It is quiet simple really. The Bush Administration, men with 1950’s thinking, saw The US as the lone super power and like all men chasing glory for glory’s sake sought to make the world bow to US power. Obama, and the Dems see the US as a member of the World Community, and one of its leaders. Which has a whole different view and approach to the issues and challenge of the world.
The Bush administration like the famous roman General has seen Glory to be fleeting if it ever existed, and now are stuck with the reality they have so aptly made as fools chasing it. Unfortunatly the rest of the nation had to go along!

President Greorge W Bush, the most willfull president, the most woefull presidency!

But there is Hope! The nation see’s it, the world see’s it, and it isnt in John McCain!

Unfortunatly the rest of the nation had to go along!

Correction – the rest of the nation chose to go along.

I’m often criticized as elitist because I point out that the average American has no clue about history, geography, current events, civics or science, and so is ill-quipped to take up the heavy mantle of citizenship in a democracy.

BUT at least I credit the average American with the freedom of choice in this matter. He freely chooses how much attention to devote to study and learning, he freely chooses whether to get his news from TV or to read a good newspaper or news magazine. He freely choses how much skepticism to apply to the words of pundits and politicians.

The left and the right are far more elitist than I am because they both assume that the average American is some sort of mindless automaton into whose head “the liberal media” or “the corporate media” beam polemicical coded messages. They assume that the average American is incapable of playing any sort of an active role in this process.

Ultimately every single one of our problems, from our children who come home in body bags from Iraq, to our vast dependence on imported oil, to our addiction to debt, to the current mortgage crisis, to our growing lack of scientific and technical competitiveness, can be traced to millions of poorly considered choices by ordinary Americans. And those choices are not limited to purchase and voting decisions – the really bad choices are about how to think and research and how much to think and research before making any decisions.

Of course you leave out all the bad legislation that has been passed by both parties behind closed doors.
Some laws have been written by the lobbyist themselves to tailor fit the needs of an industry or corporation.

The credit card industry, banking, the oil industry, farming to name a few.

The only real victory for the ‘people’ was the defeat of the telecommunications bill and that went down despite Powell’s abuses of the process. It was stopped by millions of people writing and e-mailing their representatives.

You can’t put the blame on the ‘people’ when they are not even aware of what is going on due to the deliberate mismanagement of the process.

Food for thought, in Nixon’s tenure as president there were about 200 maybe 300 lobbyist in Washington.

Now there are thousands. Not that every lobbyist is bad, I’m just saying the process for law making and government has been turned on it’s head by the system we now have.

“Of course you leave out all the bad legislation that has been passed by both parties behind closed doors.
Some laws have been written by the lobbyist themselves to tailor fit the needs of an industry or corporation.
”

You can’t pass legislation behind closed doors.

“You can’t put the blame on the ‘people’ when they are not even aware of what is going on due to the deliberate mismanagement of the process. ”

How many laws can you cite that, as a bill, got reported out of committee, and passed by the two houses and signed by the President in secret? I follow a lot of legislation that’s interesting to me and I’ve never had trouble tracking its status. Are you having trouble with a particular piece of legislation now?

Furthermore, the voting records and funding sources for every politician are all widely available so if the public is truly unhappy with the role that lobbyisyts and donor play they can express that in their votiong behavior.

And, as I said in another thread, it’s the voters themselves who demand that politicians lavish them with expensive media campaigns. This, despite the fact the voting records, the speeches in Congress, the Committee activities, etc of every politician are free public knowledge. Plus, you can always call up the office of the politician or candidate of your choice and ask him or her to mail you their position papers.

For crying out load do you really believe what your saying? Are you going to tell me that lobbyist and large corporate needs are not being made into bills to further corporate greed.

How about the new bankruptcy laws that are written to favor the multi-billion dollar credit card industry.

I don’t remember having any say in that and I wrote to all my representatives. The FCC did hold closed door meetings that in theory were open to the public but just try to attend one and see what happens.

What your talking about, the public records are after the fact. The real action happens behind closed doors in committee meetings which are not open to the public.

Oh yes I’ll call up Joe Bidden and ask him why he, the supposed hero of the working class helped pass the new bankruptcy laws. I’m sure he or his office will give me a good amount of junk mail on his voeting record.

I have to agree with Jeff on this one. Theoretically, we as voters are in charge. “We, the people…” But I think when “one person one vote” principle clashes with “the right to petition the government,” the right to vote is weaker, because all you have is your vote. What corporations have is billions of dollars to spend and the right to petition to back it up. It is a no brainer who wins.

I love that these shows are available through streaming audio; I’m one of I’m sure many listeners who exclusively use the web to listen to this show. The earlier they can be uploaded, the better.

Are you going to tell me that lobbyist and large corporate needs are not being made into bills to further corporate greed.

The FCC did hold closed door meetings that in theory were open to the public but just try to attend one and see what happens.

The FCC is a federal agency – they have nothing to do with making legislation. And yes, I’ve been involved with FCC battles, too, because I was a ham radio operator for 30 years.

Anyway, as I said, the easiest way to eliminate the role of money is to stop demanding that politicians run expensive campaigns. As long as voters reward candidates who run flashy, expensive ad campigns with their votes the money will continue to flow.

It it hypocritical of voters to complain that politicians are in the pockets of big money and at the same time bid up the cost of a typical US Senate campaign to an average of $10 million! Voters don’t need those ads, as I indicated above, because all the information you need to make an informed choice is available cheap. But voters want those ads and won’t vote for politicians who don’t splash out. So, as I said above, it all comes down to the voters – if we had good citizens we’d have good government.

