Can someone please highlight (e.g. color-code by topic) the relevant parts of the speech? The wall of political-self-patting text is rather difficult to deal with when one has a headache…
I didn’t watch it. Did he end the war on drugs, renounce his continuation of Bush’s mass domestic spying policies, pledge to stop sending folks off to be tortured abroad, and promise to not dive face first into Iraq again? Because if he did, that is totally awesome. Hurray for hope and change. If he didn’t, then I am not all that upset I missed Bush’s 14th state of the union address.
Honestly, I am actually kind of happy I don’t live in a “swing” state and that my vote is literally and completely worthless so I can freely waste it on a third party. I am not sure I could choke down my bile long enough to vote for who gets to continue Bush’s 5th term.
I think the two most depressing things I have read recently was Elizabeth Warren and Rand Paul’s statements on the Islamic State. You have the two most vaguely viable extreme candidates from either party who if anyone is going to speak out against the insanity jumping into that mess, and you couldn’t tell the fucking difference between their statements and Obama’s other than that Rand Paul made some disparaging comment after basically saying he is for exactly the same policy. I think Warren even actually managed to get a little right of Obama and imply he wasn’t doing enough.
We are so utterly fucked. The “War on Terror” is going to end roughly when the “War on Drugs” ends and be an order of magnitude more damaging fighting a threat that as a fraction as scary.
Fuck. “Democracy” is worthless.
Starting to agree with Plato’s take on that.
He did say some of the things you hope he said, but you’ll have to read/watch it yourself.
This business of thinking Democrats and Republicans are interchangeable – you don’t say this, but you seem to imply it – is highly dangerous, and part of what got us into this mess. Bush tortured, not Obama. Bush invaded the wrong country, not Obama. The list is almost infinitely long.
Right now it seems inevitable that Hilary Clinton will be the D nominee for president. I’d just as soon she not become president; I’d much prefer Warren or Sanders or Wyden or a long list of other Democrats. While the idea of a HRC presidency is a little troubling, the Republican field that is shaping up is horrifying.
Democracy is not worthless. The problem with democracy is that it’s all we’ve got. My suggestion to people who are disaffected is that they get involved.
Hello!? We live in a representative republic, not a democracy. Not to be pedantic, but you shouldn’t assume your vote ever counts. YOU are not the one voting on stuff that matters. Some talking head you elected to Congress is doing that for you.
Man, First Past the Post has given us some shitty choices.
Plus, I’m of the opinion that Hilary won’t win an election she’s in. Maybe, but it looks to me like a Hilary candidacy is just the first step toward a Republican presidency. She is going to monumentally struggle to get votes out there in real 'merica, and the Republican media machine will have an easy time whipping up its ancient lunatics into a frothing frenzy to oppose her.
All of the parts are relevant - but how are we to know exactly which parts are relevant to you? Maybe you could color-code them for us?
Dollar-green for economy, yellow for digital rights and privacy, red for security… Any arbitrary assignment is better than “white for anything”.
In the context of this article itself, the digital rights/privacy would be sufficient. I called only for an equivalent of a highlighter mark that would pick the stated-as-relevant-by-the-article-title parts from the wall of politicobabble in a way that is technically as simple as <span style=“background-color:yellow”>…
Spoken like a true partisan and defender of two party system.
Why not just wait for the headache to resolve and watch it yourself? Speeches are meant to be heard, not read, and the spectacle is fun to observe. I suggest watching both SOTUS and the GOP response. Those of us watching live had a few minutes to imagine that someone might actually listen to a voice of reason, then had the experience of having that idea…deflated.
Just someone who doesn’t see an alternative that will get us anywhere we want to be before the planet is cooked.
You give a strange recommendation. It’s a bit like saying, “My suggestion to people who are teetotalers is to have a drink.”
I think you will find it’s more complicated than that.
I’ll have that drink, thank you.
Do you mean your suggestion is complicated? You made about as remarkably vague a reply as possible to the poster’s expression of alienation. How, exactly, would participating in the very system that alienates him address the problem?
Well count me into that category too. When one party is hard at work hurting people in every way they can think of then yes, I’m a partisan. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
I was going to explain that I was being lazy, and had been wanting to use that phrase in this discussion, but then @Boundegar answered your question far better than I could even if I tried.
Actually, anywhere outside America, a “representative democracy” is considered a form of democracy. The other thing being a “direct democracy”, which the US is not.
My own country of Austria is a federal republic and a parliamentary representative democracy.
The voting system is proportional, which has its own advantages and disadvantages (I very much prefer it), but in the end it’s still our elected representatives deciding stuff. Still, everyone agrees that this is one form of democracy.
It seems to be some strange America-only internet meme that says that only direct democracy is real democracy.
