Remember when progressives cared about nuclear non-proliferation?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I still do. President Obama’s statement in Berlin is a helpful next step. And it will help in his first dealings with the Iranian negotiators about Iran’s nuclear program. He’s still going to have the problem of getting any agreement with Russia ratified by the Senate. The key point will come when US and Russia stockpiles have been reduced enough to include China in the negotiations. And there is still the issue of bringing Israel, India, and Pakistan under the non-proliferation regime. And of course, North Korea.
Unfortunately the Serious People don’t think India’s and Pakistan’s weapons are of any interest at all while Israel’s aren’t even mentionable in polite society. And then they are used as a phony pretext for attacking Iraq and maybe Iran. This discredits the issue. O’s focus on Russia and US is certainly a good thing in this context, it makes him less liable to charges of hypocrisy.
Neither are really on the table until the US and Russian stockpiles are reduced down to the point of approaching parity with India, Pakistan, and Israel.
Of course, $3 billion in US aid to Israel could be more conditional.
I don’t get it. Are you saying Obama is not a progressive, or what? NNP seems to have as much progressive support as ever, but has slid down the priorities list because there are so many new crisis-level problems. How do you choose which looming cause of human extinction to focus on?
He’s saying that Obama, who has made nuclear nonproliferation a top-tier element of his presidency, gets absolutely no credit for doing so from progressives.
I think this is true, but it also reminds me of that common right-wing refrain during the Bush years, ‘why don’t they report on the good news?’ Humans tend to focus on problems.
Was there good news?
“And now for a list of countries we didn’t invade …”
(Although, actually, I guess the right-wingers would consider that bad news indeed …)
Obama working it to put it back on the agenda is good news. That’s the point.
I think there were 2 things in the Bush presidency I approved of, but I can’t recall what they were.
I can’t speak for progressives. I speak only for myself. This response is not entirely rational. Each of us has a desire for leadership we trust. I feel that with our current president. Personally, I’m not worried about Obama’s cuts to the nonproliferation portion of the military budget because I trust him to be smart about it. I believe he shares my values and will apply our funds where they do the most good. It’s impossible to know how much of this trust comes from my rational mind and how much is based on prejudice (in his favor). I recall a bunch of ranchers standing around after W was appointed, agreeing amongst themselves that it was great to “finally have a real man in the White House.” Clearly they were speaking from a place more emotional than rational. But they couldn’t see it. None of us can see our own irrational motivations.
I was born in 1963, just before Kennedy was shot. I cannot know how I would have felt about JFK as a president but I say I remember each president who came thereafter. I even recall seeing Johnson on television. I asked my mom who he was. She said, “That’s the president.” My response was something like, “I thought dad was president.”
I can say this. I didn’t trust any of them until now. I disliked the bald man I saw on tv in 1968. I disliked his shifty-eyed successor. Ford was a buffoon. Carter was about as effective as a wet noodle. Don’t even get me started on Reagan. Bush I was totally soulless. Clinton, though a great politician, had no moral core. Bush II was clueless.
Obama is super smart, cool and rational, and he seems to me truly well intentioned. Though supremely self confident, and that can seem arrogant, I believe he’s actually humble in a lot of important ways. I don’t get the sense he ran for president to serve his own interests. I think he wants to be of service to others. I believe he will be remembered as one of our truly great presidents. The kind deserving of a place on Mount Rushmore.
All of which is a roundabout way to say I’ll worry about the nonproliferation budget when he’s no longer in office.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but I think Boo is asking why there isn’t more praise of Obama, given today’s speech (today?), not why there isn’t more criticism.
I don’t trust Obama one iota more than I trusted Clinton, but I think they’re both reflections of their times, and Obama’s time is marginally less self-destructive (in terms of our culture) than Clinton’s.
I’m not shy about criticizing BO when I think he’s wrong but I have to give him credit on this one. Perhaps progressives in general aren’t jumping up and down cheering because he now has a track record on a host of issues and there have been some disappointments, as there would be with any president.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but I think Boo is asking why there isn’t more praise of Obama, given today’s speech….
Pretty much describes a large number of Boo’s posts.
The guy gives great speeches – never been any doubt about that.
We’re still pissed that there are nation-states.
Give us time.
Sure, I can remember the day before President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Nuclear reduction talks? Pfft. AS IF!”
.
50 Years make – JFK “Ich bin ein Berliner”.
From my diary – Berlin Visit: ‘Mr. Obama, Open This Gate!’.
Yes indeed. That’s my main thing. I hope it is the President’s main thing.
Yeah, but then the cold war ended and now it really doesn’t matter. Nuclear weapons in Russia and the US are legacy makework programs maintained in indifferently defended facilities, staffed by backwater bureaucrats and bottom-of-the-barrel soldiers and airmen who hate their jobs. Their decommissioning can be handled exclusively on the ministerial level and requires zero public interest or input. The world is perfectly safe. You are personally perfectly safe.
If India and Pakistan nuke the world tomorrow, or those dastardly terrists steal the fissile material from Kazakhstan!!!, you can feel free to hold this post against me. But barring that, in 2038, when China joins the US and Europe in abolishing nuclear arms, I’m sure you can look forward to 80 year old Obama getting invited to the ceremony and everyone can talk about how great he is then.
As for now, he’s just a world class narcissist whose team is apparently ticked off they didn’t get quite the speech they had their hearts set on five years ago, and gosh darn it, he’s the Leader of the Free World and whatever. What other explanation is there for reannouncing news that they already announced 24 months ago, 18 months ago, 12 months ago and 6 months ago and expecting anyone to bat an eye?
snide is as snide does; India and Pakistan aren’t about nuking the world they are about nuking each other. Ppl in the usa don’t seem to take this seriously . it’s a good example of what Booman posted about a couple days ago, world crises that aren’t all about us. everyone should get out more.
India and Pakistan will work out India and Pakistan’s problems on their own time. They certainly won’t do it because of some American speaking in Germany.
That speech was a travesty. An ode to the 20th century in the heart of the Eurozone in 2013? Gee, Mr. President, you’re wondering why there’s a worrisome culture of complacency and disengagement developing? Yeah, let’s ponder deeply on that question, as though the ship of enlightened western liberalism hasn’t clearly run aground on the shoals of economic mismanagement and dysfunction. But no, yeah, let’s talk about New START and the NSA.
I wasn’t responding to the speech I was responding to your snide comment about India/ Pakistan.
b/c ppl were asking yesterday.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/19/1217388/-NC-extremists-post-online-targeting-game-to-intimi
date-Moral-Monday-protestors
The point about various crisis continues.
Obama is being pushed into Syria.
Our civilization is in daily increasing peril from climate change.
People have no power unless they have money.
People with money are only interested in addressing the problem “Why am I not richer?”
These elites have ever power to preserve their power and are criminalizing previously legitimate attempts to address the imbalance.
An increasing number of people have diametrically opposed worldviews (whether for reasons of propaganda or otherwise) that cannot be bridged.
Current fetishization of right wing economic policies even in the White House (to a significantly lesser extent than the rest of Washginton however!) is leading to high unemployment in the short-to-mid term.
Automation is going to lead high structural unemployment in the mid-to-long term future.
What am I missing?
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