President Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

[Happy Face 29]

Because there is a difference between wanting to do something personally and being able to acheive it politically. Especially in the US.

 

If by 'politically' you mean he doesn't want real reform as much as wants to keep his political sponsors on side and ensure a second term, then I agree 100%.

[Park Life 71]

Because there is a difference between wanting to do something personally and being able to acheive it politically. Especially in the US.

 

If by 'politically' you mean he doesn't want real reform as much as wants to keep his political sponsors on side and ensure a second term, then I agree 100%.

 

[ChezGiven 0]

Because there is a difference between wanting to do something personally and being able to acheive it politically. Especially in the US.

 

If by 'politically' you mean he doesn't want real reform as much as wants to keep his political sponsors on side and ensure a second term, then I agree 100%.

 

I think thats a naive interpretation of 2009. We talk about the power of the corporations on the one hand and yet expect our governments to be more powerful. There is only so much to go around and its shared pretty thinly.

[Happy Face 29]

Because there is a difference between wanting to do something personally and being able to acheive it politically. Especially in the US.

 

If by 'politically' you mean he doesn't want real reform as much as wants to keep his political sponsors on side and ensure a second term, then I agree 100%.

 

I think thats a naive interpretation of 2009. We talk about the power of the corporations on the one hand and yet expect our governments to be more powerful. There is only so much to go around and its shared pretty thinly.

 

 

Sorry I'm not sure what your point is.

 

"We talk about the power of the corporations on the one hand"

 

...yes, it's a bad thing...

 

"yet expect our governments to be more powerful"

 

...yes, that would reduce the injustice of a few corporations dictitaing policy for millions of citizens.

 

Of course it's naive and wooly to imagine that our government shouldn't be bought. But then I'm a wooly liberal who thinks government should use laws to protect it's citizens from corporations whether it's from the moneylenders, expansion of the military complex, damage to the environment, dangerous foodstuffs, tobacco, medicines, electrical goods or any number of things the lobbyists will always try to keep as dishonest as possible in the name of profit.

Edited October 14, 2009 by Happy Face

[Happy Face 29]

 

 

 

 

PoliticsHome interviewed 1430 adults in the US, and 1303 adults in the UK, by email between 9-11 October 2009. Results are weighted by party ID to reflect the both countries at large.

 

http://page.politicshome.com/usa/transatla...obel_prize.html

[Park Life 71]

Might as well have given it to Ashley.

[Happy Face 29]

Might as well have given it to Ashley.

 

He had a good go at the literature prize this year. Released lots of fiction. Never looked like he was in the running for economics though.

[ChezGiven 0]

Because there is a difference between wanting to do something personally and being able to acheive it politically. Especially in the US.

 

If by 'politically' you mean he doesn't want real reform as much as wants to keep his political sponsors on side and ensure a second term, then I agree 100%.

 

I think thats a naive interpretation of 2009. We talk about the power of the corporations on the one hand and yet expect our governments to be more powerful. There is only so much to go around and its shared pretty thinly.

 

 

Sorry I'm not sure what your point is.

 

"We talk about the power of the corporations on the one hand"

 

...yes, it's a bad thing...

 

"yet expect our governments to be more powerful"

 

...yes, that would reduce the injustice of a few corporations dictitaing policy for millions of citizens.

 

Of course it's naive and wooly to imagine that our government shouldn't be bought. But then I'm a wooly liberal who thinks government should use laws to protect it's citizens from corporations whether it's from the moneylenders, expansion of the military complex, damage to the environment, dangerous foodstuffs, tobacco, medicines, electrical goods or any number of things the lobbyists will always try to keep as dishonest as possible in the name of profit.

 

I agree, am just saying that was the status quo when he came to power i.e. the way of the world.

 

With power already skewed so far towards the corporations, how much power do you think a President has? A lot but not enough to change the world overnight.

[Happy Face 29]

Because there is a difference between wanting to do something personally and being able to acheive it politically. Especially in the US.

 

If by 'politically' you mean he doesn't want real reform as much as wants to keep his political sponsors on side and ensure a second term, then I agree 100%.

 

I think thats a naive interpretation of 2009. We talk about the power of the corporations on the one hand and yet expect our governments to be more powerful. There is only so much to go around and its shared pretty thinly.

 

 

Sorry I'm not sure what your point is.

