noteworthy wrote:

When a politician makes likability a substitute for authority, his opponents make hatred a substitute for opposition.

Bush is *not* the president we deserve. Sure, there are a lot of people who don't consider "football hero" to be an oxymoron. Even they don't deserve to have their civil rights trampled on, to be lied to at every turn, to be forced onto the conservative right's fascist agenda.

This editorial seems to me to be a perfect example of how out of touch NYT editors can be.

-janelane, I deserve better

janelane wrote:

Bush is *not* the president we deserve.

I suspect the writer intended that sentence to provoke, and he seems to have succeeded. Your valid points about "what people deserve" notwithstanding, people look for many things in a President, and there are trade-offs all around. The contrast between Clinton and Bush made here is a case in point; some people liked Clinton because he listened, whereas other people reacted with "can't you form an opinion for yourself?" These Clinton-haters got in Bush a take-charge kind of guy who knew what he wanted and would go out and "get things done". Only later did they realize that occasionally the situation calls for a man of inaction, or at least one with a hint of hesitation, one who at least feels a moment of doubt at the crucial juncture, wondering whether it is better to shoot now or to wait and see. Such struggles tend not to trouble those with the presence of mind not to contemplate the consequences.

janelane wrote:

This editorial seems to me to be a perfect example of how out of touch NYT editors can be.

To clarify, this article is in the Sunday Magazine, not on the op-ed pages. The writer is an editor at the The Weekly Standard.

-janelane, I deserve better

Most definitely!

The classic irony on display is that the people (on all sides) seem not to know what they want, because even when they get what they asked for, the reality tends to disappoint them. Unintended consequences and all that.

After a challenging but successful engagement with Google, I would like to refer back to a bona fide Decius classic:

I've come to the conclusion that you actually want shifty, dishonest politicians elected by an apathetic populace. This means that things are working.

There are two reasons that people act: Carrots and Sticks. Lowering the barrier to entry might be a carrot, but the sticks are much more effective and come when the political situation makes it impossible for people to go about their lives without acting.

I'm confident that technology has improved the resources available to people if/when they choose to act. So far they don't need to, largely. Don't wish for times when they do. When people are involved and committed and political leaders are honest and have clear vision; that usually happens when things are really, really fucked up. Who are the U.S. Presidents we most admire? What was going on during their presidencies?

That was part of a discussion in a thread about an op-ed by Robert Wright, Creating a New Picture of War, Pixel by Pixel.

One wonders whether, in the two and a half years since that post, we have arrived at "those times" when the people choose to act.

From a recent Paul Krugman piece, in which he cherrypicks pithy, prescient soundbites from the pre-invasion era:

Like the proverbial dog chasing the car down the road, we must consider what we would do after we caught it.

So how long will the dogs now circle the car before they decide whether to kill it, keep it, or release it?

After a challenging but successful engagement with Google, I would like to refer back to a bona fide Decius classic:

I've come to the conclusion that you actually want shifty, dishonest politicians elected by an apathetic populace. This means that things are working.

There are two reasons that people act: Carrots and Sticks. Lowering the barrier to entry might be a carrot, but the sticks are much more effective and come when the political situation makes it impossible for people to go about their lives without acting.

I'm confident that technology has improved the resources available to people if/when they choose to act. So far they don't need to, largely. Don't wish for times when they do. When people are involved and committed and political leaders are honest and have clear vision; that usually happens when things are really, really fucked up. Who are the U.S. Presidents we most admire? What was going on during their presidencies?

That was part of a discussion in a thread about an op-ed by Robert Wright, Creating a New Picture of War, Pixel by Pixel.

This really struck a nerve with me. I don't recall the original thread, although I remember reading the article. THESE ARE THE TIMES PEOPLE!!! Look at where we are standing! Five years ago, on September 12, 2001, the entire world was with us. We were universally supported to exact justice against the people which threatened not just the security in the US, but throughout the world. And we had about as much latitude as any government is ever going to get to do what was necessary to take care of that.

But guess what? WE HAVE FUCKED UP!!! We are standing on top of at least 250,000 dead bodies. $500,000,000,000.00 that will likely not even get paid back by our grand children. An entire religion of people who not only don't trust us, but want to see our culture destroyed. The scorn of the entire world for being so wasteful and betraying our very principals. Not to mention the fact that we haven't caught the guy who was responsible for this whole mess in the first place.

In the meantime, we've not helped to educate people better. We've not helped to protect our children better. We've not fed the hungry or clothe the poor or heal the sick. We've not even protected the ideals which our society was founded on. Our health care costs have doubled. Our literacy rate has dropped. Our teams of poor have swelled. And we are missing one of the greatest cities in our entire nation - STILL!

So where is the corollary? Where is that great leader with vision and fortitude and resolve? Cuz I can't imagine things much more fucked up than they are now.

flynn23 wrote:
So where is the corollary? Where is that great leader with vision and fortitude and resolve? Cuz I can't imagine things much more fucked up than they are now.

Be careful what you wish for. You'll have him, but things aren't near fucked up enough yet. Frankly, this has only directly impacted a very small percentage of American lives. People who work in the NYC finance industry. People who work around the Pentagon. Some people whose family members are in the Army, but if your son is infantry you know what that means, and there is honor in it.

People, in general, have been paying way more attention than they were a few years ago, and it took a lot longer for things to shake out in the Northeast than in other regions. But, most of us have continued to live our lives, and the attention has manifested itself primarily as heighted partisanship. Partisanship is about feeling rather than thinking. It means you're allowing someone else to think for you, because of how you feel, and they have vested interests. Its a different state than apathy, but its not the crisis state. The crisis state is where people really start thinking for themselves. Where they refuse to be partisan and really start focusing on the facts because the facts are matters of survival.

At least, thats the good way. There is an alternative. The alternative is where people are afraid to think. They want other people to do the thinking for them not because they aren't really serious enough to do it themselves but because they can't bare the responsibility of it. They need to follow someone else. Thats a far more dangerous direction. I pray it doesn't happen here, but it can. Only time will tell, but things are inevitably going to get worse and not better. We're in a bad part of the cycle of human society. You and I are young enough that we'll see the other side of it, but we'll be old men when we do.