A different reading of what President Obama's re-election means for the nation

[proximity1]

 

There is, of course, more than one way to read the consequences of the re-election of Barack Obama. As one who found reasons to favor his defeat, even while agreeing that Romney and his party are not an acceptable alternative, I am at this point considering whether, and if so, how, to broach this subject here.

 

My argument has to be addressed to those who see Obama's re-election as either entirely salutary or at least the best of all practical possibilities and who see few or no negatives attending it. That is because it's now clear that, without some successful work on recapturing a now-lost-segment of the electorate, there can be no recovery of anything "to the Left of Obama"—something that is a now non-existent species of citizen-voter. Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum. My case concerns why that is and ought to be seen as a truly devastating development by many who voted without qualms for Obama's re-election. While I see (as someone who is very much to the Left of him) important negatives in the re-election of Obama, my experience in this site leads me to doubt the usefulness of my first spending much time and trouble to write up in detail those negatives before sounding out what the reception to that effort would be.

 

Are there those here who support Obama and yet who'd be interested in reading and discussing the contrary case which holds that this election outcome augers yet more very serious ill for the nation?

Edited November 8, 2012 by proximity1

[imatfaal]

Sorry proximity - your poll seems malformed. The site insists you answer in each of the three sections ie answer in each of Yes I'd both..., Yes I'd read..., and Don't Bother...

[proximity1]

Sorry proximity - your poll seems malformed. The site insists you answer in each of the three sections ie answer in each of Yes I'd both..., Yes I'd read..., and Don't Bother...

 

 

Hmmm. I'm not sure I understand what you mean because I haven't loaded the poll as a "user" but I amended it to allow multiple choices--does that fix it? I'll try opening the poll as a respondant and see what I get.

 

thanks for the tip.

[imatfaal]

Works now - but you have lost the extra information about the voting choice.

[proximity1]

Okay. I can't locate the error in the poll's configuration and so can't "fix it". Sorry 'bout that.

 

On the other hand, those who aren't averse to "voting" via a post (which implies no anonymity, it's true,) could do so in the thread itself, huh?

 

Works now - but you have lost the extra information about the voting choice.

 

True. I eliminated those "&"s as being perhaps prohibited in the field or upsetting the configuration. If it works, I'm content with this form. We can drop the extra data point indicating how respondants actually voted or not in the election--though I'd have found that interesting to see.

[iNow]

That is because it's now clear that, without some successful work on recapturing a now-lost-segment of the electorate, there can be no recovery of anything "to the Left of Obama"—something that is a now non-existent species of citizen-voter. Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum.

You cannot possibly think this is true. Obama is actually a bit to the right of where Ronald Reagan would be were he alive and governing today. Can you clarify? Was this intended to be sarcastic or humorous?

[proximity1]

Here's an extremely abbreviated form of my argument's main points-- I hope that it will be obvious why they're important.

 

1.) Obama has apparently reasoned (from very early in his first term, too, by the way) , and it appears, reasoned correctly, that there is simply no one to the left of him on the political spectrum whose views, opinions, count and must be taken into account. Before his re-election, I'd have disputed that. Now, it seems to me that the vote has proven his view correct beyond any doubt.

 

2.) That means in practical terms that his policy views and how to negotiate them with the so-called opposition are matters which he may work out according to his own precepts as they seem valid and useful for his political interests and career. There is now no reason for Obama to give the slightest hearing to anyone arguing a view which falls further to the Left of what he may happen to approve. This means that those who are counting on Obama's feeling now "free" to loose his "inner-Liberal" are in for a very rude awakening--unless I'm very much mistaken, the entire lesson of the first term is that no such inner liberal exists --now or previously.

 

3.) Taking 1.) and 2.) together, the upshot is simple: I hope you are happy with Barack Obama as the now outer-limits of what constitutes the Liberal end of the political spectrum because, dear Obama voters, he is it now and there may be something else you haven't counted on....

 

4.) I have yet to see or hear any compelling case for why those forces which have so spectacularly succeeded in shoving the "Left" more and more to the "Right" should now suspend or abandon those efforts as being complete. If anyone can show me that compelling reasoning, I'd be very interested in reading it.

 

5.) Thus, it ought to follow that what's been such a great success--shoving what in the U.S. passes for the "Left" more and more to the "Right" is going to proceed and gain more ground at the direct expense of things--political principles and the policies which rely on them--held, or once believed to be held dear by the "Left."

 

 

Generally, virtually everything that has occurred in and since the presidency of Bill Clinton has been, it ought to have been recognized and understood, in effect an unmistakable signal that there is no resistance from the "Left"--or, indeed, for that matter, no political resistance in the U.S. from any political quarter if by that one means popular as opposed to elite segments of the population. And, it is really this situation which is fundamentally the most serious for this analysis. It amounts to a de facto civic resignation from the realm of electoral politics--though, it is true, that this "resignation" was very brutally forced if one gives due account for all the time, money and meticulous effort that has been, over forty or fifty years, been expended on this and related goals.

 

The American public, willingly or unwillingly, has been so debased, so demoralized, that the practical result is that the constellation of political interests which organized great wealth constitutes, now can say with complete accuracy, "We now have built and wholly-own the political and the electoral 'playing field', tailor-made to our own interests."

