Obama's speech, and my daughter's tears by RocketJock

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Obama's speech, and my daughter's tears

POSTED BY: ROCKETJOCK
UPDATED: Sunday, March 30, 2008 05:32
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Friday, March 28, 2008 1:22 AM

Well, as I noted before, Jack - sometimes it's kinda hard to get the end results of our crooked thought processes across to those who don't posses them.

That is why I consider it so all-fired important to really understand other people, those who think, believe, and act differently, cause of reasons exactly like that, and the dangers of misinterpretation.

I got where you were coming from, but yanno... now that you mention it...

Whether we despise Billary and Obamalamadingdong, there IS a certain merit in finally breaking the stranglehold of white male protestants in the presidency, although obviously neither of us likes em, the fact that they are even in the running is, I think, a sign of the sheeple not being as complete mental drones as we have previously assumed.

When yer drownin, as you start chokin on the water, you start caring less and less about WHO is throwin a rope, and more about the WHEN, ain't that a fact ?

I think Obama's issue with heritage is a bit personal-internal, he's got issues with family history that are none of my business and thus I will not explore, but it's apparent to me that he has chosen to identify with some of his heritage and reject some of the rest, which is fine by me, we all do that, but like you, I wish he would be a little more upright and forthcoming about it.

As for the Governator, heh heh heh - you know, if they ever do bend the law or change it in such a fashion to allow him to run for prez, I have JUST the candidate to kick his ass, and she'll do it too.

Jennifer Granholm, former State Attorney General and current Governor of Michigan.

See, the same rules and laws that keep the Governator out of the race, also disqualify her, and should that change, I would back her up even though she is not nearly as good a politician as she was an Attorney General.

And one debate would be all she wrote for the Governator - man, what she did to DeVos in the one he agreed to, wow, let's just say she handed him his ass in a fashion best described in terms bordering on the vaguely pornographic...

A VERY smart and articulate woman she is, and Arnie would be no match for her, in spite of my opinion that he has not done THAT bad a job as CA Governor, and seems to have grown as a person in response to the needs of the job.

Can't say I like him, mind you, but compared to when he took the job, I do think he's a better man, and more capable as an administrator, then he was initially.

THAT, I can respect, even if I don't like him or his ideals very much.

Hell if I would vote for him, however.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Saturday, March 29, 2008 6:05 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Yeah Frem... I think I tend to get that quite a bit more than you do, so you must be doing a heck of a better job understanding people.

If under different circumstances I would be quite pleased with breaking the stranglehold of white male protestants, and I would share your enthusiasm that maybe people are starting to wake up. But Obama is exactly what the media is pushing on the proles, and the timing for both a potential first black and potential first woman president could never have had so much force behind it had George W Bush not destroyed faith in America, the office of the President, Whites, Males and Christians with his 8 years of selling the world. This is all very cleverly orchestrated, and we're going to find ourselves in all sorts of scary and uncomfortable positions in the next 4 years when Obama is president (Healthcare being the scariest for me). On the off chance one of the others gets in, I can't with any honesty say it will be all that much better, but Obama is not this savior everyone is looking for.

Ron Paul was the man who could have made a difference... and the people showed him what they really thought of freedom and the Constitution in the last few months.

America doesn't deserve Ron Paul for president. America deserves one of these three conniving goons that will sell them to the Chinese.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Saturday, March 29, 2008 11:38 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Note that this is the Phillidelphia Inquirer, and not the National Enquirer...

I really don't care much for Hillary, but I can't help that she has been victimized by the same type of lose lose situation that a white person comes up against against all minorities today, particulary black people. Once that word racism comes out and starts spreading around, how are you supposed to fight it? You're white, so obviously you're guilty of being a racist if any utterance of common sense can be mangled in any way to twist the meaning of your words so that they come off as racist (meaning with hateful intent).

The truth is not racist. Racism is generated by hate and executed when that hate motivates somebody to damage their fellow man.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080330_Obama_was_the_first_t
o_play_the_race_card.html

Obama was the first to play the race card

Sean Wilentz
is the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus professor of history at Princeton University

Quietly, the storm over the hateful views expressed by Sen. Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has blown away the most insidious myth of the Democratic primary campaign. Obama and his surrogates have charged that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has deliberately and cleverly played the race card in order to label Obama the "black" candidate.