 

"We talk about the power of the corporations on the one hand"

 

...yes, it's a bad thing...

 

"yet expect our governments to be more powerful"

 

...yes, that would reduce the injustice of a few corporations dictitaing policy for millions of citizens.

 

Of course it's naive and wooly to imagine that our government shouldn't be bought. But then I'm a wooly liberal who thinks government should use laws to protect it's citizens from corporations whether it's from the moneylenders, expansion of the military complex, damage to the environment, dangerous foodstuffs, tobacco, medicines, electrical goods or any number of things the lobbyists will always try to keep as dishonest as possible in the name of profit.

 

I agree, am just saying that was the status quo when he came to power i.e. the way of the world.

 

With power already skewed so far towards the corporations, how much power do you think a President has? A lot but not enough to change the world overnight.

 

That's not to say that such inaction should be endorsed by the Nobel commitee or go unremarked upon by the media though. He should be constantly pressured to improve things.

[The Fish 10857]

 

 

 

 

PoliticsHome interviewed 1430 adults in the US, and 1303 adults in the UK, by email between 9-11 October 2009. Results are weighted by party ID to reflect the both countries at large.

 

http://page.politicshome.com/usa/transatla...obel_prize.html

 

fwiw their chairman also founded and chairs Conservativehome.com So I'd be curious as to the reliability and bias of the site.

[Happy Face 29]

 

 

 

 

PoliticsHome interviewed 1430 adults in the US, and 1303 adults in the UK, by email between 9-11 October 2009. Results are weighted by party ID to reflect the both countries at large.

 

http://page.politicshome.com/usa/transatla...obel_prize.html

 

fwiw their chairman also founded and chairs Conservativehome.com So I'd be curious as to the reliability and bias of the site.

 

That one's supposed to be a non-partisan site though. He also founded yougov which is impartial and predicted Labour’s ten-point general election victory in 2001 within one percentage point.

 

The numbers don't seem controversial to me, I can see your point though.

[The Fish 10857]

I suppose it's less about the numbers, and more about the questions. The 3rd question in particular strikes me as weighted.

 

it's pie in the sky, but I want incorruptable men and women making decisions based on the wide-reaching long-term benefits for the country with the politicing and intranational diplomacy conducted behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the media and public.

 

However there are no such men and women, so we're fucked.

[Guest alex]

That's not to say that such inaction should be endorsed by the Nobel commitee or go unremarked upon by the media though. He should be constantly pressured to improve things.

Couldn't agree more, although perhaps we're both being unrealistic. Canny fucking sad if we are though.

[Happy Face 29]

The outrage continues with a scathing piece from Pilger...

 

Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs. According to the UN, 338,000 Afghan infants are dying under the Obama-led alliance, which permits only $29 per head annually to be spent on medical care.

 

Within weeks of his inauguration, Obama started a new war in Pakistan, causing more than a million people to flee their homes. In threatening Iran - which his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she was prepared to "obliterate" - Obama lied that the Iranians were covering up a "secret nuclear facility", knowing that it had already been reported to the International Atomic Energy Authority. In colluding with the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, he bribed the Palestinian Authority to suppress a UN judgment that Israel had committed crimes against humanity in its assault on Gaza - crimes made possible with US weapons whose shipment Obama secretly approved before his inauguration.

 

The old dog whistle test

At home, the man of peace has approved a military budget exceeding that of any year since the end of the Second World War while presiding over a new kind of domestic repression. During the recent G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, hosted by Obama, militarised police attacked peaceful protesters with something called the Long-Range Acoustic Device, not seen before on US streets. Mounted in the turret of a small tank, it blasted a piercing noise as tear gas and pepper gas were fired indiscriminately. It is part of a new arsenal of "crowd-control munitions" supplied by military contractors such as Raytheon. In Obama's Pentagon-controlled "national security state", the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, which he promised to close, remains open, and "rendition", secret assassinations and torture continue.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize-winner's latest war is largely secret. On 15 July, Washington finalised a deal with Colombia that gives the US seven giant military bases. "The idea," reported the Associated Press, "is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations . . . nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 [military transport] without refuelling", which "helps achieve the regional engagement strategy".

