Your View: Is the US Ready for a Black President?

Yes. And i hope he wins!

What’s wrong with black???..

Competency, integrity, and your credibility is not measured by the color of your skin..

I didn’t think I would need to say it – but I will delete any racist comments.

yeah right jfrater..
I was just bothered “somebody’s” comment..
well, I think, it’s not a good idea blogging dirty comments here right?
this is for smart people not for uneducated ones..

I definitely think that the majority of Americans, especially younger ones don’t even consider the color of his skin; we are ready for a black president. However, and I hate to say this, but I think he would have a higher than average chance at being assassinated. There are certain groups in this country that would definitely attempt it. It would take a long long time for that wound to heal. I try not to think about it…

appie: okay – it is fine – I saw the comment and deleted it. Let’s move on now :)

Speaking as a lifelong democrat i dont think Obama is qualified to be president. George Bush has just about ruined the chances for McCain to be elected president because he,s the one of the worst presidents in history and Americans are ready for a change. Im gonna do what the late George Carlin say,s im not gonna vote for anyone that way you cant blame me when they [email protected]#k up i didn,t vote for him.

To me, race has nothing to do with competence, but in all honesty, there are a lot of idiots out there. There are too many white supremacist nut-jobs in this world and if Obama is elected, I worry about what might happen. I think that the majority of Americans may be ready, but all it takes is one idiot.

Yes, the US is ready for a black president. The only problem is that liberals aren’t ready for a conservative black president just as conservatives aren’t ready for a liberal black president. Party lines are much more divisive than race. Thomas Sowell would make a much better president than Obama. Obama’s not even facing issues with being (half) black or having a muslim-sounding name, he’s facing adversaries who question his judgement and ability to run the most powerful nation on the planet. It’s got nothing to do with race and he knows it. You might as well ask if America is ready for a female president or a one-armed president or a president in a wheelchair. We’re stuck in a rut of older white male presidents because A. it’s expensive to run for president so rich people tend to do it B. that’s what our politicians tend to look like. The political arena is open to one and all. It’s just like the sciences. Women aren’t highly represented because there aren’t a lot of women who go into the field. It’s only a matter of time before someone who looks different becomes our president, and naturally that person will be applauded and go down in history as the first “whatever” be it black guy or chick or jewish person. But I bet you whoever it is will be just another politician-they’ll just look different doing the job.

And as far the assasination angle, any idea how many people want Bush dead?? I don’t think Obama would have any higher than average odds.

i would love to say that America is ready, but I dont think they are.
Honestly, some red-neck would assasin him before he reaches the whitehouse… i would love to be proved wrong.
Alot of America is ready, but not ALL of America…

jfrater ~ will you be watching his highly-anticipated acceptance speech tonight?

YES, AMERICA IS READY–Just not O bama–Ineptness shouldn’t be the strong point for electing a president.

In my opinion, it’s simply about the US being ready for a DIFFERENT kind of president. A non-white, non-senile, non-“let’s go to war forever”, non-awfully-Republican president.

And the answer is hopefully yes, FOR THE SAKE OF THE REST OF THE WORLD.

Yes we are. I don’t this THIS particular gentleman is the best candidate running this year. But I’m glad to see that we as a nation have come far enough to give him consideration. The same thinking goes for a woman president. Remember the men who’ve held this job were from a pretty narrow group,….even amongst white men. We’ve had only one Catholic president, only one bachelor, only one who didn’t graduate college, only one divorced and none whose surname originated from outside of Northwestern Europe.

“Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans”

Another great report from the Onion.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/portrayal_of_obama_as_elitist

I think it’s ridiculous that the question even has to be asked. Race shouldn’t have any relevance. Experience should. Obama has no experience or unique qualifications; I really don’t see what the big deal is about him.

Politicians are ALL douchebags. Each and every one of them. Douchebaggery sees no color.

On race, in case it DOES matter, here’s a snippet from an article by Dr. Jack Wheeler:

>He is half-white, which he
> rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but
> is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his
> Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim
> his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part
> of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he
> pretends he is exclusively.
>
> What he isn’t, not a genetic drop of, is
> ‘African-American,’ the descendant of enslaved
> Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He
> hasn’t a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his
> Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main
> Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British
> ended it.
>
> Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he
> is the descendant of slave owners.

I’m Irish so the election doesn’t have any direct impact on me, but if I had the opportunity to vote in the US elections – Obama! Obama! Obama!

