What exactly is the goal here people?

[nomb]

This is becoming (or has it always been this way?) maddening.


Do we dislike bad policy:


(Insert link here of DU raining down on current policy)


Or do we just dislike people who support good policy:


(Insert link here of DU raining down on people from the left proposing good policy in conflict with status quo)

As the election season is soon to begin, it's time to choose to back one or the other. The person or the policy.

What exactly is the goal here? Please, I am serious, I can't get my head around this strange dichotomy.

(EDITED to remove specific link as requested below...)

[tridim]

1. Both of those "we"'s simply dislike Obama.

Their goals are for Obama and Democrats to lose in 2012.

[Mojorabbit]

5. oh please stop nt

[tridim]

8. All it requires is observational skills and being able to add 2+2.

Everyone knows what they are trying to do.

I will not stop, unless they do.

[fivepennies]

10. 2 + 2

= minus 4


Everybody should know that by now. :eyes:

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. I liked Obama when he said he would end misguided wars

I dislike Obama when he added to the number of misguided wars. I have other issues but this is a big one for me.

I never changed in what I was looking for in my government, my government changed what it said it would give me. How is that simply trying to see Obama defeated in 2012?

[KittyWampus]

14. And yet you refuse to acknowledge Iraq/Afghanistan are winding down on/ahead of schedule.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

18. I would never refuse to acknowledge something if it were true.

Last I heard, if Iraq asks us to stay we will; and truth be told the pull back from Iraq is pretty much following the agreement Bush had with the Iraqis.

On February 27, 2009, at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, President Barack Obama announced a deadline for the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq. According to the president, by August 31, 2010, after nearly seven and a half years of United States military engagement in Iraq, all but a "transitional force" of 35,000 to 50,000 troops would be withdrawn from the Middle Eastern nation. Obama defined the task of the transitional force as "training, equipping, and advising Iraqi Security Forces as long as they remain non-sectarian; conducting targeted counter-terrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq".<16> Under this plan, the majority of troops will be withdrawn just a month after the deadline in the signed agreement between former President George W. Bush and Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki where the majority of troops will be withdrawn at one point, and the entirety of troops to be out by December 31, 2011.<17><18><19><20>

So nothing really changed. And as if that isn't enough of a knee-slapper--

By October 2011, the US State Department will assume responsibility for training the Iraqi police and this task that will largely be carried out by private contractors. American diplomats in two new $100 million outposts will prevent potential confrontations between the Iraqi Army and Kurdish peshmerga forces.

The US State Department is reportedly planning to more than double the number of its private security guards, up to as many as 7,000. Defending five fortified compounds across the country, the security contractors would operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_U.S._troops_from_Iraq

But even if your premise is true how does that somehow make Libya, drone strikes and the rest more palatable?

I totally understand, and I'm sympathetic with, the idea that if we advertise the faults of our candidate that not only do we fail to win the critical moderates and run the danger of undermining the base. I get it. But we're talking about wars here. Wars that dismember people, kill people and even those who come home intact are left with a lifetime of nightmares. These are wars that solidify hatred and are used to justify future attacks. Instead of dropping bombs we could be distributing books to counter the hatred preached by truly evil men.

But somehow I'm supposed to overlook all that because Jeffry Immelt needs a few more tens of billions of taxpayer money after paying no taxes and shipping jobs overseas. I'm supposed to embrace wars we can't even read about because some RWer will start handing out tax breaks if elected. I might be easy, but I'm not cheap and I'm not going to tell the people of the world to live under constant US bombing because I'm worried we might trade one crony capitalist for another.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

29. I'm sorry Kitty

It hurts to post this; believe me it does, because this war affects my family very deepply. I love my people but I hate what they have been through and just as I mentioned in my earlier post the war is NOT coming to an end.

BAGHDAD — Under intense U.S. pressure, Iraqi leaders announced early Wednesday they had agreed to start negotiations on keeping some American soldiers in the country after the current Dec. 31 deadline for all U.S. troops to have left Iraq.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/03/119358/iraq-agrees-to-start-talks-on.html#ixzz1UBI2QzWV

I'm sorry Kitty. This isn't a "gotcha" moment for me. This is very, very heartbreaking.

[KittyWampus]

12. Face it. Many here on DU are heavily invested in Obama failing. Refuse to acknowledge progress

leftwards, ignore the intransigent opposition and the corrupt media.

Blame it all on Obama.

Yes, many here are nothing but sterile ideologues typing away in their ivory towers about things should be with no concept on how to actually get there in the reality we actually live in.

