more experienced Biden might have handled the crisis better …
I was born nine months after Nixon was sworn in, so “in my lifetime” doesn’t include LBJ. Domestically, he was our greatest president since FDR, but you can’t whitewash Vietnam.
“I can’t honestly say that I’d trust him to be a good president.”
That’s the thing – you trust him in terms of honesty, but you’re not quite sure that you trust his judgment. Isn’t that it? It is for me.
yeah, I don’t trust his judgment. But I don’t trust Hillary’s judgment either.
I trust Biden’s judgement more than Hillary’s. Based on his positions since he became VP, shilling for the banks was done not from personal desire but as a job necessity for being Sen-MNBA. What I don’t trust about Biden is his mouth. He has a history of gaffes and the Republican-leaning media would exploit that ruthlessly. Hillary is obsessed with image and persona and that’s actually a good things with a news media obsessed with getting “gotcha” moments for Democratic politicians.
How about Bernie Sanders and Barbara Lee?
Or are you playing the long game, and waiting for Lee/Sanders 2016?
Dennis Kucinich.
Tanned. Rested. Ready.
Still too conservative, but you can’t have everything now, can you?
General Robert E Lee and Colonel Harlan Sanders?
The GOP dream ticket!
You and I are very much on the same page. I see Obama as a great man and someone who will one day be looked back on as a great president. His intentions are unassailable. He’s accomplished a great deal in the face of unprecedented opposition.
I’ve long admired Biden and would like to see him succeed Obama except that he seems a little out of control, maybe even a bit narcissistic (albeit in a sweet and harmless sort of way). Definitely not a full blown narcissistic personality disorder. More like some narcissistic elements in his personality but overall a very kind and well intentioned, even idealistic, man.
I do not support politicians because they seem like a nice guy (or gal) on teevee or they have a compelling life story. Those are not bad qualities, but they mean nothing without solid policies and priorities.
Biden’s two great policy weaknesses are big banks and bellicose foreign policy. Those are two pretty bad ones to have in the White House. Thing is, Hillary Clinton has almost exactly the same weaknesses, plus a managerial record that’s inconsistent (and that’s only after a relatively good SoS tenure) and a tendency to surround herself with some really unsavory people. But other than that, what’s not to love? Forced to pick between the two, Biden’s better. But there are dozens of people in Congress alone who are better than either of them, not all of them progressives.
Yup. The real deal is not in the person’s words about their vision for the country so much as their actual record as a politician. And Biden’s record while in the Senate is nothing to brag about as far as I can see. He helped to set up the twin catastrophes that took place in the Bush administration: Iraq invasion and the Great Recession.
Be interesting to see who Hillary surrounds herself with in 2016. She took Bill’s legacy hires on in 2008 and the results speak for themselves. Not to mention the Summers/Yellin contest should be instructive to any sentient Democrat running for national office.
During Obama’s presidency, Biden has generally been the dove in a room of hawks.
Completely agree. Also, I believe Joe Biden has learned an incredible amount from being the last one in the room with President Obama for the past 5 years, so I believe he would make a much better president in 2016 than he would have in 2008.
I don’t think Hillary has learned anything from the past 5 years to make her less of a hawk or improve her judgement.
I would take Biden over Clinton in a heartbeat.
I wish I could recall Biden’s position on the joint force Libyan intervention as well as some of the other crises.
But is being a dove automatically the right choice in every situation? I don’t think so. Some critics of the US role in Libya were simply “fighting the last war” and projecting what little they learned from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to a completely different situation.
I’m not saying I was for the action in Libya. I think it was a close decision. I just heard too few arguments that took the full measure of the Libyan situation and too many that looked back at other conflicts.
Not really a Hillary fan, then, eh?
Not really. Not as president. It’s not her so much as the people they’ve surrounded themselves with over the years. I’m not from the Clintonista wing of the party.
Once upon a time you were frog-marching criminals to justice. Oh, that’s still your logo! Get a new one!
You’re like Suzanne Vega’s neighborhood girl: gone, gone, gone.
You talk like all we need is more better democrats (of the Joe Biden variety, at that!). How gone is that in media res the sixth mass extinction?
Plus, you’re refractory to learning, as are most humans, but the professorial types really gag my bread.
You are clueless about the current implosion of the Western Industrial Wealth Pump, which basically sucked too hard. You are waiting for growth to resume (naturally! in a neoliberal fashion), then move up a peg in the commentariat, perhaps. The talking propagandists are looking you over, thinking, “he kinda sounds like us! What’s in the slush fund?”
