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or Paperback
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Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
Listen at the end as rMoney chuckles through his denial that he even remembers having physically assaulted a fellow student in his prep school…
Really? Mitt is horrifying therefore Obama is no longer disappointing? That’s pretty damn weak Greg.
My sentiments exactly Philip. If I weren’t a lesbian involved in a 15 year monogamous relationship I would kiss you right on the mouth.
Sorry, I didn’t realize I’d have the sock puppets from Jason’s comment thread bothering us over here. Fixed that too.
It does not surprise me that a group of priviliged kids never grew up. This year’s race for the white house has become a political stereotype of bombastic proportions.
I’m not sure why my comment got removed? If I posted something inappropriate I’d like to know what it was so I can avoid doing it again. (That is assuming my comment actually ever posted, which I realize from my mobile isn’t always the case.)
No idea. Sorry.
Nathair @2:
Reading FAIL.
Greg never said that. He said Disappointed in Obama? That can be fixed.”
Somehow, you heard “Disappointed in Obama? You won’t be any more when you listen to this clip.”
What it really meant: “If you’re disappointed in Obama, here’s a guy that’s significantly worse”
Not a problem Greg, I just wanted to make certain I hadn’t transgressed 🙂
Yeah, we have reason to be disappointed in everything. I love Gloria Steinem’s phrase “Feminism is the longest revolution” and that’s correct, as long as we also say that “Gay rights is the longest revolution too” (we could argue about which is longer but I’m not sure what the criteria would be) and the truth is that “Civil rights, as a revolution, is still rather half baked” and apply that generally.
We need all sorts of perspectives and all sorts of activities, but I really do think it would be useful for everyone concerned about the very current and very active issue of same sex marriage to look at other people’s points of view. People who think civil unions are good enough need to realize that this isn’t even close to true (and note that those who think they’ll “allow” civil unions back off when civil unions are like regular marriage). But at the same time, people who are not activists need to look at the issue form the activists perspective. Purity is not your friend. If it is necessary for Obama to have come fully fledged into office as a pro-same sex marriage supporter, then it would also have been necessary for the electorate to have done so as well. But guess what, folks. The majority of Americans are against same sex marriage. Also, African Americans (quite justifiably and we are all very happy about this) put Obama in Office, but as a subgroup of Democrats, African Americans poll much lower in support of Gay Marriage. Yet, some of the strongest African American political enclaves, like the one in coalition with all sorts of progressive groups in Minnesota’s Fifth CD, which put the first Muslim who happens to also be African American in Congress, is strongly pro gay marriage. It is quite possible that same sex marriage and gay rights in general would have done better with Clinton in the Oval Office, but had Clinton been elected there would have been different kinds of pushback and she would be running with her engine pulled up on those issues, different from Obama, but probably just as annoying to those who wanted those things to happen. There is a very good argument that since Clinton was the anti-health care lightning rod that we would not have Obamacare (well, it would have been Hilarycare, but whatever). And so on and so forth.
My point is that it is complicated, the complications must always be taken into account and when you don’t you become ineffective, there is no pure politician because there can’t be, and while activism can have an overarching goal that is pretty pure, actions …. specific campaigns that have specific reults …. often cant. If the President and Vice President say all of the sudden that they are for gay marriage, and if YOU are for gay marriage, then doing things that dilute that message, cause us to fail in taking advantage of the moment, or otherwise thwart the cause, are counterproductive and politically unwise. Doing/saying/acting on such things might make you feel as an individual like you are all pure and perfect and shit, but what you really did was to slam someone else’s finger in the door so you could feel the bright shiny amazingness of your own self.
As I’ve said elsewhere, those who can do little other than point out that it should have been sooner look foolish because everybody really does already know that. The proper thing to do is this: When someone is NOT coming out the way you want them to, you push in ways that will be effective until they do, and when they do, you are happy with that. That’s what works. Those who can do little more than complain that this must be strategic in timeing etc. etc. look pretty foolish because this is, after all, politics and these are politicians. There better damn well be strategy.
Which brings me to another point. I think Obama is actually taking a hit here for reasons I cited above. He will lose some of his base for this, and the election is predicted to be close enough that this actually has a lot of people worried that he may have handed the election over to Romney by coming out for same sex marriage.
So, with things that close, is this a good time to make sure we ramp up the cynicism to really obnoxious levels? Shave off another half point on the vote, maybe five to 15 electoral votes?
That would be really really stupid. Purity troll must hear purity troll’s own voice, never mind the cost. Fuck purity troll.
I may be a tad bit disappointed in Obama, but I would NEVER vote for a republican. Republican viewpoints are almost 180 degrees from mine.
or: “Calling it marriage solves a whole host of problems for the families, for the law.”
Calling it marriage is irrelevant to the practice of religion and education.
Ahh, of course! What it really meant is something completely different than what it said, or what Greg has been saying for a couple of days now! Thanks fanboi!
What he said was “That can be fixed” and no it can’t, at least not by anything anyone in his cheering section says. The only way it’s going to change is if Obama retracts, apologizes and changes his stance (and I am not holding my breath.)