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t r u t h o u t | Tortured Memories and the Culture of War
"It is difficult to imagine how any democracy could not be corrupted when war becomes the foundation of politics. Any democracy that makes war and state violence the organizing principle of society cannot survive for long, at least as a democratic entity. The country descended into a period in which society was increasingly organized through the production of both symbolic and material violence. A culture of cruelty emerged in the media, especially in the talk radio circuit, in which a sordid nationalism merged with a hyper-militarism and masculinity that scorned not merely reason but all those who fit into the stereotype of other, which appeared to include everyone who was not white and Christian. Dialogue, reason and thoughtfulness slowly disappeared from the public realm as every encounter was framed within circles of certainty, staged as a fight to the death. As the civic and moral center of the country disappeared under the Bush administration, the language of the marketplace provided the only referent for understanding the obligations of citizenship and global responsibility, undeterred by a growing war machine and culture that produced jobs and goods and furthered the war economy."
Drew Westen: Leadership, Obama Style
"President Obama needs to reflect on whatever is driving his compromised approach to leadership. He will no doubt accomplish many good things in his four or eight years in office, in part because there is so much damage from the preceding administration to undo, and with a Republican Party in complete disarray, he will no doubt accomplish incremental change we can believe in if that's really what he wants to take to the voters in 2012.
But if he does not change course, he is on the path to being known as the first black president -- nothing more, nothing less -- a solid caretaker on the order of Dwight Eisenhower, who tinkered around the edges of the ideology of the last visionary president, FDR, the way Obama is tinkering around the edges of the last game-changing president, Ronald Reagan.
With his extraordinary intellect and his ability to speak to people's hopes and aspirations, this president has the capacity to be the transformative leader we all thought we were electing. But if he wants to be known for giving eloquent speeches followed up by field goals where he could have had touchdowns, he is well on his way to the thirty yard line.
"
Hope and History | Advocate.com
Really, this is so reasonable, and so close to my opinions on the subject of teh gays vs Obama, I have trouble believing it's from the Advocate.
His Crowd - The Atlantic Politics Channel
Republicans, for all practical purposes, aren't even on the radar screen with them," says Michael D. Hais, a fellow at the Democratic advocacy group NDN, and co-author of Millennial Makeover, a recent book on the generation.
Bloggers Are Changing the Way the Gay Rights Movement Communicates - washingtonpost.com
Pam's House Blend is an influential voice in the gay political blogosphere, must-reads that include the Bilerico Project, Towleroad and AMERICAblog, each attracting a few hundred to a few thousand hits a day. Just as the liberal Net-roots and the conservative "rightroots" movements have affected traditional party structures, the still relatively small gay political presence online is rebooting the gay rights movement in a decentralized, spontaneous, bottom-up way. It's spreading news via blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Online, a story about two 16-year-old girls in a Lutheran private school in California being expelled for "conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians" -- as the school's lawyer describes it -- goes viral. And hits nerves.
McCain's Letter To Obama, Text Of Republican Senator's Letter On Lobbying Reform - CBS News
Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does
We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief.
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
It's not just that she's convinced herself it's okay to try to steal the nomination, she has also appropriated the most sacred legacies of liberalism for her effort to do so. She is proving herself temperamentally unfit for the presidency,"
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It's not just that
she's convinced herself it's okay to try to steal the nomination, she
has also appropriated the most sacred legacies of liberalism for her
effort to do so. She is proving herself temperamentally unfit for the
presidency,"
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