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I would love to see the President have to face Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach or 1st. Lt. Dan Choi in person. That would definitely be worth the price of admission.
What we DO know now is that this President has no conscience. He has the authority to put discharges on hold until Congress takes action but he doesn't care about the careers of 262 American citizens who have served this country. He also has no conscience about those who did come out in the Guard and Reserve who were deployed overseas into combat zones anyway, despite the Pentagon's bogus claim that the existence of an open gay servicemember is an assault on morale and unit cohesion. He doesn't care that these people served their country and risked their lives in combat zones, only to return home to a probable discharge after the end of the tour of duty.
Any gay organization who participates in some cocktail party with the White House is dishonoring our community and the heroes who have suffered by the deliberate inaction of this Administration. This President knows there is nothing to talk about in terms of addressing this heinous policy - the talk was supposed to be finished when he made his campaign promise to end the policy.
I almost decided not to vote for him after his sellout on FISA but I voted for him anyway. Never again.
I think he would be very proud to go down in history as the first Oreo president.
Obama's priorities are so fucked up it scares me.
Link
A. Contempt.
Seriously, every day it seems that Obama keeps digging a deeper hole.
And trust me, even those who could care less about LGBT equality, are pissed off at him for other reasons. I read other blogs and people are upset at him too because of such things as FISA, protecting Bush and his criminal administration, giving away money to Wall St. and ignoring people with mortgage problems and more, and his lukewarm "leadership" in getting us single payer health system.
Does Obama and his administration have a death wish? Do they want the Democratic Party do die when they have an overwhelming majority?
It's not only the GAYATM that will be closed ... but it will be the ATM of WE THE PEOPLE that will close on them, too!
Even if Obama wishes it weren't so, his election as president is huge, huge step for the progressive, liberals in the world. Maybe in our lifetimes, we will see a Black person elected who can dare to be a true progressive and liberal rather than shrink from such a label as much as they shrink from the pejorative use of the N-word. Would be even better if that person were even more progressive and was a woman. I hope so and Obama's election proves it is possible, since only 2 years ago, I would have thought we wouldn't see a Black president for another 100 years. Then again, Obama's efforts seem to be to insure that no other Black is elected to the presidency for another 100 years just as Pelosi seems determined that no woman ever serve as Speaker of the House for at least 100 years.
I keep coming back to the answer: Homophobia.
This post explains clearly that the explanation cannot be political, as DADT "is not even a controversial issue." The only other explanation I can really think of is homophobia.
I'm not necessarily saying Obama himself is homophobic (although I keep that option open in my mind); it may be that his advisers are. But given that there's no political explanation, and there's no logical explanation (which was made clear by Napolitano's action), I don't know what else is left.
This is why, when David Plouffe asked me for $$$ last week, I responded thusly:
---
Mr. Plouffe,
Before I would consider donating one thin dime, the following would have to happen:
- The President forcefully repudiates the hateful language used in the brief filed by the Department of Justice before the Supreme Court in the Smelt case.
- The President halts the practice of discharging LGBT members of the U.S. armed services. He cannot repeal DADT, but he can stop the hemorrhaging of talented members of our armed forces for a stupid reason during a time when we badly need them. Any Commander-in-Chief with an ounce of sense would have already done this.
- The President uses the bully pulpit to urge Congress to repeal DOMA, and to explain to the American people why this is the right course of action.
- The President uses the bully pulpit to urge Congress to pass ENDA, and to explain to the American people why this is the right course of action.
Until the President takes substantial, concrete action to improve the lives of LGBT Americans, my wallet is closed.
---
Instead, I think the Gay community has opened a very wide door of revolt and they are showing us ALL how to get to the other side.
I am a Dem. I am hetero. I, like other Dems I know, am finding my true leaders here and in the many Gay voices now leading the charge.
More than ever we are uniting, not dividing.
Equal rights does not define the elected Democrats that have been the beneficiaries of my donations. I am referring to the bunch of do-nothings in office that have screwed over gay people for decades now.