Having injected racial posturing into the contest, Obama's "post-racial" campaign finally seems to be all about race and sensational charges about white racism. But the mean-spirited strategy started even before the primaries began, when Obama's operatives began playing the race card - and blamed Hillary Clinton.

Had she truly conspired to inflame racial animosities in January and February, her campaign would have brought up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his incendiary sermons. But the Clinton campaign did not. And when the Wright stories and videos finally did break through in the mass media, they came not from Clinton's supporters but from Fox News Network.

Although Wright had until recently been obscure to the American public, political insiders and reporters have long known about him. On March 6, 2007, the New York Times reported that Obama had disinvited Wright from speaking at his announcement because, as Wright said Obama told him, "You can get kind of rough in the sermons." By then, conservative commentators had widely denounced Wright. His performances in the pulpit were easily accessible on DVD, direct from his church. But Clinton, despite her travails, elected to remain silent.

Instead, she had to fight back against a deliberately contrived strategy to make her and her husband look like race-baiters. Obama's supporters and operatives, including his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, seized on accurate and historically noncontroversial statements and supplied a supposedly covert racist subtext that they then claimed the calculating Clinton campaign had inserted.

In December, Bill Shaheen, a Clinton campaign co-chair in New Hampshire, wondered aloud whether Obama's admitted youthful abuse of cocaine might hurt him in the general election. Obama's strategists insisted that Shaheen's mere mention of cocaine was suggestive and inappropriate - even though the scourge of cocaine abuse has long cut across both racial and class lines. Pro-Obama press commentators, including New York Times columnist Frank Rich, then whipped the story into a full racial subtext, charging that the Clintons had, in Rich's words, "ghettoized" Obama "into a cocaine user."

The Obama campaign and its supporters pressed this strategy after Clinton's unexpected win in New Hampshire. Pundits partial to Obama, including Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and John Nichols of the Nation, instantly mused that their candidate lost because of supposedly bigoted New Hampshire whites who had lied to pre-primary pollsters - an easily disproven falsehood that nevertheless gained currency in the media.

Next morning, Obama's national co-chair, Jesse Jackson Jr., cast false and vicious aspersions about Hillary Clinton's famous emotional moment in New Hampshire as a measure of her deep racial insensitivity. "Her appearance brought her to tears," said Jackson, "not Hurricane Katrina."

Obama's backers, including members of his official campaign staff, then played what might be called "the race-baiter card." Hillary Clinton, in crediting both Lyndon Johnson as well as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Civil Rights Act in 1964, had supposedly denigrated King, and by extension Obama. Allegedly, Bill Clinton had dismissed Obama's victory in South Carolina by comparing it to those of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. (In fact, their electoral totals were comparable - and in the interview at issue, Clinton complimented Obama on his performance "everywhere" - a line the media usually omitted.)

Thereafter, Obama's high command billowed further race-baiter allegations into the media. Pointing to the notoriously right-wing Drudge Report, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign of deliberately leaking a supposedly racist photograph of Obama in African garb, which actually originated on still another right-wing Web site. Finally, David Axelrod trumpeted Geraldine Ferraro's awkward remarks in an obscure California newspaper as part of the Clinton campaign's "insidious pattern" of divisiveness.

One pro-Obama television pundit, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, fulminated that the Clinton campaign had descended into the vocabulary of David Duke, former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

(In his Philadelphia speech on race, Obama pressed the attack by three times likening Ferraro to Rev. Wright.)

Since the Philadelphia speech, the candidate and his surrogates have sounded tone-deaf on the subject of race. On March 20, Obama described his Kansas grandmother to a Philadelphia radio interviewer as "a typical white person." The same day, Sen. John Kerry said that Obama would help U.S. relations with Muslim nations "because he's a black man." Another Obama supporter, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, called him the first black leader "to come to the American people not as a victim but as a leader." Her history excluded and conceivably denigrated countless black leaders, from Frederick Douglass to Rep. John Lewis. Obama remained silent, refusing to take Kerry and McCaskill to task for their racially charged remarks.

Neither candidate can win sufficient elected delegates in the remaining primaries to secure the nomination, and so the battle has moved to winning over the superdelegates. Obama's bogus "race-baiter" strategy is one of the main reasons he has come this far, and it is affecting the process now. But by deliberately inflaming the most destructive passions in American politics, the strategy has badly divided and confused Democrats, at least for the moment. And having done so, it may well doom the Democrats in the general election.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Which is where Newsweeks article on the possibility of Al Gore getting the Democratic nod comes in. This would be great for two reasons for me. The first, I think it would be one of the funniest bloopers in politics if after the two of these goons spent millions campaigning that they both get passed up. The second is that I genuinely like Al Gore. I don't trust him, simply because he is a politician by nature, but I would feel more comfortable voting for him than the only serious choice I've got now which is Clinton.