 

I don't deny that in many respects these points are not exactly new or recent. I do, however, think that it is now implanted firmly in a way that heretofore had not been so unquestionably the case. And, I submit that this state of affairs is supremely dangerous for the future of the nation as a place where the terms "freedom" and "liberty" have any meaningful existence. Once the political and the electoral systems are made into completely bogus operations, where, in effect, one narrow set, (one class, really though Americans have been assiduously schooled to disbelieve in the reality and the importance of "classes" and "class interests", with disastrous effects) owns and operates the entire political apparatus from the local to the national level, then there is nothing left to stop or hinder the complete dismantlement of each and every article of civil rights and liberties---a process already now quite advanced and a process to which Barack Obama himself, however little it may be recognized or understood--has contributed a very significant share of the effort.

 

We got here, though, through a long process; one in which a former cohort of citizen voters who'd have represented the Left-ward opposition of a Barack Obama has been in one way or another eliminated or has been co-opted into a more center and right-wing set of voters. That is why any effort to reverse and recover what has been lost and to preserve from further loss what little remains of a civic order that had some semblances of democratic principles and practices requires a recovery, a rehabilitation of that lost segment of the civic public.

Edited November 8, 2012 by proximity1

[ydoaPs]

Here's an extremely abbreviated form of my argument's main points-- I hope that it will be obvious why they're important.

 

1.) Obama has apparently reasoned (from very early in his first term, too, by the way) , and it appears, reasoned correctly, that there is simply no one to the left of him on the political spectrum whose views, opinions, count and must be taken into account. Before his re-election, I'd have disputed that. Now, it seems to me that the vote has proven his view correct beyond any doubt.

 

/me points to his VP.

[Phi for All]

 

There is, of course, more than one way to read the consequences of the re-election of Barack Obama. As one who found reasons to favor his defeat, even while agreeing that Romney and his party are not an acceptable alternative, I am at this point considering whether, and if so, how, to broach this subject here.

 

My argument has to be addressed to those who see Obama's re-election as either entirely salutary or at least the best of all practical possibilities and who see few or no negatives attending it. That is because it's now clear that, without some successful work on recapturing a now-lost-segment of the electorate, there can be no recovery of anything "to the Left of Obama"—something that is a now non-existent species of citizen-voter. Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum. My case concerns why that is and ought to be seen as a truly devastating development by many who voted without qualms for Obama's re-election. While I see (as someone who is very much to the Left of him) important negatives in the re-election of Obama, my experience in this site leads me to doubt the usefulness of my first spending much time and trouble to write up in detail those negatives before sounding out what the reception to that effort would be.

 

Are there those here who support Obama and yet who'd be interested in reading and discussing the contrary case which holds that this election outcome augers yet more very serious ill for the nation?

I think I see what you're saying, that since the Republicans represent the right and the Democrats the left, and they're the majority parties, Obama is the only productive choice for those on the extreme left and therefore represents the way they vote. Is this correct?

 

I think most people from the US here would agree that we would all benefit from more diverse representation. I've voiced this concern many times myself and that stance seems to go unchallenged. Personally I would be much more interested in discussing ways to correct our two-party reliance, and practical ways to approach voters with a better way to elect our top officials.

[proximity1]

You cannot possibly think this is true. Obama is actually a bit to the right of where Ronald Reagan would be were he alive and governing today. Can you clarify? Was this intended to be sarcastic or humorous?

 

 

My point--which I thought I'd put clearly--is that Obama, being, indeed, "to the right of where Ronald Reagan would be were he alive and governing today," is also, at the same time, the extreme limit on the "Left" as far as the nation's practical political order is concerned.

 

And, yes, if that strikes you as outrageous, I think it ought to. But it seems to me that it is true. Where, please, is there any actual and effective opposition to Barack Obama and his Clinton-ista cohort of appointees and advisors? And, who, please, do you expect to see annointed as the inevitable successor to Obama at the end of this second term 10 2016 if it is not Her-Highness-in-Waiting, Hilary Rodham Clinton, loyal and patient servant to the current pseudo-Democrat, the "Compromiser-in-Chief," Barack Obama?

[swansont]

there can be no recovery of anything "to the Left of Obama"—something that is a now non-existent species of citizen-voter. Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum.

Any discussion will have to start with a defense of this statement, which is pretty … bold, considering the number of people complaining that Obama hasn't been liberal enough.

[proximity1]

I think I see what you're saying, that since the Republicans represent the right and the Democrats the left, and they're the majority parties, Obama is the only productive choice for those on the extreme left and therefore represents the way they vote. Is this correct?

 

I think most people from the US here would agree that we would all benefit from more diverse representation. I've voiced this concern many times myself and that stance seems to go unchallenged. Personally I would be much more interested in discussing ways to correct our two-party reliance, and practical ways to approach voters with a better way to elect our top officials.

 

 

" ...since the Republicans represent the right and the Democrats the left, and they're the majority parties, Obama is the only productive choice for those on the extreme left and therefore represents the way they vote. Is this correct?"

 

 

Yes, though I think it's worth noting that you put it that way. I think it is or ought to be extremely questionable to put it as "Obama is the only productive choice." (my emphasis added). Be that as it may be, as I see it, in this analysis, productive or not, Obama --and, the point is, all about him and all that resemble him and his point of view--Obama and these like entities are the only "choices" now available, "productive" or not.

Edited November 8, 2012 by proximity1

[iNow]

Indeed. Your premises are flawed, so your conclusions can only possibly be correct accidentally.

