Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Don’t Try to Call it Anything Else

When it comes to gays serving openly in the military, the argument hinges on the same fulcrum as the issue of marital rights.  Do we, as a nation, consider homosexuals people with equal rights or not?

If you don’t think that homosexuals should be able to get married or serve openly in the military, then you must consider homosexuality to be wrong and thus punishable by law. Even if it’s just by limiting certain freedoms, you are essentially punishing these people for being a certain way. It’s not as if you have to commit some act of sexual impropriety in order to be dismissed from military service: if you are discovered “being gay” you will be thrown out and denied all the benefits that come with honorable military service. In this way, then, being gay in the military is a crime. Period. You don’t have to do anything else wrong. Tens of thousands of servicemen and women have been discharged from military service in this way.

It is the moral equivalent of kicking someone out of the military for being a certain religion or skin color. The talking-point of “unit cohesion” is ludicrous and the entire policy of DADT itself demonstrates that gays can, in fact, serve without issue. They’ve done so for over a decade, so long as long as they keep it quiet. Being discrete about your sexuality is standard procedure in the military. There are limits on who you can fraternize with and when for heterosexuals, so why can’t homosexuals be held to the same standard? This is about equal rights, not any “special” rights. The policy is ridiculous on its face because it forces men and women to lie for no reason and punishes them for doing nothing wrong.

If you don’t agree with that assessment, fine, but you need to be honest about your intentions. If you defend DADT, you are in favor of treating homosexuals as second-class citizens that are not privy to equal protection under the law. You must, then, consider homosexuality, not only as a choice, but a qualitatively bad one that should not or cannot be encouraged even implicitly by passing laws that protect such people. You are telling homosexuals that they, effectively, are not “people” but aberrations that must be scorned and subjugated. They must, by your reasonings, sit in the back of the bus and like it.

How is this not any worse than discriminating against black Americans? How is this not a hetero-normative superiority complex? If you don’t like gays, than just say it. Just say that you don’t like gays, you don’t see them as full human beings, you want them to be treated like freaks, and kept out of sight and mind. You are, by definition, a homophobe. You have the right to feel that way.  This is America, after all.

However, in America, what you don’t have is the right to deny any human being their rights, even by electoral fiat.  Republicans in Congress have sullied the very values they espouse by once again being in favor of subjugating an entire population simply because they are different than the majority.  What’s even less forgivable is that those who are being discriminated against are people willfully placing their lives at risk in the defense of our country, an issue the GOP credits as their patriotic trademark. It’s flagrant hypocrisy, unpatriotic, and downright bigoted and they can’t even call it for what it is.

So I will:  Republicans, congratulations, you’re the party of bigotry. Your leaders are successfully maintaining your party label of discrimination against minorities. You can call your bigotry whatever else you want, but it’s not any less corrosive to our country’s already tattered moral fabric.

Semper Fi…

Enter the Adult-in-Chief

President Obama engaged the Republican caucus in what cannot be described as a debate.  That would imply that both sides had something to say.  No, what was supposed to be the Republicans’ opportunity to gang up on the President instead became a rhetorical flogging.  The House Republicans were essentially children being schooled by a professor who painstakingly pointed out why they’re wrong about everything and why they lost the last elections.  Every time they acted outraged that their “ideas were being ignored,” the President calmly pointed out one of two things: either those ideas had actually been considered and adopted into the same piece of legislation they’re railing against, or those ideas were just stupid.

The Republican budget last year?  It had no fucking numbers in it.  Why do you think it was ignored?  The Republicans want everyone in their districts to get affordable health care but fail to explain how to pay for it.  Tax cuts?  No, you fucking morons.  You are not this stupid, the President said repeatedly.  The Republicans had all the time in the world to try to solve these problems you bitch about so fiercely.  Remember: 12 years of Congress, 8 in the White House.  But you didn’t solve anything.  In fact, REPUBLICANS racked up the 8 trillion dollars worth of debt before he even got there, and the President pointed that out.  You think he’s stupid?  You may think your voters are, but now someone is here to call you on your bullshit.