Newsweek says: If Hillary's attempts to secure the nomination are seen as illegitimate, and they fail, yet Obama is not seen as a clear victor, Gore's name could be introduced. All it would take is a delegate perhaps from Tennessee, his home state, to raise a point of order, and with backing from five other state delegations, Gore's name could be put in play as a prospective nominee.

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/02/15/al-gore-
to-the-rescue.aspx

If Gore doesn't get the nod the way Newsweek says he can, I will either resign myself to voting Clinton, or send in a protest vote by voting for Ron Paul... or just give the whole bullshit process the big

and vote for Mayor Mike Haggar from the 1989 arcade classic Final Fight.

Thanks to the enlightening article brought to my attention by HKCavalier in the beginning of this thread, I could no longer in good conscience vote for Mayor McCheese even as a protest vote.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 12:26 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

6-ix

I'm sure some of my relatives in Poland - whom I've never met and probably never will - were some version of fascist. Others were probably card-carrying communist party members. Some were in the underground resistance. Still others were uneducated peasants. I'll bet there were a few drunkards and thieves scattered throughout.

In your opinion, does that make me an uneducated peasant thieving drunk card-carrying communist fascist Hungarian resistance fighter ? (My last name is common in Hungary.)

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 12:53 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Funny thing about the whole issue, since we're gonna delve into the ridiculous now...

Didja know, I was not even aware Obama was a little darker than me till I saw a picture, and I would allllmost bet Jack, with the same "fuck em all" attitude, wasn't intially aware of it neither.

It's not how we think, you see - we mostly couldn't care less, this stuffs only an issue cause other folks are making it one, Obama included, really I would rather he focus on what really bothers me, whether he can do the job or not.

Of course, ironic is you stooping to the same exact kind of race-baiting that's annoyed the piss out of folks who would rather not have the matter as an issue at all, Rue.

Do you not see, what you are doing there, is exactly the kind of crap that serves no effective purpose but to mire and distract a discussion from any useful purpose ?

And why folks are maybe annoyed about Clinton and Obama going rounds on THAT, instead of real issues ?

Too funny that you remember that game as fondly as I do, Jack... I think the closest real politico to Haggar would probably be Jesse Ventura, and he's too smart to *want* to be president, meh.

I figure imma write in Ron Paul no matter what, cause I want it in the historical record that this guy made an actual showing, and not all americans of this era were complete fucking morons, generations later when folks finally sort out the mess we have made, if any survive it.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:05 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"Of course, ironic is you stooping to the same exact kind of race-baiting that's annoyed the piss out of folks who would rather not have the matter as an issue at all, Rue."

Really ? Was I race baiting ? I was just responding to 6-ix saying he'd rather not have a Muslim in the W/H. Obama of course being Muslim b/c his name is Hussein (and mine is often mistaken as Hungarian so that must make me Hungarian) and his father was Muslim (and I have relatives that were all sorts of things so I must be those, too). Now of all the things to dislike or like about Obama, or the entire process, that has got to be the stoooopidest and most silly. Which is what I was trying to point out in a pretty direct way.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:06 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

No Rue, it doesn't. My family is from Sicily and has mob ties as well. From what I hear, they're still active too. I was raised far away from it though and although I'm sure they'd welcome me into their resturants and even give me a beer if I told them we had the same last name, but they wouldn't let me in on family secrets and I likely won't be accused of mob ties by anyone in my life.

One difference here is that your ancestors didn't bring the fascism on the boat with them when they came to America. There aren't Polish churches popping up in America preaching fascism as the way to a better future for whatever diety or nation.

Another difference is the man is running for political office, specifically the President of the United States. While I get pissed off about how celebrities are stalked by the paparazzi and every decision of their lives are dissected by the microscope of the ass-masses, I do believe that when you run for politics, your story is an open book for the proles to read. If you are going to be representing me, on any level of political office, well forgive me if I want to know about your past.

I think he's lying and the campaign is doing a hell of a job covering it up. But trust that if he gets the nomination that the bully on the Right is going to plaster Obama's middle name up everywhere and use a whole lot of Republican fearmonguering to put his point across.