I think the majority of the US is probably ready for a black president. He’s a personable, intelligent, thoughtful man – am I just naive in thinking that his skin colour is trivial in comparison to those admirable traits?

One thing that worries me though is those Republican voters in the Bible belt. McCain still has a strong army of support behind him. Although I’ve never been to the US, I am aware that racism among the Bible belt is still a problem (correct me if I’m wrong).

As the US is the only superpower left in the world, the election impacts the rest of the world greatly. If Obama is elected, it will show great progression in the US society from the days of Rosa Parks. The rest of the world will notice and appreciate it.

Plus, he’s not a gun-toting war nut :-)

Morgan Freeman has built the road

Jill W.
I understand what you’re saying, but you can’t expect people to really care that he is descended from slave owners. So are most people!
Slavery has been around forever and most every country has slavery in it’s past, so it’s highly unlikely that ANYBODY isn’t descended from slave owners.

wow. never thought i’d say this… but i actually don’t have much to say.

i am not ready for a black president…or a white president… or a yellow, red, purple, orange or chartreuse president!

i am ready for a president who can begin to repair much of financial damage our country has sustained over the past 8 years… i make (practically) the same amount of money that i did back in 2005, but i am paying 2$ more a gallon in gas. milk costs over 3$ a gallon, and let’s just not go there.

my properties went into foreclosure, because i made bad judgment calls and thought i could turn them around quickly, but the bottom began to drop out of the real estate market by then. i have had 2 friends return from Iraq, one with a TBI and is now disabled, and he fights every month for a measly $1,250 to live off of!

we are still involved in a war that not only do many Americans oppose, but a great many don;’t even know why we are involved!

i am ready for a president, and administrations, who doesn’t think the answer to our energy crisis is to open off-shore drilling that has been banned by congress every year since the 1980’s…

i am ready for a president that understands that instead of being the global bully, we need to be the global educator, and lead by example…

and i’m ready for a president that stops pandering to big corporations and encourages the small business owners, who are just getting annihilated by such corporations as WalMart, VCA of America, and others.

since Billy Graham socially declared that to “Be a Christian & American” was synonymous with “voting Republican”, there are an untold multitude of backwater, un-educated, un-informed individuals in this country, who only take their awareness of politics or public events from the snippets on the nightly news, who would never desire to see anyone other than a white, American, Protestant male in the White House, that will vote for anyone Republican, so long as it is a white male who talks openly about his religion.

those people, i fear, outnumber those of us whom are more liberal, see beyond the immediate gains, and understand that it will take a helluva lot longer than 8 years to turn this country around. If Obama becomes president, i believe he will lay down a great foundation for other future presidents to build upon and repair all the economic damage, and national disgust many Americans (such as myself!) feel about the previous 8 years…

i have nothing more to say. really.

ringtailroxy

I would hope to think that in modern times now candidates should be based on policy rather then of superficial natures such as skin colour or networks… on the other hand there is no need for positive discrimination if he is unsuitable.

however in this case, i believe people are most definitely ready for a black president.. i also hope that this inspires people of different cultures and races to step up and try to help change the world knowing that no judgement will be made purely on race.

Hell yeah,America is ready for a black president!!! It’s time for change,man! On a serious note, the way Bush has been running the country these past eight years has put quite a damper on McCain’s run,him being a republican, but only time will tell. I was also rooting for Hillary for vice president,but oh well, Biden’s good to.

Why the hell should america care what race the president is, I just want someone to turn this country around Bush fucked it up.

I believe most intelligent Americans are ready for a black president. I don’t care if your black, gay, or atheist, as long as you don’t push your social policies on me, and you make America a better place.

I don’t like Obama or McCain though.

Is the US Ready to stop asking ridiculously racist questions that distract the voter from truly important issues?

i dont know. two party elections dont cut it for me. ultimately the path will go for who ever’s got the money and the gall to make it through to this point and those with enough political “got yo back” behind them, be it a blue gorilla with a swagger and wearing a 10gallon hat , riding a blindfolded ostrich , throwing out lollipops and ipods or someone with the voice, that is able to get across that “HOPE” tagline without it seeming like it was really created by Shepard Fairey, who’s made his mullah and street cred with his “OBEY” propaganda stlye poster grafitti..
Tell em what they wanna hear now.
it’s the time for high drama now. showtime!
the trail was like a recieving antenea.
” might need to adjust that one a tad to the right- or is it the left?”
“add some tin foil to that one there”
kiss the babies and give a golly handshake to the elders. eat a burger, play some pool, drink a beer with the regular shmo.
Stevie Wonder singin ole time faves with barack additions, while a bunch of little american flags wave around
god bless our country
the way the news plays it here is leaning on the pop side of obama.
the cool one
good luck Micky C!
The white guy on tee vee, talkin to the black woman on tee vee, “Its a different kinda obama and accent you’ll see and hear when he’s givin a speech in a southern black church.”
Al Gore talkin now to Obama fans. He gave his “go obama” bit–cheers expected places–, now he gives his “climate crisis” talk, and the good feeling of the crowd is trying to sober up.

