'I don't know anyone who voted for nixon' etc.
― iatee, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 21:34 (twelve years ago) link
Matt also did not hear the applause in every Bam '08 "I will close Guantanamo" speech
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 21:36 (twelve years ago) link
Matt, you're being real disingenuous. Every liberal friend in '05 specifically mentioned Bush's civil liberties violations (and Iraq) as his most egregious cins.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 21:38 (twelve years ago) link
xpost that applause was just a tiny portion of the audience clapping really loudly
― Z S, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 21:41 (twelve years ago) link
also they were shouting boo-urns
― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 21:42 (twelve years ago) link
Maybe Matt can visit the OWS thread and enlighten them on their complete disconnect from the American political system.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 21:54 (twelve years ago) link
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 8, 2012 9:38 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Iraq>>>>>civil liberties violations
― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:27 (twelve years ago) link
your liberal friends are a scintilla in a poll of "Democrats." and I presume hardly any of them are now ok with Gitmo remaining open.
― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:28 (twelve years ago) link
You can't untangle the war in Iraq and the diminishing of civil liberties in a national security state primed for war. That's like bemoaning MLK for "abandoning" civil rights to concentrate on the Vietnam War -- they were both connected!
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:29 (twelve years ago) link
remember Alec Baldwin's line from The Departed? "PATRIOT ACT!!!"
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:30 (twelve years ago) link
GG really thinks that there were a ton of "progressives" who thought Gitmo, civil liberties etc. were a big deal and voted for Obama in large part because of it.1. the number of these people is small, too small to be judged from these polls
no idea where you're getting your info from but i've never met a single self-defined progressive OR liberal who wasn't at least kind of bothered by the bush admin's policies on civil liberties, espec. gitmo.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, February 8, 2012 9:30 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
"kind of bothered"
― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:31 (twelve years ago) link
GG is arguing against a phantom progressive who pretended to be upset by Gitmo but is now supporting it. Where are these people? This poll doesn't show them, it shows a much broader portrait of Democrats and the public at large. Passionate Liberaltarians are a small part of that larger whole, and hardly any of them were frontin' on Gitmo.
― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:33 (twelve years ago) link
uh have you read his links, dude?
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:34 (twelve years ago) link
and he's been writing about the silence of liberals who weren't so quiet when Bush was in the Oval Office for three years now. There's a search engine.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:35 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, um read the poll a little more closely dude
xp
― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:36 (twelve years ago) link
DUDE
Does GG really think people now "support" Gitmo and think it's hunky dory when they used to "pretend" it was awful? It's more complicated than that and a broad poll of the Democratic electorate does not show this kind of rampant hypocrisy. People are ok with Obama not closing it because they realized how complicated closing it would be, because they weren't that passionate about it in the first place etc.
Does anyone know someone who actually was pretending to be upset about Gitmo but now thinks it's ok? It's an absurd straw man.
― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:43 (twelve years ago) link
he has a better case on drone strikes, but that's a hypothetical.
― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:46 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_020412.html
This is the breakdown of the poll data as linked by Greenwald. As far as I can tell, the relevant data is here:
13. Changing topics, thinking about the following decisions of the Obama administration, please tell me whether you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove.2/4/12 - Summary Table --- Approve ---- -- Disapprove -- No NET Str. Smwt. NET Smwt. Str. op.a. Keeping open the prison at Guantanamo Bay for terrorist suspects 70 42 28 24 12 13 5b. The drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan 78 56 23 19 10 9 2c. The use of unmanned, “drone” aircraft against terrorist suspects overseas 83 59 23 11 7 4 6
2/4/12 - Summary Table
--- Approve ---- -- Disapprove -- No NET Str. Smwt. NET Smwt. Str. op.a. Keeping open the prison at Guantanamo Bay for terrorist suspects 70 42 28 24 12 13 5b. The drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan 78 56 23 19 10 9 2c. The use of unmanned, “drone” aircraft against terrorist suspects overseas 83 59 23 11 7 4 6
42% of all respondents strongly approve and 28% somewhat approve. I don't see any demographic breakdown in the data about left/Democratic voters anywhere; Greenwald seems to be taking the quoted excerpt of the article on faith without any link to corroborating evidence. (I have no reason to doubt those figures but I'm not going to base a screed on a quote with no numbers behind it.)
What I do take away from the data presented is that of these three positions, people disapprove of Guantanamo the most but not at levels that would cost Obama the election, which strikes me as accurate.
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:48 (twelve years ago) link
I am not happy about Gitmo but I have a certain understanding that a POTUS cannot just ride roughshod over the 'establishment' w/o losing a lot of political capital, esp a Democrat in a period of paranoid hysteria. I would have preferred a more agressive look-in on Wall Street practices, too, but again, not easy when you have the second largest financial slowdown in US history and ppl are clamoring to get the economy restarted a lot more loudly than they are for justice. Call me jaded, if you wish, but a lot of this hard stuff will be easier during a second term. I'd prefer he be bold about ditching Afghanistan, frankly, so we can quit the 'war on terror' and return to treating terrorists as psychotic murderers subject to our justice system instead of boosting them into an army or whatever the fcuk Cheney decided they were.