But I think when “one person one vote” principle clashes with “the right to petition the government,” the right to vote is weaker, because all you have is your vote. What corporations have is billions of dollars to spend and the right to petition to back it up. It is a no brainer who wins.

Apples and oranges. Votes are more powerful than money because it doesn’t matter how much money a special-interest-group lavishes on a politician, in the end the politician has get the votes to keep his job. All the money in the universe can’t help him keep his job if he doesn’t get the votes.

Well, the voter may oust one polititian, but in his/her stead will come another and another. The influence of money, however, seems to be a constant feature in DC. In the final analysis, the personalities matter very little. The founding fathers did not put a lot of hope into the human nature when drafting the Consitution. They tried to build in checks and balances that leave the human nature out of the process. How well that’s working we can see by the number of elected officials and others, such as lobbyists, going to jail, being indicted or under investigation. I hear, Ted Stevens has even won his primary in Alaska. I am not talking ideal world. In the perfect world a third party candidate would have won long time ago.

Every news outlet in the world has its own editorial prerogative and political agenda and they will put Obama in the box they wish him to be in.

Can Obama use world opinion to move America?

“Can Obama use world opinion to move America?”

I think it is dangerous for Obama to use his popularity abroad as an argument in the elections. It is very easy to use that against him. If he wins, however, it will be a huge advantage to the US in its foreign affairs. For example, it would be crazy to go to direct war with Russia. However, building diplomatic and economic coalitions and (pardon the clishe) winning hearts and minds will become imperative. I think Obama will be much much better at it than McCain.

Sorry to break into the good comments here. but is there any chance on this good earth that someone at On Point can fix the RSS feed to iTunes? I like the show, but I that doesn’t make it copacetic to repost (and thus have me download) each episode 2 dozen times a day. Been happening for 2 days now. Come on folks. Thanks.

someone at On Point can fix the RSS feed to iTunes? I like the show, but I that doesn’t make it copacetic to repost (and thus have me download) each episode 2 dozen times a day. Been happening for 2 days now. Come on folks.

FWIW, I don’t bother with their podcast feature (this is true on many public radio stations) I just do a straight stream-capture using software called Net Transport.

Personally I wish more NPR stations would just put an MP3 up on their website for a straight download. There are a lot of shows such as On Point or Fresh Air where I’m not interested in hearing every last episode – I just pick the shows I’m interested in, so an automatic podcast feed clutters up my harddrive.

Wow Nelson your such a political stud.
What your saying is that because I am not fighting for some kind of issue my comments are ill informed.

Most of the information I am using in these statements is from programs such as Front Line and Bill Moyers Journal. Which are well researched and pretty trustworthy in my opinion.

I also do my own research as well. Your trying to make people seem stupid. This is your agenda. You seem to post all over the place and you also seem to delight putting everyone down who does not agree with your position that Americans are stupid and it’s all our fault.

The system is so out of control with corporate influence as to make our contribution almost some kind of aside.

I do however agree that campaign financing needs to be completely reformed.

The FCC did try to change the how our air waves are regulated. Your smart go look it up wile your on your coffee break at work.

<>

Ummm…, I never asked for a flashy ad campaign, and watch virtually no television so that I can avoid the ads. Media relies on the ad revenue the campaigns spend. It benefits them more than it does the politicians. But the politicians need the media to get the exposure necessary to run a national campaign. Without exposure, it is impossible to win.

To suggest that voters are reinforcing this cycle by voting for the people who spend money is a bit silly. People vote because they have a right to do so, and a rsponsibility to do so. It is the closest I come to being able to express my opinion about the way things are going in the world, and being heard…even if I am on the losing side.

“To suggest that voters are reinforcing this cycle by voting for the people who spend money is a bit silly.”

The fact that they do that is silly, for all the resasons I stated – everything you need to make an informed voting decision is available without looking at glitzy ads.

But to point out that they do it is not silly because it’s true. YOU don’t watch TV and I don’t watch TV but most people do. And there is no question that the ads, especially the negatiove ones, do influence voters. There is also no question that campaigns that don’t splash out big bucks for TV ads don’t win (unless the race is uncontested or something).

So I’m not sure what part of this you’re saying is silly. As I said, it costs about $10 million to run a Senate campaign in an average state – the bigger the media market the more it costs. And the voters DO demand this as evidenced by the fact that they will ignore candidates who don’t splash out. This hurts the system in two ways:

1. It makes politicians dependent on rich doners.

2. It discourages many qualified candidates from even entering many races. A huge percentage of House seats are unopposed every term. In the last three election cycles there were about 60 House seats unopposed by a major party candidate each cycle.

As long as voters continue to watch and be influenced by the ads politicians will feel compelled to produce them and they’ll need to raise money to do so. When voters ignore the ads (as you and I do) the money-in-politics problem will go away.

“Sorry to break into the good comments here. but is there any chance on this good earth that someone at On Point can fix the RSS feed to iTunes? I like the show, but I that doesn’t make it copacetic to repost (and thus have me download) each episode 2 dozen times a day. Been happening for 2 days now. Come on folks. Thanks.”

I’m having the same problem, and it’s really annoying!

I’m getting dozens of “Obama and the World”, but I’m still waiting for “Week in the News”.

@Gary/Nicholas:

Apologies guys. It looks like the feed is displaying the same published date for all podcast items. Ill get this fixed as soon as possible.

Please don’t hesitate to email me at webmaster@wbur.org with any issues you find.

Cheers,

WBUR Webmaster