No one in your neighborhood is thinking that the unthinkable has already happened, along all axes of unthinkable. Population, energy, resource depletion, environmental intoxication. To people like you (&driftglass, e.g.), it’s all about fucking democrats & the other fucking thugs! Democrats! Jeezuz effing Lucifer Beelzebub Herr Pitchfork!
You’re gone, gone, gone. Incapable of abandoning your frames of reference & assessing reality.
Which is precisely why you never write about anything that matters. You actually have no opinion on material things. Voila. The mysterious case(s) of booman (&snifterglass), solved.
Both flunked out.
Why are you picking on driftglass?
Because driftglass says things about his glibertarian heroes, Greenwald and Snowden, that he doesn’t like. Therefore, driftglass is The Enemy(tm) and must be disparaged at every opportunity. Childish, I know, but it comes with the territory when one dares to speak out against the glibertarian heroes.
Compound Fuckwit is a PureTM.
He hates him some of that there fascism and illegitimate power, but he sure as shit ain’t gonna vote for no Democrat, what, with Democrats being almost as bad as Republicans!
So, he’s perfectly content to let the Republicans win, because then: something something mass uprising, something something social democracy!
He picks on Driftglass and people like you, because you and Driftglass aren’t stupid enough to let the Republicans just walk away with the entire Federal Government.
Also, you guys don’t worship at the altar of St. Glenneth Greenwald, who sure as shit isn’t making the story about himself when he constantly whines about himself. And himself. And himself.
Oh, and most likely, just like Driftglass, you probably receive your Obama For AmericaTM checks once a week, which is why you and Droneglass are always vociferously supporting Drone Terrorism and NSA abuse.
The PuresTM are funny because ultimately they want the same exact thing Republicans want. They are false flag concern trolls, attempting to get Right Wing LibruuulsTM to stop voting.
You know, to be pure, just like them. And also to let Republicans win. Which is just a coincidence!
Precisely.
Thank you.
Booman has become…or always was, I am not really sure..unreachable.
Too bad.
He coulda been a contender, but now he is just another commentator, an apologist for Barack Obama’s fading administration.
Instead of the following:
What is more likely the outcome of his not being able to abandon outdated and thoroughly proven wrong frames of reference…and I am actually not sure if this is a sign of being in some way “incapable” of doing so, more of a practical personal economic decision or a combination of both, but no matter why…the most likely outcome will not be finding himself further enfolded in the so-called “liberal” media (neo-liberal, really), but rather getting there just as that media starts to seriously fold.
So it goes.
Watch.
I mean…MSNBC? Bill Maher? The Daily Kos and so on? They are now all reduced to producng kneejerk, leftiness punchlines, epitaphs for a sad, failed presidency.
Watch.
AG
Good for Mr. BooMan for admitting the truth. There are no good presidents. There are lots of bad ones… those who start wars, destroy the middle class, punish the poor, and otherwise act like petty dictators trying to overthrow foreign governments while claiming to protect some unnamed vital national interest.
Even when they don’t screw up and try to do something good, they mostly do it to help their rich friends. If it trickles down (a big if) to the little people, then so much the better.
Joe Biden is probably a decent guy, but like anyone who inhabits the high offices of government, he really has no clue how the rest of us live nor how to make our lives better.
That’s because there are no good leaders. Leadership implies power, and power corrupts.
Executive positions need to be filled by lot, from the phone book, and re-filled by lot every 90 days or so, guaranteeing rotation in office before the rot sets in.
For legislatures, I’d go up to 180 days.
It would be better to have no ‘politics’ at all, but that would be utopian.
Would they have to give up their “Free Mumia” t-shirt after the 90 days? Or could they keep it as a lovely parting gift?
No gifts. That’s the thin edge of the corruption wedge. A soul-cleansing retreat upon laying down the burdens of office would be an option.
We need a Utopian Party.
I’ve always said the way to fix politics is to get all the politicians out of it. How hard can it be to learn?
And the best way to improve a losing ball club, like, say, the Mets, is to fire everyone and bring in the management and 40-man roster of the Rochester Philharmonic.
Because what you need isn’t better ballplayers, what you need are non-ballplayers.
The logic is inexorable. The Rochester Philharmonic should become our new Congress. I’ve got winds.
Red-state/blue-state isn’t a patch on strings v. winds.
(To be honest, it’s really everyone v. the goddam violins….)
It’s Election Day Here. If it is where you are too, please get out and vote!