Maybe this:
Liberals within the Democratic party, both straight and gay, are uniting against leadership that does not represent our party value of equal rights, and it is Gay voices that are rising as our new leaders.
And it can never be said enough times, the corporations own the politicians.
I'm so done with these lying bastards. It's time to fight back.
Of course it didn't begin with them, but the Clintons gave the final blow to values of the Democratic party with their Centrist crap. Even we Liberals now describe ourselves with their "Progressive" title.
I'm done with the lying bastards too, but, for a variety of reasons including the near-impossible task of organizing a viable 3rd party any time soon, I am not yet ready to give up on the Democratic Party.
Instead, I want new leaders, for our party and for our government, and a return to our founding Democratic values.
I think the new leaders will come from the Gay community.
When I ran for Congress in '94 exit polls showed that people really liked what I said, but that they didn't believe it was possible. Now we have people that say "I believe" that "change can come".
Maybe I was too early, and now at 51 I know I'm too damn old.
We need a bunch of 30-somethings who are willing to change the world. Who embrace new ideas and want to change things in a progressive way. We need them now. We need to build a bench. Then the Democrats can come back and make a stand.
Until then we will continue to get GOP-lite.
That sucks, but I don't see it changing until we the people get fed up with the centrist BS and start to replace them with progressives.
Instead of a third party...somehow we've got to craft a "second party" withIN the Democratic party and it is an emergency.
But our new leaders will come from those who are so outraged that they are willing, finally finally, to say No More! and to start the necessary dialogs for change, real change and not the pretend change that politicians now promise to get elected, and then these new leaders will take us from dialog to action.
It is in the Gay community that I see the will and the determination and the fire that is needed to bring change and to convince a country that they will restore the Democratic Party to its former principles.
I think John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay are two of these leaders. Pam Spaulding, also.
I think Daniel Choi is another one.
Considering that it was Clinton who gave us DADT and DOMA, as dula correctly points out, how can you, with a straight face, suggest that it was going to be different under Hillary?
What exactly has she said these days, in support of the glbt community?
The problem is the party itself.
My days of supporting the Democratic party are over. I will only support Progressive candidates on a case-by-case basis.
those who believed that obama was all hope and butterflies and sunshine need to go through the stages of grief. those of us who suspected that he wasn't as advertised need to get over our "i told you sos" (myself included!).
we need to put it behind us, realize where we are and move forward. we need to re-evaluate the money that we used to blindly throw at democrats. there are those who deserve our financial support, certainly. but our money would be better spent in our own communities (and i'm not referring to HRC!) helping each other and the next generation of gay leaders. hopefully those leaders won't sell out the cause for a mixer at the white house.
on the short term, i think we need to be vocal each and every time we're slighted by democrats (be they in congress or the white house). they're banking on us getting tired and going home. we need to keep the pressure up.
We had no true leaders to choose from.
Obama not only has refused to halt the discharges, but he has allowed his Justice Department to argue that DADT is the correct policy. Forget the fact that Turkey is the only other NATO member to discriminate in this fashion.
This is it for me, however. I am done with Obama. On my other blog, I have defended him from attack for the last time. I will maintain that blog on Progressive issues, but I wash my hands of this man. My sister was correct, he will throw us all under the bus.
I am not sure what it would take for me to believe in Obama again. I do not even know if it is possible.
Yeah, I have to admit, I want to agree, but then I hear the disgusting, revolting, savage, barbaric, atavistic attacks coming from the right and they are even more revolting. Almost feel that he deserves those attacks, but no, as personally repulsive Obama is and a failure as a president and leader of the free world, he does not deserve the filth coming out of the mouths of the right wing and Republicans. I certainly don't want to defend him, but being liberal myself, have to defend him. As a hard core liberal, when the right wing starts insinuating that he can't possibly be American, is a Muslim, was born in Nigeria, is a great ape, etc., God help me, but those attacks are just to filthy for me not stand up to the right wing. However awful Obama is, just by being a Black man, he is not synonymous with the right wing. Note for some Blacks like Powell, Rice and Clarence Thomas it is a point of pride to stand aside from other blacks and be very conservative, to try to be white. Essentially, he is saying, I'm not like other Blacks. Obama apparently is one of those Blacks.
no more money to the dnc and keep up the pressure.
shame shame shame
Link: http://www.sldn.org/news/archives/sldn-to-march...
