This “aw shucks” colloquial tone that American presidents seem to have taken since Clinton is, I think, a profound symbol of the disconnect between the business of state and the electorate.; “we have mechanisms in place that can exterminate nations, but let’s keep it casual.”
Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868.
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I stand corrected.
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It’s because of this:
Though Hollywood (collectively) doesn’t simply doesn’t simply say “We are supopsed to be the good guys”, but “We are the good days – anything bad is the work of of a few individuals who act on their own or who corrupt our institutions.”
Systematic failures do not exit in the vast majority of the mainstream narrative and once enough time has passed, gets whitewashed or simply ignored.
What we really need is a good Libertarian president.
What we really need is a good Green president.
Another mistake is in thinking that you can change the system by voting in your favourite-type president.
It runs oh so much deeper than that.
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Yeah, cuz no president has ever changed the system one single bit whatsoever. :-/
Of course a massive overhaul, upheaval, or replacement of the entire system would be better, but since that ain’t gonna happen any time soon, etc. etc.
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I feel responsible for any actions that my elected representatives took that I knew about, or even if I had a good reason to expect they might happen. I feel responsible for bringing people to justice when we know they’ve committed crimes, so I try to do what I can toward that end.
The kind of nationalism that would have me identifying with the nation that strongly, pretending I was part of the “we” who committed genocide or put a man on the moon before I was born, that’s a problem. I’m reminded of a zine and website called “Race Traitor,” an ironically named anti-racist site. Their motto is “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” In some cases, treason to a nation is loyalty to humanity. We need to think about what’s best for the species more than what’s best for our nation, especially since the claims about what’s best for our nation are so often just the goals of a few people passing themselves off as the whole nation. Like when Bush or Obama commits a war crime, and the rest of us are supposed to feel part of that “we” when he says, “We did some things that were contrary to our values.” No, I really didn’t. I’m responsible for doing what I can to fix it, in as far as I have some tiny influence on policy, but I didn’t make it happen or let it happen.
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quote"We tortured some folks."unquote
Great. I’ll posthumously inform those folks that were murdered during their …ahem… “enhanced interrogation” that all is well now. I’m positive they’ll forgive those CIA scumbags now that the Prez has admitted it. Now, let’s look forward…
Yes, but you’re not speaking as the representative of the U.S. government.
Andrew Johnson was not Andrew Jackson. Pres. Johnson was impeached because he was a Southern & didn’t believe in the Radical Republicans agenda of rights for ex-slaves.
I know that, I was responding to the claim that Nixon was the first President to face impeachment.
Clinton was horrible on policy - NAFTA, GATT; welfare “reform”, deregulating the banks, which helped set the stage for the real estate bubble and collapse, etc. etc.
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Some lawmakers talked about it 3 years ago - with nothing coming from it so far - but Obama has consistently worked to protect the Bush administration from being investigated for its torture program, even by other countries.
He was very clear from the beginning that he preferred to “look forward” by not investigating the torture program. And his administration has done everything possible to protect the Americans invoved.
Throughout the first several months of his presidency, his top political aides, such as the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, publicly – and inappropriately – pressured the justice department to refrain from any criminal investigations. Over and over, they repeated the Orwellian mantra that such investigations were objectionable because “we must look forward, not backward”. As Gibbs put it in April 2009, when asked to explain Obama’s opposition, “the president is focused on looking forward. That’s why.”
That’s extremely helpful, informative, and well cited. Thank you.
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Perhaps something like assassinating US citizens without due process?
Okay, fair enough.
He was a Republican who could fake empathy. In other words, a Democrat.
Currently the torture continues with the u.s. refusing to Deoccupy the Hawaiian Nation that it backed u.s. business men and others in illegally overthrowing its monarch Lilioukalani, a queen. It used the u.s. military to do so and violated national and international law while doing it. I say from that the u.s. is mercenary and naturally acts in an illegal way so therefore it is in their dna. Could be? If you are american (I’m not I’m Hawaii) and you vote then rather than waiting and expecting the president and your political system to make the corrections…have it start with you. Close down your government; all departments and start making the amends. Indecision and procrastination is not the solution. Have you found out yet who really caused 9/11?
Unfortunately this is also what the Tea Party thinks. No massive overhauls, please. Steady, incremental change.
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