ROTFLMAO!
Tied with Carter for worst!
Worse than Dubya, right? You’ve earned this.
See, Democrats are almost as bad as Republicans, which means every Democrat is actually worse than every Republican.
Because IRS, Benghazi, and Fast and Furious.
Oh, shit. Wrong persona. I’m trying to be a pure here!
Because social democracy. Free Snowden!
There we go.
Is anyone else here in IL-13? I am really struggling between Ann Callis and George Gollin, not crazy about either one.
I ended up voting for Ann Callis because apparently she polls much stronger against our vile Rodney Davis in the general.
Ugh!! And that’s only because she has a “D” after her name. Or do you think all the newspapers that cover that area are rat-fucking since they all pretty much endorsed Golis?
May I rant for a moment? Printed my sample ballot yesterday, and I am so angry. Democrats are not running anyone for:
Representative in IL General Assembly
*County Clerk
Sheriff
County Treasurer
Superintendent of Schools
County Board
Appellate Court Judge
Precinct Committeeman
Republicans have a candidate for all of 8 of those races, so the republicans get to win 8 races no matter what, and there is a reason for them to come out to vote.
With the exception of governor and representative in congress for IL-13, there’s not a single race that has more than one candidate on the democratic ballot. That’s really going to get out the vote.
*I was a poll watcher at the university precinct last time, and I can attest to the fact that the republican county clerk last time is why Rodney Davis won last time over the progressive candidate when we could have turned IL-13 from red to blue.
We were the only county in the entire state of IL who refused to interpret the “register & vote” in a way that would actually allow someone to register and then vote at the same time. That alone was why David Gill lost and Rodney Davis won, and we are not even running a candidate this time! What the hell is wrong with the democratic party?
Apologies for the rant, but none of my friends are very political, so there’s no one in real life that would understand.
I think they can still slate candidates, reach out to the county party and see if you can get on the ballot
I was so frustrated after seeing the county clerk shenanigans close-up that I actually did consider running for the seat. But I am not a good public speaker – hate it, actually – so I don’t think I’m the right person.
But I was shocked when I looked at the ballot and saw that we weren’t even running anyone.
I live in champaign-urbana, which should be fairly progressive since we’re a college town, but the people who control the democratic party here are awful, so all the energy gets sucked out of the room. The “party” people have been in control forever. Ick.
I have a similar problem here too, the only real way to change it is to get some power and elected officials always have a big sway on local parties.
I would say even if you’re not a great public speaker to consider it.
You can improve your public speaking.
Hell, get a prescription for ativan, and take half of one, and you’ll be fine. Or a beta-blocker. If you know an attorney, you know someone with either of those.
Go for it. The real change comes from actual people, rather than politicians.
Politicians are just placeholders.
Do it.
What do you expect when the state Democratic Party shits on their own voters(Quinn & Co. with “pension reform” and of course Rahmbo .. for starters). Also, it’s a fault of the state party that there is no one for those races.
Yeah, I can’t wait to vote for Quinn this morning after he screwed me on my pension. But I refuse to vote for a republican, so what am I left with? Quinn.
One of my favorite quotes from Joe was on Inaugeral Day. “There’s a parade?”
A nice comfy retirement at age 74. A big advance for his memoir that nobody will read. $100,000 speech gigs the first year, $50,000 the second year, $25,000 the third year, and no bookings after that.
Biden has always lacked that vision thing and he’s not about to develop it in his old age. There hasn’t been a Democrat on the national stage that has championed anything other than warmed over Republican/conservative mush since LBJ — rightwing thinktank formulated “Romneycare” is what you’re all praising? — and other than Al Gore who early on recognized the potential value of the internet and importance of climate change, not only do they lack vision, their “thinking” evolves as slowly as the slower half of the USians.
Yup.
Right on the money.
Thak you.
AG
You write:
Nobody?
Wow!!!
Here is the real skinny on your savior, Booman.
Here is what he has really accomplished, starting with his most recent misstep.
Below is Ron Paul on his wimpy reaction to Russia’s ongoing takeover of Ukraine. And I mean “takeover.” It’s only a matter of time. This administration’s meddling in the Ukraine was just the excuse that Putin needed. The U.S. and its allies went off balance, dealing with fascists and crooked pols in an effort to isolate Russia. Putin is a Judoka and he took advantage of that imbalance to execute a classic Judo throw.
From the usually doggedly “centrist” USA Today…a bad, bad sign for the DemRats and the Senate in a few months. Bet on it.
