[Vision2020] Three Democratic myths used to demean the Paul filibuster

Tue Mar 12 07:17:45 PDT 2013

Joe,

Since I would have linked this myself had I not been on the road, I disagree with you. I'm not sure if you read the entire article or just the excerpt, but either way my position is the same. I don't think Greenwald's exaggerating the D's position on these issues at all. I think they have embraced and internalized the Bush/Cheney policies. Whether it's because they don't want to break with Obama, or because their disagreement with the prior administration was purely political, the end result is the same. 

I particularly liked this:

'Find any defender of Obama's claimed power to assassinate accused 
Terrorists without due process and that is exactly what you will hear. 
That's why it is no surprise that the conservatives whom Democrats claim
 most to loathe - from Dick Cheney to John Yoo to Lindsey Graham to Peter King
 - have been so outspoken in their defense of Obama's actions in this 
area (and so critical of Paul): because the premises needed to justify 
Obama's policies are the very ones they so controversially pioneered.'

While some people here have voiced opposition to the drone policy, at a national level Greenwald is correct. And the voices opposing the policy are the exception, I think. On this listserve we've seen ludicrous defenses offered for the drone policy.

Sunil

> Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:30:58 -0700
> From: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
> To: godshatter at yahoo.com
> CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Three Democratic myths used to demean the Paul	filibuster
> 
> Paul, this article is pretty offensive. I would count the number of
> sweeping generalizations about liberals and progressives noted in the
> article but given your previous posts, I'd like to see if you can do
> it. I don't think you can.
> 
> You know at least a few liberal/progressives on the V who have been
> critical of Obama's policies. Sunil was one. I am another. Even Tom.
> Sure wrt some of those policies, Tom's perhaps less critical, but he's
> always given reasons to support his views. To be frank, if you cared
> about what women say, you'd have other examples (Rose, Saundra -- to
> name two of several). Like your posts, this article is more distortion
> than opinion. There is not a lot of information here.
> 
> How much time in his speech did R. Paul devote to the important issues
> discussed in this article -- foreign policy concerns, which many of us
> have already conceded are worthy of attention -- as opposed to time
> that he devoted to stirring the emotions of the radical right?
> 
> Well, with this post, I bid a fond farewell to the V -- only for a
> limited time. I've got some work to do! I wish you well -- even you,
> Paul.
> 
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > This is an interesting article on the reaction of Democrats to the Paul
> > filibuster.  I thought it was quite insightful.
> >
> > The article is too long to post it in it's entirety.  I'm posting a link to
> > the article in the Guardian and will copy+paste the first few paragraphs.
> >
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/10/paul-filibuster-drones-progressives
> >
> >
> > Three Democratic myths used to demean the Paul filibuster
> >
> > The progressive 'empathy gap', a strain of liberal authoritarianism, and a
> > distortion of Holder's letter are invoked to defend Obama
> >
> > Commencing immediately upon the 9/11 attack, the US government under two
> > successive administrations has spent 12 straight years inventing and
> > implementing new theories of government power in the name of Terrorism.
> > Literally every year since 9/11 has ushered in increased authorities of
> > exactly the type Americans are inculcated to believe only exist in those
> > Other, Non-Free societies: ubiquitous surveillance, impenetrable secrecy,
> > and the power to imprison and even kill without charges or due process. Even
> > as the 9/11 attack recedes into the distant past, the US government still
> > finds ways continuously to increase its powers in the name of Terrorism
> > while virtually never relinquishing any of the power it acquires. So
> > inexorable has this process been that the Obama administration has already
> > exercised the power to target even its own citizens for execution far from
> > any battlefield, and the process has now arrived at its inevitable
> > destination: does this due-process-free execution power extend to US soil as
> > well?
> >
> > All of this has taken place with very little public backlash: especially
> > over the last four years. Worse, it has prompted almost no institutional
> > resistance from the structures designed to check executive abuses: courts,
> > the media, and Congress. Last week's 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan's
> > confirmation as CIA director by GOP Sen. Rand Paul was one of the first -
> > and, from the perspective of media attention, easily among the most
> > effective -Congressional efforts to dramatize and oppose just how radical
> > these Terrorism-justified powers have become. For the first time since the
> > 9/11 attack, even lowly cable news shows were forced - by the Paul
> > filibuster - to extensively discuss the government's extremist theories of
> > power and to debate the need for checks and limits.
> >
> > All of this put Democrats - who spent eight years flamboyantly pretending to
> > be champions of due process and opponents of mass secrecy and executive
> > power abuses - in a very uncomfortable position. The politician who took
> > such a unique stand in defense of these principles was not merely a
> > Republican but a leading member of its dreaded Tea Party wing, while the
> > actor most responsible for the extremist theories of power being protested
> > was their own beloved leader and his political party.
> >
> > ...
> >
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/10/paul-filibuster-drones-progressives
> >
> > =======================================================
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> >  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> >                http://www.fsr.net
> >           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> > =======================================================
> 
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
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