Discussion for article #244779
Somewhere, John McCain is quietly weeping, âBomb⌠bomb bomb⌠bomb⌠bomb Ir- >sob< -anâŚâ
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I am so pleased that this deal is working, despite Bibiâs and his fellow travelersâ attempts to queer the deal (Iâm looking at you, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, and especially, Chuck Schumer).
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âŚand TomCotton and his little buddy , BiBi are bellowing in angerâŚ
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Donât forget the Saudis.
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Now, had the republicans had their way, we would have bombed Iran 2 years ago and destroyed that reactor that is now unusable, because it has been filled with concrete. They would have tried to bomb the centrifuges, hidden in underground, bomb resistant bunkersâŚthe same ones now disabled and under UN watch.
In other words, had we done what Bibi wanted 2 years ago and bombed Iran, they would be rebuilding the reactor, rebuilding their centrifuges and going full blast towards a nuke, feeling justified after being attacked by the US.
Instead, Iran is de-nuked and has no incentive to build a bomb. Its a GOP nightmare. Maybe now, theyâll be forced to notice that its not Iran, but our friends the Saudis who actually export the radical Islam that is the source of ISIS, Al Queda and most of the terrorism in the world.
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Ummm, another deal that wouldnât have happened without Obama at the helm.
Jimmy Carter even failed at this as he proposed the beginnings of taking the middle easts oil and he is one of the godfathers of international co-operation. Not exactly the same two things but energy related and definitely Arab/middle eastish.
Where Republicans see the opportunity to bomb and destroy, President Obama and the Democrats, most anyways, see huge opportunities to end old conflict, end the chance of nuclear explosions anywhere and a way to new and mended friendships.
Plus we saved some lives in the deal, not bad, not bad.
Despite the hurt feefees of the Obama envious crowd and the haters that canât see good for the bad at the end of their noses, this is yet another huge win and accomplishment for the Obama administration.
Vote Democrats for Smart (its the new trend in everything) Government & Peace!
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They way Trump talks you would think we are giving Iran 100 billion cash of taxpayers money, instead of just releasing frozen Iranian assets. He is of course intentionally trying to mislead people the way he always does. His supporters view of the world must be completely warped
Iâm in festschrift mode, taking in the news of this historic diplomatic achievement, so please bear with me on this lengthy post I wrote last summer when the details of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 nations was first released:
âWe are stronger not when we are alone, but when we bring the world together.â âPresident Barack Obama
Watching President Barack Obama explain and defend the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group, I was struck by how fragile are the attempts at peace, and how inertia â be it short-sighted stubbornness, ideology, political partisanship and expediency, or a lucrative status quo invested in armaments, brinksmanship, and a permanent war footing â often tends to lead us to disunity, lawlessness and chaos.
I was also struck by how this president, derided by his critics as dangerously naĂŻve, feckless, a mere âcommunity organizer,â embodies no less than the spirit and the vision of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who lifted this country out of the worst economic disaster in its history by first providing work, hope and inspiration to an impoverished nation and then, faced with the prospect of a holocaust engulfing Europe, organized the U.S. and other countries into an allied coalition which succeeded in turning the tide of history, liberating Europe and Asia from fascism, and ensuring decades of good relations between our former enemies.
Similarly, President John F. Kennedy sought to overcome the Cold War nuclear stalemate, brokering the historic Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets and staring down Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis â but heroically avoiding escalation and war, over the objections of opponents who loudly urged him to show âleadershipâ and âstrength.â
JFK also worked to promote American well-being and optimism through a widely shared prosperity and an emphasis on scientific, educational and cultural achievements, sought to community-organize through health care initiatives and civil rights reform, and promoted a sense of national purpose through initiatives such as the space program and the Peace Corps.
I was also reminded of last yearâs US-Africa Leaders Summit â for which President Obama brought along 500 business men and women to forge greater economic ties with one of the worldâs fastest growing regions â and how President Obama reached out to these nations as equals.
Many mocked the trip as another one of Obamaâs endless, taxpayer funded vacations.
But that effort, laughable to some, culminated in the renewal this summer of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which will allow sub-Saharan countries to sell their goods in the United States duty-free and forge stronger ties with American interests.
President Obama also raised hackles when he signaled his intent, in an announcement to the Iranian people in 2009, to overcome longstanding animosities between Iran, the U.S., and the world at large.
"We will extend our hand if you unclench your fist."
