Hardball or Softball? Tackle or Touch?Barack Obama says he wants not only to undo our invasion and occupation in Iraq, but to annul the thinking that lead to it. I believe him. Obama also says he wants to end the game(s) played in Washington. I want him to clearly delineate what game(s) he's talking about.
For example, is it political baseball or political football?
I don't frankly know which. If it's baseball, the Chickenhawks have been playing hardball; and if it's football, the Chickenhawks have been playing 'tackle'. Liberals are countering with their version of 'softball' or 'touch-football'.
Hardball is Bush's well-known pitch to Congress: support the troops through funding or be labeled as backstabbing, Der Dolchstoß traitors. Impose no time-lines or you're emboldening the enemy. The surge is working, don't'cha see?
Softball and touch are the games the Democraptic Senators have been playing. Coach Harry Reid doesn't even want to play. He just wants to run out the clock:
We have the presidential election. Our time is really squeezed.In the House, Coach Nancy Pelosi’s locker room speech is less than inspiring. She doesn’t want to control ball-possession , just her field position:
We just didn't have any plays we liked down there … you just have to play the field-position game....Wait 'til next year:
We'll have a new president. And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it.The problem maybe that Democrap coaches are not really leaders but gamblers, engaging in point-shaving:
Our focus is on the Republicans. How can we juice up attacks on them?Progressives need a blunt team captain, maybe a Lynn Wollsey willing to hold the line on defense by refusing from the beginning to approve any funding that wasn't tied to a troop withdrawal:
If we'd been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that's why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we'd been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice.There are worse things than losing.
Make no mistake: 2007 has been a losing year for us. The Progressives have been shutout by the retrogressives. So, going forward into the next political season, I have to ask myself which of the two general managers we are choosing between - Hillary or Barack - have more 'Game'?
Inspired by Matt Taibbi in the Rolling Stone. Worth a read.
ReplyDeleteGrantland Rice:
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes time for the Great Scorer to write the score against your name, it matters not whether you won or lost, but how you played the game!
Part of the problem I have with the analogy is that this isn't a game. It is both considerably more serious and considerably more complex.
ReplyDeleteIn addition it is a never ending story. I guess one might look upon the four year election cycles as "innings," but the job of governing our nation, protecting pur people, building our ecomony and, when we do an exceptionally good job, improving the earth, goes on forever.
So I'm cutting Pelosi and Reid some slack. I think they are in this for the long term.
I believe some of what Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have done (or not done, was done in part to protect the office of the President, because they realize that Bush is just a temporary occupant. They protected and even differed to the "office and powers" of the President because they realized that a Democrat would hold that office soon.
I, for one, want Barack Obama to have those powers when he takes office next January.
I love the painting, where did that come from?!
ReplyDeleteObama will do nothing. It is empty rhetoric and he is a punk for special interest groups. That is who is putting him up.
ReplyDeleteReal change will not be political. This type of change will lead to further disaster.
America needs a new social/functional governance. The current one is dead ended and will be dead ended.
Change starts with the American people getting rid of the current political system.
Obama is included in that.
He is a punk for the special interest groups that have sold us out. As is Hillary.
Just forget the election and put Bush back in for all the change or good it would do.
American revolution part two is coming up.
And I am not talking about a bunch of retarded Ron Paul people either.
Or an idiot from Arizona.
And I want Obama to speak clearly about his proposals for healthcare in the US... all this talk about opt-in does nothing for the poor. He needs to move in a European direction regarding health for all. There's still private health care in Europe, but the bottom line is, it isn't essential to enjoying a long life.
ReplyDeleteSkip comments that, "Change starts with the American people getting rid of the current political system". That is as vague as any politician's promises. Exactly how do the people 'get rid of the current system', Skip? Violent revolution? Insurrection? Individual acts of terrorism?
As an ex-revolutionary socialist from Europe [that still believes in those aims and desires, not am skeptical about the method to achieve it successfully]. I can tell you the hard political lesson we must all learn is, the world is a different place and has been since the end of WWII.
Surveillance and counter-insurgency agencies will have infiltrated your organisation, before it coalesces into a recognisable revolutionary machine. I know this from experience.
Eurpeans and Europe in general have very little to nothing to contribute to social conditions and social change in North America.
ReplyDeleteA system to change into a functional society that is science based has been around and influenced the course of the U.S. since 1934.
As our social system breaks down.. the clock is ticking and a rediscovery of this information is taking place.
Europe is a dead end as far as ideas.
Socialism is still a Price System.
That is an antique system that insures destruction to everyone.
It evolved from Adam Smith economic theory which is 18th century thought and scarcity based economics.
The Technate design of North America provides sustainable abundance in a secular and humanitarian functional governance.
Sorry pal.. but that is my opinion.
Technates... oh gawd, not that again. Many people I know used to refer to that as a cult-like, proto-fascism. Quite scary. Thought it had died a death.
ReplyDeleteAn utterly and completely unworkable system in a complex society. I thought that had been discredited and ridiculed as the pseudo-science it is?
I'm sorry, but that's my opinion.., oh, and it was George Orwell's too.
Brit, in these pages, most guest of mine just put Sievert on quasi-ignore: to respond to him in anyway provokes him to hijack the thread in the direction of techno-idiocy. Occasionally, to save a thread's integrity, I have had to put him on full-delete. He protests it, but I think he secretly derives some satisfaction from his status. He likes being 'the only one'.
ReplyDeleteIf you two were not so retarded I might laugh.
ReplyDeleteOrwell did not speak of Technate design dummy.
Obama is endorsed by the Establishment.
The establishment is run by special interest groups.
Most people that post here are ignorant of the basic dynamic of how the system operates and why it operates the way it does.
Pawns.
You won't realize what has happened till after the fact.
When you are in recovery mode from being Obamaated.