Putin wins. Big!!!
More?
Sure. From today’s Counterpunch.
I got yer “favorite preznit.” Right there!!!
A broader view of his foreign policy failure.?
OK.
Also from today’s Counterpunch.
Add to these most recent failures:
1-His handling of the economy…he put the foxes right back in the economic chicken coop as his first order of business when he was elected…his first betrayal.
2-His staunch support of the security state mechanisms using the lame “War On Terror!!!” excuse.
3-His continuing use of “off-the-radar” overt and covert military operations to support “fascists, drug lords and terrorists” in over 35 countries. “As long as they back our play, they’re OK” seems to be his backroom mantra on this subject.
4-And the ongoing serious problems with each and every attempt to run well-functioning federal systems…IRS, TSA, CIA, Homeland Security, Obamacare, etc.
Sorry, Charlie.
You been had.
Obama’s a good game show host…handsome, well spoken, impeccably dressed, etc. But he has no good answers to most of the questions posed by the quiz shows that he is supposed to be hosting.
None.
You are obviously preparing to provide lockstep support for yet another PermaGov DemRat, no matter who it might be.
Only this time…watch…this time the DemRat nominee may quite possibly have a revolutionarily new Republican opponent instead of the good ol’ tomato cans that Obama trounced in 2008 and 2012.
Watch.
Even the mainstream media s affording the Paulist movement newfound respect. (See today’s USA Today for more on that subject.) No stiffing it as a bunch of crazies and flakes these days!!! The fix is likely either broken from overuse or the fixers think that Rand Paul might be controllable.
We shall see, soon enough.
Jeb Bush?
Maybe.
Anybody else?
I doubt it.
Like I said…we shall see.
Soon enough.
Later…
AG
How is Booman cheering on the deeply flawed policies of Obama different from you cheering on the deeply flawed policies of RonRandPaulInc? They’re fascists — in the 20th century mold — and it’s shocking to me that you fail to see that.
Obama’s flawed policies are proven. The Pauls’ policies have not been proven to be flawed because they have not been tried. Not really, and certainly not in the current state of the world and the U.S.
You say “they’re fascists.” OK Prove it. You cannot, because they have done or said nothing fascististic…not in the common meaning of the term, anyway. They are not trying to set up a military dictatorship as did Hitler and Mussolini. They are not targeting races for extinction. They are by no means expansionist in their stated foreign policy goals. They are not trying to organize the country to fall in line behind an “ultimate leader.” So tell me, please…how exactly are they “fascists?”
Because of part of one outdated…outdated in terms of the state of the multinational world economy., for sure..definition? A quite localized one at that?
From Wikipedia
How about just straight-ahead definitions of the word “fascism?”
From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
How about googling <fascist definition>.
Here’s what Google says:
Show me where anything in the above three blockquotes describes a goddamned thing about what the Pauls have been saying.
Of course, you can’t. “Fascist” has become nothing more than a meaningless leftiness buzzword now, and that is precisely how you are using it.
Try something else.
AG
Fascism and libertarianism not so coincidentally overlap because libertarians’ ideas would never be instituted in a democracy. It’s why many libertarians love them some Pinochet, and assholes like Peter Thiel says ” I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
There are so many fallacies in this argument that it is not worth answering at length. So I will just rephrase it.
Absolute nonsense, of course.
Yours too.
Go away.
Did you go to college?
Ah HA!!!
I thought so.
Go away.
AG
Come on AG.
Inverted Totalitarianism is what we already have, and by simply removing the Federal Government as the last resort of the population to rein in corporations, state/local governments and banks, we’re just fast-tracking neo-feudalism.
RonRand Paul(s) want to mothball the Federal Government and allow the states to be the ultimate sovereign.
Ever really taken a look at Alabama and Mississippi? I travel through those shitholes all the time. If it weren’t for the Federal Government, they’d still have fucking slavery, mark my words.
I see what you see although we have different views of how to solve problems. But do you really think that RonRand Paul libertarianism would actually work in a country of 330+ million people? Especially when it would necessarily start with a whole hell of a lot of them having almost all of the real power, along with almost all of the money?
Within a generation neo-feudalism would be set in stone in this country with the Paul’s vision of economics. The oligarchs aren’t just going to play nice because the Federal Government isn’t there to tax them anymore.
There is never enough money or power to a sociopath. They lack empathy and don’t care about other people.