Through years of negotiations and diplomacy, he managed to enlist the worldâs great powers in the effort, overcome criticism that he would fail to engage the hostile and untrustworthy Iranians, and counter accusations that he was ensuring an Iranian doomsday bomb and exacerbating an existential threat to our ally Israel.
And now, an agreement to limit Iranâs nuclear program to peaceful purposes â unprecedented in the scope and intrusiveness of its inspections and enforcement regime âhas been passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council and upheld by Congress.
President Obama also is negotiating to forge closer economic ties and establish enforceable labor and environmental standards among 11 Asian and Pacific nations through the Trans Pacific Partnership. This agreement, years in preparation, was heralded by Obama in a 2011 address to the Australian Parliament, in which he reaffirmed Americaâs role as a Pacific power and a champion of fair and free trade.
Despite harsh criticism and opposition from many elected Democrats and labor leaders â who decried the initiative as a sellout of American workers, and even a surrendering of American sovereignty to multinational corporations and foreign interests â Obama secured authority to conclude negotiations and bring a finalized agreement to Congress, and in late 2015 an agreement signed by all 12 nations was presented to Congress for approval.
Upon a successful conclusion of an Asia-Pacific pact, his fast-track authority will enable him to conclude ongoing negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a similar U.S.-Europe trade agreement.
In what has been described as the Obama Doctrine â America is strongest not when it leads with its might, but with its principles â we see a vision emerge that embraces statesmanship, economics, human rights and social justice, education and scientific inquiry, and a commitment to forging partnerships that strengthen internationally recognized ideals.
Just as the earliest nation builders and community organizers recognized, despite the seeming randomness and chaos of Creation, the physical universe exhibits patterns of elegant, exquisite and profound organization. Once we realize the beautiful, harmonious, rational basis for universal patterns of organization â and the understanding that our lives too can have meaning and purpose â the question then becomes: how should we organize our affairs and personal relations, our communities, and our nations, so that we may live our lives in harmony and in accordance with a universal order in a way that ensures peace, justice, freedom and dignity to all living souls on our planet?
How can we walk this Earth as brothers and sisters, and how can we share this world as family?
As the President said when announcing the Iran nuclear agreement, âWe are stronger not when we are alone, but when we bring the world together.â
President Obama inherited two long, ruinous wars that served to inflame and radicalize our adversaries, alienate our strongest allies, and promote cynicism about Americaâs moral authority as a world leader, and he has ended both combat missions while attempting to build a worldwide global coalition to resolve crises in the Middle East and one between Russia and Ukraine.
The agreement to limit Iranâs nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions has the potential to ease Middle East tensions and free up Iranian oil and gas for the European market, which could undercut Russiaâs ability to use its own oil and gas as a geopolitical weapon to counter economic sanctions imposed by America and an energy-dependent Europe in response to Russiaâs incursions into Ukraine.
And easing travel restrictions and normalizing relations with Cuba â marking the end of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere â promises to relieve isolation for Cuban citizens, strengthen the hand of reformers, and undercut attempts by Russia and Venezuela to forge wider hemispheric links.
President Obamaâs attempts to broker a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, his success in getting Syria to surrender its chemical weapons without a fight, his determination to assemble a coalition of allies â and adversaries â to combat the terrorist group ISIS on their home turf, and his ongoing attempts to address Iranâs nuclear ambitions with diplomacy mark a renewed attempt to organize a world community around something besides war and an attempt to dominate over other peoples:
He is attempting to reaffirm and uphold the principles that inspired us to save the world from fascism and authoritarianism, and strengthen a community of nations with the capacity to coexist and resolve problems peacefully, and without a desire to dominate another people.
We constantly hear cries of âget government out of the wayâ from conservatives chafing under the burden of taxes and regulations designed to protect the public and ensure fair business practices.
Gun rights absolutists revel in the âDirty Harryâ image of the lone dispenser of justice who is willing to skirt the law and violate civil rights of suspects in his pursuit of âlaw-and-order.â
A popular culture awash in crime-fighting âaction heroesâ and overwrought police dramas, and tabloid-style news programs that exaggerate and sensationalize the incidence of violent crime, reinforce the narratives of gun-rights absolutists who oppose even the most moderate and least-intrusive restrictions as counter to their need for self-protection, of legislators who champion vigilante-inspired Stand Your Ground laws, and of law-and-order ideologues who advocate for an increasingly militarized police force.