[proximity1]

Any discussion will have to start with a defense of this statement, which is pretty … bold, considering the number of people complaining that Obama hasn't been liberal enough.

 

 

It seems to me that the"defense" of that view is now simply beyond question demonstrably true: there is and there clearly was simply no opposition of any effective sort or kind, whatsoever, from any quarter, to the re-nomination of and, we now see, the actual re-election of Barack Obama.

 

I'd rather challenge you to point to any living, breathing, significant opposition from the Left about which it can be seriously and honestly said that Obama is obliged to reckon with them. I don't see these people and I don't think that anyone has or can point them out.

 

Obama ridiculed, he scoffed at, he insulted and derided those of his critics to his Left from the earliest days of his first term and it is now clear that he did this with the fully calculated view that these critics were simply and completely irrelevant--a point which his re-election has now confirmed as valid and true beyond sane doubt.

 

This is not something that will sit confortably on the consciences of some Americans. Instead, they'll find it scandalous that such a state of affairs could be true. And, so, in good and time-tested American fashion, they'll steadfastly deny that these are facts and refuse to admit them. And as long as that common response remains the default opinion, we're going to stay right where my analysis implies that we are: in very deep and dangerous denial about the actual state of the political order.

Edited November 8, 2012 by proximity1

[iNow]

It seems to me that the"defense" of that view is now simply beyond question demonstrably true

But others disagree and have asked you to clarify and support your point.

 

I'd rather challenge you to point to any living, breathing, significant opposition from the Left about which it can be seriously and honestly said that Obama is obliged to reckon with them.

You mean like all those people who wanted Guantanamo closed? Or the ones who disagree with drone strikes? Or those who feel he shouldn't be pushing the extraction and use of natural gas in the US instead of green energy? Or those who feel he's been too harsh deporting immigrants? Or any of the other countless things where Obama has received opposition from the left that one must completely ignore in order for your argument to be even remotely credible?

[proximity1]

But others disagree and have asked you to clarify and support your point.

 

 

You mean like all those people who wanted Guantanamo closed? Or the ones who disagree with drone strikes? Or those who feel he shouldn't be pushing the extraction and use of natural gas in the US instead of green energy? Or those who feel he's been too harsh deporting immigrants? Or any of the other countless things where Obama has received opposition from the left that one must completely ignore in order for your argument to be even remotely credible?

 

 

I clarified and supported it. There was and there is no significant opposition to Obama, none, zero --the proof of which is in the fact that he has just been re-elected having made no concessions to anyone other than to Republicans in the House and the Senate. As for concessions to his present or former supporters on the left who criticized him over the course of his first term, he made simply no concessions. Perhaps you're thinking of the lame excuses he offered for why he had no choice but to let the Republicans roll him again and again.

 

But, I challenge you: please present to us the case showing that there is and was actual opposition from his left-wing and that it counted for something.

 

You haven't done this. You've merely asserted it as true. Where are the proving examples? For my proof, I give you: the re-elected President of the United States, Barack Obama, who raised money, waged a campaign and won re-election, all without the slightest concern for any of his present or former Left-wing critics inside or outside the Democratic party, nor, clearly any need for them.

 

And that, in part, as I see it, is the problem, yes.

[Phi for All]

I think it is or ought to be extremely questionable to put it as "Obama is the only productive choice."

I understand, but I think it's clearly our plurality voting system that's at fault. If people thought voting for someone who represents their views more closely than one of the major parties, and felt that their vote might not end up helping someone from the majority opposition party, I think they'd be less likely to support an Obama or a Romney choice. We clearly need a system that in no way seems like you might "throw your vote away", or in essence vote unproductively.

[swansont]

It seems to me that the"defense" of that view is now simply beyond question demonstrably true: there is and there clearly was simply no opposition of any effective sort or kind, whatsoever, from any quarter, to the re-nomination of and, we now see, the actual re-election of Barack Obama.

He was the sitting president. How often are sitting presidents seriously challenged for their party's nomination? Carter was challenged, but that was Carter.

 

I'd rather challenge you to point to any living, breathing, significant opposition from the Left about which it can be seriously and honestly said that Obama is obliged to reckon with them. I don't see these people and I don't think that anyone has or can point them out.

 

They can point themselves out in polls. If your assertion was correct then nobody should identify him as being too conservative.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152954/half-say-obama-liberal-agree-issues.aspx

 

Obama ridiculed, he scoffed at, he insulted and derided those of his critics to his Left from the earliest days of his first term and it is now clear that he did this with the fully calculated view that these critics were simply and completely irrelevant--a point which his re-election has now confirmed as valid and true beyond sane doubt.

How is that possible, if there are no people to his left? Regardless, it most certainly does not prove the point, any more than Romney getting his nomination means there is nobody to his right.

 

This is not something that will sit confortably on the consciences of some Americans. Instead, they'll find it scandalous that such a state of affairs could be true. And, so, in good and time-tested American fashion, they'll steadfastly deny that these are facts and refuse to admit them. And as long as that common response remains the default opinion, we're going to stay right where my analysis implies that we are: in very deep and dangerous denial about the actual state of the political order.

Oh, there's denial, to be sure. Just not what you are claiming.

 

I clarified and supported it. There was and there is no significant opposition to Obama, none, zero --the proof of which is in the fact that he has just been re-elected having made no concessions to anyone other than to Republicans in the House and the Senate.

