[p2p-research] judging obama's policies

[Michel Bauwens]

thanks Chris,

I think there is a commonality between both your agreements ... i.e. "what
he can get away with', for ran, it's the powers that be, for you, the
electorate,

Michel

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Chris Watkins <chriswaterguy at appropedia.org
> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 08:57, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I find this citation from http://ranprieur.com/archives/022.html, very
>> insightfull, to understand how we should judge Obama:
>>
>> "Another way to say it: having studied Obama closely over the last year, I
>> trust him to do the best job that's politically possible. Now, by watching
>> what he does, we find out what is and is not politically possible. He's like
>> a scientific testing device, pointing to invisible forces. The observation
>> that he backed Joe Lieberman keeping his powerful Reichssicherheits
>> Committee chairmanship, tells us that the forces behind Lieberman are deep
>> and powerful. The observation that politicians who opposed a disastrous and
>> unpopular war are *still* blacklisted, tells us that the American
>> military murder-suicide plunge is barely slowing down."
>>
>
> I'm not sure about "blacklisted" - I doubt that anyone could stop Obama
> appointing politicians who opposed the war, and in fact he'd probably have a
> lot of support, considering the strength of the victory and the makeup of
> the new Congress.
>
> It's also about how Obama thinks he can best achieve his aims - bringing
> about the changes he wants to, and also getting re-elected in 4 years time.
> To do those things, he wants the widest support he can get, and he can do
> that best by being portrayed as a moderate. Appointing politicians who may
> have been completely right about the war, but in the process alienated more
> conservative people (who associated the war with love of their country) will
> not help him claim the image of being moderate and balanced.
>
> It may not be how we like it, and it may not be fair, but it's about as
> democratic a process as I'm aware of inside any national government today.
> (There are plenty of undemocratic features of the US government, but this is
> not a glaring one, by US standards and certainly not by world standards.)
>
> Chris
>
>
>> --
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>> alternatives.
>>
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>>
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>> BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>
> appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.
>
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>
> I like this: five.sentenc.es
>



-- 
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4549818267592301968&hl=en-AU

KEEP UP TO DATE through our Delicious tags at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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