Thread: Obama's Foreign Policy Advisor: Winnie the Pooh can show us the way

Obama Adviser: Pooh Bear, Luke Skywalker Hold Lessons for Foreign Policy

by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Foreign policy architects could benefit from studying Winnie the Pooh and Star Wars, according to a Barack Obama adviser who is set to attend a meeting of the Democratic candidate’s national security work group Wednesday.


Richard Danzig, former Navy secretary under President Clinton, drew several creative and unusual analogies to explain the challenges America faces overseas during a foreign policy conference in Washington, D.C., last week, according to an article in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.


In arguing that the country should back off a policy that causes too much pain, Danzig said, “”Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”


He read a section from the children’s book where Pooh Bear hurts himself going down the steps because he hasn’t stopped to think of another way.


During his address to the Center for New American Security, Danzig also said much can be learned about the motivations of terrorists by looking at, for instance, soccer fans who become absorbed by violence or even the Star Wars movies.
According to the article, Danzig said a terrorist from the 1995 Tokyo nerve gas attack once told him: “We have been raised on a theory of superheroes. We all want to be like Luke Skywalker.”


Danzig argued that anyone who leads a “mundane” life and loses his or her ambition can be tempted by the promises of an extremist group or leader.
Danzig was expected to meet Wednesday as part of Obama’s 13-member Senior Working Group on National Security. It includes former members of Congress and high-ranking Clinton administration officials.

Obama Adviser: Pooh Bear, Luke Skywalker Hold Lessons for Foreign Policy - America’s Election HQ




Can Obama's foreign policy get any more juvenile? This simplicity bullshit is worse than Gore's simplicity bullshit.

OBAMA CAMPAIGN CULTIST: 'It's all so easy and clear all you have to do is see.'

DEMOCRAT VOTER: Oh gee, I never looked at it that way. Amazing

OBAMA CAMPAIGN CULTIST: What's the sound of one hand clapping?'

DEMOCRAT VOTER: Wooow.

BwaaaaHaaaah.

Originally Posted by attaboy

Danzig argued that anyone who leads a “mundane” life and loses his or her ambition can be tempted by the promises of an extremist group or leader.

Oh, oh....TD is a fertile AQ recruiting target. Beware of newbies with "Bin" in their nic.

^ Jetbin. Checkbin. Takbin.

Originally Posted by attaboy

Foreign policy architects could benefit from studying Winnie the Pooh...

May this has something to do with the ol' honey vs vinegar argument?

I once witnessed agrown man read a Dr Seuess book to a gathering of adults (his subordinates) in hopes that the simplicity message would sink in.

One-hundred percent of those in the audience agreed he was a stark-raving-mad lunatic who had no position being in charge.

A few months later, he wasn't.

Big boo boo. Winnie the Pooh, the honey pot and fist bumps? Obama keeps it up and his campaign is going to be tied to a kite flying far, far away.

Danzig argued that anyone who leads a “mundane” life and loses his or her ambition can be tempted by the promises of an extremist group or leader.

I'm not sure whether that is fascist art or revolutionary art in it's style. It looks fascist to me.

Here's another.



Here's a video shot of an Obama campaign headquarters.



Youtube if you can get it:




Yep people fantasize all sorts of things about themselves and the people they like to live vicariously through. Some people like to play revolutionary in a safe enviornment. Who is Obama to dispel this fantasy?

^ Basically, the only candidate that offers hope and change after the abysmal Bush administration.

It may be a pipedream, but it would be nice if a Leader with some charisma like Obama can get people interested and involved in politics again on a personal level, rather than this thrice removed, PR spun, manipulative, impersonal Lobby group style politics that is moving people away from the Democratic ideal.

It was disappointing to me, on a personal level, how easily- and opaquely- the Bush admin was able to limit personal freedoms and infringe upon personal liberties, but it was symptomatic of something- namely that the individual in our society increasingly feels powerless, impotent, against the impersonal machine of the government.

Peoples only interest in Politics and policies is therefore "What can it do for Me".

Originally Posted by attaboy

Here's a video shot of an Obama campaign headquarters.

someone (boon mee?) tried posting this canard a few months ago, and it was thoroughly debunked.

it wasn't obama 'campaign headquarters', it was an independent volunteer office and was not sanctioned or controlled by the obama campaign.

in fact, i wouldn't be surprised if it was eventually revealed that the entire spectacle wasn't a dirty tricks op by the clinton campaign.