The no-true Scotsman fallacy in action. All you have to do is declare opposition to not be "significant" to preserve this. Plus, moving the goalposts, since you originally declared that anyone to the left was a "non-existent species of citizen-voter".

[proximity1]

I understand, but I think it's clearly our plurality voting system that's at fault. If people thought voting for someone who represents their views more closely than one of the major parties, and felt that their vote might not end up helping someone from the majority opposition party, I think they'd be less likely to support an Obama or a Romney choice. We clearly need a system that in no way seems like you might "throw your vote away", or in essence vote unproductively.

 

 

I left it uncommented previously but I did read and appreciate your comment,

 

"Personally I would be much more interested in discussing ways to correct our two-party reliance, and practical ways to approach voters with a better way to elect our top officials."

 

That is the eminently reasonable and responsible person's view of it. How could I deny that? It's of course much easier to point out what's wrong than it is to suggest really good and practical courses for correcting what is wrong. Very frankly, I don't have any clear and readily applicable answer to the question of how we fix things. If pressed, I have to admit that I am quite pessimistic about the prospects for reform. Reform efforts are usually taken advantage of by the power structure's most influential to proceed with advancing their controls even futher.

 

The problems go much further than the defects you point out. There are these, as well:

 

a proportional voting system, grafted onto the Electoral College, inherently and deliberately designed to be undemocratic in character and operation, would leave untouched the undemocratic character of the E.C.

 

Then, the bi-cameral legislature: two senators per state, regardless of state population, is, again, inherently undemocratic and means that the popular will is easily and routinely thrwarted or, more precisely, kept where it's intended--in the control of organized money. But the harms of an inherently undemocratic Senate don't end there. The Senate has particular purviews--it passes on presidential appointments--including Supreme Court nominations; it handles treaty ratification, or refusal; it can--and it does--perpetuate an archaic filibuster system which means that the undemocratic representation it starts with is made even more the creature of a minority's whims, to the point that today any sufficient minority of 2/5s + 1( 3/5s of the members being required for cloture of a filibuster) can bring the chamber's work on that matter to a halt.

As the wikipedia page notes,

 

" In current practice, the threat of filibuster is more important than its use; almost any motion that does not have the support of three-fifths of the Senate effectively fails. This means that 41 senators, which could represent as little as 12.3% of the U.S. population, can make a filibuster happen."

 

Then, in one after another aspect, in counties, in states, appointive and elective offfices are subject to myriad rules and operations which, again, are inherently undemocratic and are all-important in ensuring that wherever and whenever it counts, a genuinely democratic process is rendered impossible or impossibly difficult. And, in most of these instances, the fact has been in place since the foundation of the Republic.

 

Your observation is quite right: to paraphrase, "How can people working together change things to bring a real democratic order into being?" is a key, if not, indeed, the key, question. But, another and related one is as dreadful to comtemplate:

 

Do Americans really want a genuinely democratic system? And, if they do, do they want it enough to both face unpleasant facts about themselves and enough to fight and overcome the now formidable forces which are deployed and highly organized to prevent just such a system from ever coming into being?

 

He was the sitting president. How often are sitting presidents seriously challenged for their party's nomination? Carter was challenged, but that was Carter.

 

 

 

They can point themselves out in polls. If your assertion was correct then nobody should identify him as being too conservative.

http://www.gallup.co...ree-issues.aspx

 

 

How is that possible, if there are no people to his left? Regardless, it most certainly does not prove the point, any more than Romney getting his nomination means there is nobody to his right.

 

 

Oh, there's denial, to be sure. Just not what you are claiming.

 

 

The no-true Scotsman fallacy in action. All you have to do is declare opposition to not be "significant" to preserve this. Plus, moving the goalposts, since you originally declared that anyone to the left was a "non-existent species of citizen-voter".

 

I thought that some garden-variety common-sense interpretation would apply to my terms and claims. Of course, when I said there is now nothing to the Left of Obama, that means, not that there aren't here and there, individuals and groups who take positions to the left of B.O. but, that these individuals and groups are now, just as they have been, political orphans, and it seems to me --this is my argument's point, and we can test it with reference to what takes place from here on, can't we?--they are destined to remain political orphans if I am correct because the significance of Obama's re-election means just that: that there is no organized opposition force with which he must reckon.

 

I could, and so I shall, object that your counter-point amounts in effect to a corresponding a "All true Scotsman" fallacy.

 

If we wish, we could set real-world definitional conditions on "significant opposition" so that, as I am confident, there is really no need at all to take any such refuge in the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.

 

Let us define what significant opposition should really mean in a fair and practical world. And I don't think that, defined that way, we'll be able to show much of anything that fits a reasonable person's views of it.

 

But, again, this is an area which is fertile ground for the most pronounced impulses in denial--that impulse to denial being, in my opinion, now one of the most salient characteristics of Americans (and plenty of other people, too, by the way) concerning their national politics.

 

Indeed. Your premises are flawed, so your conclusions can only possibly be correct accidentally.

 

 

Or, rather, "coincidentally", no? The premises, even if faulty (though I don't think they are), don't, for that reason alone, preclude the possibility that the conlusion is correct.

 

He was the sitting president. How often are sitting presidents seriously challenged for their party's nomination? Carter was challenged, but that was Carter.

 

 

 

They can point themselves out in polls. If your assertion was correct then nobody should identify him as being too conservative.

http://www.gallup.co...ree-issues.aspx

 

 

How is that possible, if there are no people to his left? Regardless, it most certainly does not prove the point, any more than Romney getting his nomination means there is nobody to his right.