Look, bitch all you want, House Republicans, but you really shouldn’t complain that the guys now in power (the Democrats) aren’t doing things right if you were the ones who fucked it up to begin with.  But they’re not even leaving it there.  They behave as if not having majorities in government means that nothing is or ever was their fault.  They actively demonize the President while in the same breath demand to be listened to.  They’re like a bunch of fucking kids and Obama made them sit down and shut up for one hour.

You can’t have everything both ways, he explained.  You can’t demand that 90% of your ideas are adopted; you lost the election.  You can’t accuse the Democrats of destroying the country and be surprised when your political base starts to believe you.  And then, when you try to reach a compromise in the interest of getting something done, folks at home will think you’re plotting with Hitler and tea-bag you with a primary challenger.  This radicalization of the GOP is making it harder for Republicans to participate in government and their leadership is allowing it to happen in hopes that it gets them votes.  All it really does, however, is make them look like idiots.  The President had to repeatedly point out that many of the “facts” they brought up in their questions were simply WRONG.  By making shit up, rewriting history, and getting angry about it you cease being a political leader and become a ridiculous spectacle.  The President, finally, (live on national television) illustrated this to everyone.

It was refreshing, but it only really served one purpose: to show you how retarded the GOP really is.  These guys know that the President made them look bad by calling them out on their lies and bullshit.  It will only make them even angrier.  Fox News cut away 20 minutes early, which should come as no surprise.  They know the more time they give the President to actually say his piece the harder it is to paint him as a Commie-Nazi…vegetarian or whatever.  The Republicans are NOT INTERESTED IN GOVERNING.  If they were, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to convince you that they aren’t the same Republicans you voted out last time.  While the President was insistent upon trying to bring the discourse back to a sane level, he cannot expect to get anything from these people but contempt.  All they want is to be in charge…and then to do nothing.

Having engaged them directly, it’s time to make the point clear: the adults have a country to run.  So if you want to sit at the big-kids’ table you need to stop screaming like a bunch of little bitches.  PLEASE, no more placating to the right-wing zealots.  Invite the reasonable ones back into the fold and let the rest play a game of “hide-and-go-fuck-yourself.”  It’s time to pass some bills and kick some ass.

Money Walks

We already know that having money gives you access to things that people without money can’t get.  If you have $40,000 cash, you don’t have to pay interest on a car loan.  You can invest and then generate even more money.  I don’t have to go over the obvious, suffice it to say that talk is cheap since having the Benjamins makes shit happen.  The most remarkable thing, however, is that a lucky few can turn their money into actual votes.  That’s right.  By funding public-information campaigns and supporting certain candidates (while attacking still others) they can convince an impressionable public to vote into office a congress-person, or even a President, of their choosing.

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned a law preventing unlimited amounts of corporate money to go into political campaigns, that fact is now going to get even worse.

The impact of this ruling cannot be overstated. Big money means political clout.  The energy industry has us by the balls, as do health insurance companies, Wall Street investors, mega-bankers, defense companies, Rupert Murdoch…hell, even the NFL has its own lobbying firm on K-street (and they’re exempt from anti-trust laws).  The way billions are being spent to shape the political discourse in this country is a fucking travesty. Who do you think finances those ads warning people about “death panels”?  Health insurance companies getting filthy rich right now on a busted system. Who’s out there trying to convince you that global warming isn’t real and that cap-and-trade is evil?  Energy companies that don’t want to clean up their act.

These are businesses seeking to maintain profitability and one of the ways they do so is by having people in office that support them.  Opening the floodgates holding back billions from special-interest campaign financing means the ones with the most money will invariably win.  They’ll be able to outspend any opposition by blanketing pro-business propaganda across the nation, which they’ll get away with by hiding behind the first amendment.  Plus, it won’t even be that hard to obscure the source of all this funding given existing loopholes.  So we won’t even be able to know exactly who is pushing the agenda and if there is a potential conflict of interest.  So much for an informed public.

