Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, December 27, 2009

"Obama Is A Mediocre Politician"

Since he won't simply strangle Republican obstructionists and the Conservadems at the margin of the Democratic caucus empowered by Republican obstructionism. Or something.

5 comments:

RadicalCoolDude said...

Carrico: "Obama Is A Mediocre Politician" [s]ince he won't simply strangle Republican obstructionists and the Conservadems at the margin of the Democratic caucus empowered by Republican obstructionism. Or something.

In light of this obstacle, do you think the stimulus package, the auto bailouts, and the bank bailouts weren't big opportunities Obama blew to fashion a "Green New Deal" as Naomi Klein recently argued?

Dale Carrico said...

I prefer to argue with people who are actually arguing with me, and I think it's wrong to just post a link and let it speak for you (this isn't the first time you have done this here, by the way). The only reason that this is a conversation at all is because I am not following your own example and just spitting out a link back at you. Can you imagine how exciting that would be? Just spitting links at one another endlessly? Would you still be able to pretend to yourself this gesture constitutes some kind of substantive engagement with my argument -- or even with the arguments to which you link? I will quote a few points in the Klein piece to which you pointed me (who knows if these are the parts you actually have in mind inasmuch as you refrain from making even the minimal effort of quoting what you take to be key passages, let alone contextualizing them, intervening in them, or what have you), but before I do so let me point out that I consider Naomi Klein one of the most important critical thinkers alive today, that I have read all of her books more than once, and that I teach her in many of my classes so I certainly don't want to give an impression that you are "siding with" Naomi Klein and I am "siding against" her just because you post a blind link on the assumption that this is relevant in some way you don't really elaborate on.

Dale Carrico said...

Klein writes: There's plenty of blame to go around, but there was one country that possessed unique power to change the game. It didn't use it.

I think this goes without saying, but saying it does undermine somewhat the fixation of blame on Obama later in her piece.

If Barack Obama had come to Copenhagen with a transformative and inspiring commitment to getting the U.S. economy off fossil fuels, all the other major emitters would have stepped up.

Nonsense: China is a major emitter and obstructed US efforts, half-assed though they were.

I understand all the arguments about not promising what he can't deliver, about the dysfunction of the U.S. Senate, about the art of the possible. But spare me the lecture about how little power poor Obama has.

Those who point out the fact that literally monolithic Republican obstructionism (this is not a figure of speech, look at the voting record: it shows historically unprecedented obstructionism on the part of Republicans, who are publicly on record as planning to run on Democratic incompetence produced precisely through their obstructionism) has empowered the most conservative Democrats in the caucus -- each of whom has veto power under current circumstances -- to the detriment of the change mandate that elected them is the farthest thing from whining about "how little power poor Obama has" and to imply otherwise is dishonest, irresponsible, and unhelpful.

When Obama came to office he had a free hand and a blank check to design a spending package to stimulate the economy.

This is flabbergastingly false. A blank check? A free hand? It is true that in the past a losing party would have given a president elected so conspicuously on a mandate for change a little more wiggle room than they have given Obama. But that is simply not the world we are living in.

There are very few U.S. Presidents who have squandered as many once-in-a-generation opportunities as Barack Obama. More than anyone else, the Copenhagen failure belongs to him.

Obama's politics are to my right, and I think he campaigned as more of a "centrist" than I can endorse, but pinning the failure of Copenhagen on him, or describing him as squandering opportunities seems to me surreally misguided.

To the extent that what we want is more progressive policies we would do well to pin the blame squarely where it belongs -- on Republicans. That way we have some hope of electing more, and better, Democrats. Blaming Democrats rather than creating conditions in which more, and better, Democrats are elected is to facilitate the election of Republicans who are at this point struggling to re-write America in the image of an authoritarian theocracy couple to a corporate-military feudalism which imagines the rich and the righteous will survive catastrophe either behind high walls or through being Raptured up by muscular white-racist war-monger baby Jesus.

RadicalCoolDude said...

Carrico: I prefer to argue with people who are actually arguing with me, and I think it's wrong to just post a link and let it speak for you (this isn't the first time you have done this here, by the way). The only reason that this is a conversation at all is because I am not following your own example and just spitting out a link back at you. Can you imagine how exciting that would be? Just spitting links at one another endlessly? Would you still be able to pretend to yourself this gesture constitutes some kind of substantive engagement with my argument -- or even with the arguments to which you link?

I didn't just post a link. I asked you a question. I could have simply asked you that question without adding a link (or mentioning Naomi Klein). The only reason why I added the link was because I thought you might like reading the linked article that inspired my question.

I would actually appreciate it very much if you ended your reply to my comments with a link to an article you thought might expand on the theme of your reply, especially if it makes me discover a thinker whose opinion on the topic being discussed you value.

That being said, I have never and will never pretend to myself or to you that my gesture constitutes some kind of substantive engagement with your argument or even with the arguments to which I link. I'm simply asking a short question inspired by my linked article in order to provoke you into further expanding your thoughts in the blog post that started all of this. Furthermore, I find it fascinating how you can sometimes seize on one simple question or comment in the Moot to stimulate you into writing an insightful and eloquent new blog post. So I confess that I'm trying to use this pattern for the benefit of the readers of your blog. ;)

Dale Carrico said...

What's in it for me? I actually think it's rude to treat my blog like a lab-tech stimulating her squids and jotting down results on her clipboard. I don't need a personal shopper to scout out links for me. The Moot's for conversation, for banter, for back and forth, for jokes, for critique, for Q&A. Give it a go, take a risk, put some of yourself on the table, form some kind of judgment about a post and testify to it in the full expectation that others won't feel about it as you do, make a case, defend it, actually talk to people, stop all this argument by proxy nonsense. Don't be a spammer, be a peer.