Lots of folks are expressing concern over Barack Obama's appointments, and in my new newspaper column I offer three separate thoughts on the worries: 1) Don't worry so much, 2) Worry a little bit and make your worries heard and 3) What did you expect?
This last point is arguably the most important. Because of the structure of the movement Obama built for himself, and because of the refusal/inability of an independent progressive movement to make concrete demands, he has more top-down power than any previous president. Whether you think that's good news or bad news, it is reality.
We have elected a Dear Leader, and have ceded a lot of power to our Dear Leader. We have to simultaneously hope he makes good decisions, and figure out how to organize effectively in case he doesn't. Read the whole column here.
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Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Salon.com
Comments
GIVE HIM A CHANCE!!!!
Stop with the nonsense that this election and its consequences will end like a one hour television program with everything wrapped up even before he gets started.
GIVE HIM A CHANCE!!!
Well, I suppose that's true nationally; certainly it's not true locally. America has been blessed/cursed with a crew of local leaders who were little more than autocratic DL's. From James Michael Curley and Boss Tweed to Huey Long, we have a long history of craving fealty to The Daddy. That we escaped a national Huey Long until 2000 (when we got two of them at once as if to make up for lost time) is a combination of sheer good fortune and piles of new immigrants whose experience with dictators was still fresh enough to recognize them here.
Will BO be one? Not if we keep him honest.
“I've asked you this twice so far, Frank. I'll ask again. How much time would you suggest this "chance" was worth? A month? A year? How long before we're allowed to say something about what he's doing? Thomas Huber suggests a month. 30 days. That do for you, too? “
Seems to me that I’ve answered this…but if my 72 year old memory is failing me, I will do so now—and with an apology, if I may, for having messed up and let it slip by.
Barak Obama is charged with changing the direction of the United States of America…arguably the most powerful, complex nation ever to exist on this planet. We have been a train wreck for eight years…with the Bush administration trashing humans rights and constitutional guarantees—and allowing us for the first time to officially condone torture; to deny the right of habeas corpus—and so much more. We’ve managed to stress our military almost to the breaking point—and we are fighting two wars. We have managed to alienate long time allies and our economy is in a state of chaos the likes of which never seen before.
Barak Obama, in short, is taking on responsibility for a job most of us would not wish on an enemy.
A man taking over a failing NFL franchise as head coach would be given, by the capitalistic owners of the team who are looking for profit from the franchise, three years to get things moving in the right direction—and four to five years to bring the move to successful fruition. During those first three years, few owners would seriously question the ways and means of the new coach.
I don’t think it inappropriate to give the new president about that same amount of time.
But I am not talking about what I think you should be “allowed to say”, Mick.
Say whatever you want; judge whatever way you will.
But if you and the others jumping the gun can do it…surely I can take exception. You do agree with that, don’t you, Mick.
By the way, I think most reasonable people look at some of this “why hasn’t he…” or “but he promised…” nonsense to be blather. I’m not saying you are spouting blather, Mick, but my response if I did think that would be: Say it as loudly as you can. In fact, when someone with whom I disagree is spouting blather, my suggestion always is to give him a microphone and an amplifier.
Sorry once again if I did miss responding. I try never to do that. Everyone deserves a response.
to not be dismissive towards the media. I hope the media stays
on his case. That will help keep him honest, and hopefully
keep him from being more arrogant than he already is.
What he has done so far looks pretty good but doesn't qualify
him, or any one else, for the Dear Leader nonsense. I'm
really sick of all this Big Daddy crap. I don't need another
father.
I really hope that this ridiculous bit of hyperbole doesn't catch on. Yes, we've elected a President based partly on his star status; no, that doesn't make him a dictator.
The question was genuine, not a challenge. I'm trying to figure out where y'all are coming from, and your answer helped but only partly. It isn't, as I said in my response to Ms Snitten simply a matter of time.
We are facing a monumentally difficult proposition: cleaning up after an Administration that in 8 years deliberately destroyed almost everything it touched. The damage is massive. If Obama puts in place people who believe, as many of the Democrat Conservative Alliance does, that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with what Bush did, that he simply went too far, they will be blind to the extent of the damage, just as the ideological Bushies were, and the policies they follow won't be the kind that could get us out of this. They will be the kind that slow down the disintegration, not reverse it.
That is not what I'm willing to spend the next 4 years doing. I am NOT willing to sit on my keister for the next 4 years while Obama plods along, doggedly slowing our slide into autocracy. While I agree that it will take that long to even begin to undo all the damage Bush wrought, that's how long it will take if Obama is actually trying to reverse rather than mitigate. If he surrounds himself from the git-go with people like Summers and Gates and Clinton - all the standard Washington Dem establishment - there is little chance that anything will get reversed, certainly not economically.
That's not "blather", Frank, that's a genuine fear those of us who've been watching the Dems slide into corporate/conservative pandering mode have had for over a year as we watched them fight for nothing and give away the store for no reason.
While your argument isn't unreasonable, your time limit is unacceptable. By then we could be in the dumper.