but where’s the racism- hidden, erased or pushed back, as it can overshadow. The LA riots were just 15 years ago.thats not that long ago. and that was a pressure pot purculating for a while..for sure.
racism still exists in different ways worldwide, but the majority of voters here are not overt racists and the true hate mongers are like speckles of gore we wish not to look at straight in the face.
hypothetical “joke” here: what if Obama grows an afro in the white house…well, what would happen then?
Where’s the tough as nails jornalist that goes into the dark jungle of the mind of america and record the howl?

ringtailroxy for president!

Diogenes’ dummy ~

thank you for the nomination, but i must decline. you see, i am certainly NOT qualified to run for presidency.

obviously the entire country has gone totally downhill since the Reagan era… a time of big spending and the Cold War. Then it was Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War. then it was Bin laden and the Iraq War… do i detect a trend?

now, I am well aware of Clinton’s part in the bombing of South Africa…. but i don’t believe it caused so vile an economic crisis as this war does today.

and whatever happened to the communal love of all americans? according to my grandfather, during WWII,things like War Bonds & Victory Gardens where the norm, and the american public eagerly made sacrifices so the soldiers had fresh food, supplies, and raw materials…nowadays, you can’t pry a teenage girl’s hands from her text phone, the general american attitude is “it’s not my problem” or “i don’t want to get involved” and now the “Green” movement is trendy, and i fear it is a fad, such as Rubik’s Cubes, Tomaguchi, Clear Sodas, and mainstream Alternative Rock!!!

no more. seems others LVers think i ramble…

rtr

p.s. concerning McCain: wasn’t he a prison of war, surviving atrocities, but so brain-washed by the military that he still thinks war is necessary for peace? that’s like wiping my ass before i take a shit…or saying you have to lie to be honest…

We’re not ready for any one who isin’t going to actually do what they say. Too bad Obama can’t actually tell us what he will ‘change’. Whoever will be voted in, it won’t matter, my life will pretty much stay the same. So, I don’t care if we had a black jewish midget as a president, because I’ll still be doing the same things in the same exact way.

this is going to be a major issue, just not for the reason that most of us think. in the south carolina primary, obama received 78% of the black vote. this is silly. i fear he will get elected simply BECAUSE he is black.
and then as mentioned above, i fear that if he loses, it will lead to greater race relation problems because of the perceived presence of racism that kept him from getting elected.

as far as the two candidates go, obviously there are serious flaws with both of the major party options. however, i don’t worry about homeland security with mccain in the oval office. i worry that someone will try to test obama the way they did bush. despite his many shortcomings, we have not been attacked since 9/11 under his watch.

I am so glad i saw this title. I just watched his speech on tv. I think the US is ready for anyone who is willing to make the country a better place for the most of the people. I am pretty sure that weve come far enough as a whole to not really have to just see a persons skin color and not hear what they have to say. I hope so, at least. Besides, his ideas seem very good.

its simple. NO! definitely not ready, i’m not saying i’m not ready, i like barack.. a lot……. i just reaaally think he’ll get shot, the blacks will go nuts and riot like rodney king x100

I agree that people will try to assasinate (KILL) him. People get crazy mad/ angry. Do I think this will continue? Yes.
Until the “job” is done. He will forever be in danger

I have to say…. if they are not, then they should have voted against him. If anybody complains after he is elected, it is point-and-laugh time.

someone equivocated that, in america, voting for a black man would be like voting for a woman or someone in a wheelchair.

I’m just pointing out that one of our greatest presidents had a wheelchair.

@ Amanda

Just because someone doesn’t vote for Obama doesn’t mean they would not accept a black man as a president. If Obama doesn’t win this election it will not be because he is black, it will simply be because people think McCain is more qualified. Sure, Obama might have a few votes go the other way because of his skin color, but McCain will lose just as many because he’s viewed as an “Old man.”

you shouldn’t be viewing someone by the color of their skin in the first place….

