Is this how the US lives up to our children's expectations?

[Karmadillo]

http://www.jewishjournal.com/arizona_shooting/article/obama_speech_our_childrens_expectations_20110113/

<edit>

“All of us,” Obama said, “we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.”

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/10/100317_natos_fire_sale.php

NATO'S FIRE SALE - ONE DEAD AFGHAN CHILD, $2,000

On January 11, 2010, we sent out a media alert titled, 'Were Afghan children executed by US-led forces? And why aren't the media interested?'

The alert concerned credible reports that American-led troops had dragged Afghan children from their beds and shot them during a night raid in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan on December 27 last year. Ten people were killed, including eight schoolboys from one family. We noted that the alleged atrocity had been almost wholly ignored by the corporate media, including the BBC.

Two months after these disturbing allegations surfaced, The Times correspondent Jerome Starkey sought out two local men whose children and other relatives had been killed. ('Nato admits that deaths of 8 boys were a mistake', The Times, February 25, 2010; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/ world/afghanistan/article7040166.ece). Starkey invited the men to Kabul where:

"They provided pictures of their dead sons, a sketched map of the compound and copies of the compensation claim forms signed by local officials detailing their sons' names, relatives and positions at school. Their story was supported by Western military sources."

After its initial shameful attempts to deny culpability, Nato now asserts that the raid had been carried out on the basis of faulty intelligence and should never have been authorised:

"Knowing what we know now, it would probably not have been a justifiable attack. We don't now believe that we busted a major ring."

more...

[Angry Dragon]

1. K&R

[FiveGoodMen]

2. K& (canceled-out) R

[Karmadillo]

4. Some people apparently prefer pleasant words to unpleasant facts.

nt

[Gregorian]

3. Using a child's dream as a measurement, Obama made a monumental call.

The first thing I thought as he said it was bombs dropping. Or how in a child's world that would have not been the case.

Using the dream of a child as the metaphor for that which we must live up to in order to achieve the greatest possible nation was a rare concept. And one which we must unlearn in order to obtain. We must unlearn the things that lead us to drop those bombs in the first place.

[Catherina]

5. Rec'd. It's just more meaningless words. n/t

[Karmadillo]

6. Matt Stoller pretty much captured the real Obama (as opposed to the talking Obama)

in this analysis:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/matt-stoller-understanding-the-strategy-of-the-democratic-power-class.html

Since the 1970s, Democratic elites have focused on breaking public sector unions and financializing the economy. Carter, not Reagan, started the defense build-up. Carter, not Reagan, lifted usury caps. Carter, not Reagan, first cut capital gains taxes. Clinton, not Bush, passed NAFTA. It isn’t the base of the Democratic party that did this, but then, voters in America have never had a lot of power because they are too disorganized. And there wasn’t a substantial grassroots movement to challenge this, either.

Obama continues this trend. It isn’t that he’s not fighting, he fights like hell for what he wants. He whipped incredibly aggressively for TARP, he has passed emergency war funding (breaking a campaign promise) several times, and nearly broke the arms of feckless liberals in the process. I mean, when Bernie Sanders did the filiBernie, Obama flirted with Bernie’s potential 2012 GOP challenger. Obama just wants policies that cement the status of a aristocratic class, with crumbs for everyone else (Republican elites disagree in that they hate anyone but elites getting crumbs). And he will fight for them.

There is simply no basis for arguing that Democratic elites are pursuing poor strategy anymore. They are achieving an enormous amount of leverage within the party. Consider the following. Despite Obama violating every core tenet of what might have been considered the Democratic Party platform, from supporting foreclosures to destroying civil liberties to torturing political dissidents to wrecking unions, Obama has no viable primary challenger. Moreover, no Senate Democratic incumbent lost a primary challenge in 2010, despite a horrible governing posture. Now THAT is a successful strategy, it minimized the losses of the Democratic elite and kept them firmly in control of the party. Thus, the political debate remains confined to what neoliberals want to talk about. It’s a good strategy, it’s just you are the one the strategy is being played on.

A lot of people think that Obama is a bad poker player, but they miss the point. He’s not playing with his money, he’s playing with YOUR money. You are the weak hand at the table, he’s colluding with the other players.

more...

[FiveGoodMen]

8. That link should be prominently and permanently displayed on the home page.

[dionysus]

9. why would a site for democrats pin up shitty anti-dem propaganda like that?

:shrug:

[Catherina]

10. Nailed it. What sad times. These people don't care about America's youth

only about consolidating their wealth and power.

[malaise]

7. You have to kill them early

before they grow up :sarcasm: