Entity: The Obama Administration

[Andrew.]

Similarly, because I plan on voting for Obama over the other choices to avoid another Republican administration, doesn't mean I suport drone warfare, etc.

There's a well developed and academically respected frame of analysis which holds that one's actions and deeds are more constitutive of belief than one's thoughts or words.

Think about that. And research further if you like.

[jimmy two hands]

Similarly, because I plan on voting for Obama over the other choices to avoid another Republican administration, doesn't mean I suport drone warfare, etc.

There's a well developed and academically respected frame of analysis which holds that one's actions and deeds are more constitutive of belief than one's thoughts or words.

So, by that argument, my actions protesting the Iraq war are constitutive of belief in the ideals of Sadaam Hussein?

[Ernest]

No, it means action speaks louder than words, so in that case, you're a step more complicit when Obama orders drone attacks, than someone who may like him, but chose not to vote for him.

That is, if you consider voting an extension of support for myriad things, in some mealy mouthed way. Moral arguments are pretty lame in the end.

[Andrew.]

you said you would have voted for him so...
tell us. how does it feel?

Nope. I said that voting in the US (and most places) is so worthless and inconsequential that I would *conceivably* vote Dem in the US. And I've never for a moment in my life suggested anything other than that Obama is CRAP.

Your deflection of Obama's policy of the mass killing of innocents speaks to your sensibilities, not mine.

pretty sure you said you would have voted for Obama
wouldn't have said it otherwise.

It's my confidence about what I've said vs. your "pretty sure." I'm saying you're mistaken. Dig up my own words to prove me wrong, or take me at my word.

Jesus, some kind of multi-interlocutor debate-Kung Fu I'm engaged in here (difference being, I don't consider y'all bad guys, objectively -- just subjectively, cue: ::stupid emoticon::).



Oh, wait. In comes Ernest.

[Andrew.]

Yesterday Obama said the drone strikes he has dramatically escalated have not killed a "huge" number of civilians. That's his exact qualification: not "a huge number."

That's about 700 dead civilians including about 175 children that Obama thinks it's OK to murder from on high (cue apologists who rush to say it's not murder).

Obama's the father of two girls, no? And he's OK w/ snuffing out 175-odd children as part of the War on Terror (though he's far too sophisticated/savvy to call it that anymore). What do you suppose the corpses of 175 kids would look like piled up on the White House lawn?

It must feel very democratic, cosmopolitan, and empowering to do nothing about this other than stamp one's approval on it with a vote. According to this poll, half of you think so.

We were all objectively pro-Saddam when protesting against the invasion of Iraq.

I take it this clever somehow, but I don't get it.

Seems silly that I have to explain this, but the world is not a simple black and white place. I protested against the Iraq war and was labeled "objectively pro-Saddam" by wingnuts, because if you are against launching a war of aggression based on lies, that means you automatically support the actions of a dictator. Maybe you weren't subject to the constant right-wing propaganda campaign in 2003 that we were in the States, so the reference doens't make as much sense. Anyway I disagree with that argument. Similarly, because I plan on voting for Obama over the other choices to avoid another Republican administration, doesn't mean I suport drone warfare, etc.

By your argument, one couldn't protest against drone warfare w/o being against Obama. Pretty sure that seriously undermines your own position, dude.

[Andrew.]

No, it means action speaks louder than words, so in that case, you're a step more complicit when Obama orders drone attacks, than someone who may like him, but chose not to vote for him.

That is, if you consider voting an extension of support for myriad things, in some mealy mouthed way. Moral arguments are pretty lame in the end.

Althusser's argument isn't moralistic.

[Andrew.]

Ah, Wed evenings. And to think I could be in a free yoga class led by a hot French Canadian friend right now.

[Ernest]

No, it means action speaks louder than words, so in that case, you're a step more complicit when Obama orders drone attacks, than someone who may like him, but chose not to vote for him.

That is, if you consider voting an extension of support for myriad things, in some mealy mouthed way. Moral arguments are pretty lame in the end.

Althusser's argument isn't moralistic.

I like Althusser, but I don't buy the moral undercurrent generally in line with this 'vote, and they die' opinion. It's too oversimplified, and inadvertently lends more credence to the pseudo-great men theory people love about their favorite or most hated politicians.

