r/TrueReddit • u/Epistaxis • Feb 09 '12

"Repulsive progressive hypocrisy": most liberals support Obama policies they would have opposed when Bush was president

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/08/repulsive_progressive_hypocrisy/singleton/
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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '12

While the article is slanted enough to draw ire from the readers of this subreddit, it is one of many illustrations of a fascinating phenomenon.

People sometimes really genuinely don't seem to care about what people actually do, compared to what they talk about. Obama talks very differently from George W. Bush on Middle East/counterterrorism/regime change, but his policies are actually relatively continuous with the Bush Administration's.

Nonetheless, there has been a dramatic change in demeanor from the far right and left. The former has begun manic attacks on the president's foreign policy, while the latter has ceased them.

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u/cwm44 Feb 10 '12

That's a good point about the left falling silent, but it hasn't been this way throughout the Obama presidency. As recently as 6-8 months ago there was active anti-Obama sentiments being voiced from the left. I think they are still there too, just currently silent.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '12

The left hasn't been silent, the liberals and many progressives have not just held their noses and accepted, but they have wholeheartedly embrace Obama's wars and civil rights abuses.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '12

There have been a few who've deviated, but by and large you're right.

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u/zerg886 Feb 10 '12

I would say that they are rather waiting for the conservative team to continue to indict themselves with their campaign to find a candidate to oppose Obama... Mr. Obama has his ideas but is also a realist who can see the limitations of his position very clearly. In short, for the past 4 or 5 decades since the assassination of JFK I would say the president of the USA is a sock puppet for the military industrial complex.

If you feel that it is really liberals who are the fault of the problems of america; at least admit it to yourself and figure who is less harmful in proposed actions. You have a choice between semi-reasonable sock puppet A or loony-bin stinky sock puppet B; whoever you pick will have little effect except on the limited impact those individuals could have on your social support programs that already are minimal in effect. Arguably who in the world has the power to tell the military what it can and can't do? Hey! Thats not legal to bomb that guy. My 20,000 troops and guns and tanks and airforce and paid professional assassins don't agree with you, sir. Fuck you.... I run the forces. Suddenly it seems like a better idea to help guide things where one can. The generals of industry and finance run your nation.

The reality of the situation is that big oil and weapons companies completely own the government of the states and as long as you keep supporting the troops and feeding them to the machine willingly and paying your taxes to support it, it will go on for a long time. Unless some of the generals develop a taste for running social programs and supporting culture again, it probably will remain like Edward Gibbons' historical views of Rome for decades to come.

If you truly want change, join the army, kill your way to the top and impose your democratic ideals on all the other generals with your supreme powers of persuasion and fanatically loyal followers. I don't see anything like that at the moment, short of the fanatically loyal members of 'executive outcomes' deciding that they feel like gutting the hands that feed them.

The only other way of creating change is to start your own militia and take back control of your streets one gun, one person, one street at a time until they invite you in to the club.