Connecting dots . . . . National Guard goes to Arizona . . . DADT goes into history

[grantcart]

Two completely contradictory ideas have reached virtual gospel status in GD and GDP.


Gospel Rule One: The US system has become absolutely infested with corrupt corporation interests which have overtaken virtually all of the organs of government and there is no hope that any real change will ever be effected.

Gospel Rule Two: If President Obama simply acted like FDR this place would be fixed in a week.



Both are rather quaint in a simplified idiotic kind of way.

Concerning Gospel Law One:

Of course we are arguing virtually for free by using advanced computers and telecommunications devices that are all the result of the innovations of profit oriented corporations. Many are balancing lap top computers on their lap that have greater computing power than the computers that were onboard Apollo 13 while sipping tea from microwave ovens that prepare meals in seconds.

We are the Jetsons without the flying cars.

Do corporations have elements of evil and need to be regulated and disciplined? Like all human organizations the answer is yes. Could the people rewire the system if they spent as much time studying public policy as is spent on watching Professional Wrestling. Yes.

Concerning Gospel Law Two:

FDR was the greatest President in the history of the Union. Saved the Democratic Party, the Public/Private economic system, Western Civilization, the North American Alliance and so on.

He also really really fucked up alot. Sent tens of thousands of American citizens (of Japanese descent) into camps.

It is silly to compare Presidents of different historical eras.

It is also ironic to the hundredth degree that people who accuse supporters of Barack Obama of idolizing him turn around and idolize FDR. I love FDR. I accept his fuck ups as much as I love his home runs. After he was elected President he refused Hoover's offer to immediately start with emergency steps on a bipartisan basis because he wanted to keep his political capiital safe for a big bang start. The problem was in those days the innauguration was in March and not in January and during the 4 months hundreds of banks failed, companies went bankrupt and millions of people lost their jobs.

History will conclude that on this one point to point comparison Obama got it right by working with Bush rather than waiting. I would like to think that Obama learns from FDR's mistakes as well as his successes.




Now on the National Guard and DADT.


While the first Gospel Law is exaggerated it is true that the President is battling entrenched interests. It is true that he has to engage in strategy and priorities. It is also true that sometimes he engages in public relations manouvers to outflank a rabid radical right that seems to have lost its reason but can still command an impact on the public debate.

So in the last 24 hours we have from the administration two competing stories. One is that 1200 National Guard troops will be sent to the AZ border. Another is that DADT is coming to an end. One is a public relations move (those troops will never be engaged in actual law enforcement) and the other is a historic change in US history. It will mark the kind of official change that the elimination of sitting in the back of the bus achieved. Full civil rights in marriage is next and not far behind.

Now I don't know exactly what the thinking is that led them to decide to go along with the superficial PR move of sending some NG troops to the border to bake in the heat for a month. I don't know if it is even a quid pro quo with some legislators to help pass the DADT or someother policy.

I do know that sometimes you have to do the PR things to be able the big things.

And to quote the Vice President getting rid of DADT and allowing our Gay and Lesbian troops to serve in the United States Armed Forces in dignity is a big 'fucking' deal and to get there will take some public relations moves that don't have a lot of consequence.

The day that DADT is eliminated will be a great day in this country's history. President Obama will be the Commander and Chief. In order to do it he had to run for office, kiss a few thousand babies and do a lot of silly things. In a country where some really evil people have an inordinate amount of power over the Senate and the House it takes a leader like President Obama to piece together a lot of strategic moves, some of which are pure PR, to get the job done. And that is the real Gospel Law of American politics.

[quiet.american]

1. Enjoyed reading that, Grantcart. Don't have much to add.

Except what I've said sometimes in other posts -- Obama's presidency certainly made me grow up in my political views to understand that whether left or right, it's unwise for leadership to pander to the extremes of either party.

It was amazing to me that during the HCR debate, those that were calling for Obama to be like FDR didn't seem to realize that when Social Security was passed, women and minority workers were largely left out in the cold because the Act didn't cover agricultural labor, domestic service, government employees, teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, or social workers. Yet, here we are today with a very rounded safety net in Social Security. A start has to be made somewhere. And I will still say, what a start HCR is -- it has literally changed the trajectory of the lives of the children in my family from a future where they may have spent their entire lives being uninsured because of pre-existing conditions/paying outrageous rates for insurance -- to now never having to know those kinds of scenarios were once even possible.

(Guess I had more to say than I thought!)