![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
US Politics
At the beginning of the US Election cycle for 2008, I looked at the candidates closely. The Republicans pretty much promised more of the same - tax cuts for the rich, spending more on unnecessary war, making Christianity the official religion of the country (which brand of Christianity is a question), proposing tortured workarounds for private sector to handle what the public sector could do more efficiently - lots of guns, no butter unless you're rich. Their way to help the poor? Reduce the tax burden on the super-rich. So, none of them would do, as usual.
So I looked at the Democratic candidates. I liked their platforms, generally speaking. Kucinich had a number of things I agreed with, but I was uncertain of his execution. The candidate I liked most was Edwards - he was in favor of an aggressive platform of reducing poverty, and that meant better social services and public transit infrastructure and, dare I hope, universal health care? I dared hope.
Of the three front-runners back in 2007, I liked their policy statements in the following order: Edwards, Clinton, then Obama. Obama was not in my top rank of preferences for President because I felt he was far too centrist in his approach - non-universal healthcare topped the list.
Paul Krugman had a very good point to make in the New York Times today - namely, that Obama is currently cited by many as a transformational figure currently using a cover of centrist rhetoric, when it is far more likely that he's actually closer to a centrist figure currently using a cover of transformational rhetoric. He'll still be head and shoulders - hell, whole bodies - above what the GOP is forwarding in McCain.
I've heard Ralph Nader has called Obama corporatist. He said some other things too, most of which were pretty stupid, rude or both; but he isn't all wrong on the corporate front in that Obama will vote for the bill that currently basically gives retroactive amnesty to telecoms for breaking the law at the pleasure of the President. You know, Nixon was impeached for less.
There are some very good points to Obama. He writes very well; he speaks beautifully; and he did not and does not have immediate power as his agenda, as is evidenced by his time as a community organizer and as a member of the Illinois State Legislature. He and his wife have finished paying off their student loans within the past five years. Neither of them started out in anything resembling a privileged background. They have, by bootstraps, made themselves elite in the same way US soldiers are elite - by training, by service, and by vocation. While they have decidedly not been in anything as hazardous as current-day Iraq, they have not shied from tough choices. He is not a snob. Contrary to many talking heads, he's not 'elitist' - he's not in favor of the rich getting richer at the expense of everybody else regardless of when or why.
The media cycle is doing what it has done for the past at-least-six election cycles: adoration to the Manliness of the GOP Candidate, look for the least-electable and/or most centrist Democratic candidate, portray the non-elitist centrist as an elitist liberal, and pay little to no attention to actual policy platforms except to twist them for soundbites. The current corporate and corporatist press corps really likes the GOP - they allow them to exist in their current form.
So to sum up: Obama is my current favorite, and with considerably less nose-holding than Kerry in 2004 though not an absence of it; Nader is a gadfly who isn't a very good speaker in the political arena; and the GOP still cloaks making the rich richer in religious rhetoric.
So I looked at the Democratic candidates. I liked their platforms, generally speaking. Kucinich had a number of things I agreed with, but I was uncertain of his execution. The candidate I liked most was Edwards - he was in favor of an aggressive platform of reducing poverty, and that meant better social services and public transit infrastructure and, dare I hope, universal health care? I dared hope.
Of the three front-runners back in 2007, I liked their policy statements in the following order: Edwards, Clinton, then Obama. Obama was not in my top rank of preferences for President because I felt he was far too centrist in his approach - non-universal healthcare topped the list.
Paul Krugman had a very good point to make in the New York Times today - namely, that Obama is currently cited by many as a transformational figure currently using a cover of centrist rhetoric, when it is far more likely that he's actually closer to a centrist figure currently using a cover of transformational rhetoric. He'll still be head and shoulders - hell, whole bodies - above what the GOP is forwarding in McCain.
I've heard Ralph Nader has called Obama corporatist. He said some other things too, most of which were pretty stupid, rude or both; but he isn't all wrong on the corporate front in that Obama will vote for the bill that currently basically gives retroactive amnesty to telecoms for breaking the law at the pleasure of the President. You know, Nixon was impeached for less.
There are some very good points to Obama. He writes very well; he speaks beautifully; and he did not and does not have immediate power as his agenda, as is evidenced by his time as a community organizer and as a member of the Illinois State Legislature. He and his wife have finished paying off their student loans within the past five years. Neither of them started out in anything resembling a privileged background. They have, by bootstraps, made themselves elite in the same way US soldiers are elite - by training, by service, and by vocation. While they have decidedly not been in anything as hazardous as current-day Iraq, they have not shied from tough choices. He is not a snob. Contrary to many talking heads, he's not 'elitist' - he's not in favor of the rich getting richer at the expense of everybody else regardless of when or why.
The media cycle is doing what it has done for the past at-least-six election cycles: adoration to the Manliness of the GOP Candidate, look for the least-electable and/or most centrist Democratic candidate, portray the non-elitist centrist as an elitist liberal, and pay little to no attention to actual policy platforms except to twist them for soundbites. The current corporate and corporatist press corps really likes the GOP - they allow them to exist in their current form.
So to sum up: Obama is my current favorite, and with considerably less nose-holding than Kerry in 2004 though not an absence of it; Nader is a gadfly who isn't a very good speaker in the political arena; and the GOP still cloaks making the rich richer in religious rhetoric.
no subject