Hey Alyosh, ya shoulda been around. Great time. Great music. Everybody happy. Na, I’m lying. Much of it wasn’t so great.

But, your surmise about comparing Vietnam — and the lessons not learned — is quite accurate. Only the current pols and warmongers like to discount that because, well, they always need to differentiate the last debacle from the current to keep the MIC dollars flowing.

Oh, and also, they’d have to take responsibility for being either slow learners, corrupt, liars, or all these. Except O of course, because, like you, he was too young. And, besides he doesn’t know how to read and doesn’t have access to a wide range of advisers and opinion. Oh, wait.

Actually, I think O is trying to play both sides because, well for one, we know how fucking decisive he is and, two, we know how he loves to dazzle us with paradoxes and fancy dilemmas that he can then cut through like a hot knife through butter.

I’m not sure I believe anything he says; or, I’m sure I don’t.

Got an emailing from som Dem group, using an Obama quote as one of it’s points, to wit (close paraphrase): “We cannot afford to keep our troops in Afghanistan for a long time”

Well, duh, I said to myself. But, quickly thereupon, I also said to myself, well WTF. Isn’t this the guy who doubled down in AfPak as his signature war?

So no big surprise, but Mr. “Let’s get it on” is now prepping us for his behind-the-curve withdrawal from Afghanistan because — again no surprise — the polls and the politics say to move in that direction quicker rather than slower (but we all know that it just means the MIC slush funds go to some other MIC enterprise).

So O’s 11 dimensional mind tells him it’s politically smart to try to box in the rethugs with there fight everywhere, kill everyone mantra.

Who knows.

Fucking pols.

So, is there and FDL/Lake position? I know we are all frustrated as being fucked over and with little place to turn. But can we be honest?

I cross posted this post on Johnathan Turley, where some are also asking the WTF questions?

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/17/appellate-judge-writes-opinion-denouncing-limits-on-cowboy-capitalism/#comments

Yes, and everyone continues to genuflect to “entitlement reform” and “deficit reduction”. We are not in for and easy ride.

A reasonable approach, but, IMO, the Obama thinking runs thus: you need us; we don’t really need you. Deluded you say. Perhaps, but the effect is to shut out liberals/progressives from the process.

Reposting full comment I made yesteday on the pot legalization thread:

“It’s like we hired o’s opposite from the guy running for president and he’s campaigning against legalization this time maybe he’ll legalize it as soon as he’s sworn” (I realize your statement is more tongue in cheek than sincere, I think)

This is the argument some make — wait till he doesn’t have another election ahead; then the real progressive will come forward.

That kind of hope is pathetic to me. Not just because it postpones the day when one must acknowledge to oneself that we’ve been had.

In a more concrete sense, O has spent his time creating a track record of basically conservative, corporatist, conciliatory actions. He is not going to be doing any radical about faces and be called every kind of hypocrite from a historical legacy pov, even if the fatuous idea that he really is a progressive just waiting topop out of his box had merit.

Gilliard!!!

RIP

“It’s like we hired o’s opposite from the guy running for president and he’s campaigning against legalization this time maybe he’ll legalize it as soon as he’s sworn” (I realize your statement is more tongue in cheek than sincere, I think)

This is the argument some make — wait till he doesn’t have another election ahead; then the real progressive will come forward.

That kind of hope is pathetic to me. Not just because it postpones the day when one must acknowledge to oneself that we’ve been had.

In a more concrete sense, O has spent his time creating a track record of basically conservative, corporatist, conciliatory actions. He is not going to be doing any radical about faces and be called every kind of hypocrite from a historical legacy pov, even if the fatuous idea that he really is a progressive just waiting topop out of his box had merit.

I suppose that could be a fair surmise.

Just checking in here with the obligatory notation of disgust at our craven, two faced, cowardly, transparent, no nothing, regressive, anti-economics, policy neanderthal excuse for change we can believe in, and the President who thinks we can all be fooled twice.

Not.

There is no issue Obama is going to pursue against the political winds from drugs, to LGBT, to Iran. Feh.

Fboth are correct. Obama isn’t going to put any real pressure on Wall Street — not a mystery at all. Politicians, it’s what they do.

But why let O slide on all his other corporatist, warmongering “stuff”? The question is more rhetorical than anything. Personally, it’s been a straight line, cumulative loss of whatever miniscule hope I may have had since Rick Warren and the charade of bipartisanship began.

Why does anyone take this fucking asshole-in-chief, Warren, seriously? We live in fucked up times?

Copy this to the thugs at the WH.

At best, this was an attempt to harass.

At a more deplorable level, the tip of the iceberg of a growing jackbooted surveillance state.

Agree, he seems to meld a respect for law with a sensitivity to social justice, and to speak with some courage.

And thanks for your marathon efforts.

Hey BobTinKY, haven’t I seen you comment at Talk Left? (I can never get past their registration system, seems like my prior login info stymies renewal). Anyway, Jeralyn referenced the Holder speech without comment. Am I right that’s she’s another less-than-courageous, so-called “lefty”? Mayby even an Obot?

“Obama’s Kill Policy”, Jonathan Turley in Foreign Policy Magazine,

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/07/obamas-kill-policy/#more-46337

“When the applause died down after Holder’s speech, we were left with a bizarre notion of government. We have this elaborate system of courts and rights governing the prosecution and punishment of citizens. However, that entire system can be circumvented at the whim or will of the president. The president then becomes effectively the lawgiver or lifetaker for all citizens. The rest becomes a mere pretense of the rule of law.”