 

Translated, this means Obama is planning a "rollback" of the independence and democracy that the people of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay have achieved against the odds, along with a historic regional co-operation that rejects the notion of a US "sphere of influence". The Colombian regime, which backs death squads and has the continent's worst human rights record, has received US military support second in scale only to Israel. Britain provides military training. Guided by US military satellites, Colombian paramilitaries now infiltrate Venezuela with the goal of overthrowing the democratic government of Hugo Chávez, which George W Bush failed to do in 2002.

 

Obama's war on peace and democracy in Latin America follows a style he has demonstrated since the coup against the democratic president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in June. Zelaya had increased the minimum wage, granted subsidies to small farmers, cut back interest rates and reduced poverty. He planned to break a US pharmaceutical monopoly and manufacture cheap generic drugs. Although Obama has called for Zelaya's reinstatement, he refuses to condemn the coup-makers and to recall the US ambassador or the US troops who train the Honduran forces determined to crush a popular resistance. Zelaya has been repeatedly refused a meeting with Obama, who has approved an IMF loan of $164m to the illegal regime. The message is clear and familiar: thugs can act with impunity on behalf of the US.

 

Obama, the smooth operator from Chicago via Harvard, was enlisted to restore what he calls "leadership" throughout the world. The Nobel Prize committee's decision is the kind of cloying reverse racism that has beatified the man for no reason other than he is a member of a minority and attractive to liberal sensibilities, if not to the Afghan children he kills. This is the Call of Obama. It is not unlike a dog whistle: inaudible to most, irresistible to the besotted and boneheaded. "When Obama walks into a room," gushed George Clooney, "you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere."

 

Extreme and dangerous

The great voice of black liberation Frantz Fanon understood this. In The Wretched of the Earth, he described the "intermediary [whose] mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation: it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged". Because political debate has become so debased in our media monoculture - Blair or Brown; Brown or Cameron - race, gender and class can be used as seductive tools of propaganda and diversion. In Obama's case, what matters, as Fanon pointed out in an earlier era, is not the intermediary's "historic" elevation, but the class he serves. After all, Bush's inner circle was probably the most multiracial in presidential history. There was Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, all dutifully serving an extreme and dangerous power.

 

Britain has seen its own Obama-like mysticism. The day after Blair was elected in 1997, the Observer predicted that he would create "new worldwide rules on human rights" while the Guardian rejoiced at the "breathless pace [as] the floodgates of change burst open". When Obama was elected last November, Denis MacShane MP, a devotee of Blair's bloodbaths, unwittingly warned us: "I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997."

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/international-...ilger-war-peace

[Park Life 71]

Good article. What is he upto this boy?

[ChezGiven 0]

Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs. According to the UN, 338,000 Afghan infants are dying under the Obama-led alliance, which permits only $29 per head annually to be spent on medical care.

 

You want us to pull out of Afghanistan or stay? Personally i want us out but he didnt put us there, nor can he just walk away.

 

Within weeks of his inauguration, Obama started a new war in Pakistan, causing more than a million people to flee their homes.

 

As promised

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7080101233.html

 

In threatening Iran - which his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she was prepared to "obliterate" - Obama lied that the Iranians were covering up a "secret nuclear facility", knowing that it had already been reported to the International Atomic Energy Authority.

 

Clinton said that years ago. And the Iranians are lying about their nuclear capacity, only numb-nutted extreme-lefty freaks think otherwise (ooh that'll be Pilger)

 

In colluding with the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, he bribed the Palestinian Authority to suppress a UN judgment that Israel had committed crimes against humanity in its assault on Gaza - crimes made possible with US weapons whose shipment Obama secretly approved before his inauguration.

 

The jewish problem wasnt going to disappear overnight, how naive to think otherwise.

 

At home, the man of peace has approved a military budget exceeding that of any year since the end of the Second World War

 

Inflation. And the British pulled out of Iraq. Inflammatory bollocks.

 

while presiding over a new kind of domestic repression.

 

Yes John, presidents approve crowd control techniques. "Can we use the LRAD Sarge?" "Not sure skipper, i'll give Obama a quick bell".

 

In Obama's Pentagon-controlled "national security state", the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, which he promised to close, remains open, and "rendition", secret assassinations and torture continue.

 

Does this cunt do any research?

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/o...s_n_206189.html

 

"The president spoke one day after the Senate voted resoundingly to deny him money to close the prison in Cuba, but Obama said he was still determined. And he decried arguments used against his plans."