So, to sum up: vast seas of industry money aimed at convincing you to vote a certain way that won’t really have be held to account.  Any idea how well anyone not in charge of billions of dollars in profits will fare?

There is some good news, though.

Congress can pass new laws governing corporate behavior and thus prevent our country from being run by Fortune 400 companies.  I know, that isn’t very encouraging.  Republicans will oppose this (like they do everything) but even they should be afraid of unlimited corporate campaign funds.  Getting pro-business politicians into office is a bipartisan operation; they’ll buy off whoever Americans seem to be electing this time around.

This court decision, without question, is a threat to democracy.  Plain and simple.  We’re already being screwed by giant corporate PR efforts, how much worse do you want it to get?  Call, write, email, carrier pigeon, whatever; get in touch with your elected officials and express nothing short of outrage.  This insanity must be headed off before election season gets too far along.

Or else, come November, we’ll be up to our balls in corporate-funded campaign fliers warning you that Obama is trying to steal our puppies and our white women.  Not even kidding.

Who’s Really Running the Show

So…let me get this straight.

Wall Street and the banks/investment companies were the primary contributors to last year’s financial collapse.  Yet, they got hundreds of billions in bailout money while people continue to get thrown out of their homes.  Washington is hesitant to punish the fat cats and their million dollar bonuses because they claim that those salaries are what keep “the talent” around.  Meanwhile, money is not being lent out like they said it would be and there are 6 people for every 1 available job.  Also, the effort by Congress to re-regulate the financial industry in the wake of last year’s collapse gets NO Republican votes and still allows some of the most nefarious Wall Street practices.

With Health Care Reform, all anyone cares about (in Congress and the White House, anyway) is appeasing the health care industry.  Pharma is being promised to keep its profits that it gets by over-charging consumers and stifling other cost-cutting measures.  The health insurance companies, which essentially double the cost of the health care system, are successfully negotiating to maintain their parasitic role.  Not only will they get millions of new customers (by having health insurance become MANDATORY), now they won’t have to compete with a public option.  Why not?  Because a public option might be cheaper and therefore take away their customers.  Congress has been doing everything it can (without GOP help, of course) to convince these guys to lower their premiums and stop denying sick people coverage without having to resort to coercive legislation; in short, to get lower healthcare costs without also destroying profitability.  In return, the insurance industry funds campaigns trying to get us to believe that the government is trying to kill us and nationalize healthcare.

Congress and Obama are trying to help these people, who have everything, KEEP as much of what they have as possible.  And STILL they are unwilling to sacrifice for the sake of the country.

These people make outrageous sums of money.  And they would really, really, really, like to keep it that way.  The best thing for Wall Street and the Banks?  Keep interest rates at zero, guaranteeing to bail them out if they fail, and continuing to allow all of this shit to go down without any real oversight.  For the healthcare industry?  They want reform to get watered down, or even better, fail.

The status quo: it’s killing the rest of us while they make a killing.

So far it appears that they’re winning the battle for Change versus More of the Same.  So you have to ask yourself: who’s really running the show? I thought we elected people to make shit happen that needed to happen for all Americans, not just a super-wealthy minority.  We’ve all heard the line about “evil corporations” and “Big Brother” watching over us.  It’s culturally ingrained and we accept it apathetically, and that has to stop.  It has to stop soon.  Because things can’t change with the “wisdom” of narrow-minded industry lobbyists concealing the true costs of what they are doing to the rest of us.

We, the American people, are being raped and plundered.  Not by Obama, not by the “government” pe se, but by these very wealthy and influential industries purely for the sake of their profit margins.  And it won’t stop until we start to realize that it’s not just some liberal talking point.  It’s the dark, cold, shitty-ass truth that we’ve ignored for far too long.  And it will only get worse.

I don’t know about you…but I’m getting really pissed off.  I think it’s about time we all started getting fucking angry.