 

 

Oh, there's denial, to be sure. Just not what you are claiming.

 

 

The no-true Scotsman fallacy in action. All you have to do is declare opposition to not be "significant" to preserve this. Plus, moving the goalposts, since you originally declared that anyone to the left was a "non-existent species of citizen-voter".

 

RE: "How is that possible, (Note: i.e. aforementioned critics and their having been ignored by Obama) if there are no people to his left? Regardless, it most certainly does not prove the point, any more than Romney getting his nomination means there is nobody to his right."

 

You are confusing two different things---one is my view of Obama as the now-sole-embodiment of the what constitutes the poltical spectrum's Left extreme. And I made that point clear at the outset; this isn't a redefintition of the point, no "moving of the goal-posts,". I stated that " Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum." That didn't and doesn't mean that in the world, suddenly every person or group holding views to the left of Obama's simply disappeared. It means what I thought was obvious: such people now have no one in the political structure, the formal American political, and esp. electoral, system, simply doesn't extend to them. They lie beyond, outside the limits of what is now represented and representable or, more precisely, what's happened is that their lying beyond it has now been made manifest whereas previously, any astute observer might have already recognized what this recent electoral outcome, for me, confirms as true--unless and until that political order is reformed, refashioned to once again--as in long past decades, at least to some pathetically puny extent--it once did "represent" them. My argument is that the re-election of Obama sounds the mourning bell for such people, until things change and change rather profoundly.

It's to point this out and to argue that it is significant, as I see it, that I thought to offer this thread in the first place. I assume, yes, that many, indeed, the great majority of Americans don't recognize these things as true and, as I said, don't want to recognize them as true, either. If that weren't the case, there'd be no occasion for bringing it up for comment.

Edited November 8, 2012 by proximity1

[iNow]

It's of course much easier to point out what's wrong than it is to suggest really good and practical courses for correcting what is wrong. Very frankly, I don't have any clear and readily applicable answer to the question of how we fix things.

A few ideas:

 

- Mandatory civics lessons throughout our education system and curricula growing up

- Meaningful campaign finance reforms with real teeth that also deal with third party contributions, PACs, and Super PACs

- Implementation of some "truth in advertising" laws that help ensure it's not so easy to spread and repeat lies (looking out for "technically" true claims, but reducing claims that are clearly contrary in spirit)

- Update of the rules and regulations in congress to get us out of this pseudo-parliamentary approach with countless filibusters and blocks in which we've found ourselves

-Implement instant run off voting so third and fourth parties can actually have a meaningful chance at winning in a nation full of people whose views cannot be adequately represented by two parties

- Find ways to get the populace more active and engaged at all levels, and not just when there happens to be a presidential election

 

 

More ideas on how to use open source to improve government are also available and discussed here:

 

On another note, why do you have a poll asking if people want to participate in a thread like this? Won't that information come from, well... you know... people actually participating or not? Can not this same information be obtained by posting behavior? The poll is odd to me.

[proximity1]

A few ideas:

 

- Mandatory civics lessons throughout our education system and curricula growing up

- Meaningful campaign finance reforms with real teeth that also deal with third party contributions, PACs, and Super PACs

- Implementation of some "truth in advertising" laws that help ensure it's not so easy to spread and repeat lies (looking out for "technically" true claims, but reducing claims that are clearly contrary in spirit)

- Update of the rules and regulations in congress to get us out of this pseudo-parliamentary approach with countless filibusters and blocks in which we've found ourselves

-Implement instant run off voting so third and fourth parties can actually have a meaningful chance at winning in a nation full of people whose views cannot be adequately represented by two parties

- Find ways to get the populace more active and engaged at all levels, and not just when there happens to be a presidential election

 

 

More ideas on how to use open source to improve government are also available and discussed here: http://www.ted.com/t...government.html

 

Of course! Look, "we're on the same side here"----I'm speaking loosely, okay? We may not agree on many things, greater or lesser in importance, but, all those things you list are, of course, the "things that need to be done".

 

But, when I write,

 

"Very frankly, I don't have any clear and readily applicable answer to the question of how we fix things"

 

it doesn't mean that I haven't thought of the usefulness of those points. It means that I can't at present see any practical means to effect any of them. It's much more a matter of how these goals are to be realised, if at all, than of what to do. A lot of smart people, and for decades (make that "centuries"), have pointed out what's wrong with the system. Even Barack Obama knows that these are the things that need to be done as reforms. The question is "How?" and that is the question for which I am short of any ready answer.

 

Barack Obama not only doesn't have the answer either--in fairness, no one I know of has that answer so far--he doesn't have it-- or even getting to working toward it on his agenda.

 

Obama is a thoroghly conventional guy. Not only is he not a genius, by my measures, he's an idiot. But in the U.S. an idiot can not only become president, it's the general case. His "smarts" are the most routine and ordinary kind. He's robotic, and robots do tedious routine chores with great

efficiency --in fact, "efficiency" is another term that describes Obama.

 

What he isn't is much and many of the things that we need:

 

genuine--he's a fake, a poser, a phoney;

 

 

feeling---in his view, feelings are things to abhor and defend against in his line of work. That may be widely believed and accepted in the circles in which he moves but I see that as one of the most important failings about contemporary society.