The implication that by voting, one is directly in line, so to speak, with the choices of your politician, petty much misses the complexity of how disconnected politics, and the military industrial complex are from the average person.

That said, a vote for Obama is a vote for Michelle taking more vacations. There, I said it.

[Andrew.]

No, it means action speaks louder than words, so in that case, you're a step more complicit when Obama orders drone attacks, than someone who may like him, but chose not to vote for him.

That is, if you consider voting an extension of support for myriad things, in some mealy mouthed way. Moral arguments are pretty lame in the end.

Althusser's argument isn't moralistic.

I like Althusser, but I don't buy the moral undercurrent generally in line with this 'vote, and they die' opinion. It's too oversimplified, and inadvertently lends more credence to the pseudo-great men theory people love about their favorite or most hated politicians.

The implication that by voting, one is directly in line, so to speak, with the choices of your politician, petty much misses the complexity of how disconnected politics, and the military industrial complex are from the average person.

That said, a vote for Obama is a vote for Michelle taking more vacations. There, I said it.

Ernest, do you disagree w/ anything I said in my post on the last page where I quote Badiou?

[Ernest]

I didn't see it before I don't disagree with it.

[Andrew.]

I don't disagree with it.

As rousing an affirmation as I've come to know!

[HOUSTON_M]

The children of your Enemy are not your friends.

Breivikian Logic.

[krs]

krs I really respect that you've been very active in the Occupy movement. I don't know if I've said that to you before, but if there's one thing I have to say to you that's it: I respect what I know of your recent activism. Please bear this in mind as I go off below.

Thanks. I totally respect where you are coming from, even if I don't agree on how those ideas should be implemented.

I met with the Occupy Barrington group last night, on their first indoor meeting. Members of Occupy Elgin were in attendance. Things are happening in the Chicago suburbs. Ocuppy Naperville has their permit and will be marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade on March 17th.

The "punk patriot" isn't out of touch: he has conviction, which is the distinction determining whose terms drive public discourse (what, you think early civil rights crusaders had the majority on their side?). The debate keeps moving to the right precisely because as the "Punk Patriot" says, the majority of liberals are spineless, unprincipled whiners. He is dead on.

How do you expect to change the system by shoring up the Democrats election after election, generation after generation, and as he says "bitching out" anyone who doesn't? It's a fair and grounded fucking question. Think about the US split from colonial Britain: your argument is that it was impossible b/c unheard of. Americans need to shake off their own overlords, as unheard of as that may seem (as do Canadians, Brits, Greeks, etc).

From where I sit you seem completely out of touch with reality in that cliched "keep on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome" sort of way re: the 2-party system.

On a deeper, political-economic level what I interpret as your faith in (or unimaginative, parochial resignation to?) "democratic capitalism" strikes me as divorced from historical reality and historical necessity both. (I get the impression you don't understand the relation between capital and the state, let alone the nature of each, like every liberal I've ever read or known.)

From an interview w/ French philosopher and activist Alain Badiou that I linked to already, speaking on multi-party democracies (substitute liberal democracy or representative democracy for parliamentarism below) :

[T]oday, parties are internal to the parliamentary state. It's simply not true that you can participate in a system as powerful and ramified as parliamentarism w/o a real subjective commitment to it. In any case, the facts speak for themselves. None of the parties which have engaged the parliamentary system and won governing power has escaped what I would call the subjective law of 'democracy,' which is, when all is said and done, what Marx called an 'authorized representative' of capital. And I think that this is because, in order to participate in electoral or governmental representation, you have to conform to the subjectivity it demands […] the principle of 'this is the way it is, there is nothing to be done,' the principle of [a nation or population] in conformity with the financial markets, and so on. In France we've known this for a long time, for again and again, when left-wing parties come to power, they bring with them the the themes of disappointment, broken promises, and so forth. I think we need to see this as an inflexible law, not as a matter of corruption. I don't think it happens because people change their minds, but because parliamentary subjectivity compels it.

Liberalism is dead and can't even begin to live up to its own promises. Look no further than the Obama Admin and the Democratic party for confirmation.

