Here in the USA many amazing social and financial experiments are underway. President Obama’s approach to international diplomacy really impresses me, and I’m convinced it will impress the overwhelming majority of the world’s people who, like us, want peace and prosperity especially for their children.
It’s not naive to believe that dialog and engagement are more strategic than warfare and violence. I’m all for keeping a big stick handy if the bad guys threaten your family or your country, but it is interesting to me that some Americans seem to think diplomacy is a waste of time when it’s better perceived as an extremely cost effective and strategic alternative to violence.
The world is an increasingly complex and interconnected place, and clearly we need to shoot *last* and ask questions and engage people *right now*. President Obama’s appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was a great move in that direction, and videos like the one sent to the people of Iran help make it clear to our friends around the world that we are …. their friend around the world.
Joe Duck 
I absolutely agree!
Thx for that dj!
President Obama’s appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was a great move in that direction, and videos like the one sent to the people of Iran help make it clear to our friends around the world that we are …. their friend around the world.
Not sure I would agree with that. It was a pragmatic move, but Dame Hillary’s record is fairly conservative. She has consistently backed Bush. While her votes on economic/social matters may be somewhat liberal, she’s corporate all the way (as is BO, really–), and really fairly hawkish.
Hillary represents a sort of corporate “mommy-knows-best” feminism, arguably. I’m against the villains and terrorists, but Hillary’s hardly one to play the Good Cop, anymore than Israel is (and she’s been in the pocket of AIPAC for years).
Hillary represents a sort of corporate “mommy-knows-best” feminism
Another clever turn of phrase Horatiox, but I think we’ll find (thankfully) that conservative/liberal labels are going to start breaking down, partly because as you note there’s actually less difference between the Bush and Obama foreign policy than one would have thought based on election rhetoric. Also less of a difference between what even the harshest critics of USA would do if they actually had to deal on a day to day basis with real problems. It’s very easy to criticize the ineffectiveness of various approaches but it’s *not at all easy*, and often nearly impossible, to develop viable strategies to cope with international conflict.
In principle there are key differences, though in many Realpolitik contexts, little difference can be detected between Demo and GOPer; hence, Demopublican, or DINO. I agree the labels can distract from rational discussion, but politics, ‘Merican style, rarely concerns rationality.
As with most jargon, political terms often sort of function like a chant or meme. Political discussion functions more like advertiser slogans, or fans rooting for their favorite team. Prez Obama’s like an icon, or tag–ObamaCo.
It all looks fairly Orwellian, and though one would like to be optimistic about politics (whether at national or state level) little evidence exists to favor the optimists. for example, Glennster’s factoid about Obama keeping the defense budget at same levels as Bush–Demopublicanism.
Those dang DINOs! 😆 I’m not as pessimistic Horatiox though I think we can all agree that a heck of a lot will shake out in politics over the next 4-8 years as Obama’s unprecedented spending, social activism, and international popularity shape the global future quickly and dramatically.
My take is about the same as it has been for some time – Obama’s foreign policies will be more successful than Bush’s in stemming the growing tensions while his huge spending will have positive short term effects and negative long term consequences that we won’t see for many years until the trillions of debt chickens all come home to roost. At that point it will be impossible to pay this all back and the USA will print money like a Weimar Weinershnitzel Wendor. The inflation then could be catastrophic but probably will just be “bad” as China and those holding our bags of debt wind up bearing the brunt of this along with our kids.
I object to the colloquial, DailyKOS-Speak as well, but DINO does have a fairly distinct meaning, and suggests something like hypocrisy. There are quite a few DINOs (Democrats-in-Name-Only), whether in terms of elected officials, or the local cafe-liberals.
Bill and Hillary Clinton will do as examples of DINOness. Bill, for one, more or less capitulated to Gramm/GOP and agreed to dismantle the New Deal regs–i.e the Glass Steagall act–. Feinstein another example: DiFi has agreed to nearly all BushCo proposals, even the tax slashes for the wealthy of 2002 or so (only like two or three DINOs did). She’s also agreed to each and every “security” measure, until like the last year or so. She changed her tune a bit when even the Daily-KOS/HuffPo moderate sorts started to object.
We could also list all the Demos who were gung ho for the war: that’s not to say there were not some grounds for action of some sort, but Hillary and DiFi were waving that flag along with the Cheneyista sorts.
Obama does not lack DINO qualities. He agreed to the Paulsen bailout, for one–a sort of welfare for corporations and finance, with a few statist socialist elements. Let’s not forget he praised Reagan at times.