Comments | mojave_wolf: Given the overall mood of the political blogosphere . . .

mojave_wolf

Given the overall mood of the political blogosphere . . .

May 07, 2008 01:31

I posted this as a comment over at Anglachel's blog earlier, thought I'd repost it here (for a more positive take, see here: http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27616) (from an electoral horse-race point of view, NC was about what I expected and Indiana ( Read more... )

presidential election, election 2008, general election, barack obama, politics, democratic primary, hillary clinton

Comments 25

redcandle17 May 7 2008, 14:24:33 UTC

Hell yes on the entire last paragraph. The Democratic pandering to people who would never vote for them infuriates and frustrates me. And Obama's platitudes and the obsesssive passion they inspire makes me contemptous of his fans.

mojave_wolf May 7 2008, 16:37:36 UTC

Agreed on both counts (and I realize Hillary has done her share of pandering to the social conservative crowd also).

And hell yes to your last sentence.

mydocuments May 7 2008, 14:56:13 UTC

My own $.02.

Under Hillary's national health care plan, Lewis doesn't have a job. Under McCain's Roe v Wade stance, I don't have a job. Plus I don't want to go to jail for performing back alley abortions... Vera Drake I'm not.

I hate politics.

mojave_wolf May 7 2008, 16:32:09 UTC

How would Lewis lose his job? Seriously. It's not a one size fits all plan, people will still have as much choice (actually more) than they have now. People can choose the public option or the insurance company of their choice, and those companies will be as free to cover chiropractic as they are now. Other countries w/similar systems and w/single payer actually tend to be more likely to cover alternative means of health care, and there's no reason why the US should be different ( ... )

mydocuments May 7 2008, 20:57:43 UTC

One of the things I looked at for Hillary's NHS plan did not cover any sort of alternative health care. In fact, a large amount of insurance companies don't cover alternative health care, including chiropractic. I'm sure you don't see it, because the west coast is much more open to alt medicine, but the general consensus of the medical community (and a lot of the nation as a whole) is that chiropractic is witch doctor quackery. And this is why a lot of places don't cover it.

Personally, I am vehemently opposed to national health care. I don't think it will solve the problem of uninsured Americans. My solution would instead be to create sanctions against insurance companies and the like, much like we should be doing with big oil.

mojave_wolf May 7 2008, 21:58:23 UTC

Oh, I know a lot of places don't cover it; I just miss how Hillary's plan would make the situation any worse, since it wouldn't force the people who do cover it now to stop.

ITA w/you that chiropractic and other alternative medicines should be covered; the AMA and the medical & pharma companies are bad about trying to destroy all their competitors any way they can, including spreading and funding anti-alt (from chiropractic to tcm to herbal) propaganda.

Thread 6

caliantrias May 7 2008, 16:26:27 UTC

It fascinates me how every negative thing you say about Obama is how I perceive Clinton, her campaign and many of her supporters.

One of the big differences is when we perceived the DP to have gone to hell, I say it started in '88 and hit bottom in '04. You seem to see it as having started in '01.

But we agree on one thing - Fuck Unity, let's argue and fight and scream until our throats are dry and cracked. Then we can flip a coin to see who buys the first round.

mojave_wolf May 7 2008, 17:04:03 UTC

Well, yes to your last sentence, and I'm not going to argue with you on '88--Al Gore and Jesse Jackson ran vastly better campaigns than Dukakis but he got anointed early on and the anointing stuck. I do agree it hit bottom in the 2000's, though I don't see '04 being any worse than '02 and '03, and do think the extreme universal tanking started as complete cowardice post-9/11 that hadn't previously existed ( ... )

caliantrias May 7 2008, 19:30:59 UTC

In random order ( ... )

caliantrias May 7 2008, 16:44:26 UTC

I'm curious as to why you distrust Obama on reproductive freedom? Also, after reading this article comparing Clinton and Obama's voting record I think he is headed in the right direction with energy policy.

The nuclear issue right now is a real pain-in-the-ass with long time opponents suddenly thinking they have to compromise on it. This may represent the difference in the movement between those who have deep environmental concerns and those who only saw it as a human safety concern. Whatever the cause, we need to correct it.

mojave_wolf May 7 2008, 17:25:38 UTC

Is that a real article or just something posted at Kos? They have the same level of credibility w/me as Barbara Ehrenreich or Rush Limbaugh at this point . . . (you might want to copy and paste; I refuse to click on links to that site--I didn't like them even before the campaign and now I *loathe* them and wish Markos's advertising revenue to dry up).

Nukes is what turned me off Obama in the first place (yeah, I know, I've said that 100 times, I'll try to stop for a few days at least now). This is something we're in total accord on; I've posted thoughts on it at a couple of places but will do a separate comment here sometime soon.

Re: Obama/abortion -- see my response to another comment right above yorus, plus his book, though after calling it a troubling or undeniably vexing issue and stating his support of anti-choice dems and sympathy for anti-choice republicans throughout it, he did finally come out as claiming to be (and probably actually is, in a very passive way) pro-choice at the end of it.

caliantrias May 7 2008, 17:30:53 UTC

The KOS article is from January. I *think* it was before they ....oh wait, I'm confusing KOS with Democratic (f)Underground. I selected it with caution thinking it was DU before DU turned rabidly anti-clinton. Anyway, it has some selected quotes from various issues and debates. I guess, I wouldn't bother now that I realize it's probably not very objective.

Heh, I can't tell if your last sentence was serious or sarcastic . . . mojave_wolf May 7 2008, 18:11:57 UTC

I realize I get *very* worked up about this and hope I haven't offended you. I actually have clicked on a link to DU for something not that long ago that I thought was decent (assuming I haven't also gotten confused about who was who; is Chris Bowers at DU?), though yeah, for the most part, as w/most of the established left blogs, they went rabidly anti-Clinton ( ... )

Thread 10

freeslagg May 7 2008, 23:36:20 UTC

As racist are NC and SC have been in the previous years I passed though, I am *shocked* Obama pulled it off.

Not appalled. I really don't care. But I am shocked.

This may be a more detailed answer than you want if you really don't care . . . mojave_wolf May 8 2008, 00:01:30 UTC

Well, I think most of the genuinely people are in the Republican party, contrary to what some of Obama's supporters seem to think. Sexism is probably more evenly spread through the parties and rampant in the media, plus the same areas that are most racist are probably usually the most sexist, so I don't think she got a big plus there ( ... )