That's a pic of Obama next to the flag. Regardless, it makes the point that people with boring lives fancy a 'revolution' and Obama fills that desire.

I'm not putting faith in a guy with no real experience in the big leagues and who is coming off as a demagogue. I think we both agreed prior that he should have waited ten years in order to learn the ropes, gain a network and gain some favors owed him.

Remember this guy was never expected to win the Senatorial seat he occupies. The Democrats put him up just to make a showing. The republican had the seat locked up until the divorce precedings involving his Star Trek hot wife became public. I'll go with the old man. He has the experience. Slogans like "si se puede" are catchy but it's not for players in the big leagues to believe in slogans.

Originally Posted by sabang

It was disappointing to me, on a personal level, how easily- and opaquely- the Bush admin was able to limit personal freedoms and infringe upon personal liberties, but it was symptomatic of something- namely that the individual in our society increasingly feels powerless, impotent, against the impersonal machine of the government.

People should realize what a thin veneer our liberties are. In a time of emergency they are gone. It's as simple as that. Bush and the boys went to extremes because no one knew how extensive the terrorist network in the USA was/is. The problem is this WAT is going to last for decades. There is no determinable end whereby liberties can be restored as they were after the Civil War and WWII.

Remember the Democrat debates where the candidates were asked which comes first liberties or the security of the nation? Obama answered liberties and immediately Biden and Dodd cut him off so he couldn't continue and they both said the security of the nation comes first. That's the way it is. A person can only hope the emergency passes as quickly as possible.

I need to correct my post. Richardson not Obama said civil liberties not national security comes first. It was Dodd and Hillary who responded national security comes first. Obama said the answer did not require an 'either or' stand.

Originally Posted by attaboy

It was Dodd and Hillary who responded national security comes first. Obama said the answer did not require an 'either or' stand.

Would tend slightly to side with Dodd and Hillary on this one. For me the primary purpose of the Federal Government is to ensure national security. Without it civil liberties are at risk.

However, declaring and justifying every military adventure across the globe as "defending national security" is far removed from what I believe was intended in the constitution's preamble "provide for the common defence".

In the context of how the term "national security" is now used, I would agree with Obama.

The Office of the President carries a lot of power, in every sense.

If the Pres says there is a threat to national security, a lot of people take it seriously.

If the Pres says your civil liberties need to be curtailed, for national security reasons, most people give him carte blanche to do so- the Pres said it, so it must be true. Thats whats known as Referential power.

The Pres also has the vast PR machine of the government behind him, all funded by the taxpayer. In short, he can spends what he wants of your money to sell to you what he wants.

The Bush admin is as good an example as any- he was basically able to override the judiciary, or paint them out of the equation. A similar case was his ability to hire a Crony- Alberto Gonzales- as Attorney General. Or the use of torture, Gitmo, CIA ghost prisons and so on. This is dangerous. The power excerecised by the Presidential Office made the Judiciary look irrelevent, and powerless. In reality, the judiciary is one of the 3 pillars of a functioning democracy- being the administration, executive, and the judiciary.

The power and accountability of the Presidential office need to be checked, otherwise it stands as a potential threat to the democratic system of the USA.

Simplicity shouldn't be ignored or revered. But it should be condsidered.

In my view -- Obama will smoke his opponent. He is the global candidate.

Hope outsells fear.

Originally Posted by raycarey

Originally Posted by attaboy

Here's a video shot of an Obama campaign headquarters.

someone (boon mee?) tried posting this canard a few months ago, and it was thoroughly debunked.

it wasn't obama 'campaign headquarters', it was an independent volunteer office and was not sanctioned or controlled by the obama campaign.

in fact, i wouldn't be surprised if it was eventually revealed that the entire spectacle wasn't a dirty tricks op by the clinton campaign.

Obama's got ground game

Shrewd grass-roots organizing has helped the candidate grab primary victories nationwide, and could prove key to vanquishing Hillary Clinton in Texas.
By Mike Madden


...One of the first advisors to sign up with Obama was deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, one of the Democratic Party's top grass-roots organizers.

The volunteer groups were up and running before the official campaign crews showed up. Hildebrand saw to it the volunteers were sent packets to help with the grassroots organization. Your attempt to call this some sort of wildcat operation doesn't jive.