 

I'll come back to US political processes for you in a bit.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize-winner's latest war is largely secret. On 15 July, Washington finalised a deal with Colombia that gives the US seven giant military bases. "The idea," reported the Associated Press, "is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations . . . nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 [military transport] without refuelling", which "helps achieve the regional engagement strategy".

 

Translated, this means Obama is planning a "rollback" of the independence and democracy that the people of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay have achieved against the odds, along with a historic regional co-operation that rejects the notion of a US "sphere of influence". The Colombian regime, which backs death squads and has the continent's worst human rights record, has received US military support second in scale only to Israel. Britain provides military training. Guided by US military satellites, Colombian paramilitaries now infiltrate Venezuela with the goal of overthrowing the democratic government of Hugo Chávez, which George W Bush failed to do in 2002.

 

You wanna buy some coke or something John? Funnily enough, Obama getting into power probably depended on his promises to the 'war on drugs' lobby. He might be the most liberal sounding President for a while but not sure he would get very far if he didnt actively try and control the cocaine supply. Our lefties are even in on it.

 

Obama's war on peace and democracy in Latin America

 

Fuck off. Just fuck right off.

 

Obama has called for Zelaya's reinstatement,

 

Indeed but its a little bit more complicated than that. This is still the US we are talking about.

 

The Nobel Prize committee's decision is the kind of cloying reverse racism that has beatified the man for no reason other than he is a member of a minority and attractive to liberal sensibilities

 

Aye right John. In a dangerous world in need of hope, lets call the Nobel committee racists for giving a good man an honourable award.

 

In Obama's case, what matters, as Fanon pointed out in an earlier era, is not the intermediary's "historic" elevation, but the class he serves. After all, Bush's inner circle was probably the most multiracial in presidential history. There was Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, all dutifully serving an extreme and dangerous power.

 

I was reading the latest on the healthcare bill yesterday and was thinking about how many commentators (including your fine self HF) have questioned the the sincerity of Obama and it got me thinking about the process required to get a bill in front of the President for him to sign. When you look into the process, you begin to get an understanding of the importance of Obama's election mantra. Effecting change in the US is incredibly complex and requires consensus across a huge range of individuals. If you take this example and think about the Senate blocking the finance for Guantanamo, you'll begin to see that 'yes we can' was as much a reminder to himself than a call to the people of the US.

 

There are 5 congressional panels tasked with debating the reform proposals. Yesterday, Senator Snowe (Rep) signalled an intention to vote yes on one of these congressional panels. She is on Max Baucus's Finance committee, one of two Senate committees (the other is the Health Committee) that need to come together at some point and provide a Senate Bill for a Floor vote. At the same time there are 3 House of Representative Committees ('Ways & Means', 'Energy & Commerce' and 'Education and labour'). Together they need to provide a House of Reprsentatives Bill that will go for a floor vote. The composition of the committees reflects the relative split in each House between the parties. Some of the democrats chosen (and lobbied for by all sorts of Washington lobby groups) will be fiscal conservatives. The Democrats are divided on the issues, making progress extremely difficult.

 

Once both houses have voted and approved their respective bills, then a conference committee needs to reconcile the two versions. Once this is done, each chamber needs to approve the final version. Only then is a Bill is sent to Obama to sign. He does not sit on any of the committees personally.

 

"Yes we can"?

[Guest alex]

Actually, you'd probably both make better political commentators than Pilger.

[NJS 4386]

Fucking hell, Pilger oversimplified a few things and wrapped it up in emotive language - well I never.

[Park Life 71]

Fucking hell, Pilger oversimplified a few things and wrapped it up in emotive language - well I never.

 

[Happy Face 29]

Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs. According to the UN, 338,000 Afghan infants are dying under the Obama-led alliance, which permits only $29 per head annually to be spent on medical care.

 

You want us to pull out of Afghanistan or stay? Personally i want us out but he didnt put us there, nor can he just walk away.

 

The least violent advice he's receiving at the moment is from his Vice President advising no more troops, just drone attacks and small units of elite forces. Obama seems likely to go with around 40,000 more troops. Whether he should be there in the first place or not. Whether he should escalate or scale back. Neither action can justify a nobel peace prize for him.

 

I want us out too.

 

Within weeks of his inauguration, Obama started a new war in Pakistan, causing more than a million people to flee their homes.