 

imaginative--for every issue and matter, there is some stale and hand-book referenced response, and he refers to it because that is what someone who beat every well-worn path on the way to power and influence (as he did) does--he does the conventional thing, the unimaginative thing. Even something as simple as not flagrantly exposing his hand to his so-called party opponents, the Republicans, seems to be outside the boundaries of this guy's imagination. But, when it comes to those in his ostensible camp, the once-living "Left", he's shown himself capable of leeping his cards concealed from them.

 

 

RE: "Find ways to get the populace more active and engaged at all levels, and not just when there happens to be a presidential election."

 

That, of course, is the linch-pin problem. Everything hangs on this obstacle. Our political, educational and many other social arrangements make that goal look impossibly beyond our reach. But we so need to tackle this as a key matter. How?

 

Look at our educational system: balkanized into thousands of "independent," locally-run school districts. [NOTE: edited to add: By the way, I live in France and I've lived here long enough to have recognized that a uniform national educational system--one in which, as in France, all the students are doing pretty much the same things at the same time--that, too, is not necessarily the cure-all answer to the problems.)

 

But, to go back to the U.S. circumstances,

 

To gain ground, we'd need enlightenment in the overwhelming majority of those in order to give young people even a fighting chance to gain the insights they need to grasp the most important facts in society, in politics, even in science. Look: for example: the U.S. are the most religously-fervent of modern western industrial nations; no other is so ignorantly opposed to the basics of Darwin's thougth and work. As far as the vast majority of Americans--young, old, educated or not--are concerned, Charles Darwin might as well have never lived, never boarded the Beagle, never studied nature and never wrote his immense opus. How can that scandal be?!---in 2012!!

 

It's 1859--tell me, is it time then that you read Darwin's Origin of Species? How about 1889? Do you read it then? Or 1959? Would you, by, say, 1959, have deemed it wise and necessary to have read that and, by the way, the even-less-read Descent of Man? Okay, it's 1979. Is it time now to read Darwin? How about 2009?

 

At what point do living Americans decide, "It's time that I read Darwin--not just take second-hand versions of his thought to be sufficient. Time I read both Origin and Descent." ?

 

That time remains, for the vast majority of the population of this highly technological nation somewhere in the undefined and apparently distant future, if it lies there at all for many of them.

 

Our schools and our colleges and universities are routinely failing to educate, and, more, they're failing to instill sufficiently effective reasoning-skills --to the extent that this can be taught through example and practice. They're turning out graduates who've read little and not practiced enough in critical thinking to be able to acquit themselves ably in the face of a reasoning problem. In too many cases, their teachers, professors, can't do this either.

 

The question isn't just "What do we do about these things?", or, knowing "What?", "How do we accomplish those objectives?" it's also, just as importantly, "Are we going to accept these as among our current problems and failings or are we going instead to prefer to take the easier route that denying them offers?"

 

A few ideas:

 

- Mandatory civics lessons throughout our education system and curricula growing up

- Meaningful campaign finance reforms with real teeth that also deal with third party contributions, PACs, and Super PACs

- Implementation of some "truth in advertising" laws that help ensure it's not so easy to spread and repeat lies (looking out for "technically" true claims, but reducing claims that are clearly contrary in spirit)

- Update of the rules and regulations in congress to get us out of this pseudo-parliamentary approach with countless filibusters and blocks in which we've found ourselves

-Implement instant run off voting so third and fourth parties can actually have a meaningful chance at winning in a nation full of people whose views cannot be adequately represented by two parties

- Find ways to get the populace more active and engaged at all levels, and not just when there happens to be a presidential election

 

 

More ideas on how to use open source to improve government are also available and discussed here: http://www.ted.com/t...government.html

 

On another note, why do you have a poll asking if people want to participate in a thread like this? Won't that information come from, well... you know... people actually participating or not? Can not this same information be obtained by posting behavior? The poll is odd to me.

 

 

RE: "on another note..."

 

from the Opening post, above,

 

"While I see (as someone who is very much to the Left of him) important negatives in the re-election of Obama, my experience in this site leads me to doubt the usefulness of my first spending much time and trouble to write up in detail those negatives before sounding out what the reception to that effort would be."

That initial concern, it is true, seems now to have "gone by the boards."

 

"The poll is odd to me."

 

Fair enough. Most have seen fit to skip it.

Edited November 8, 2012 by proximity1

[swansont]

You are confusing two different things---one is my view of Obama as the now-sole-embodiment of the what constitutes the poltical spectrum's Left extreme. And I made that point clear at the outset; this isn't a redefintition of the point, no "moving of the goal-posts,". I stated that " Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum." That didn't and doesn't mean that in the world, suddenly every person or group holding views to the left of Obama's simply disappeared. It means what I thought was obvious: such people now have no one in the political structure, the formal American political, and esp. electoral, system, simply doesn't extend to them. They lie beyond, outside the limits of what is now represented and representable or, more precisely, what's happened is that their lying beyond it has now been made manifest whereas previously, any astute observer might have already recognized what this recent electoral outcome, for me, confirms as true--unless and until that political order is reformed, refashioned to once again--as in long past decades, at least to some pathetically puny extent--it once did "represent" them. My argument is that the re-election of Obama sounds the mourning bell for such people, until things change and change rather profoundly.

To the extent that this can be considered true it is meaningless, since it applies to every president.

