Some fine, fine pre-election reading for the P&N crowd

[zinfamous]

Here's some mildly biased material, some pro McCain, the majority pro Obama. New Yorker has been in the Obama camp for some time, though they have some hard-core conservatives writing for them--some of whom have even managed to make my sympathize with the likes of Scalia, ....so AT P&N should take comfort in the fact that journalism precedes sensationalism....(until you get into Herzberg...)




Why Obama > Lincoln...(really?) (official endorsement)

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/...81013taco_talk_editors


Why even the most disenfranchised isolated, ignorant, and racist motherfuckers might even vote Obama; and why there are still so many racist asses out there that will vote against a black man--regardless the consequences to their personal life:

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...3/081013fa_fact_packer


Why the republican party hates the educated...or rather: really? WTF?

http://www.newyorker.com/repor.../13/081013fa_fact_wood


Tavis Smiley hates Obama...wha????

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...4/080804fa_fact_sanneh


You want to understand politics? Son....you better learn how it's done in the Windy City. Prepare to hate life:

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...21/080721fa_fact_lizza


McCain: He's good! No, he's bad! but..he's good! .....well, he's better than the others....right?

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...25/080225fa_fact_lizza


Is Palin a disaster waiting to happen? (pretty much...)

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...0922fa_fact_gourevitch


More predictions on the end of the Nixon Era (4 months previous...):

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...6/080526fa_fact_packer


****Why Obama's 300 foreign policy advisers, including Secretaries of State and Defense, and general experts over the previous 30 to 40 years, abandoned not only the Clintons, but also McCain, to endorse and work with Obama.

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...3/081013fa_fact_lemann




damn...it's not even a contest, really...

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: zinfamous
Why Obama > Lincoln...(really?) (official endorsement)

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/...81013taco_talk_editors

I read the whole article but can't see any conclusions on or arguments for why obama is better than lincoln.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Barack Obama

Originally posted by: zinfamous
Why Obama > Lincoln...(really?) (official endorsement)

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/...81013taco_talk_editors

I read the whole article but can't see any conclusions on or arguments for why obama is better than lincoln.

It was just overly gushy, so I was reading into that. It reads like he's the new messiah or some shit.
There was another recent article that had more direct implications, though I forget which one.

Also: Feb 2009 is the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. The New president will preside over a re-dedication of the newly-restored Ford's theater.

....imagine that....

 

[Thump553]

Thanks for the links. I've gotten partway through just the last one (foreign policy) but it's a fascinating read. Kind of like a Making of The President book or something written by Woodward, without the sensationalism.

 

[BoomerD]

But he's BLACK!?!

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

It was just overly gushy, so I was reading into that. It reads like he's the new messiah or some shit.

I already ordered my Obama the messiah votive candles before the election hits.

 

[bamacre]

"The War Party Embraces Obama"
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13623

"Top Obama Adviser Signs on to Roadmap to War with Iran"
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=198

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: rudder

Originally posted by: zinfamous

It was just overly gushy, so I was reading into that. It reads like he's the new messiah or some shit.

I already ordered my Obama the messiah votive candles before the election hits.

Holy Crap! I really want one of those.

 

[Arkaign]

Lincoln was a serious douche. He suspended habeus corpus, jailed journalists that weren't union-friendly, and unleashed total warfare against US citizens. Freedom of speech was utterly ignored under his reign.

Slavery was horrible and needed to be stopped, but the Civil War was as usual, a war over power and control, and basically a showdown between states rights and a new federally-concentrated power structure.

I think Hugo Chavez, Josef Stalin, or Adolf Hitler are all about the same category of Lincoln. The Lincoln that you know from general thin-history that you get in school is basically a myth.

EDIT : Any enemy of Big Government Authoritarianism should read this :

http://thomaslegion.net/presid...tutionalpresident.html

 

[NoStateofMind]

Originally posted by: bamacre
"The War Party Embraces Obama"
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13623

"Top Obama Adviser Signs on to Roadmap to War with Iran"
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=198

But Oprah says he's "the one". How could you be both right <shrug>

 

[NoStateofMind]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
Lincoln was a serious douche. He suspended habeus corpus, jailed journalists that weren't union-friendly, and unleashed total warfare against US citizens. Freedom of speech was utterly ignored under his reign.

Slavery was horrible and needed to be stopped, but the Civil War was as usual, a war over power and control, and basically a showdown between states rights and a new federally-concentrated power structure.

I think Hugo Chavez, Josef Stalin, or Adolf Hitler are all about the same category of Lincoln. The Lincoln that you know from general thin-history that you get in school is basically a myth.

Not many will say what you just did, I mean, put Lincoln in his place. He truly was horrible and not the human rights advocate some paint him to be. We have our school system to thank for that :thumbsup:

 

[eleison]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: rudder

Originally posted by: zinfamous

It was just overly gushy, so I was reading into that. It reads like he's the new messiah or some shit.

I already ordered my Obama the messiah votive candles before the election hits.

Holy Crap! I really want one of those.

If he wins and cannot delivery, its going to be a weird 4 years.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: eleison

If he wins and cannot delivery, its going to be a weird 4 years.

No it won't. Some Republican will get elected. Fuck things up, then some other Democrat will run on Change.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
Lincoln was a serious douche. He suspended habeus corpus, jailed journalists that weren't union-friendly, and unleashed total warfare against US citizens. Freedom of speech was utterly ignored under his reign.