Global Warming: Only (Really) One Hope

For starters, to anyone that thinks that the climate is not changing, that the planet is not gradually getting less friendly towards our living on it, and that humans don’t have anything to do with it or don’t have to do anything about it:

You’re stupid.  You don’t understand the science, you probably don’t care, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop talking about it.  You don’t actually know what you’re talking about, so please, shut the fuck up.

That doesn’t mean that climate change deniers are bad people; they just have nothing to add to the debate and so should shut up, that’s all. Meanwhile, people who read and can think critically have to figure out what to do about this.  Otherwise, at some point in the next century a lot of people are gonna die that don’t need to.

Bill McKibben writes a sadly prescient piece at Truthout.org about how our political discussion over the issue of climate change is not going to do anything.  This problem is a matter of physical nature that is undeterred by the plight of humans.  Earth has been a very unpleasant place for life many times in the past (as you Geology nerds ought to know), so there is no reason that our planet couldn’t eventually resemble something closer to Mars or Venus.

Note: neither of those planets is conducive to human life.

The CO2 and other gases clogging up our atmosphere are being put there through unnatural processes that mankind uses to make life easier: driving, charging our smart-phones, having lights at night, etc.  These are not things we are going to stop doing.  Yes, we’re gonna eventually run out of oil.  Yes, clean drinking water is soon going to become the most sought after liquid.  No, we’re not going to stop driving cars and taking long showers.  How, then, are we going to deal with the inevitable drying up of resources that comes with 7 billion people all wanting to eat and drink and drive?

Well, I suppose we could go back to the old ways of doing things.  And I don’t mean horse-drawn buggies and whale-oil lamps.  I mean forcing everyone who is not American (or Chinese, I guess) to live in squaller.  We get to consume more of our fair share, but no one else does.  Then, overall consumption evens out.  Problem being, of course, that popular sentiment seeks to raise everyone’s standard of living (not to purposefully hold it down for all non-white Americans).

What the hell do we do then?  The only answer: technology.  We need to come up with all those sophisticated gadgets we’ve been dreaming of in science-fiction that allow us to maximize our efficiency and recycle spent resources in a sustainable way.  Politics won’t get us there, innovation will.  That’s why the “Green Revolution” is so goddamn important.  If we start working on these technologies NOW we can create a new economic base for the U.S. and develop the technology we’ll need to actively reverse the damaging effects of global warming.

These ideas are already out there, we just need to stop feeding the fossil-fuel lobby and start feeding solar panels, hydrogen fuel cells, and all that other crap.  It’s become a standard talking point but why aren’t we pushing harder?  Because we’re lazy and figure someone else will do it.

Nope, sorry.  Unless you want to see sea levels rise and droughts to spread and for life to gradually become shittier and shittier for everyone, we all need to get off our asses and start inventing new technology.  I’m talking big: atmospheric scrubbers, carbonate sequestering, genetically enhanced food, fussion reactors, serious shit people.

These are not out of the realm of possibility.  They aren’t miracles, just applied fucking science.  We have the tools but we’re running short on time.  There are small important steps to take today but the ultimate fix is going to be advancing technology over the course of the coming decades.  Otherwise, mankind will not be able to sustain itself.  Period.  This next century will be the one that marks the decline of the human race or the rise of a new paradigm: one of environmental integration.  The planet will survive long after every human has died and we will, in fact, all die if we continue to live as parasites and not co-habitants of a huge living biosphere.  We can actually slow down, stop and fix global climate change, we just have to be willing to do the work.  The deniers aren’t just being intellectually vacuous, they’re missing out on the opportunity to do something amazing.  It could be the greatest thing we ever manage to do.

Politicians won’t do it, rich oil magnates won’t do it, we the people who will be inhabiting this rock for the next hundred years have gotta do it.  So quit arguing over whether or not it’s a problem and let’s start fixing it already.  I really don’t want to be one of the last people on Earth to enjoy it while it still supports human life.

Hey, Remember George W. Bush?

 

Just calling to say: "You're Welcome."