Yours is the head in the sand from where I sit, krs. But again, I salute and commend your work in the Occupy movement -- in that practical activity, resides hope.

I am familiar with Badiou. Traditional liberal institutions have failed us.

Theories on capital aside, there is math involved in an election. If a Republican candidate shares 40-something percent of the likely vote and a Democratic candidate shares 40-something percent of the likely vote, there is little left for any other candidate. We have a winner-take-all system for electing president, and it only allows for one round of voting. As terrible as it sounds, I will vote more drone strikes over BOMB, BOMB, BOMB....BOMB, BOMB IRAN. Those were the two choices we had in 2008. The only choices that had a change of winning. The U.S. certainly made the right decision, out of the two valid options that year. Half a loaf, or even a quarter, is better than noting at all. These civil rights activists you mentioned continued to vote a Democratic legislature into power for decades and for presidents who also made little effort to ensure all people were treated equally under the law. They knew you can't evict an idea. Democracy, Egalitarianism. These things are inevitable. They are in our DNA.

In the U.S., the presidency is a relatively weak branch of government. Though it has taken more and more power over the past decades, it is still last in line to approve any legislation, it cannot "spend" money (only allocate funds), it cannot amend the Constitution. Power lies in the fact that it is a single person, representing an entire branch of government. Local boards, state legislatures and federal legislatures are where third and fourth party candidates should be focusing their energy right now. The kind of polar shift necessary will only happen from the bottom up and through a culture change. We are seeing municipalities around the country passing resolutions against Citizens United v. FEC. I think this is where it starts.

It has been a long, long, time since any movement that could be called left of center had any sort of populist support. I have met with a number of groups over the last four months, and a grass roots movement is definitely taking hold in the U.S. It lacks visibility in suburbia, but it is there. Most of the people I have seen at these meetings are not 20-something bomb-throwers. They are retired couples. Business owners in their 40's and 50's. Plans are being made to eventually run candidates, but I think it is too late for 2012. We have to have patience, start at the bottom and work our way up.

[jimmy two hands]

Yesterday Obama said the drone strikes he has dramatically escalated have not killed a "huge" number of civilians. That's his exact qualification: not "a huge number."

That's about 700 dead civilians including about 175 children that Obama thinks it's OK to murder from on high (cue apologists who rush to say it's not murder).

Obama's the father of two girls, no? And he's OK w/ snuffing out 175-odd children as part of the War on Terror (though he's far too sophisticated/savvy to call it that anymore). What do you suppose the corpses of 175 kids would look like piled up on the White House lawn?

It must feel very democratic, cosmopolitan, and empowering to do nothing about this other than stamp one's approval on it with a vote. According to this poll, half of you think so.

We were all objectively pro-Saddam when protesting against the invasion of Iraq.

I take it this clever somehow, but I don't get it.

Seems silly that I have to explain this, but the world is not a simple black and white place. I protested against the Iraq war and was labeled "objectively pro-Saddam" by wingnuts, because if you are against launching a war of aggression based on lies, that means you automatically support the actions of a dictator. Maybe you weren't subject to the constant right-wing propaganda campaign in 2003 that we were in the States, so the reference doens't make as much sense. Anyway I disagree with that argument. Similarly, because I plan on voting for Obama over the other choices to avoid another Republican administration, doesn't mean I suport drone warfare, etc.

By your argument, one couldn't protest against drone warfare w/o being against Obama. Pretty sure that seriously undermines your own position, dude.

That's the exact opposite of my argument. You said that voting for Obama puts a stamp of approval on every action he has taken as president. My argument is that this is as simplistic a view as the right-wing argument that anti-war protesters were objectively pro-Sadaam.

[numberthirty]

you said you would have voted for him so...
tell us. how does it feel?

Nope. I said that voting in the US (and most places) is so worthless and inconsequential that I would *conceivably* vote Dem in the US. And I've never for a moment in my life suggested anything other than that Obama is CRAP.

Your deflection of Obama's policy of the mass killing of innocents speaks to your sensibilities, not mine.

pretty sure you said you would have voted for Obama
wouldn't have said it otherwise.

It's my confidence about what I've said vs. your "pretty sure." I'm saying you're mistaken. Dig up my own words to prove me wrong, or take me at my word.

