The politics of energy had taken on a "down the rabbit hole" semblance before this... Now? To say it has taken a turn for the surreal is surely a comical use of understatement.
And then, just when you think the man was nothing but a befuddled mistake, he comes out with this:
"I have no idea what new energy sources are going to be available, what technologies might drive down the price of renewable energies," he said. "What we can predict is that the availability of fossil fuel is going to be diminishing; that it's going to get more expensive to recover; that there are going to be environmental costs that our children, ... our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren are going to have to bear."WTF??!! That was the most cogent, concise, and lucid commentary to come from a public official, let alone the mealy mouthed divinations we are usually tortured with from sitting U.S. presidents.
Just goes to show you... a man lives long enough he's likely to see and hear just about everything. Too bad the administration cannot summon good sense like that at will.
10 comments:
Well, hell, hes a lawyer. Even worse, he's a TEACHING lawyer. They are trained to find facts and juggle them towards a reasonable decision. My vote for Obama was like many others .. it was a cry for help. We thought that maybe, maybe this time this guy realized that time was short, and drastic action was required. Out-of-the-box thinking, as it were. But, he slipped back into what he knows ... careful, methodical, take-your-time, facts-would-set-us-free lawyering. Egad. :(
Obama was a PC creation of the Democratic primary process. He got the nomination because he was a smooth talking black guy that didn't scare the h@ll out of white America by talking like a rap star.
But all one had to do was read just a wee bit about the man's background to understand he wasn't going to do anything any differently than any of the other recent clowns. In fact, there was much to suggest he wasn't even going to be that good.
I'm feeling better about my write-in for Ron Paul every day.
I've always taken the philosophy of standing up for what I believe in (or who I believe in) up to the point of decision but then getting behind whatever decision is made. I don't agree with whingeing from the sidelines; I find it pointless and destructive to myself as well as everyone else.
Obama is a highly intelligent and principled guy who will do the best that he can. You live in a democracy (for all its faults) and he was voted in by a clear majority. He'll make plenty of mistakes (as we all do) and he'll often find himself in 'no-win' situations (like now) but I believe it demeans individuals who continually knock whatever he does 'on principle'(??)just because its him/he's black/he's a Democrat.
Is this what American democracy means? Is this what you teach your children?
(and P.S. the other guy from AZ was hardly a better choice :))
So why hasn't President Obama given Habeas Corpus rights back, or reduced or removed parts of the patriot act that he railed against in some of his speeches? How about making the US less of a warmongering state? He's just a smart status quo candidate wrapped in "Change". If people really wanted some real change to change the US from a debt ridden empire, people would have voted for Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich the only two people in respective primaries that actually wanted to reduce the military industrial complex--which apparently is not something that can be done.
It grows clearer all the time that the Top-down solutions will just lead to more tyranny over time, the Republicans and Democrats just take turns continuing to erode rights/liberty/freedom--but its always to 'protect' us.
When you have systemic corruption the system will continue to work for those who influence/manipulate the system the most--lawyers are good at this, doesn't mean b/c something is lawful that its either moral/ethical or will help this country. People WANT the STATUS QUO, people don't care if its realistic, people don't know realism, unless they are hit over the head with it...we are a country of irrational cry babies, who despite the crying are truly apathetic to engage in real personal change, or move away from the the fiction that is the two party "divide and conquer" system that give's us less freedom, and more crony capitalism. Pres. Obama was just more liberal Cool-Aid, sort of like people hoping that god is going to save them and kill all the people they don't like. People don't want the truth or reality, they want what only perfected Nano-Technology could provide us---magical endless resources at no personal cost.
-Meiyo
DOnal:
Highly intelligent to be sure. Principled? Does not fit in with our political system at the moment.
Competent? Not yet, and that was the larger point.
Donal,
I'm not maligning him because he is black. Rather, I am saying that he got the nod because he is black and I consider that a simple fact.
I've talked to a goodly number of people around me who voted. I know why many of them voted for Obama and it was NOT for what he had previously accomplished or what he had said either before or during the campaign, but because of what he is/was: a black guy.
I stand by that statement.
What I teach kids IS to vote and act on ideas and principle, and proven competency and accomplishment (which Obama didn't come even close to having prior to his election), not skin color or ethnicity.
One favorite saying of mine to kids is "Figure out *what* is right, not *who* is right."
As for "getting behind whatever decision is made" once it is made - sorry, I won't do it. Just because somebody is voted in doesn't mean I'm going to support their ideas, no matter how repugnant I find them. Obama and Bush were for endless bailouts. Both were for taking money from the productive and giving to the nonproductive. Should I support that just to show solidarity and support in my "democracy?" Should I wait another four years to voice my displeasure? The Opposition is called just that for a reason.
I think not.
Bur, there were more choices than just the two guys from AZ and IL, and when the rest of the US actually remembers that during election time, maybe we'll get somewhere, which goes along somewhere with Meiyo's points (which are good ones by the way.)
...and the experience needed to clean up this oil spill is??? The administration has been in the pocket of big oil for decades since Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House and Ronald Reagan took them off- the country has been going in the wrong direction ever since. But that is what you get for electing a president with Alzheimer's Disease.
All you government-hating right wingers might want to consider something : Without the help of the federal government do you think the states of Louisiana, Alabama and Florida would have the clout to negotiate anything at all with BP? They would tell the rednecks to go ....themselves, that its just bad luck. So don't plan on seceding from the Union anytime soon. It didn't work out too well the last time, did it?
Regan was cozying up to our erstwhile allies the Saudis, so we could get them to open the spigot and strangle the Soviets. This incident does a good job of illustrating why so many of our policies are so screwed up. Instead of devising a sensible energy policy in its own right and giving OPEC the bird à la the French, We triangulate with them against our then greater threat.
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