read the whole post at americablog:
By the end of June, we'll know if the Obama administration intends to defend DOMA in theGLAD lawsuit seeking to have Section 3 of that law found unconstitutional. That will be a seminal moment for this administration and its relationship with the LGBT community. I'm not sure if the great minds in the West Wing fully grasp that yet. My suggestion to the White House is: Don't bother with the small stuff and the Gay Pride proclamations if you're going to say in Federal Court that DOMA is constitutional and should be upheld. If you do that, it's over.
in closing, i couldn't resist posting the youtube of "fierce advocate's" spokesman, gibbs, twisting in the wind of "fierce advocate" hypocrisy.
chicken.
Great post Dave. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteDave -
ReplyDeleteThe Carebear campaigned on being all things to all people, which Zen-like means he's also nothing to all people. And that's about where my faith in him has been since the beginning.
Yes, he's an improvement on Chimpy, blah-blah-blah... but that is a pretty low bar.
He's a status-quo kinda guy. He's not going to go out on a limb for anyone or anything. And no one that he listens to is advocating that he take a stand.
You think Rahm whispers in his ear that he should throw the LGBTs a crumb? You think Pelosi is going to put any political capitol into anything that might endanger her super-majority Democratic Party congress?
Sorry to be so negative: but there is not a single Democrat I trust to do the right thing, with maybe the exception of Kucinich, and he won't be allowed to.
Regards,
Tengrain
but, but, but...'GRAIN - rahm studied ballet! he's gotta support teh gayz.
ReplyDelete/snark.
yes, carebear wanted to be all things to all people...but he made very specific promises to my community regarding alphabet soup. so i have an exponential level of disappointment.
I've never had much faith in the O-man. As time goes on, it's becoming more and more apparent Nancy Pelosi is running this country. She will sell her constituents who are mostly GLBT down the tubes when push comes to shove and, as recent history has proven, O-man will once again bow to "Madam President."
ReplyDeleteDave -
ReplyDeleteEveryone thought that Clinton was going to be this big-deal savior of the Party and of all causes, and he sold everyone out before he was done. It is why I continue to say he was the greatest GOP president of all time: ended welfare as we know it, DOMA, DADT, you name it. Everything he did was on the GOP wet dream list, and they hated him for it. The Carebear should learn from that example.
If GHWB was Reagan III, then Clinton was Reagan IV & V, Chimpy was Reagan VI & VII and guess who is Reagan VIII?
Am I bitter? Yeah, like an aspirin.
Regards,
Tengrain
Gentlemen: I'm exactly in accord with Tengrain on this. MY issues are: peace, freedom, social justice, civil rights and civil liberties. Absolutely and without question.
ReplyDeleteWhatever EXPANDS the material power of these concepts in the peoples' hands works for me. LGBTQ rights are what people in that community want them to be and I'll be there in support.
Though President Obama is terribly weak on all those concepts and his homophobia always peeks out no matter how many lies he tells or what sort of re-assuring "words" he uses. His acts of commission and omission are what count.
His backpedalling on every promise he made to the LGBTQ community is a series of betrayals, but that's only how I see it and in all fairness I don't live in the USA and moreover I self-identify as "straight" (whatever the fuck that means!).
His hostility to the LGBTQ community and to American progressives in general are hardly his only shortcomings. I live in Panama which is an independent sovereign self-governing democratic republic. It has been fully independent of the USA since 1999 when the BILL CLINTON/ERNESTO PEREZ-BALLADARES TREATY was signed and filed with the World Court. Part of that treaty guarantees that the USA and Panama will not involve themselves in each others' politics or laws. No qualified Panamanian citizen or resident alien can be extradited to the US or forcibly removed from Panamanian soil. That sounds like a normal enough treaty, right? It was signed by Tengrain's favorite Republican president, Bill Clinton, and was recognized by every nation on Earth until.......you guessed it, the Carebear came into office.
He has made it very clear that he does not accept CLINTON/PEREZ-BALLADARES and grants himself sovereignty over the Republic Of Panama in every respect. He has done such things as expel the Chief Justice Of The Panamanian Supreme Court, Winston Spadafora, who had been visiting his grand-daughter at NYU. Obama's reason: he did not approve of Spadafora's refusal to prosecute a POT case in Panama 4 years ago when Spadafora was the Attorney General.
He has insisted that every licensed bank in the Republic turn over to him and his security apparatus the account details of every single bank and brokerage account in the republic.
With his "anti tax-haven initiative" he has plainly said will involve the forced repatriation of anyone who was a citizen or resident of the United States during the past 15 years.
OK, the RUSO-LATINO PACT OF 2008, also official at the World Court, holds that should the US take any extra-legal aggressive action against any Latin nation other than Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia or Peru, Russia reserves the right to take full military action against the USA. So, Obama's a paper tiger on this whole thing as a material issue. Nevertheless, it's a good indication that his Imperialist foreign policy is pretty consistent throughout the world.
Whatever discomfort the LGBTQ community feels about him is no paranoia. He cops the same attitude with everyone else.
Bill B: It is very strange to me the difference in perceptions about American politicians here in South America as opposed to up there.
ReplyDeleteThe ones who have the most respect here are: Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter. New American names to South America which have earned tremendous respect are: Barbara Lee, Lynne Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Jim McGovern and .... give that lady a cigar, Nancy Pelosi.
Nobody particularly cares about the by-play up there. They base their judgments on what people have done HERE. On two of the toughest issues which -- yes -- run counter to everything Obama's about, peace and collective bargaining, Nancy Pelosi has been totally stand-up.
The second she got the sense that Obama was about war and not about peace particularly with regard to the Colombian civil war, she along with those House progressive two of whom are, unlike Obama, Black, one of whom unlike Obama is possessed of a penis and testicles, joined with Liberal Party opposition leader Piedad Cordoba in an effort to get both the far-left FARC guerrillas and the far-right Auto-Defensores to lay down their weapons, forgive each other, and join the political process as legitmate far-left and far-right parties, sort of like the Mitchell Plan in Northern Ireland.
Obama is full-out behind the far-right Auto-Defensores.
It didn't stop there. The workers at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Bogota wanted to organize to form a trade union so as to bargain collectively, but they were afraid that the Auto-Defensores would kill them if they tried. So, the House Democrats arranged for them to organize under the aegis of AFSCME the US public employees union and therefore by law protected from any Auto-Defensor anti-union violence.
She's a real "bitch," that evil Nancy Pelosi, I tell you. Why doesn't she stop being so shrill and just give the magnificent president of Big Sammy a chance????
welcome to the dump, kelso! glad you grabbed a can and took a seat! you're thought-provoking commentary and expat. perspective are greatly appreciated.
ReplyDeleteSweet mutha of gawd: I just read the Carebear/O-man's Gay Pride proclamation: not a word about DOMA and now he's talking about DADT in a very abstract way.
ReplyDeleteHe's mosdef thrown the alphabet under the bus (I really like calling LBGTQ "alphabet" - much easier).
Read it here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5763392
thanks for the linkage and comment, 'grain.
ReplyDeletei responded on huffpo with something to the effect of "oh, yay! a proclamation. i feel so much better about equal civil rights now".
O's moment of reckoning will come in june when obama has a deadline of 6/29 to either defend doma as constitional or unconstitutional...
thanks for stopping by the dump, pissed!
ReplyDeletei'm past bitter, i'm freakin' furious. if the AG decides to defend doma in june, that's the last straw for me.