I think that would send a great message.
Or those that said they wouldn't attend, RSVP that they will and bring a discharged person with them.
So the majority of people want DADT repealed...not happening. The majority of people want a public health care option...not happening. Who do these people work for again?
The only weapons we have is our money and our votes, and we can't let the democrats have them. It may not seem like it is in our best interest to allow more conservatards to be elected, but that's just short term thinking. Like Obama, we have to plan for the long game. Let them know they won't be getting your money or your votes, and hope that the next batch of democrats who run for office remember the lesson of their defeated predecessors.
Yet when I say "I KNEW IT!!," it means that my suspicion of his and his administration's homophobia was completely underestimated...I had no idea it would run SO deep...
"Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side history".
I'm so happy he approves of our protests of his name-calling and lack of action!!!!!!
Will Obama be on the right or wrong side of history.
The nation is waiting.
From the outside, it feels as if there's someone in a position of authority whom we GLBT folks give extreme willies. I mean, the current administrative behavior would be consistent with an outright homophobe running things. The only thing to the contrary is the repeated statements about being a 'fierce advocate' for GLBT rights.
Damned schizoid, if you ask me.
Wonder what the gay organizations that attend will say to him about this.
Oh yeah, they'll say, forget the blogs and the "little people" ... let them eat cake! This Champagne and Caviar are delish!
Don't expect him to be a friend of gays and lesbians, he is a liar, and definitely not a friend of ours. Words mean nothing when you aren't going to back them up with deeds. I have closed the chapter on him.
Since the launch of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has struggled to recruit and reenlist troops. As the conflicts have dragged on, the military has loosened regulations, issuing "moral waivers" in many cases, allowing even those with criminal records to join up. Veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder have been ordered back to the Middle East for second and third tours of duty.
The lax regulations have also opened the military's doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists and gang members — with drastic consequences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the military, and others have been linked to recruitment efforts for the white right. A recent Department of Homeland Security report, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," stated: "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." Many white supremacists join the Army to secure training for, as they see it, a future domestic race war. Others claim to be shooting Iraqis not to pursue the military's strategic goals but because killing "hajjis" is their duty as white militants.
Soldiers' associations with extremist groups, and their racist actions, contravene a host of military statutes instituted in the past three decades. But during the "war on terror," U.S. armed forces have turned a blind eye on their own regulations.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/ne...
After US votes gave sizable majorities in congress to the Democrats, they seem to feel the same as Republicans... that they need to be more conservative to win. Ugh! Democratic leaders need to grow a pair.
That is indeed what makes this fight so hard. The right wing is not only denying he is president and that he is not American, they are denying he is human and continue with their revolting attacks like the one where that Republican governor said that the escaped gorilla was Michelle's uncle. I'm sick of Obama, but find the Republicans and right wing even more repulsive. Am tempted at this point to shut up and no longer fight the filth coming from the Republican party attacking Obama. Am almost beginning to think he deserves to be called the nephew of a great ape. Sigh! Getting to where I hate him nearly as much as I hate Bush/Cheney, maybe even worse since he isn't Bush/Cheney. At least, until he peel off a latex mask revealing Bush/Cheney under the mask, I hope he isn't.
Rahm was a senior adviser to Clinton at the White House from 1993 to 1998. In the White House, Emanuel was initially Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and then Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy. He was a leading strategist in the unsuccessful White House efforts to institute universal health care and many other Clinton initiatives. In other words, he has been burnt before and he is focused on NOT getting burnt again.