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 22:54 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of this hard stuff will be easier during a second term.
this is the opposite of jaded imho
I'd prefer he be bold about ditching Afghanistan, frankly, so we can quit the 'war on terror' and return to treating terrorists as psychotic murderers subject to our justice system instead of boosting them into an army or whatever the fcuk Cheney decided they were.
but... current Obama policy is to treat them as psychotic murderers completely outside ANY justice system!
― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:00 (twelve years ago) link
Most second terms are a wash though. There is little reason to hope any president will Do The Hard Stuff then.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:12 (twelve years ago) link
i can't think of any president who pursued more progressive policies in his second term than his first -- most of FDR's second term was spent dealing with fallout from the court-packing fiasco.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:17 (twelve years ago) link
Most second terms are a wash though.
Despite Issa's best efforts, I've yet to see the kind of corruption that usually messes w/a second term. It might be there and it might distract him, but at least he'd be somewhat freer to talk about these subjects publicly.
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:20 (twelve years ago) link
yeah it never happens. most you can hope for is some foreign policy successes. anything requiring congressional cooperation basically won't happen.
― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:21 (twelve years ago) link
He can discuss them but he's a lame duck and the Congress knows it.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:21 (twelve years ago) link
and Gitmo isn't getting closed without congress's help - they're the ones who fucked up all previous efforts to close it in the first place
― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 23:22 (twelve years ago) link
big fan of the filing of reproductive rights alongside other airhead fauxgressive concerns like HRC parties and obama al green youtubes. truly artisanal work.
― zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (pharmacy), Thursday, 9 February 2012 00:41 (twelve years ago) link
let's not discuss the Human Rights Campaign on this thread -- I might get poisonous.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:02 (twelve years ago) link
as somebody who spent plenty of time at zuccotti park, my biggest thought always was 'there aren't too many people here, all things considered'
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:03 (twelve years ago) link
i'm not holding my breath waiting for a "better and more progressive!!" Obama his second term, either. we'll be lucky to get Clinton's second term (minus Monicagate).
― it might look subversive, but it's actually crap ... crap does exist (Eisbaer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:13 (twelve years ago) link
just wanted to pipe in to say that i think glenn greenwald is up there with my least favorite human beings in the world but he's probably right about obama supporters changing their mind about gitmo before + after election. i think it's sad, but telling about the American (and maybe World) public. that said, his broader implicit point (i assume from numerous other articles i've read by him, i haven't read this particular one) that this makes liberals just like conservatives is incorrect. there is still a much larger critical-of-Obama left than there was a critical-of-Bush right, including mr greenwald himself. the problem is that he enjoys pretending like he's one voice shouting into the darkness when actually there's a bunch of ppl who agree with him, who write similar things (i'm sure if he wasn't on vacation, sullivan would be quoting this article approvingly). it's nowhere near the majority of the democratic party, but it's growing.
― Mordy, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:17 (twelve years ago) link
there is still a much larger critical-of-Obama left than there was a critical-of-Bush right, including mr greenwald himself.
Agreed, and the White House knows it or knew it (e.g. Rahm Emmanuel shaking fingers at "fucking retarded" liberals). Unimaginable when Bush and Ronnie stuck their fingers in the press' asshole.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:23 (twelve years ago) link
i don't think there is a lot of statistical evidence for that group of people
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:23 (twelve years ago) link
don't get me wrong, I would be cool w/ those people existing. the world would be a better place if those people existed. it's just...they mostly don't
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:26 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of this hard stuff will be easier during a second term
*bangs head repeatedly against the wall*
I love how building an evidentiary case of things we know to be true from everyday life is frequently required in this courtroom on this board.
he's probably right about obama supporters changing their mind about gitmo before + after election.
ie YES
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:30 (twelve years ago) link
24% of Americans disapprove somewhat, or strongly, about keeping open the prison at Guantanamo Bay for terrorist suspects. xp
― Mordy, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:31 (twelve years ago) link
the people you talk to on a daily basis are not a very representative sample set of americans, morbs
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:31 (twelve years ago) link
oh thank God
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:32 (twelve years ago) link
On an average weekday I don't talk to any people beyond transactions and professional matters...
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:35 (twelve years ago) link
regardless they're people who live in or near NYC which means they are politically a couple miles away from the American center. Rudy and Bloomberg are left-wing dems in half the states in the country.
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:37 (twelve years ago) link
I wish this were its own country too so we did not have to have a political system where we compromised w/ the crazy people that live elsewhere but ultimately that is how things work
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:38 (twelve years ago) link
and yet, morbz, you also complain about getting the stink-eye whenever you badmouth Obama to your liberal/progressive/whatevah acquaintances ...
― it might look subversive, but it's actually crap ... crap does exist (Eisbaer), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:38 (twelve years ago) link
I think the "vast" difference between NYers and the mainland cavedwellers is exaggerated in political matters. Most of the people we are discussing (voting Dem until they die, every time) had the same Pavlovian response to the Dream Warrior.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:42 (twelve years ago) link
people here vote straight-ticket dem because the real election happens before the general election and is a contest people who are more left-wing than generic american dem. when everyone's the same party, party doesn't matter and means basically nothing.
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:47 (twelve years ago) link
context among people*
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:48 (twelve years ago) link
contest err
I was talkin bout the means-nothin-presidency
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:49 (twelve years ago) link
well if someone super-left wing was running for president as a dem, nyc would vote for them. the problem is the rest of the country.
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 01:51 (twelve years ago) link