Sometimes y’just have to go all in, n1cholas. Alabama and Mississippi? Those states and the rest of the “shitholes?” We have a word for leaving a country…secession…but no word for kicking areas out of a country. Maybe it’s time to do a little downsizing. A little ‘Back in the U.S.S.R.-ing” of our own.
I honestly do not know what would come of a libertarian takeover of the federal apparatus. I do know this, though…what we have now simply isn’t working, and it is working less and less well with every passing month.
The immortal prophet Donald Rumsfeld once received a heavenly message…in public no less, during a Press Conference at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, June 6, 2002.
Here it is:
And of course his classic commentary on the poem:
I repeat:
Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.
Libertarianism is an unknown unknown, n1cholas. Evidence is absent regarding how it will work, but that does not mean that it will not work or work badly. Everything except results from a down-home, nitty-gritty, full-sized experiment is just opinion based on guesswork. Will that unkonwn unknown eventually be put to the test of reality? We shall see.
Or we won’t see,of course. Instead we will see the results of more PermaGov work.
You ready for that?
I’m not.
Later…
AG
Some reading:
Ron Paul and the Dysfunction of the American Left
One of the most disturbing aspects of the fragmentary American Left today is the tendency of many leftists in the US (though, obviously, not just in the US) to make decidedly poor choices when it comes to selecting allies. One well-known example of this – tirelessly pointed out by Paul Street, Glenn Ford, and many others – was the combination of wishful thinking and denial that led so many progressives and leftists to hitch their wagons to the star of centre-right neoliberal Barack Obama, the darling of such classic Left institutions as Wall Street and the nuclear power industry.
Over the past couple of years, there has been a dawning realisation that this was a very bad idea indeed, and that many on the Left had fallen for a product of the PR industry specifically designed for them to fall for. It certainly was one of Madison Avenue’s great successes, so much so, in fact, that the Obama campaign beat out Apple in 2008 for the industry’s coveted award for best ad campaign. However, Obama’s PR makeover, which transformed a centre-right, neoliberal militarist only Citigroup could love into the darling of the anti-war movement, can’t hold a candle to the image makeover enjoyed by one Ron Paul. While Madison Avenue managed to transmogrify the centre-right Obama into a supposed stealth leftist, Ron Paul’s PR has managed to make a potential Left ally out of a far-right white supremacist who courts the favour of the sort of people Trotsky once suggested should be `acquainted with the pavement’. However, much less has been written about this continuing strategic cockup than the subject deserves.
In the following, I will briefly sketch the actual views of Ron Paul, to show what sort of person so many on the anti-war left have hopped into bed with. I will then propose an explanation for why this sort of thing happens, and keeps happening. The Ron Paul readers will encounter in the following will bear little resemblance to the sanitised Ron Paul who courageously rails against the current wars and declares himself to be against empire and the National Security State, and for personal liberty.
Prove to me that he wrote these things. The syntax is all wrong and I can find nothing on the web that supports his authorship of them. The supposed “.jpg sources” of the statements come up 404-unavailable. Did they appear in his “newsletter?” Then he fucked up by not watching it closely. Were the lies of Judith Miller in the NY Times about Iraqi WMDS the words of Arthur Sulzberger? Please. As above, so below.
AG
If his own fucking spokesman isn’t enough, I don’t know what else to say:
Dr. Paul, who served in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said Tuesday that he has produced the newsletter since 1985 and distributes it to an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers. A phone call to the newsletter’s toll-free number was answered by his campaign staff. […]
Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation. […]
-Dallas Daily News, 22 May 1996
A campaign spokesman for Paul said statements about the fear of black males mirror pronouncements by black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has decried the spread of urban crime.
Paul continues to write the newsletter for an undisclosed number of subscribers, the spokesman said.
-Houston Chronicle, 23 May 1996
I repeat…prove to me that he himself wrote those things.
Did he make some mistakes running the necessities for being elected in hardtack Texas?
Yes.
Does he regret those mistakes now?
Bet on it.
Did he write or even approve some of the vile things that are…always unattributed…blamed on him personally in the leftiness media?
Proof?
So far…nothing.
Here is what he has personally and publicly said about racism on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Ron Paul on racism, April 16, 2007:
That has the ring of truth to me. The other shit? Leftiness blather and neo-liberal, panicked hustle.
Next?
I can’t wait!!!
AG
He stood by his comments. First “but they were taken out of context” to “yeah he wrote it but what about Jesse Jackson?!?!”