 

As promised

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7080101233.html

 

Again, not the kind of action that should earn him a peace prize though. Just because he's doing what he said he would. If anything it makes the award even more of a farce. The claim that it's been awarded for the hope of peace he inspired around the world....while he said all along "I'll pull out of Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan/Pakistan"....the only part he didn't do was pull out of Iraq.

 

In threatening Iran - which his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she was prepared to "obliterate" - Obama lied that the Iranians were covering up a "secret nuclear facility", knowing that it had already been reported to the International Atomic Energy Authority.

 

Clinton said that years ago. And the Iranians are lying about their nuclear capacity, only numb-nutted extreme-lefty freaks think otherwise (ooh that'll be Pilger)

 

And the US intelligence services whose national intelligence estimate has said Iran has had no program or thoughts of starting a program since 2003. There is literally no intelligence whatsoever to the contrary.

 

In colluding with the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, he bribed the Palestinian Authority to suppress a UN judgment that Israel had committed crimes against humanity in its assault on Gaza - crimes made possible with US weapons whose shipment Obama secretly approved before his inauguration.

 

The jewish problem wasnt going to disappear overnight, how naive to think otherwise.

 

You haven't adressed the point. He's not taking action to resolve it. He's actively supressing UN judgements on Israel and maintaining the status quo....and supplying the weapons.

 

At home, the man of peace has approved a military budget exceeding that of any year since the end of the Second World War

 

Inflation. And the British pulled out of Iraq. Inflammatory bollocks.

 

That fact accounts for inflation:

 

In 2007, the United States spent over $650 billion on national defense. Even after adjusting for inflation, this was the largest annual amount since 1945, surpassing previous post-World War II peaks reached during the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold wars.

 

http://vlex.com/vid/rise-spending-affectin...conomy-65015971

 

So not inflammatory bollocks.

 

while presiding over a new kind of domestic repression.

 

Yes John, presidents approve crowd control techniques. "Can we use the LRAD Sarge?" "Not sure skipper, i'll give Obama a quick bell".

 

 

In Obama's Pentagon-controlled "national security state", the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, which he promised to close, remains open, and "rendition", secret assassinations and torture continue.

 

Does this cunt do any research?

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/o...s_n_206189.html

 

"The president spoke one day after the Senate voted resoundingly to deny him money to close the prison in Cuba, but Obama said he was still determined. And he decried arguments used against his plans."

 

I'll come back to US political processes for you in a bit.

 

Doesn't really matter when he's leaving Bagram alone does it.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize-winner's latest war is largely secret. On 15 July, Washington finalised a deal with Colombia that gives the US seven giant military bases. "The idea," reported the Associated Press, "is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations . . . nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 [military transport] without refuelling", which "helps achieve the regional engagement strategy".

 

Translated, this means Obama is planning a "rollback" of the independence and democracy that the people of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay have achieved against the odds, along with a historic regional co-operation that rejects the notion of a US "sphere of influence". The Colombian regime, which backs death squads and has the continent's worst human rights record, has received US military support second in scale only to Israel. Britain provides military training. Guided by US military satellites, Colombian paramilitaries now infiltrate Venezuela with the goal of overthrowing the democratic government of Hugo Chávez, which George W Bush failed to do in 2002.

 

You wanna buy some coke or something John? Funnily enough, Obama getting into power probably depended on his promises to the 'war on drugs' lobby. He might be the most liberal sounding President for a while but not sure he would get very far if he didnt actively try and control the cocaine supply. Our lefties are even in on it.

 

You'll have to explain that response to me. Colombia remains the leading producer of coca with approximately 70% of the total share and dominates approximately 90% of the cocaine processing market in the world. Surely Obama should not be dealing with such a government until they crack down on it a tad.

 

Obama's war on peace and democracy in Latin America

 

Fuck off. Just fuck right off.

 

 

Obama has called for Zelaya's reinstatement,

 

Indeed but its a little bit more complicated than that. This is still the US we are talking about.

 

The Nobel Prize committee's decision is the kind of cloying reverse racism that has beatified the man for no reason other than he is a member of a minority and attractive to liberal sensibilities

 

Aye right John. In a dangerous world in need of hope, lets call the Nobel committee racists for giving a good man an honourable award.

 

He represents the majority when he says there's no reason he should get the award. Why shouldn't he reflect national opinion? Hope's done no good whatsoever yet, and it's only dwindling (see Obama's poll numbers).

