[p2p-research] judging obama's policies

[marc fawzi]

<<
*"It's astonishing that not one of the 23 senators or 133 House members who
voted against the war is in the mix."* We have to be careful how we think
about this. Because of our biological history, we tend to think of the
president as our father, or as the leader of a small tribe. Really he's like
the driver of a giant train with massive inertia and not a lot of options
for where it can go. I supported Obama because he's the best "driver" I have
ever seen, but the fact remains that the "train" is loaded with slaves and
nuclear warheads, and it's crushing baby pandas and headed for a cliff.
>>

Well, I can say the same about my life, or I can snap out of that self-drawn
picture and adopt a new picture. However, the biggest problem here, IMO, is
the over-simplification provided by a convenient analogy. I think it's
dangerous to go down the path of idiocy (as Americans) and use analogies to
justify that.



On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 7:46 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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>>
>>
>> --
>> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>>
>> appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.
>>
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>> blogs.appropedia.org
>>
>> 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
>
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>
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>
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