Me... There's more than a shadow of a doubt as to his motivations, and I don't want an dormant member of the Nation of Islam running the show here. I will not vote for McCain under any circumstance, but I'm hoping with all I got in me that Obama doesn't win and they don't leave me with no choice and a total lose-lose situation.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:20 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"There aren't Polish churches popping up in America preaching fascism as the way to a better future for whatever deity or nation."

Well, ahem. They never did preach fascism as far as I can remember, but you would not have found average WASP America in those heavily Polish churches either. The beliefs were mostly Medieval and a lot of attention was focused on Poland, the same way Cuban Americans focus on Cuba. In fact after they gave up Latin most of the services were in Polish, the customs beliefs, and mind-set were Polish. As well as the food, the school, and a lot of other community organizations. So I can't portray my background as particularly pro- American, because it wasn't. Just to point out though, even with that background, all of my US relatives could pass as WASPS. I'm the odd duck.

I think the other thing you seem to miss is that on the one hand you call him Muslim, on the other hand you acknowledge that his church is AfrAm x-tain. Either that x-tian church has a big effect on him and his is not Muslim, or that church has no effect on him and he is Muslim. So it seems odd to criticize him both ways.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:30 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Yes, but there is a lot in the Muslim faith that is very anti-Western and anti-anyreligionthatisn'theirs. I'm not comfortable with a sympathizer or even a member running my country. That isn't biggotry, it's a sence of self preservation. I could be mistaken, but this is my true feelings on the matter, and they aren't motivated by hatered.

I don't outright call him one thing or another. I don't know. And that doubt is enough for me. There are plenty of other reasons that I've outlined that I will not be voting for the man. Is this the only one you have a problem with?

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:33 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Pretty much - b/c it seems so unsupported by facts.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 2:54 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Well, I suppose that's fair. I may be mistaken about this aspect and I'm more then willing to consceid that. I figure myself to be someone not affiliated with either of the two parties we're represented by today. I don't think it's going to look very good for Obama though when McCain isn't just sitting back and watching them two fight it out.

Obama's campaign has used race against her underhandedly, and while she was not the one who brought out the dirt on his old pastor, she also has not brought up his middle name and his questionable past once. I think that's already more class that she's shown than I would have ever given her credit for going into this.

That's a few big bombs to drop when it's the demon-rethug battle. If there is any dirt there anywhere I'm sure McCain has it by now. While they're wasting 10s of millions of dollars battling it out, he's free to focus his time and resources on his plan to build his rep an destroy the Democratic victor's rep.

My other concerns may not mean anything at all once the fearmoungering has begun. I might not be viewed as somebody with a head very firmly attached to his shoulders in here, but I am not a racist. I thank you for not calling me one either (though whether you believe me to be a religious biggot yourself is still up in the air).

I was simply stating my thoughts and concerns. I have no predetermined loyalty to either side, and I just know there are going to be a whole lot of people scared into voting at those polls.

But I do know that considering the state of affairs in the world now, if it turns out that he even went to a single Muslim sunday school growing up (or whatever the Muslim equivilant), not only will my vote against him be set in stone, but I can guarantee that we will be in for 4 years of McCain.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 3:17 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

6ix- In a few years your fears of a "Muslim" President will look like those fears of "Saddam's WMD": Part of a mass hysteria whipped up by playing on people's fears, ignorance, and prejudice.

And quite frankly, it doesn't matter what anyone did or didn't do when they run for President. McCain's military record didn't stop his (Republican, neocon) detractors from calling him "coward" nor did they stop the dirty-works guys from claiming he had a half-black love-child or from attacking McCain's wife.

If you want to be independent of thought, you've got to by truly independent ... and that means independent of your fears as well. Because if your thinking is dominated by fear you will not see clearly, and it gives people a "hook" into you mind by which you can be led.
---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 5:17 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Signy. I'm thinking about things right now and I started writing things down and it turned into a million things that I didn't know what I was talking about.

Not going to say any of them here now, but I'm not ignoring the thread.

RocketJock.... didn't mean to steal your thunder or anything. I got a superiority complex and it can drive people away. I don't really mean to insult with my blanket statements but I use them to let go of a lot of frustration and tend to offend. This is your thread and I'll bow out of it and let Obama supporters talk amongst themselves.

Good luck to you, and if he wins, good luck to all of us, right?

Later,
6SJ

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Sunday, March 30, 2008 5:32 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Understood.

---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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