 

But this ignores the fact that every citizen has representation at multiple levels of government. Obama can't ignore people to the left if he needs their vote in congress to pass legislation, and there is legislation happening at the state and local level over which he has no control whatsoever. Colorado and Washington just voted to legalize marijuana, an arguably more liberal position than he has advocated; evidence that the people still have a voice.

 

There are extreme liberals, and true socialists and communists, too (not the faux definitions applied to Obama), and they didn't suddenly lose representation in government. If it's gone it's because they had no clout to begin with.

[iNow]

I thought this might be fun given the patterns occurring in this thread:

 

 

[proximity1]

Please examine and compare the responses (cited below) to my view that:

 

 

«Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum.»

 

 

In one response, iNow objects (in post N° 6) :

«You cannot possibly think this is true. Obama is actually a bit to the right of where Ronald Reagan would be were he alive and governing today.»

 

 

In another, swansont objects by arguing (in post N° 22) that,

«To the extent that this can be considered true it is meaningless, since it applies to every president. »

 

 

You ought to notice several things in examining these two replies to the same comment and those things ought to be revelatory and supportive of the very case that I am arguing here.

 

 

First, notice how these two responses take a diametrically opposed view of the « problem » with my view of things. For iNow, it is simply too obvious that Obama, having shown himself in various ways to be arguably « actually a bit to the right of where Ronald Reagan would be were he alive...today » (a view with which, in fact, I agree). Next, notice that iNow needs some way to rescue a disturbed consistency in world-view and facts. As I read his reply, his tone and terms indicate that the case I argue clashes with the views he takes to be correct, to be « given » as true in interpreting the political situation concerning Obama's place and rôle in the political spectrum. In other words the views I'm presenting are deemed cognatively dissonant. If I'm right in describing him as startled by the view I'm arguing here, it's important because it seems to me that there should be many, many others who react and who reason similarly. And, if so, we should bear in mind that a common response to cognitive dissonance is to seek to some means to restore the disturbed balance one had, a balance or coherence in an assumed consistency between one's world-view and actual observable facts or their proposed meaning and correct interpretation as known to be claimed by others.

 

 

As I see it, he does that by first denying that Obama can be in fact the embodiment of the Left-ward extreme of the present political spectrum—this is because, apparently, iNow regards that as being, by definition, impossible: no one who is arguably to the right of Ronald Reagan in some political respects can possibly also be thought to constitute the Left-ward end-point on the political spectrum.

 

 

Now, in post N° 22, swansont presents the « problem » with my argued view as the diametrical opposite of that of iNow's reply. For swansont, if it's true that « Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-worldn political spectrum, » this is merely a truism, something to be seen as a banal fact, as something meaningless even if true « since it applies to every president. »

 

 

Though he approaches the issue from the opposite angle, swansont's reply seeks to accomplish the same thing as that of iNow—it seeks a ground to reject what comes as incongruent. Swansont does this by redefining « the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum » as being, simply, (and, again, like iNow's attitude, by definition) wherever and whatever the current incumbent presents us as the policy positions of his party or administration as standard representation of that party-- in this instance a so-called « Left » or « liberal » position according to the now-conventionally-accepted view of things. That is, swansont routinizes « normalization » of political ideological drift, taking whatever happens to be the electoral outcome as also demonstrating the definition of the limits of the political spectrum. Again, if I'm correct in my description, then it seems to me that there should also be many, many others who react and who reason similarly.

 

 

They cannot, however, both be true, it seems to me. While both try to reach the same objective—restoring a cognitive balance—these two approaches are not factually reconcilable. And that, too, I think is something you ought to have noticed and found significant about them.

 

 

In the vertiginous (corrected spl. thank you, Swansont / "dizzying", related to "vertigo" ) world of political identity, it is possible for two like-minded observers to find an explanatory and exculpatory rescue in irreconcilable views of the facts. That, too, should tell us something significant about these times. Which is the case? Is Obama, as iNow sees it, a politician who, being in certain ways akin to or « a bit to the right of » Ronald Reagan, therefore simply disqualified on that account from also embodying the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum? Or is Obama, as swansont sees it, to be understood as simply the current and de facto embodiment of that limit, a fact which is both true by definition and, thus, « meaningless » in character? And what should we take as indicated by these two opposite repsonses to the nature of the problem with my argument?

 

 

For me, the consequences of the latest presidential election are not reducible to rearrangements of the normative definitions of liberal and conservative, not things which can be dispensed with and dismissed simply by a fresh and convenient redefinition of what it means to be liberal or conservative; nor can the consequences be waved away by denying that a putative liberal, so similar to Ronald Reagan in some respects, can ever come to hold the place of a new and different Left-ward limit as opposed to what had theretofore been true.

 

 

For me, it can happen that reality and its factual content can present us with new and rightly distrubing conditions in our political situation. When this happens, I think that observers are obliged to revise their assumptions about what they'd reasoned rather than revise their definitions of words or, worse, revise what they accept as « reality », dispensing with one now-inconvenient reality and replacing it with a newly convenient one. That approach, though, is not how I see present-day American society to operate. Everything about our times encourages not the readjustment of our perhaps erroneous assumpions, but, rather, a readjustment of accepted reality to conform with our assumptions---this is especially the case in matters essential to meaning-giving rituals and myths. The electoral process we have is intended to supply essential meaning and psychic confort and to operate in these ways on a society-wide level. Rather than revise or question the grounds of our confidence in the coherence and validity our myths and rituals, we're more likely to seek refuge in a revision of the meanings of important terms in our language and, in that way, save ourselves from having to face what would otherwise become apparent: a glaring discrepancy in the once-valid meanings of those important terms—and their practical import in our daily political and social lives—and the now-apparent meanings which cannot be reconciled with the former ones.