[Armstead]

20. Do you have a bullshit machine in the corner that cranks that stuff out?

This is not about "defeating Obama." In the larger picture, he is less relevant than the results.

Most of us like and admire Obama as a person. It's what he is doing -- and what he has chosen to represent -- in the larger sense that bothers us. We actually believe in a set of principles and practical goals -- not radical but liberal and progressive. We don't see that as a "tired ideology" but as necessary to actually bring the nation back to a real balance and solve some of our fundamental problems.

We would be happy to support Obama when he is in alignment with that. But we will be critical when he either rolls over to the right andf the corporate oligarchs, or sends messages and pushes policies that indicate that is the direction where his real beliefs and his real goals are.

It may seem more personal because he gave us hope that things would at least begin to change for the better -- but once in office has helped to entrench the corporate status quo and empower the right even more than they were.

Anything more detailed would fall on deaf ears with you. But at least I stated my piece.

[sudopod]

19. everyone who disagrees with me is part of an evil conspiracy.

The rice crispies told me so.

[tridim]

22. Lying about Democrats on a Democratic forum isn't necessarily a conspiracy..

It is what it is, lying about Democrats on a Democratic forum. I don't know why they feel the need to do it, but they do, every day.

And BTW, 2 + 2 equals 4, not "evil conspiracy"

You may want to get yourself checked out for your rice crispy problem.

[Armstead]

25. Ya know, many like to sneer at "EMO Democrats who are on the left

But there are plenty of EMOs on the other side too.

You are too emotional about all this. Take a chill pill and realize that not everyone who is critical is out to "get Obama" or "defeat the Democrats."

There's a lot more involved and it isn't always black and white. It might make you feel a little better if you acknowledge those subtleties sometimes.

[tridim]

28. Criticism is fine, lying is not.

Both of the posts in the pre-edited OP are lies (by intentional omission) about the President.

It's important for people like me to point that out. I care about DU's integrity.

[muffin1]

2. K&R

I don't get it, either.

[Armstead]

3. Basically the way it's always been. It's a community, with all the cat- herding that implies.

DU is made up of many individuals, with varying opinions, motives, personalities and ways of interacting.

Although there are some shared assumptions, it is basically where people exchange ideas -- sometimes civilly and sometimes divisively. Just like any community.

[nashville_brook]

4. good policy is good if and only if it's delivered by the good pols

bad policy is bad if and only if it's delivered by the bad pols.

any questions?

[nomb]

6. Actually that makes some sense, I take it as "you still have to win at the polls to effect change"

I do buy that intuitively. So the question, as always, is: Am I willing to pay the price.


Yes I do sometimes read DU as one voice, perhaps that's why these polar opposite topics so jar me.

[Armstead]

21. Principle and victory are NOT mutually exclusive

It is possible to be principled liberals and progressives, and win elections.

That is a point that is often denigrated here.

[grahamhgreen]

7. Can you ask without the links?

[nomb]

9. I've removed the specific link, good suggestion as they themselves are only examples. n't

[dtexdem]

11. It should be to stand up for Democratic Party principles --

that is, for the majority of the people, but especially for the most vulnerable in the population.

Unfortunately, all too often the argument is to support the Party, right or wrong. Or worse, the argument is sometimes to not support our principles, even to actively attack them.

And to cut to the chase, many of us who supported Obama quite early, during his primary battles with Hillary, and continued to support him through the election, and who rejoiced in his victory and celebrated his inauguration, and who gave him the benefit of the doubt through the health reform battle -- many of us are totally disillusioned, upset, and angry about how he has conducted himself in office, and, worst of all,what he has supported. Support for theft of any of the SS trust fund should be grounds for discarding any so-called Democratic candidate.

[OneGrassRoot]

23. Identifying and standing up for Democratic Party principles...

I'm with you on that.

And to the OP, yes, it's always been this maddening.

[Armstead]

26. DU? Maddening?....Shirley you jest.

[OneGrassRoot]

27. Don't call me Shirley...

;)

:hi:

[LWolf]

15. "We" have never been unified on that point.

DU has always officially favored party over policy.

So when the party fights for the policy, we're all happy. When the party doesn't, there's a divide between the partisans and those who put issues first.

Actual elected Democrats who put issues first are soundly derided by partisans, because they aren't part of tptb.

[divvy]

16. I will vote for BOZO the Clown before voting for 4 more years of this

Is that clear enough?

[mmonk]

17. Beats the hell out of me. The New Deal is now on its death bed.

[Armstead]

24. And some Democrats have been helping Republicans administer the poison