 

In Obama's case, what matters, as Fanon pointed out in an earlier era, is not the intermediary's "historic" elevation, but the class he serves. After all, Bush's inner circle was probably the most multiracial in presidential history. There was Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, all dutifully serving an extreme and dangerous power.

 

I was reading the latest on the healthcare bill yesterday and was thinking about how many commentators (including your fine self HF) have questioned the the sincerity of Obama and it got me thinking about the process required to get a bill in front of the President for him to sign. When you look into the process, you begin to get an understanding of the importance of Obama's election mantra. Effecting change in the US is incredibly complex and requires consensus across a huge range of individuals. If you take this example and think about the Senate blocking the finance for Guantanamo, you'll begin to see that 'yes we can' was as much a reminder to himself than a call to the people of the US.

 

There are 5 congressional panels tasked with debating the reform proposals. Yesterday, Senator Snowe (Rep) signalled an intention to vote yes on one of these congressional panels. She is on Max Baucus's Finance committee, one of two Senate committees (the other is the Health Committee) that need to come together at some point and provide a Senate Bill for a Floor vote. At the same time there are 3 House of Representative Committees ('Ways & Means', 'Energy & Commerce' and 'Education and labour'). Together they need to provide a House of Reprsentatives Bill that will go for a floor vote. The composition of the committees reflects the relative split in each House between the parties. Some of the democrats chosen (and lobbied for by all sorts of Washington lobby groups) will be fiscal conservatives. The Democrats are divided on the issues, making progress extremely difficult.

 

Once both houses have voted and approved their respective bills, then a conference committee needs to reconcile the two versions. Once this is done, each chamber needs to approve the final version. Only then is a Bill is sent to Obama to sign. He does not sit on any of the committees personally.

 

"Yes we can"?

 

Your point earlier was that Obama can only set the tone. He doesn't set it well when his starting position on the negotiations is that a public option is not essential. Yes it's difficult, but he's the one tasking us all with the audacity of hope and when he fails to deliver he has to carry the can. If you think he's striving to get the best he can for the American people in the short time he has at the very top, then i think you're naive. If you see that Rahm Emmanuel has a lot to say about what he does politically to ensure financial backing for a second term and then for another democratic runner then we're closer to agreeing how he balances his commitments.

Edited October 15, 2009 by Happy Face

[Happy Face 29]

Fucking hell, Pilger oversimplified a few things and wrapped it up in emotive language - well I never.

 

Don't get on his back, he's won a peace prize and is inspiring people...

 

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-natio...90803-e5z1.html

[NJS 4386]

Fucking hell, Pilger oversimplified a few things and wrapped it up in emotive language - well I never.

 

Don't get on his back, he's won a peace prize and is inspiring people...

 

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-natio...90803-e5z1.html

 

 

Don't get me wrong - I like the bloke - but just like Michael Moore you have to read/watch his stuff with both eyes open.

[Happy Face 29]

Fucking hell, Pilger oversimplified a few things and wrapped it up in emotive language - well I never.

 

Don't get on his back, he's won a peace prize and is inspiring people...

 

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-natio...90803-e5z1.html

 

 

Don't get me wrong - I like the bloke - but just like Michael Moore you have to read/watch his stuff with both eyes open.

 

Aye, it was just a tongue in cheek dig at Chez cos he says you can't have a go at anyone giving a good man an honourable award.

 

[Park Life 71]

America is an industrial arms complex and at this point impossible to change without consequences to the worldwide economy and stability in about 45 countries. When change comes and it will it will come from the people and not from the top. I was predicting the end of the dollar way back in 2003 and we see it in its final death throes now. The revolution that changes the world will happen in the most unlikely and biggest capitalist economy- AMERIKKKA.

 

Capitalism will fail in our lifetimes.

Edited October 15, 2009 by Park Life

[ChezGiven 0]

I'll get back to you on some of the other points later as i'm off out but i will respond to your final point now as i think that gets to the heart of the point i'm trying to make.

 

I believe that Obama is fundamentally a good man and in doing his job he will balance 3 things, his personal beliefs, the needs of his party and the complex financial, procedural and ethical minefield that is the US political process. All of his actions need to be judged in light of these things, which provide the realistic counter-points to the people who expect too much from him.