[w/ apologies for the interruption in regularly scheduled programming]

I read this article and found little to nothing of substance in it.

I think it goes without saying to just about any reader of Harper's that lobbyists and corporate interests are in bed w/Obama, or any other American politician in his position.

That makes sense. But a deflationary account of the myth of the lone, principled figure of progressive U.S. politics is always salutary. Obama's heart is left of centre, but to be smart, he needs to play the power game. Given how far-right the neocons are, he comes across like Joe Hill, all the while confirming Condoleezza Rice, voting to pass the Patriot Act, and stumping for Joe Lieberman.

The fact that everybody takes for granted that Obama is where he is with the backing of millions upon millions in corporate and private sponsorships, and continues, cynically, to celebrate him as a representative of the average worker/citizen, is part of the problem. At least in my books.

If I recall, the article makes an explicit comparison between the interests that ride in with Obama, and the narrow interests that determined candidates in the late 19 century, when senate seats were determined by captains of industry, etc. If that's self-evident to folks posting on this thread, I missed it.

Here's a (question-begging) question: is the average American voter too cynical or too idealistic.

I'd say the answer is both.

Cynical reason is no longer naive, but is a paradox of enlightened false consciousness: one knows the falsehood very well, one is well aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, but still one does not renounce it.

Saying, 'yes, yes, we all know he represents corporate/ruling interests, but he's a progressive, so why even bring it up,' seems a cop-out to me. Only within a system that has always already determined that the status quo will maintain (that no one takes power without first becoming a locus for existing power), is this anything but a craven way to think.

As such, Obama represents a foundational myth in American politics: there is no such thing as class or opposing class interests. Corporate and public interests can 'strike a balance.' It's all about 'productive compromise.'

Nonetheless: I'd sure as hell vote for him if I were an American. Anyway... I tried to be good, but now I'm a troll on this thread. Damn your provocation, Angus.

It seems to be a pretty rare case of Harper's trolling in an obvious way for some newsstand/random reader attention.

You are a subscriber, I take it.

That's you, isn't it?

[Andrew.]

Indeed it is! Well done: I eat my own hat! I wish you'd included the date stamp though, out of curiosity.

[Andrew.]

That's the exact opposite of my argument. You said that voting for Obama puts a stamp of approval on every action he has taken as president. My argument is that this is as simplistic a view as the right-wing argument that anti-war protesters were objectively pro-Sadaam.

Not exactly. I said that lending one's *approval* to Obama, by way of *this poll*, while NEVER commenting on his war crimes, etc, is sick.

[jimmy two hands]

That's the exact opposite of my argument. You said that voting for Obama puts a stamp of approval on every action he has taken as president. My argument is that this is as simplistic a view as the right-wing argument that anti-war protesters were objectively pro-Sadaam.

Not exactly. I said that lending one's *approval* to Obama, by way of *this poll*, while NEVER commenting on his war crimes, etc, is sick.

Ah, yes. Understood.

[Andrew.]

That's the exact opposite of my argument. You said that voting for Obama puts a stamp of approval on every action he has taken as president. My argument is that this is as simplistic a view as the right-wing argument that anti-war protesters were objectively pro-Sadaam.

Not exactly. I said that lending one's *approval* to Obama, by way of *this poll*, while NEVER commenting on his war crimes, etc, is sick.

Ah, yes. Understood.

Because the thing is, I've posted on this board for around 8 years: I was around for Dubya's second term, and it's not my experience that the PRF is shy when it comes to voicing opinions and sentiments in the strongest language. Yet, no matter what atrocity the Obama Admin commits, entrenches, or invents, regardless of every unnecessary cave-in, and, in short, in spite of obvious reality, it's left to radical cranks like me and a few others to comment on any of it.

It's fucking sad.

[numberthirty]

To me, it comes down to the simple stuff. No matter how much the guy may talk a good game, he is a guy with a vast knowledge of the Constitution who seems intent on throwing it out the window. It's like someone saw the things warmowski said about Obama undoing some of the damage Bush had done and, said "No chance, sucker!"

It's worse than I ever would have imagined.

That's before you even get into the people he puts into a position to control policy.

It's hard to look at all of that and, back anything the guy does.