These efforts do not promote, but tear apart, the sense of community. Just as the radical free market fundamentalists who decry any government regulation of our economy for the benefit of the public welfare as an ill-conceived and counter-productive intrusion, and who espouse an âindividualismâ that is little more than social atomism and division, the law-and-order absolutists who exploit fear of violent crime and insist that we are all alone and defenseless without our personal arsenal serve to undermine and raise doubts on the effectiveness of our social order and our institutions for collective action and justice.
Their proposals would not usher in a more free society, but a nightmarish dystopia best described by Thomas Hobbes: âNo arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.â
And so, the debate before us is not between big government and limited government; it is between smart, effective leadership that works to solve problems and bring people together to work toward mutually beneficial goals, and abusive governments that perpetuate the privileges of special interests and maintain power imbalances by dominating others, and which do not enjoy the consent of its people.
Itâs the age-old battle between chaos and community.
And so it goes: the community organizerâs continuing struggle for A More Perfect Union.
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Randy, I think that you were away for a while reflecting and studying?
First I want to say congrats on your error free, as far as I could tell, writing and typing skills. Personally, despite my awareness that I always make mistakes and the attempts to correct before I post, I just about always catch errors after I hit reply. I have a lazy T finger that misses quite often : )
Second, I commend your willingness to put out the effort. That was thorough and involved. I appreciate it as I have never been the best at digging into research but will use others if I agree with it. You are quotable here and often. I lack eloquence and it shows in comparison to your writing. Iâm an idea man, not a novelist nor a writer of papers worthy of publishing. We should hook up and you could ghost write for me and we could make big bucks, haha. Really, you donât need me.
Tertiary (I like this word), You are on point and stayed on it. No ranting, thank you. Your walk back through time always is interesting and helpful. People forget and get in that, what have you done for me lately, mode.
Barack has crafted quite the legacy with a slow and deliberate beginning, always with the intention of accomplishing his healthcare reforms and then off to the races with one accomplishment after the other with some landmark efforts scattered throughout. We need a third term and this President is one of very few that we actually wouldnât mind having around for four more years. He is scandal free as well, that one gets overlooked but is yet another major accomplishment. And he never freaked out at the attacks from the right which took restraint that I never couldâve mustered, so kudos and more.
Finally, I like the intersperse of bits of humanity that are what really matters. It isnât just a win for wins sake thing and politics because of politics. The purpose of it all is to create and maintain a better union and lives. To do exactly what the Obama doctrine does, which is to unite with the whole world and not single out enemies that we can control, use and abuse.
Americaâs greatness is in that and a term that is never mentioned any more, American ingenuity, is also where we have separated our nation from many in the past. That is lost now and we have allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of only being about great wealth with no underlying community behind it.
The real grass roots are where the real rubber hits the real road.
Happy New Year Randy, keep up the good work and always take time to stop and smell the roses. That should be in the constitution in fact ; )
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Thanks, Leftflank, I agree with all your points, and Happy New Year to you as well.
Although I have to plead guilty on my typing â Iâm a terrible typist and my clumsy mitts are always hitting the wrong key. The above post I had written in MS Word and spell-checked â you wouldnât want to see the error-riddled first draft.
I too am excited by the possibilities that are within our reach if we just try to get people together in a problem-solving mode. Too often our politics serve to divide us instead of unite us, and I hope that President Obamaâs legacy will include that willingness to reach out to opponents in an effort to solve problems and resolve disputes.
Just like with healthcare, he has gotten the ball rolling and that is a hard thing to stop once started. Which is exactly why the âconservativesâ fight 'til the bitter end to halt all efforts. Barack has flummoxed them I think, they usually find a way and donât lose.
I still canât really believe that he got healthcare passed.
Hillary or Bernie will have to continue the legacy I believe because the majority has gotten the taste and the people that elect them wonât settle for the opposite any longer.
I hope President Obama gets things rolling with financial equality especially because this is a cause that either of our two best candidates will jump all over. Itâs Bernieâs wheelhouse in fact and Hillary has to, but I think would anyways, also carry the torch.
The gun issue is something that the Prez could go out huge on and the list goes on. I believe he will be active right to the end on much of it.
His successes will only beget more successes. The tide has turned and Democracy and we are the ones that will receive the benefits.
Thanks Barack Obama, thank you very much!
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Yes, we have good candidates and hopefully the voters will be energized and engaged this year.
And we have an excellent president who is setting the agenda!
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