For me, this Thanksgiving holiday has been one heavy with recollections of the past.  Old friends, former lovers, good times and bad.  One thing that didn’t come up much, though, was the small fact that we had a President named George W. Bush Jr.

 

You remember him?  When he comes up we tend to exchange incredulous looks, as if it were just a bad dream or an awkward moment that we’d rather not talk about. It’s easy to forget about since George hasn’t been in the news much lately (unlike Cheney, who loves attention all of a sudden).  Today everything is about President Barack Obama: “Obama’s War” in Afghanistan; “Obama’s Great Recession”; “Obama-care”, etc.

It’s worth recalling the origin of “Obama’s” problems.

• Both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were started and bungled horribly under Bush.
• The housing bubble, inflated stock market, and unscrupulous insurance regimes all matured under Bush’s watch.  His administration called for and initiated the subsequent massive bank bailouts.
• Our national debt sky-rocketed as government spending went up and taxes were cut.
• More jobs went overseas and wages stagnated even though the rich still got measurably richer.
• Bush’s stab at healthcare?  More federal money to the drug companies.
• Bush’s solution to rapidly expanding entitlement spending?  Privatize Social Security, by putting all that money into the stock market (which would have been great if he’d succeeded, right? Wrong.).
• Remember hurricane Katrina?  Turns out that was the result of our complete lack of attention to a crumbling national infrastructure.
• Gitmo and the whole detainee legal mess?  Yup, that was Bush, too.

Name any issue that you might have, liberal, conservative or in between; Bush and his gaggle of political hacks made it worse or did nothing to make it better.  And what have we as a nation done given that fact?  Either blamed the “government” collectively or the opposing political party, rewritten history entirely, or taken to the now popular tactic of blaming the new President.  He’s had a year, after all, how long should fixing this crap take?

This holiday season is a perfect time to consider who we really ought to hold to account for getting us into our present predicament: As families struggle to make ends meet and still buy their kids presents; As employees worry about whether or not they’ll get to keep their jobs or their houses; As mainstream Americans slog through a crippled economy and the wealthy tell us to suck it up while they take home large Christmas bonuses.

We didn’t get here as a result of electing Barack Obama.  We got here, in large part, for electing George W. Bush (twice*).  Keep that in mind as you bitch about how things don’t seem to be getting better quickly under the new management.

 

*This assumes Bush’s 2000 win as being legitimate and not the result of Supreme Court action

Keeping Your Enemies Close…

The discussion over whether or not Obama should be trusting the recommendations of Timothy Geithner makes me think about the previous Administration’s trust of its “experts.”

Donald Rumsfeld served as Secretary of Defense during the period that saw the United States nearly lose the initiative in Iraq and is firmly to blame for allowing Afghanistan to rot on the back-burner.

I’ll be blunt: Americans died because of the ineptitude of Donald Rumsfeld.  Why would he, of all people, have even been looked to for expert policy enactment?  Well, it was because he was leading the administration into a “new” military mission-plan: privatize everything we can, while maintaining a technological edge over the opposition.  He wasn’t putting into place a military to build countries or fight prolonged wars, but one made of quick strike packages that could hit anywhere at any time.

Rumsfled was, essentially, a corporate hack that was going to turn the U.S. military into a profitable enterprise.  Private companies would be more “efficient.”  Our foreign policy would be about being able to threaten anyone anywhere with outrageously superior weapons technology.  Seems pretty empirical, if you ask me.  But that’s been the neo-conservative sense of American exceptionalism that makes “by any means necessary” acceptable.

In the end, this proved to be an untenable plan of action.  Guerilla warfare is designed to bog down Rumsfled’s military dream and corporatizing the military has led to the death American soldiers as companies race for a bottom line to make a profit off of war. It has been a disaster and it resulted by allowing a politically-connected man in a suit make decisions like a businessman and not a public servant.  Big Business doesn’t care about people unless it serves the bottom line.

