Obama brushes off "critics" from the right, and the "left"...
In reading Adept2's recent popular diary, and watching the video clips, I had a comment waaaay down at the end of the thread, which I've decided to bring as a diary
What impresses me most...
...about Obama, even in the first clip, where they are trying so hard, so ridiculously and disingenuously, to make fun of him and put him down, he comes off so confident, cheerful, and competent...
When joking around self depreciatingly in the second clip, he comes off as a brilliant, witty, and...cheerful person, even as he socks it to his opponents.
AS IF this man really even Needs a teleprompter, to tell it like it is.
He's a strong candidate, strongest I've ever seen, since Bobby, when I first started really paying attention (tears well up).
It's understandable how the right would hate his guts, and fear him, so much.
But how people on the "left", especially here on dkos, could consistently, ruthlessly slag him and attack him the way that so many tend to do, is just beyond comprehension. It's irrational, and thus, suspect.
Indeed, it seems some of them fear him as much as the right, for whatever cryptic, duplicitous reasons.
Personally, I'm primed to HR the first motherfucker who says another shitty disparaging word about the President, or "teh Dems".
This is not about suppressing "legitimate criticism", because to just gratuitously slag Obama, and the Party, is neither legitimate, nor valid critique, when it just sounds like another unprincipled attack against what may be our best, last hope to seize the power in this country, for justice and peace, to save the planet.
The real politik is that the President and the Party, and the whole goddamn world, are hostage to a right wing conservative dictatorship of monopoly corporate fascism, indeed, the biggest, baddest, richest motherfuckers, Evah.
The least one can do, in critiquing the Democratic Party, is to distinguish between the those who are at least trying to pursue the platform and the program, and those who refuse, and block it at the most critical moments, the minority rump right wing faction of Blue Dog "Democrats", who keep siding with the Republicans.
The right are blocking and attacking everything Obama and the Democrats want to do, and trying to destroy everything we have accomplished in the last 50 years and more.
This is ALL about the relative right/left plurality in the House and Senate, and down the ladders of power to the state and local levels.
The closer we get to real democracy, the more hysterical and draconian the rhetoric and practice of the right will become. It could get ugly.
You can bring all the left or anarchist analysis you want, about the many evils of capitalism as we now know it, and it's moribund form, fascism...and you won't necessarily be wrong, per se, in your laundry list of complaints about the complete inadequacy of the Obama administration and the Party, such as they are presently, subject to a right wing majority in the Congress.
But those who would present a bottom line analysis that we are thus obligated, "on principle" to oppose and destroy the Democratic Party, or who would even be so elitist and misanthropic as to "think" that it's "better" to have the right seize the power, to supposedly more effectively provoke the masses to revolution (which worked so well, in dealing with the nazis, and the Republican counter-revolution, don't you know) and even, among some chaos freak tendencies, to "destroy all civilization", and revert to tribal parochialism...such tendencies of rhetoric depart from the realm of rational debate, including explicit dkos parameters for principled discussion.
The real politik is not only that the right presently holds the plurality of power in the Congress, but also that this balance of power is hanging by a thread, even after 2010.
The prospect of seizing real progressive/moderate Democratic Majorities, that are not rotten with half a dozen vacillating, weaseling, half-stepping, back-stabbing Blue Dogs, is tangible, feasible, conceivably possible.
This obligates us to try harder, to fulfill the popular democratic mandate of the '08 elections, to resolutely engage the enemy in the electoral arena, to seize the power, for real, for a change.
The right will never surrender voluntarily to the popular democratic will. They must be coerced. Purged, and suppressed. Democratically, of course, electorally, legislatively, and judicially. From now on.
ZOMG!!?? He said "purged, and suppressed"!!! That's Fascist/Stalinist Commmunizzzm!!!! Aiiiiiiiiii!!!!1!
It's the popular democratic will, as expressed in the '08 elections.
This is the USA, and we aspire to be Democratic.
Just because Nobody, Anywhere, Ever, has Yet succeeded in implementing a genuine democracy does not mean it's not possible.
If anyone can do this, we can.
We will not be denied.
We are obligated, as Americans, as revolutionaries, to step up and make it so.
The ice caps are melting, faster and faster.
Those whose objective is to destroy the Democratic Party are not our friends.
It's the only viable Party of the working class, presently, such as it is, and we do not have another 50 years to argue ad nauseum over 100 year old catechisms of revolutionary theory and historical practice, such as it has been.
We absolutely must seize the power, now.
Seize the Time!
All Power to the People!
All Out for 2012!
This is dkos, and it's all about electing more better Democrats. Period.
ToS is ToS.
If people want to "criticize", they should keep it civil, and rational, and accurate. I have no problem with that. Nobody's perfect, and principled criticism is a fundamental basis of democracy.
But when personas keep bringing subjective oppositionalist hyperbolic jive, they should be told, in no uncertain terms, to stfu with that jive or gtfo...and if they persist, HR'd.
Dkos Community...let's moderate!
And the next person who calls me a "Troll Hunter", calling for "Vigilante Posse Gangs", can hopefully explain why unprincipled, subjective, hyperbolic jive, contrary to ToS, should be "tolerated", as "free speech", from ANY faction, or persona who would presume to assert solidarity in struggle?
Badges? What badges? We don't got to Show you no Steenking BADges!!
Community Moderation is built into the site, and we should use it, in a principled, objective manner, according to the FAQ, and I mean to imply nothing more, or less.
I signed a contract, coming in here, agreeing to participate in keeping it a partisan Democratic site, through Community Moderation.
Seemed like a good idea, to me. Now, the system has been turned back on, after a fairly long hiatus during which, in lieu of admin moderation also, the venue has been swamped and flooded with all conceivable stripes of trolls, spamming us with ultra-negativity that can only be intended to insinuate absolute non-viability of the President and the Party.
Nobody with a brain can dispute or deny this phenomenon. This is the internet, and as we all know, dkos is notorious for being one of the most popular and viable Democratic venues, which is like honey to flies.
It's always been like this, but it's gotten worse. Not the end of the world, or absolute destruction of the dkos community, but certainly not an "asset" either.
We don't "need" oppositionalist trolling, to be Democratic, or democratic. It's NOT going to push "teh Dems" to the left.
Attacking our allies from the left only pushes them toward the right.
Obama is not your daddy, and neither is the Party.
It's on us, to mobilize the electorate to seize the power, whether Obama and the Party help us sufficiently, or even like it, or not.
This is not about them. It's about us.
We have some Spring Cleaning to do, as we enter what could be the final struggle of the most significant revolutionary victory in our lifetimes, gong into 2012.
We must not break ranks in the face of the enemy, shredding each other, weaseling for sectarian hegemony.
We don't "need" a fifth column of oppositionalist snipers, on the right or the "left", attacking us from behind the lines, to be democratic, any more than we "need" a seditious anti-democratic traitorous monopoly corporate fascist "opposition" in government, or media, to be "democratic".
In an anonymous venue like this, there's no way to tell for sure who most participants really are, or where they're really coming from. All we have to go on is the practice.
It's the only way to sort out and weed out trolls, not based on "opinions", but on whether they bring principled solidarity, or not.
Solidarity demands a principled practice, according to ToS and the FAQ, and we should all hold each other to it, I say.
A little humor can go a long way.