So, if you want to know who is behind this effort to marginalize the civil rights of some Americans, I don't think you have to look much further than Rahm Emanuel.
Nobody is holding a gun to Obama's head, forcing him to do that.
If you go to myleftnutmeg.com and look at my posts from the election you will see where I posted the list of candidates running in the primary for President. The far right hand side of the spectrum were Biden, Clinton and Obama. Now one is President, one VP and one SOS. All those to the center and left of center have been marginalized.
Consider for a moment that the right leaning Democrats of today (which is what those three are, as well as Rahm) are the GOP of the 1970's before the GOP went off the deep end and went totally bonkers to the right.
What they are ignoring is that it was a liberal, progressive movement in this nation that elected Obama. And Obama was sold to us as being a very liberal, progressive candidate. Recall at the Democratic convention in Denver that one speaker after another got up and told us that the liberals are back when the word 'liberal' has been anathema to Democrats for years and maybe a couple decades. Only one person at the convention didn't utter the world 'liberal' <sigh>, but I thought that the vast liberal movement would sweep him along and that he would willingly allow himself to be at least moderate-left. Yeah, I was blinded by the fact that I expected a Black man had to be reasonably liberal. He isn't even liberal-moderate, I amdisappointed to have discovered he is quite a bit to right of moderate.
back to the topic, why didn 't the Advocate ask point-blank why the President has decided to defer enforcement of immigration law, and not DADT? Don't we need an "enduring legistlative solution" for immigration law, too???
What bothers me is that Republicans seem crazy enough that their ticket in 2012 will be Sarah Palin/Carrie Prejean. That is if they don't simply choose to run two rocks, one granite and one marble as their presidential ticket. Or maybe the top of the Republican ticket will be a lump of lead.
They don't see that he has no intention of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, doesn't give a damn about the American soldiers lives sacrificed for illegal, needless, criminal wars, nor does his conscience bother him that they are still butchering Muslim, Arabs and brown people, 1.3 million in Iraq. That he continues to enrich the Wall Street bankers to the tune of trillions. That he is extending Bush's domestic tyranny with wiretapping, secrecy and protecting Bush/Cheney from prosecution.
Yeah, he gave us stem-cell research, which was probably a ploy to conceal his conservative values. Even Tim deChristopher is still in prison.
Yeah, I was suckered, but as I point out 80% of the world still falls down in worship thinking Obama is the new liberal wave in this nation. Instead, suggest something positive that we can do about this proud to be an Oreo in our Oval Office.
Both groups are devoid of power, which is exactly where EVERYBODY else wants us.
You have to take power, not give it up. One of those groups has to change their thinking to take power.
What did we all learn about "united we stand, divided we fall"?
Is part of the strategy to keep us divided?
However, I would consider NOT voting for a Democrat. And guess what, the days of "where would they go" blackmail isn't going to work anymore.
If the Democrats lose, it will be THEIR fault and their fault only.
I ain't going to be the Rihanna letting the Democratic Party (Christ Brown) continue to treat me like shit.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...
two weeks ago i would have been willing to give obama the benefit of the doubt (i.e. good natured humor)...but every day that goes by.... i find myself really doubting the good-naturedness of his humor... i'm starting to feel, as others have pointed out, he has contempt for LGBTs.
Sadly, Obama seems to be using the some form of the 'three-fifths of a person model' in his approach to our rights. Maybe that is what he means when he says that he is a 'constitutional lawyer.'
Or liberty.
Or the persuit of happyness.
Don't tell me about your bedroom games, and I won't tell you about mine.
No harm, no foul.
That's what it sounds like anyway. I may be wrong.
I assumed it was a "what I do" thing, but if it's a "who I am" thing" that gives me pause.
Any you've offered what with this bon mot?
The previous commenter said the COC didn't take responsibility, and I just stated he was at least as good as the previous two COC's.
At least I offered something.
You'd think a constitutional scholar (like Obama) would understand that?
No more contributions to DNC or any local Democrats; going green.
Sometimes reality is harder.
