51–60 of 107 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've argued for it for a few years but most people are aghast at the suggestion...
I have seen the same thing. I now firmly believe that most people understand that voting for representatives is a sham, but go along with it either for unstated reasons like tribalism and hero worship, or out of a deep seated misanthropy common to both the left and right wing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter. It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become. I think at this point I…
Don't knock that approach - it's known as Sortition ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition ) and I'm personally convinced that it's a much better way of achieving democracy than any other.
realpolitik is far more messier than lofty moralism, the US never had a clean slate, ever. just like any other country.
and for the posters bitching about the sham democracy in the US - right, but still people are dying in other countries to achieve just of a fraction of the freedom, safety and liberty present in the USofA.
if elections changed anything they would be banned, right?
which they ARE, in a lot of places on earth.
as long as a president here is limited to two terms the systems works. erdogan, putin, see for other places where this core principle gets violated and what it does to the system.
The charitable explanation, which this article seems to imply, is that he suddenly discovers how important these programs are and how much is at stake. The less charitable explanation, since it's hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs, is that he is just another politicians and the guaranteed political fallout from surveillance and drones was far less than the catastrophic career-ending…
A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter. It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become. I think at this point I…
Random reps wouldn't work because the public is largely uneducated and malleable to propaganda. Maybe opt-in random with a series of civic examinations would work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't he stop the torture program?
But that's as far as he went. He's hardly been shouting from the rafters about how America should not be a country which tortures, and especially in the light of the Congressional findings re the CIA's activities I'm amazed there haven't been prosecutions. Honestly McCain, on this particular issue, would have been a better president.
I also don't think we should retroactively punish behavior that they thought was legal and proper at the time. That seems like a bad precedent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except this is Obama at the peak of his hope and change moment, he'd just been comprehensively elected as an alternative to the Bush years. This was the perfect opportunity to essentially blame even more things on Bush and even cement his position, this was an opportunity to bury the GOP if he had broken this news. Ironically he was in a position to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize if he had taken action against this, G…
Didn't he stop the torture program?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter. It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become. I think at this point I…
Don't knock that approach - it's known as Sortition ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition ) and I'm personally convinced that it's a much better way of achieving democracy than any other.
In fact, it's probably the ideal way to promote anyone in any setting. I'd make a few small adjustments, however. Rather than random selection, I'd like the pool of candidates to be reviewed by their peers and scored for ability, creativity, fairness, leadership -- whatever skills are appropriate in their realm. Then I'd like to see some sort of weighting applied to the random choice that favors the "best and the brightest" over the bottom dwellers.
And it goes without saying... no campaigning or re-election.
There is another scary explanation, is that they have collected enough dirt on him and other politicians to become "untouchable"
The only question is whether they use this kind of information to get what they want. I'd say they probably do, via the axiom that power corrupts. This also explains why people like Clapper and (now ret.) Gen. Alexander can go into a congressional inquiry, lie to the panel's faces, be caught in the lie at the time or later, and still keep their jobs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except this is Obama at the peak of his hope and change moment, he'd just been comprehensively elected as an alternative to the Bush years. This was the perfect opportunity to essentially blame even more things on Bush and even cement his position, this was an opportunity to bury the GOP if he had broken this news. Ironically he was in a position to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize if he had taken action against this, G…
Obama didn't have infinite political capital. We was dealing with some pretty heavy things in the aftermath of the stock market crash - stuff that was potentially alienating his own base, while also trying to push through his own legacy change (Obamacare). All of this through his peak popularity. If he had tried to squash the wiretapping then, it likely would have overextended him and saw his health care reforms squa…
Yeah, Obama was low on political capital because he shot most of his wad at Obamacare, which didn't get as far as he wanted it, meaning that he loses political capital for losing relative to his goals. In this weak position, the thing to do is rally more political capital from the base... which he never did.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter. It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become. I think at this point I…
> It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective I truly don't believe this. Any popular uprising that gets large enough, or loud enough, has the capacity to demand change. Sure, the corporate, moneyed interests will push their agenda as hard as possible to try to sway opinion (which isn't always misaligned with the public good, by the way). But at the end of the day politicians will do what t…
True. The German people voted for change and got Hitler. America voted for change and got Nixon and Carter and Reagan and Bush Jr and Obama.
Wait. Was change supposed to be GOOD?