True. If we were all blind our world would be different, but not necessarily better. Unfortunately speeches can and do rouse rabble and promises are broken.

Are we really supposed to give a rat’s hoo-haa about what color the guy is? Why should that matter? Do people really need to validate their enlightenment by voting for a dude who’s melanin content is higher than their own? That’s it, the only reason?

I’ve been a Republican since I entered the age to vote and I think there is a lot to admire about Obama, but I really don’t buy into all of this bullshit about the guy. It’s as if the Democrats venerate the Jesus rays the guy gives off. The dude can talk all touchy feely he wants, a specialty of liberals everywhere. But if and when he gets elected, his ass is on the line. You can blather on and on about hope and change, but when you actually have to make those decisions, hope and change translates into tax and spend.

And as you may have guessed I’m not exactly in love with McCain either. He ain’t a wet dream for Reagan Republicans. But frankly, I don’t give a shit what color he is either, race, color whatever, it doesn’t enter into the equation for me. All I want to know is if the guy can make tough decisions, clean up some of the messes George has made and not screw things up in Iraq so that we can all get on with our goddamn lives.

I look at Obama the same way I look at a quarterback who was drafted in the first round. Sure, he’s got some potential, and he can talk about how he’s going to change the franchise all he wants. Nobody’s going to be able to tell if he’s any good until his ass is on the line. You can’t apply that to McCain, he’s got experience making tough and unpopular decisions.

For that I’m willing to overlook his race and his weird pterodactyl arms.

Obama:
Hope, Change, White Guilt

A black President? Yes. This particular one? No.

First I would like to say that I think the racist comments should be left in. It would be a good example of the type of ignorance and backwards thinking that we are talking about here. I don’t think he will be easily assassinated by some dumb methed-up redneck. The secret service is much to good at their job these days for that to happen. It could, however, be done by some highly motivated groups with some kind of military training. If enough people with the will and means wants someone dead bad enough I don’t think it can be stop as long as the person is in the public eye and not in hiding. I really don’t think that is going to happen though. I think what is different in america today than 40 years ago is that most intelligent people have come to except equality as a God given right.

What a ridiculous question. I can’t believe race is still an issue – Go Obama!

I’m not American but I’m curious – how prominent is racism in the US?

That is a really racist question. You should be locked up.

I believe that a black man or woman with sufficient qualifications can be elected in America. However, if John McCain wins in November that does not necessarily mean that America is not ready for a black president – it just means that it is not ready for Barak Obama, irregardless of whether he is black or white.

Yes we are, but not him. BO is a liar and a racist [see his statements about his grandmother and other statements from his books]. Certainly someone like JC Watts or Condi Rice would make great presidents. Obama will not. But, that has nothing to do with the fact that he is half black.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I am ready. I strongly support Obama, even though I have somewhat subdued feelings towards him compared to many people. I don’t see him as a messiah, simply a man with a bit more integrity and intelligence than his opponent. He’s still a politician at heart, and my only real expectation is that he will do what is in his own best interest. Luckily, his best interest is a fairly close parallel to mine.

I’m not expecting a miracle. I know the economy will not recover overnight, I know our troops won’t be home on Jan. 21, and I know gasoline will not magically drop to $1/gallon again. I will be perfectly happy with the following:

1) Provide a timetable and solid list of objectives for ending the war in Iraq. Bringing the troops home immediately is no more viable a solution than leaving them there indefinitely, and “get the bad guys” is not an effective military strategy.

2) Try to restore the Constitution. I know Bush has destroyed it almost beyond recognition, but do your best to put it back together again. A good start would be to completely void the “Patriot Act” and to make warrantless wiretaps illegal again.

3) Put serious effort into finding alternative energy sources. I know Obama is from the midwest and ethanol is a tempting option, but I do not consider using valuable food as fuel as a valid idea. We’re already seeing the results of thinning the corn supply…now we get to pay $4/gallon of both gasoline AND milk.

If Obama can do these things in his first term, I will back him for as long as he remains in politics. If he can’t or doesn’t at least attempt them, he will be just another politician in my book.

I dont live in America, but i think that a black president wold be one of the biggest happenings in America, ever. about 300 years ago, the only thing blacks were capable of doing in america was physical labour, under terrible working conditions, along with being beaten by white men. Now i say this with 100% certainty, BARACK OBAMA will win the 2008 presidential election.

rushfan – Clinton didn’t solve more problems because he was banging the help in the hallway and the oval office and then lying his ass off about it. I’m not W’s biggest fan, but can you imagine where we’d be if Gore had his way in Florida? I’ve seen cardboard cutouts that were smarter than that hypocrite douchenozzle.