 

 

By the way, earlier today I listened to a radio interview of 33 minutes and 54 seconds on french radio's France Culture of Garry Kasparov, one of Russia's world-class chess champions of the latter 20^th century and who has a new book just published in French, Poutine échec et mat (Paris, L'Herne, 2012 / that is, Putin Check and Mate). Unlike in the United States, very few people in Russia are under the illusion that their nation holds free and fair national presidential elections—or that the elections' outcomes are by any stretch of the imagination a translation of the real popular will of the majority of the populace. Kasparov, being one of the very few who has been able (so far) to get away with open criticism of Vladimir Putin, offers an interesting point of view for American observers to consider. Because Kasparov answers his interviewer in English, you can listen to his remarks—even if the questions posed are in French. In the interview, near the very end, the program host asks how Kasparov views the just-announced re-election of Barack Obama. (Kasparov begins his reply at 31mins:27secs on the digital counter. The question posed is, « ...Barack Obama, reputed pragmatist, has sought to conciliate U.S. relations with Putin rather than present a frontal opposition to him; how do you view the re-election of Barack Obama?» )

 

----------------------------------------------------------

 

other observations since the election, for example:

 

« ...And Representative John Boehner, the speaker of the House, wasted no time in declaring that his party remains as intransigent as ever, utterly opposed to any rise in tax rates even as it whines about the size of the deficit.

 

« So President Obama has to make a decision, almost immediately, about how to deal with continuing Republican obstruction. How far should he go in accommodating the G.O.P.'s demands?

 

« My answer is, not far at all. Mr. Obama should hang tough, declaring himself willing, if necessary, to hold his ground even at the cost of letting his opponents inflict damage on a still-shaky economy. And this is definitely no time to negotiate a "grand bargain" on the budget that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. ...» – Paul Krugman, (column: « Let's Not Make a Deal », 8 Nov. 2012)

 

-----------------------------------

 

« ' I'm not wedded to every detail of my plan,' Mr. Obama said Friday. » – New York Times, photo cut-line, (page 1 of the website version.)

Edited November 9, 2012 by proximity1

[swansont]

Please examine and compare the responses (cited below) to my view that:

 

 

 

In one response, iNow objects (in post N° 6) :

 

 

In another, swansont objects by arguing (in post N° 22) that,

 

 

You ought to notice several things in examining these two replies to the same comment and those things ought to be revelatory and supportive of the very case that I am arguing here.

 

 

First, notice how these two responses take a diametrically opposed view of the « problem » with my view of things. For iNow, it is simply too obvious that Obama, having shown himself in various ways to be arguably « actually a bit to the right of where Ronald Reagan would be were he alive...today » (a view with which, in fact, I agree). Next, notice that iNow needs some way to rescue a disturbed consistency in world-view and facts. As I read his reply, his tone and terms indicate that the case I argue clashes with the views he takes to be correct, to be « given » as true in interpreting the political situation concerning Obama's place and rôle in the political spectrum. In other words the views I'm presenting are deemed cognatively dissonant. If I'm right in describing him as startled by the view I'm arguing here, it's important because it seems to me that there should be many, many others who react and who reason similarly. And, if so, we should bear in mind that a common response to cognitive dissonance is to seek to some means to restore the disturbed balance one had, a balance or coherence in an assumed consistency between one's world-view and actual observable facts or their proposed meaning and correct interpretation as known to be claimed by others.

Not at all, since they are responses to different aspects of your statement, and one which you changed in the middle of the argument. iNow rebutted your claim that there were no citizen-voters to the left of the president, as did I in another post. But once you changed that to the voters to the left are now without a voice in their representation, the meaning changes, and that was what I was responding to. And I stand by that: if you think that electing Obama allows him to ignore the fringe that has a more extremist view, that's true of every president, and so it's unsurprising. But I then argued that it's not actually true.

 

As I see it, he does that by first denying that Obama can be in fact the embodiment of the Left-ward extreme of the present political spectrum—this is because, apparently, iNow regards that as being, by definition, impossible: no one who is arguably to the right of Ronald Reagan in some political respects can possibly also be thought to constitute the Left-ward end-point on the political spectrum.

 

 

Now, in post N° 22, swansnot presents the « problem » with my argued view as the diametrical opposite of that of iNow's reply. For swansnot, if it's true that « Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum, » this is merely a truism, something to be seen as a banal fact, as something meaningless even if true « since it applies to every president. »

No. That's not the statement to which I was responding. It was: if there's any truth to the claim that anyone to the left of Obama will "now have no one in the political structure, the formal American political, and esp. electoral, system, simply doesn't extend to them" then it's true of the extrema for any president, and meaningless. In fact, one could argue that people to the right of Obama "such people now have no one in the political structure, the formal American political, and esp. electoral, system, simply doesn't extend to them" as well, and that would be ludicrous, given the makeup of the house. Which is why I then argued that the statement cannot be true.

 

——

 

Do you mind defining "vetiginous" for me? It's not in my dictionary.

 

Also, the user name is swansont. Once is a typo. Consistently getting it wrong eliminates that as an excuse.