Also, citing that quote about him doesn’t make him look better, dude. It makes him look worse. The “I don’t see race I see individuals” makes it 100% more likely that the dude is the white supremacist that everyone suspects and knows that he is. You know what that says to black people? “I don’t give a fuck about you because I choose to actively say I ignore the first thing society recognizes about you.” Typical of libertarian asswipes, not not at all surprising. And the fact that you keep citing it shows me you don’t care, either.
Absolutely! Bizarre that anyone can read “collectivists” = “racists” and not hear all the rightwing echoes. Then again, Arthur gets all huffy if anyone here suggests that white folks in many southern states act stupid.
No more stupid than “many people” in all other states, Marie. Including the great state of Leftiness.
Bet on it.
AG
I’ve got news for you, seabe. I see individuals too. Am I a racist? Tell that to the many musicians of color with whom I have played for 40+ years. Race? I ignore it. As a musician, people can either play or they can’t. That goes for sexual orientation, tastes in sexual partners, tastes in food, clothes and any other damned thing that collectivizes human beings in the eyes of other human beings. I guess I’m just a born libertarian, eh?
You?
Always judging people on their race are you?
Sad.
It makes no difference to me whether your judging is negative or positive regarding various and sundry races, religions or social strata. You are a collectivist and collectivism sucks.
Leftist collectivism, rightist collectivism…any collectivism.
Sucks.
Get used to it.
People are waking up to the scam.
But not you…
AG
Patriarchy is fascistic. As is the end mature stage of “free market” capitalism which is oligopoly headed toward the end stage of monopoly. And contrary to your assertion that “it’s never been tried,” it’s been tried over and over again and the results are always the same – a few men owning most of the wealth and controlling most of the lives within their domain.
The Pauls would have mega-corporations ruling the economy and “Christian” freaks ruling the lives of the “less thans” which includes women and people of color that have no wealth.
Didn’t Rand win this year’s CPAC straw poll? Exactly the sort of folks that the Pauls have been courting for years. Male narcissists with an inflated sense of self.
Neo-feudalism.
Feudalism is the ultimate rentier society.
The vast majority of the population owns very little, has almost no economic or political power, and simply work for subsistence.
Sound familiar?
We’re almost there. “People” like the Kochs and their pseudo-human ilk know exactly what they want.
They have theirs. Their family will have what they leave for them. And an aristocracy is set to replace our current pseudo-meritocracy.
The Pauls have money, they obviously believe in aristocracy and hierarchy, and they’d love to get rid of the Government of Last Resort that currently provides some relief to the rest of the population.
Never mind individual people being a majority that keeps the minority down.
Right now, Money/Wealth/Power has been consolidated so that a majority of Money/Wealth/Power is being used against most of the people in this country to keep them locked down, afraid, insecure, and willing to do whatever to keep the little bit that they have.
Fuck the Pauls. They know exactly what they’re doing. The only reason I vote for ol’ Ron Paul every primary is because I live in a red state. Otherwise, his vision of the US is just as warped as any proper oligarch up for election/running a politician.
Patriarchy is fascistic!!!???
So you mean that it’s about the gender of the heads of families?
UH oh!!!
We have almost all been fascists since time began in that case.
I guess that means the matriarchy is…is what? Anarchistic? Communnist? Democratic.
Great.
Let’s start history again.
Ridiculoustry.
“…the end mature stage?”
What are we talking about here? Polliwogs to frogs?
“… oligopoly?”
Governance by oligorps?
“…the end stage of monopoly?”
Whassat all about? What “end stage?” Which “end stage? Y’mean there’s only one possible “end stage” to a monoply? How about a polyopoly? How many end stages does that have?
More political/economic claptrap.
No answers.
Just talk.
Empty talk. Meaningless.
Please.
AG
Kevin Gosztola –`Most Transparent Administration EverTM‘–Obama Administration Makes Mockery of Open Government
I’m not going to defend Obama’s secrecy, but FireDogLake? Couldn’t you find a better source of attack?
Emperors gonna rule an Empire.
As long as the population continues to believe in the myth that the United States has a special place in the world (a euphemism for Empire) than Presidents are going to continue to be Emperors by any other name.
I don’t really blame Obama for it. He can’t just turn that shit off, no matter how much he would want to.
First, the people have to demand it. Once we can use accurate terminology for what our “country” is and what it does around the world, such as “protecting our interests”, etc, then we can start electing non-Emperors.
Until then, we’ll do what we’ve done since day 1: elect Emperors to expand power and prestige of our country.
…I feel comfortable saying that Obama is easily the best president we’ve had in my lifetime.
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