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Originally Posted by roachboy
these are kinda absurd questions, ace,
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Here we go again.
My first question was a simple question that begged to be asked given the conclusion you presented:
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How do you explain Obama's involvement? Is he a "useful idiot" or deceptively complicit?
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You never clearly answered the question and now you suggest that my further attempts at clarification are absurd!
In my world I was always told no question is a bad question. I don't get your attitude regarding questions.
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first off, speaking for myself, i never accepted the "war on terror" as a phrase that meant anything. it represented the illusion of a coherent response from the bush administration, so was a quintessential meme, something which acquired a weight entirely through repetition. apart from its rhetorical functions, there was no referent and could not have been a referent--so it's about constructing a signified and by constructing that signified providing a putative target against which the Mighty Penis of Retribution could then be smacked.
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O.k., that as a given - isn't it clear in your mind what you would do and why? If it is clear to you why do we make Obama's motives so convoluted? Or, are you telling me that, given your view, you would be "locked" into Bush's rhetoric, Bush's expressed or implied goals, Bush's folly????? The simplicity of my questions relative to the manner in which some avoid answering them makes me think that some don't like the conclusions honest answers would lead them to.
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obviously and from the outset obama can on a very different platform. you'd have to have been a fool not to know his position on "the war on terror"....this is one reason i consider him a moderate and supported him with serious reservations. to my mind, he has been more or less as i expected he would be once in office---the ways in which that is not the case have almost all followed from the gifts left behind by the Magic Imploding Spectacle of the Bush People having been far more seriously problematic than i thought.
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Elections have consequences and as an avid Bush supporter I understood that and I am willing to live with the consequences. However, and this is big, just because I understand and I am willing to live with the consequences does not mean I stop fighting for what I believe in. "Bush people" are problematic only to the degree that "Obama people" are weak. This is not about machismo it is realistic observation. Obama is in control, he has the power, "Bush people" do not have any power nor control - but if we can bend Obama to our will with no control and no power, isn't that a reflection on Obama??? Again, I don't understand why so much focus is being place on Bush?!?
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your notion of the latitude available to a Leader-type in a historical situation comes from fairy tales. anyone is shaped by the situation in which they find themselves. you seem to imagine that a Leader can somehow step outside his or her own context and make Abstract Decisions about that context as if it were someplace else, that affected someone else. i don't know where you get the idea from that this sort of thing is possible. maybe you think Presidents are gods somehow. so that kind of fairy tale, ace.
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You could not be more wrong. The first thing that came to mind regarding real leadership in defiance was Gandhi:
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Before embarking on the 240-mile journey from Sabarmati to Dandi, Gandhi sent a letter to the Viceroy himself, forewarning their plans of civil disobedience:
If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man's standpoint. As the Independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.[1]
To deliver this letter, Gandhi chose an Englishman who believed in the Indian movement in efforts to promote non-violence. The Viceroy wrote back, explaining that the British would not change their policy: "[Gandhi was] contemplating a course of action which is clearly bound to involve violation of the law and danger to the public peace." [2]
As promised, on March 12, 1930, Gandhi and 78 male satyagrahis (activists of truth and resolution) started their 23-day-long journey. Women weren't allowed to march because Gandhi felt women wouldn't provoke law enforcers like their male counterparts, making the officers react violently to non-violence. Along the march, the satyagrahis listened to Gandhi's favorite bhajan sung by Pandit Paluskar, a Hindustani vocalist; the roads were watered and softened, and fresh vegetation was thrown along the path. Gandhi spoke to each village they passed, and more and more men joined the march.
On April 5, 1930 Gandhi and his satyagrahis reached the coast. After prayers were offered, Gandhi spoke to the large crowd. He picked up a tiny lump of salt, breaking the law. Within moments, the satyagrahis followed Gandhi's passive defiance, picking up salt everywhere along the coast. A month later, Gandhi was arrested and thrown into prison, already full with fellow protestors.
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Gandhi Salt March: 1930
Call it "fairytale" if you want, but a person doing what is courageous by stepping outside of his or her "context" in spite of the consequences is honorable in my view and something that defines leadership.
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and the answer to your question of ownership of a particular decision seems to me to be so self-evident as to require no response.
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You lost me here. On one hand it seems you argue the opposite view. Then this comes after a response. So I am finding it difficult to follow you with this last comment.
And, just from my point of view if something is self evident, it does not need to be pointed out, I always view this kind of comment as wasteful unless the motive is to be condescending - which is my assumption here - and the reason I generally get all pissy
, if you ever want to avoid this, the pattern is "self evident". Yes, I know what I did and I know why!