Slavery was horrible and needed to be stopped, but the Civil War was as usual, a war over power and control, and basically a showdown between states rights and a new federally-concentrated power structure.

I think Hugo Chavez, Josef Stalin, or Adolf Hitler are all about the same category of Lincoln. The Lincoln that you know from general thin-history that you get in school is basically a myth.

EDIT : Any enemy of Big Government Authoritarianism should read this :

http://thomaslegion.net/presid...tutionalpresident.html

Yar, Lincoln did some questionable things to win the war...certainly not a true advocate of civil liberties...but c'mon, did you have to invoke Godwin so fucking soon? Just a thread with articles. make your own judgment based on the material?

And by the way, You can't even compare Stalin and Hitler. completely different class of despots. Stalin was soooooo much worse than Hitler it ain't even funny. None of those guys can be classified together, much less alongside Lincoln.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Arkaign
Lincoln was a serious douche. He suspended habeus corpus, jailed journalists that weren't union-friendly, and unleashed total warfare against US citizens. Freedom of speech was utterly ignored under his reign.

Slavery was horrible and needed to be stopped, but the Civil War was as usual, a war over power and control, and basically a showdown between states rights and a new federally-concentrated power structure.

I think Hugo Chavez, Josef Stalin, or Adolf Hitler are all about the same category of Lincoln. The Lincoln that you know from general thin-history that you get in school is basically a myth.

EDIT : Any enemy of Big Government Authoritarianism should read this :

http://thomaslegion.net/presid...tutionalpresident.html

Yar, Lincoln did some questionable things to win the war...certainly not a true advocate of civil liberties...but c'mon, did you have to invoke Godwin so fucking soon? Just a thread with articles. make your own judgment based on the material?

And by the way, You can't even compare Stalin and Hitler. completely different class of despots. Stalin was soooooo much worse than Hitler it ain't even funny. None of those guys can be classified together, much less alongside Lincoln.

They're all tied together with their ideas of a state-centralized supremacy. That's the unifying theme of dictators and despots, along with their willingness to discard the standing rule of law and previous structure of government.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Arkaign
Lincoln was a serious douche. He suspended habeus corpus, jailed journalists that weren't union-friendly, and unleashed total warfare against US citizens. Freedom of speech was utterly ignored under his reign.

Slavery was horrible and needed to be stopped, but the Civil War was as usual, a war over power and control, and basically a showdown between states rights and a new federally-concentrated power structure.

I think Hugo Chavez, Josef Stalin, or Adolf Hitler are all about the same category of Lincoln. The Lincoln that you know from general thin-history that you get in school is basically a myth.

EDIT : Any enemy of Big Government Authoritarianism should read this :

http://thomaslegion.net/presid...tutionalpresident.html

Yar, Lincoln did some questionable things to win the war...certainly not a true advocate of civil liberties...but c'mon, did you have to invoke Godwin so fucking soon? Just a thread with articles. make your own judgment based on the material?

And by the way, You can't even compare Stalin and Hitler. completely different class of despots. Stalin was soooooo much worse than Hitler it ain't even funny. None of those guys can be classified together, much less alongside Lincoln.

They're all tied together with their ideas of a state-centralized supremacy. That's the unifying theme of dictators and despots, along with their willingness to discard the standing rule of law and previous structure of government.

So then you should be willing to lump Bush/Cheney/Rove into the mix no?

See, just why this "unifying theme" doesn't need to be brought up....

 

[Arkaign]

Oh definitely, Bush/Cheney/etc should definitely be rolled into the big gov't authoritarian douchebag crowd.

It's just that Lincoln changed things a lot more than Bush has, and he rather directly caused a lot more deaths to American citizens than Bush has.

Not defending Bush, as he's an asshole and good riddance, but Lincoln is a singular piece of crap as far as that goes.

I'm a moderate Obama supporter BTW, for whatever relevance that might have.

 

[zinfamous]

Well, let's not rule out FDR, the man who turned this country into a communist state for the better part of a decade....and was right to do it.

The problem is when you remove these people and their actions from the situations that they faced, you lose perspective. Looking back, it's extremely shocking what a lot of these "great" presidents actually did to accomplish the things for which they have become canonized.

Yeah, there were a lot of people that "saw the writing on the wall" with Lincoln, for whatever it's worth, and he moved rather prematurely to escalate the war--though it was inevitable at the time of his election. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a legitimate political historian to deny that despite Lincoln's drastic abuses of the constitution, the actions he took were necessary, in the end, to preserve the Union. I don't know, maybe the reality of secession actually helped "reign in" some of the grander fears that his opponents had about him before his inauguration--his attention now squarely focused on a national tragedy, something that this country had never, and likely will never face again.

....don't even get started on the "New Deal..."

 

[Arkaign]

" despite Lincoln's drastic abuses of the constitution, the actions he took were necessary, in the end, to preserve the Union."

See, I just don't agree with that at all.

(1)- No drastic abuses of the constitution should *ever* be tolerated.

(2)- His actions were often unconscionable when it comes to needless killings of US civilians.

(3)- The 'Union' was ready to, and indeed should have crumbled. That was the whole point of the structure put in place by this country's founders.

IMHO.