Now the question to ask is whether Tim Geithner is an expert cut from the same clothe of a financial industry that is robbing us blind and trying to pretend that none of this economic crisis is their fault.  They are a big part of the problem, so why should we be taking cues from a guy that CAME FROM that group of offenders?

I honestly don’t know if Geithner is on the level as far as his sense of accountability to the financial lobby…I would not want to accuse anyone of being purposefully corrupted.  Rumsfeld wasn’t corrupt, he was stupid.  He really thought his ideas would work.  Unfortunately, he was mired in the wrong-headed mindset that thought you could run a country like a corporation.

We need to know if Geithner is thinking outside the “box” that he has worked in for his entire career.  If his expertise derives from the same kinds of beliefs that led us into this crisis, he is the last person that should be Secretary of the Treasury.

The F-22: Pride & Procurement

Congress passed a new defense bill that cancels the much-loved F-22 fighter program.  It’s much-loved by airplane enthusiasts (like me), defense contractors, a lot of people in the Air Force, and some members of congress.  Oh, and Michael Bay.  It’s not so much-loved by the Secretary of Defense, the President, and anyone who might have happened across this number from the Washington Post which outlines a whole slew of issues that have plagued the jet.

The NYT notes the remarkable event of a giant defense contract being defeated despite the money being doled out to 44 different states (making it a “creating jobs” perk for politicians).  It’s remarkable because, as with many industries, money talks in politics and the taxpayer is usually stuck with the bill.

Now, I’ll admit that I like flashy things that blow shit up as much as the next guy, so I’m a little saddened by the news.  And some of the claims in the Wa-Po article leave me a little skeptical (like how the plane’s exterior is “vulnerable to rain,” which is a pretty ridiculous shortcoming; there is probably more to it than that).  But in short, the program is dead and ultimately it’s a good thing.

Really, it’s just money we don’t need to spend.  There are a lot of other things that the military can use more readily, and they’re still going to be building the F-35 JSF for our military’s fighter-jet needs.  Building F-22’s is kinda like driving an H-2: it’s more car than you need, it cost s more than it’s worth, and honestly, you look like a prick driving it.

So, here’s to the end of the F-22 program.  Don’t think as the death of an airplane…but as the metaphorical laying of a flower upon the grave of the Cold War.

How Democracy Works

This is in response to a civil exchange that I’ve been having with a commenter, whom I appreciate taking the time to state his views.  Or her views.  I’m actually not sure, since this is the internet.

The debate has been about the “Tea Party” protesters.  I’ve made the allegation that these are a bunch of hypocritical, racist, mostly white folks who are angry that they lost the election to a black guy.  That’s not true.  Some of them just believe that our government has taken too much license to dictate things in our lives.  Our “freedom” is what is at stake.

I can actually answer that concern, unlike those who will call our President illegitimate and a Nazi.  Those people ought to just be ridiculed.

Those who believe that the best government is a small government have a different view of governance than many Americans.  You know the type.  They want to see the true conservatism that was promised to them over the last 30 years.  Smaller government, lower federal spending, lower taxes, free markets, etc.  The problem, however, is that they only got some of what they wanted.

Government spending can’t go down, not unless you want to disband the military and get rid of social security.  Conservatives have tried, and failed, because Americans want those things.  We would also like to be protected against corporate thuggery, have a certain standard of living, police, roads, all kinds of stuff.  That isn’t free.  But you wanted lower taxes, so you got deficit spending.

In short, conservatives (and their libertarian cousins) didn’t get everything that they wanted, and they still want the whole package.  Problem is, the majority of Americans don’t agree.  They want their government to do stuff, and in times like now (when the economy sucks and private business isn’t coming to the rescue) they look to politicians.  Everybody wants a bailout, and yet no one wants to pay for it.

Well, Obama was elected to do something.  The Tea Party folks think that he is another one of the greedy anti-freedom lovers that is out to expand government and pursue a radical agenda.  It is radical…if you actually think that these Tea Party people represent mainstream America.

