Delaware Dem's Latest Posts
TGIF Open Thread [8.30.13]
![TGIF Open Thread [8.30.13]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Obama-200x180.png "TGIF Open Thread [8.30.13]")
80% of Americans believe President Obama should receive congressional approval before using force in Syria. 80% of Americans cannot agree on anything, Mr. President. They agree on this. This is a no-fucking-brainer, Mr. President. You want a way out of that fucking corner you painted yourself into, this is it. Seek Congressional Authorization. If you don’t get it, your hands have been tied by Congress just as David Cameron’s were.
Treasurer Flowers to Speak at next PDD meeting
As you may recall, Treasurer Flowers’ plans to invest state funds to achieve higher returns for the Treasury ran into some push back from the Governor and some in the General Assembly at the close of the legislative session at the end of June. So the Progressive Democrats for Delaware (PDD) invited Treasurer Flowers to speak in an open forum on his plans for investing state money and his goals for the Treasurer’s office. The forum/meeting is Wednesday, September 4, 2013, at 7 pm, at the Democratic Party Headquarters, 19 E. Commons Blvd., in New Castle.
Syria
I find it very interesting that both political parties are pulled in two different directions (and sometimes three) on the issue of Syria.
On the Democratic side, you have the peace movement, the adherents to which believe the use of any military action anywhere is wrong and should never be pursued, even for humanitarian reasons. And then you have the Liberal Do-Gooders, who sometimes want to be the world’s policemen to stop atrocities like what happened in Yugoslavia and the Rwanda in the 1990’s, and what is happening now in Syria. And then you have those Liberal Warhawks who believe, just as most Republicans do, that the military option is generally preferable as the first tool of our foreign policy, not the last resort. The difference between them and the Neocons on the Republican side who believe the same is that Liberal Warhawks are generally followers, scared and scarred into sounding and acting tough on foreign policy through the experience of Vietnam and Republican attacks on “Democratic weakness” that followed.
On the Republican side, you have the aforementioned Neocons, who literally are war pigs. They want to be at war all the time. This is not hyperbole. They wanted to invade Baghdad in 1991. And again in 1998. They truly want the American flag flying over the capitals of all the world, but most importantly, in the Middle East. There is not a war they will not fight, or a fight that they will not turn into a war. They dominate the Republican Party, and they have scared many Democrats into acting the same way as well. This group was born during World War II, got high off American superiority then and during the Cold War, and now believe that if America is not leading the fight and winning a war everywhere, it is losing everywhere.
Making more noise recently is the other force at work in the Republican Party: the libertarians, which I think includes the former isolationists or non-interventionists. I will let Steve Newton take it away….
A 10 Day Around the Horn [8.16.13 to 8.27.13]
![A 10 Day Around the Horn [8.16.13 to 8.27.13]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/HORN-240x180.png "A 10 Day Around the Horn [8.16.13 to 8.27.13]")
Sorry for the delay in getting this around the horn to you. I meant to have it ready on Friday, but I had my physical. So I delayed it to Saturday, but then I had my Fantasy Football draft. And then on Sunday and Monday I was toying with the idea of just waiting until Friday for a two week round-up. But then I started writing it and it was getting too big. So I am just going to post what I have now, and do another Around the Horn column on Friday, September 6.
So here is what the Delaware blogosphere was talking about this past 10 days. I have organized the postings into individual subjects. Organization FTW!
This week we are talking about Bloom Boxes and the Newark Data Center, Teachers and Testing, the constitutionality of Charter Schools, the New Castle Tire Incinerator, the looming and dooming Highmark monopoly.
Tuesday Open Thread 8.27.13
History says don’t do it. Most Americans say don’t do it. But President Obama has to punish Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s homicidal regime with a military strike — and hope that history and the people are wrong.
If it is true that the regime killed hundreds of civilians with nerve gas in a Damascus suburb last week — and Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Monday that the use of chemical weapons is “undeniable” — then Obama has no choice. Such use cannot be tolerated, and any government or group that employs chemical weapons must be made to suffer real consequences. Obama should uphold this principle by destroying some of Assad’s military assets with cruise missiles.
I say this despite my belief that Obama has been right to keep the United States out of the Syrian civil war. It is not easy to watch such suffering and destruction — more than 100,000 people killed, millions displaced, cities pounded into rubble — and do nothing. Now I believe we are obliged to hit Assad. But then what?
Obama should have never drawn a red line. By doing so, he boxed himself in to using military force if the line was crossed.
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