This field campaign has seized opportunity in the groundswell. Around the country, Obama staffers have linked up with networks that supporters built up themselves long before paid field organizers even arrived. "It was a seamless thing, where the campaign kind of came here, kind of stood outside the doors, and said, 'Knock knock, tell us what you need,'" said Mark Keam, a lobbyist for Verizon who, on his own time, organized Fairfax County, Va., for Obama three months before a campaign worker showed up there.



The campaign kept working with the lists of voters and volunteers that Keam's group had put together on its own. The volunteers had already set up their own field structure in each of the county's nine smaller jurisdictions, so the official Obama organizers rolled with it.

The campaign is also shrewdly leveraging technology: Its 29-page info packet takes volunteers through the Texas Obama Precinct Captains Web site, which the campaign set up to give activists direct access to a massive database on voters. They can print out address lists that help them walk their neighborhood looking for Obama voters, or read from scripts while doing outreach by telephone from home. Whatever they find then gets uploaded to the Obama database through their own computers, which frees up field staffers who, in previous campaigns, might have spent hours typing in the same information.

At Obama rallies with overflow crowds, the campaign collects e-mail addresses and invites people to join the precinct captain network. All the online tools also tell volunteers how to quickly get in touch with organizers offline, and they let the campaign keep track of what its activists are up to without having to check in on them constantly. By the time aides opened their 10 regional headquarters around Texas last week (which, in turn, will supervise smaller satellite offices), there were already volunteers on the ground working all over the state.

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Texas primary | Salon News

This is only one article which describes the grassroots work Hildebrand was doing to pave the way for the paid campaign organizers.

Well, I think Boon Mee has been vindicated.

The original question asked to Joe Biden:

BROWN: And my question is, is it your view that there are times when the security of the United States is more important than the way a key ally, like Musharraf, disregards freedom and disregards democracy?

BLITZER: Everybody's going to have a chance.

Senator Obama, is human rights more important than American national security?

OBAMA: The concepts are not contradictory, Wolf.

BLITZER: Because occasionally, they could clash.

OBAMA: They are complementary. And I think Pakistan is a great example.

Look, we paid $10 billion over the last seven years and we had two goals: deal with terrorism and restore democracy.

And we've gotten neither.

And Joe and Bill are exactly right on this. Pakistan's democracy would strengthen our battle against extremists.

The more we see repression, the more there are no outlets for how people can express themselves and their aspirations, the worse off we're going to be, and the more anti-American sentiment there's going to be in the Middle East. We keep on making this mistake.

As president, I will do everything that is required to make sure that nuclear weapons don't fall into the hands of extremists, especially going after Al Qaida in the hills between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But we've got to understand that, if we simply prop up anti- democratic practices, that that feeds the sense that America is only concerned about us and that our fates are not tied to these other folks.

And that's going to make us less safe.

That's something I intend to change.

BLITZER: Hold on. Hold on one second. Senator Dodd, I want you to weigh in. What is more important when they clash: human rights versus national security?


I can't concur with Obama on the hypothetical Pakistan question he was asked. National security always comes first it doesn't stand equal with human rights. If encouraging human rights helps to enable national security then that is all well and good. But the president can never lose sight of the priority. Encouraging human rights in Pakistan could lead to Islamic fundamentalist taking over the country. In that sense human rights are not in the interest of the USA, the world or Pakistan for that matter. I believe we can think of another democracy project which is now a mess trying to be worked out.

So Obama wants to spead up democracy in Pakistan. I don't think they can handle it. Obama is asking for another Iraq all in the sake of 'it would be nice and we wouldn't look mean and selfish'.

In some places you have to be satisfied with being respected. It's sad but that's how it is.

The liberal desire to nation build in Somalia is what got us into this mess in the first place. You'd think Bush would have seen Clinton's folly and steered clear. Now Barak is basically saying we need the people of Pakistan to experience the democracy the Iraqis have. That's foolish rhetoric not even fit for domestic consumption. It will now be broad casted into Pakistan.

It reminds me of Jimmy Carter going to Central America and giving speeches to the local people telling them how they deserved democracy and then Carter gets on his jet and leaves town. Get the people fired up and then walk away and let the regional governments cope, it's irresponsible.

Where's the link? And also Blackgang: where that link to the article in this other thread in Domestic?

Sory about that.

CNN.com - Transcripts

This one's a Hoot!

Sean Hannity asks a room full of BO supporters to name one accomplishment of his!