Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Wackos on the Left:

We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the ‘nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now–before he drags us further into the abyss.



Coutesy Thadguy

I write this as a response to a friend of mine who sent me this article in a link followed by a nasty repudiation of “those wackos of the left”

http://www.commondreams.org/vi…

In his rant, which ended with a very angry sounding; “If they cost Obama another a term, I hope Gingrich sends them to Guantanamo and tortures them!”

I don’t know who Ted Rall is and I don’t care. I grew up in New York, I know Naderites when I see them…I also know they’re not very relevant…except in 2000 when 600 of them in Florida could have changed the course of history. I Googled to find out who Rall was. I was struck that he joined the Republicans in calling for Bill Clinton’s impeachment and reactively attacked Pat Tillman, calling him an “idiot” and a “sap” and inferring that he joined the Army merely to “kill Arabs.” Rall did apologize for those remarks upon finding out Tillman wasn’t a bloodthirsty redneck.

Some of his writings caused my to click the X button. I had never heard of Rall before my friend sent me that link and a big part of me thinks my life was better that I didn’t. Although I have seen him say somethings I agree with. Namely stuff like;

In the end, of course, we are all to blame. It was the American people’s moral obligation to rise up as one against a government that carried out torture in our name. Yet we didn’t lift a finger. If only there was a prison big enough to hold all of us.

Generally though, Rall’s writing struck me as being part of a deadender crowd…you know the type; everyone sucks, everything sucks, I don’t really have a solution, just sit here and bitch…oh and vote Nader!

Last year, while I was in Virginia on the Obama campaign, I met a 60 year old man with a southern drawl who looked like you’re stereotypical Southern Republican wearing an Obama button. Someone on our campaign greeted him and said “You don’t look like the kind of guy who would be for Obama”

The man confessed ten years earlier he demanded Clinton be put in prison and was a strong support of Senator John Warner…but over time even he, a self-described conservative with a capital “C,” no longer belonged in the Republican Party.

“There’s no room for anyone but ideologues there”

People like Rall make me wonder, as he clearly has my friend, will I ever end up like that older gentlement in Virginia, saying the same thing about the Democratic Party?  


20 comments

  1. “People like Rall make me wonder, as he clearly has my friend, will I ever end up like that older gentlement in Virginia, saying the same thing about the Democratic Party?”

    That Rall is somehow an indicator of where the Democratic party is headed? That he is somehow more influential than Obama?

  2. anna shane

    Hyperbole, outrage, whatever, Barack didn’t lie to his voters.  He may have been a projective test, but not because he didn’t say what he was about.  Barack is our practical president, and what he deems practical may not be what I think is, but that doesn’t mean he misrepresented himself.  

    It’s back to empathy, in that it’s seeing how others feel about issues, without necessarily caving into those feelings.  I want us out of Iraq and fast, but I expect Barack wants the same and is going as fast as he thinks we can.  I’m very glad he and Hillary have been tough on Israel regarding the settlements, we’ll avoid some future bloodshed if corrupt governments no longer can use Israel to distract their human-rights-less citizens.  If indeed those photos show Americans raping prisoners, well that ought not be be shown to anyone, although I’m sure Kenneth Star would want his personal copies.  

    Barack has to make judgment calls and they won’t always be the rightest ones, but the bestest he can do given the current situation.  I allowed that for Hillary and I have no doubt that Hillary too would have made some calls I didn’t think were the rightest ones.  But, there are some passionate opinionators and they’ll opine, and bully for us all.  

  3. BlueInUtah

    They’ve always been shouting for change, desperately pointing out everything that’s wrong, longing to make things better.

    Now the situation is, “OK, we’ve got the keys to the car and all the tools, let’s get to this,” and they’re objecting that the person who is in actual charge is making sure the tank is full and the tires are properly inflated and that the map is correct instead of leaping it and roaring off to–somewhere.

    “We must fix this!  We must fix that!”  OK, which first?  How?  Those people over there don’t think it’s broken.  “Fix it!  Now!  If you really cared it would be fixed by now!”

    If they’re not thrusting forward with all their righteous outrage to the fore, they think they’re slacking, and anyone not being as passionately assertive, who’s making sure all the tools are in order and backup in place is a traitor.

    I don’t think there’s a fix.

  4. Radiowalla

    was limited to Hillary Clinton supporters.  At least that is what I was called more than once during the primaries.    But that’s in the past..

    As for Rall, I say a pox on him.  Such overwrought prose, such sanctimonious handwringing is enough to make me turn on Fox News…Oh, no!  I retract that.

    I will, however, say that I never feel so conservative as when I am in the company of folks like Rall.    They are so doctrinaire, so negative, so exacting in their demand for purity that no one can meet their lofty expectations.    

    Better to tune them out entirely.

  5. During the Clinton years. During the Bush years. His entire career has been based on outrage and derision. That’s his job as an editorial cartoonist, really.

    Rall, I suspect, will never be happy with anything. He has pretty much been a deconstructionist from the get go, and we do need that. As a cartoonist, for y’all Lefties, I think that I prefer folks like Tom Tomorrow–his comics contain some interesting insight, even if I don’t always agree with them. He is also nearly always a bit funny–which is something that you can’t always claim with Rall.

    Hypocrisy and abuse of power, they do need illustration. My only problem is that Rall has always been more powerful with the graphic medium, than with words alone. He is an decorated cartoonist, and while his art style grates on me*, he does inject something to the national debate, but it’s always with a heavy hand.

    As much as we need deconstructionist–and we do, to poke holes in favorite policies and ideas–we likewise need folks with better ideas. Rall, he sees the world through a skien of bitter–and it’s the sign of an idealist who’s been disappointed a great deal over the years. He never slid into wry cynicism though, but just got more and more bitter as the years have gone on. He, I don’t think, is able to see anything without that.

    *Its heavy-handedness and deep use of darks makes it often hard to read and his writing is similar in that same heavy handedness and leaning to dark, so it doesn’t appeal to the artist within me that likes clean lines and balance with color and tone. I think he tends to fill space, rather than see some kind of balance, and he doesn’t seem to respect the positive and negative space ratio. He has injected color into his work for a while, and he’s taken to some neat half tone effects, but the simpler the better for editorial cartoons, so Rall, he isn’t a favorite of mine just from that aspect.

  6. HappyinVT

    “IMPEACH OBAMA” sign last week.

    It was a giant sign displayed from the bicycle of a dude was is a Naderite.  He wheels around downtown Burlington with his bike bedecked in colorful streamers.

    I was tempted to ask for what reason(s) did he believe Obama should be impeached and decided I just didn’t care enough to ask.

  7. kidding.

    it seems to me that some people enjoy a perpetual state of indignation. as to the wingos on the left, it seems that like their counterparts on the right it is just as much about garnering attention than anything else. a sign on a bike for pete’s sake?!?!

    what i am finding uniquely strange (and i might be wrong about this) is that the clintonistas that came over after the primary are seemingly the most accepting and satisfied with the administrations moves. wonder if pragmtism plays a factor?

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