Newsflash: they don’t.  Why have their protests been hyped up only to fitter out after a few days?  It’s because no one really cares.  Most Americans aren’t worried about their “freedom.”  They’re worried about losing their job, or their home, or their health insurance.  They want the government to do something about it since, apparently, no one else is.  Obama’s proposals and the actual policies that he has pursued are liberal, but they are incredibly moderate.  You want radical: think a SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.  Think complete withdrawal from our overseas deployments.  Think aggressive tax-hikes all across the board to balance the budget.  Think nationalization of the banks and trust-busting to break the financial companies into smaller portions.

Now that’s radical.  And nothing like what’s been proposed.  We haven’t even closed Gitmo yet and no one likes that place except Dick Cheney.  If anything, liberals are pissed that the President hasn’t been liberal enough.  He hasn’t been that radical because he is mindful of people on the Tea Party side of the debate.

And you know what?  He doesn’t have to be.  He won in a landslide and his party controls the legislature (like, by a LOT).  The way elections work in this country, in theory, is that you pick the people you want to represent your views and the winner gets to make the rules.  The Tea Partiers lost the election, not to a system that is too tainted to be accountable to the “people,” but to an American public that is more left-leaning than them.  The majority of Americans want to see these “radical” policies, and in a democracy majority rules.

Even then, though, Obama and the rest of the Democrats are paying mind to the conservative base.  They aren’t even pushing a public option for healthcare, something the vast majority of Americans support.  Our government is actually dialing back on the liberal mandate they got from the 2008 election and still, STILL, conservative-minded individuals aren’t satisfied.

Well, you know what?  That’s too damn bad.  Because liberals really aren’t trying to take away your freedoms, no matter what ridiculous accusations you throw at us.  In America, you have the right to believe whatever you want.  The Tea Party people and the other Democrat-hating, government loathing, free-market champions are entitled to believe what they will, but the rest of the nation does not have to cater to their minority view.  You can’t have it both ways and the American people have decided which way they want to go.

What’s beautiful is that in the next election you’ll have another chance to change our minds.  Until then, you’re protests will fall on deaf ears.

Politics of Peace (Prize)

A lot of people hear that President Obama has received the Nobel Peace Prize and wonder what he has done to deserve it.

That includes the President himself.

I’d recommend people watch his short speech in response to the news.  It’s online, once again it’s short, and in it he states clearly that he did not seek this and he feels undeserving.  So, he makes the reward about international cooperation and shares it with everyone working to make the world a better place, and blah blah blah, hopeful gushy stuff.

In short, it’s got nothing to do with him or his ego, so the right-wingers bitching and moaning are just mad that they didn’t get one.

Why exactly did Obama get one, though?  In short: he’s not George W. Bush.

People around the world have an immense trust for Barack Obama, more than the citizens of his own country, and they are looking for him to lead the world through all this craziness.  We Americans are a bit cynical, but this award is about hope.  Hope that we can undo the damage done by the previous administration.

The Nobel committee is playing politics, and it always has.  The goal is to move the conversation.  In this case, they are expressing hope that Obama will carry out on his promise to do a better job than the last guy at pursuing peace.  What they’d really love to see, no doubt, is an end to the war in Afghanistan.

Americans shouldn’t be opposed to having the world community looking to us for leadership.  What we might have, in a way, is a reset back to the days after 9/11 when the world felt sympathy for our nation and stood ready to work with us.  Bush screwed all of that up by pursuing an a belligerent “America-first” agenda that wound up getting more people killed than it saved (in other countries, which is why conservatives have the audacity to say he kept “us” safe).

President Obama has a chance to do some real work in the positive direction internationally, and the groundwork being laid is looking good, despite what the naysayers may allege.  Republicans will look wherever they can to provoke failure or the illusion of it, but they honestly can be ignored.  The rest of the Democratic leadership needs to be pushed into following the man who Americans elected, and the world now expects, to lead.

The Peace Prize is a gesture towards the future we can create if we are brave enough to try; it embodies what I like to think of as the politics of the possible.