If he likes it or not, the pres has to be realistic, not idealistic.
Um, the fact that they favor repealing Clinton’s half assed policy doesn't necessarily mean they favor gays in the military. It may mean they want them kicked out no matter if anyone asks or tells.
First, I made no declarative statements which could be considered true or false, therefore, truth or lie.
Before DADT was NO GAYS!
It wouldn't surprise me if right wingers wanted to repesl DSDT. But some of them - not for the better.
I really hope that the Dems (Pres. Obama included) will grow a pair and get something accomplished or else we will lose our majority and return to the likes of 2000-2008. Remember those years when the Republicans did what they wanted, got away with murder, and the Dems didn't care. Why can't our party be more like the Republicans?
Obamer is a flaccid sold-out wanker. But it's not just him, it's the whole damn party. Dem house, Dem senate, Dem prez.
We have everything they ever swore we'd need to get over this whole damn illegal discrimination. They're all lawyers for godssakes. They all KNOW doma and dadt are unconstitutional. They should all be disbarred. lol.
A few things occur. One is that history won't really punish the bigots until much later. Look at Jesse Helms' long freaking career. That racist bastard actually believed- and legislated- racial segregation. Didn't really hurt his political career any. He knew his base. He was an effective political careerist, the same as most current politicians both Dem and Repug. And those who flippity-flop between the increasingly similar parties.
The funny thing is- or ironic I suppose- (and this is the second thing that occurs): Most gays and lesbians are not terribly "liberal/progressive" in the ways that term has come to mean. Most of us are fiscally moderate if not conservative. Many of us are against "gun control", "entitlement programs", etc. Many own mobile homes and follow NASCAR. Quite a few may be just as racist and sexist and classist as heteros. We really are largely quite statistically unremarkable. But our lives and our beliefs have never been studied demographically. We remain spectres upon which heteros project their fantasies of "otherness". One the Republicans get wind of this truism, they will pursue our votes. For the turncoat Dems I suspect it will be too late. They won't raise our hopes again. It's now or never for the Democratic Party: GET IT OVER WITH. REPEAL DOMA and DADT and for godsakes let us GET ON WITH OUR LIVES!!!!!!
And I doubt it is a concidence that so many bisexual and gay white males already declare themselves to be so-called libertarians. Of course, this is just coded language for "I'm really a Republican." It is coming out as a right-winger without actually using the R word. They can't bring themselves into full communion, so to speak, with the Republican Party. But at heart, they're basically conservatives who like the power structure the way it is. After all, sexual orientation aside, the system still largely favors them.
During the Bush administration, they (meaning BOTH parties) 1) either failed miserably to prevent a major terrorist attack or actively facilitated it; 2) used the attack to launch two fraudulent wars against parties that had nothing to do with the attack; and 3) repeatedly broke constitutional law in the prosecution of these wars - and yet the loudest sound on the streets of Washington was the sound of motorists whizzing by the houses of power, talking or texting on their cell phones in blissful ignorance or willful apathy. This taught them one thing - "we can get by with ANYTHING".
As for the liberals in general, and the gay community in particular, the corporatists KNOW they can use the Democratic Party as a tool to keep us placated without fear of retribution. By moral conviction and value system, we avoid confrontation, and we abhor violence; far too often we seek "dialogue" and "compromise" and "reconciliation" - and therefore we present NO threat to them when we discover that they've lied to us yet again. We bleat and cry - but then come election time, they call us to heel with as many fear tactics regarding the Republicans that the Republicans use on the conservatives.
Furthermore, because we're "inclusive" and "diverse", we have so many organizations and causes competing against one another than no one cause can progress.
If real change is going to be accomplished in this country, the power of money must be taken out of the campaigns, politicians must be made legally accountable for what they promise, and voting citizens must be provided with more punitive powers over the government when it becomes obvious that the government is not doing their job. This means real constitutional reform - which will require real moral strength, will power, and commitment - three things that the American populace has not demonstrated in any real measure for at least two generations now.
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