I’m just hoping that the US get a GOOD President no matter what colour or sex or their inclination may be.

oh and by the way, please… no dragging me into drawn-out debates. It’s the start of the semester here at the Uni, and I’m up to my neck in students, paperwork, classes, meetings, seminars, orientations, get-togethers at the Dean’s place, impromptu faculty discussions and god knows what else.

So please just step aside, acknowledge my correctness in all things, and say, “yes Randall, sir.”

oh and by the way, please… no dragging me into drawn-out debates

Randall – deal. But, in return, we expect a full descriptive report on this year’s intake of co-eds :)

Rushfan: You are missing my point. Regardless of my personal politics ( I voted Conservative in the last 2 elections by the way ), it is dangerous to have the same party in power for an extended period of time. They can do what they want because no-one will stop them.

Did you know that Bush set up a separate intelligence operation, controlled directly by the White House, when the CIA and Military Intelligence would not give him the information he WANTED to justify going to war? Would that have been possible had he been a first term Republican?

By the way, your tone sucks. Lighten up, you’re appearing nasty.

Mom, I went back and reread your original post. Bush was in office for 8 years, before him clinton for 8. The Congress was Republican for a long time, but really only able to accomplish welfare reform on Clinton’s watch. Our gov. goes into gridlock quite often. My point was that it’s all the same shit no matter who’s “in power.” There are a few people trying desperately to cut the pork and protect the environment and focus on national security, but the vast majority are power hungry fucknuts. And do some serious research into the intelligence used to justify the war and you’ll find more countries than just the US had faulty intel. Do you really believe Bush set up a blah blah blah CIA blah blah, what am I saying, of course you do. Oh, and not trying to be nasty, just concerned my nation is going to be swayed into electing the guy who wants to control my thermosdat and take my SUV away. :)

You would think it would be easy to win against McCain considering the he is not even eligible. He was born in Panama which immediately disqualifies him.

Anyone voting for race over issues doesn’t deserve to vote.

That said, I think we’re ready for a black/woman/gay/insert minority here/ president as long as he or she is competant and not only being voting in because they are an anomoly.

As a side note, LV seems to be made up of educated youngish men and women. Please go vote in November. It really does make a difference.

Nice try, Zylen. So do you want to disqualify all kids born on military bases outside of the states?

Ha!!! You’re funny Mr. Mojo!

bucslim, (112),

“Pushing off this suspect idea that we’re headed towards a climate induced doomsday and demanding that we all change our attitudes and lifestyles about energy while burning enough jet fuel to light up the countries he flies to, spreading his weak gospel. And the cherry on top is energy bills to heat, cool and electrify his personal home that top $30,000. He wants you to change, and he’ll fly anywhere to tell you to do it. Now that, my esteemed friend, is what I call dumb. And it’s also at the very heart of liberalism. That sort of smug, ‘higher ground’ bullshit that they all demand you to change but have no intention of doing it themselves.

Oh, it’s real, pal, it’s real. Forget politicians who lie and manipulate either because they enjoy it, or no one will vote for them if they tell the truth (fact). Try asking a hundred or a thousand of the world’s most respected relevant scientists and see how many deny man-driven climate change. It’s their study, my friend, not politican’s. Like you get a pilot to fly a plane, or a surgeon to operate on you, not a politician.

And yes, we have the same sort of save-the-planet book-writing mouth-shooting heroes down here who live like Lord Muck. That doesn’t make me believe climate change is bollox, I know it isn’t from my own work. It makes me despair.

bucslim:

“Just keep telling yourself Obama will cure all your problems pal.”

yeah, okay buddy. You can keep trying to dismiss people’s enthusiasm over him thusly… but it won’t work.

It’s particularly insulting to MOI, as you know very well I am no mindless follower. I don’t believe for a moment that “Obama will cure all my problems” or all OUR problems or anything of the kind. I think you know this very well. I, and others, have logical and quite strong reasons for supporting Obama.

out of time. Hopefully will check in later.

kiwiboi:

“Randall – deal. But, in return, we expect a full descriptive report on this year’s intake of co-eds”

You GOT it, my friend. ;-) (so, so many hotties… dear god I love my job).

The question now becomes, is America ready for a WOMAN VICE-PRESIDENT??? McCain picked Sarah Palin, Alaska’s governor. :) Sorry, I’m excited.

I think we ARE ready. I worry a small bit him possibly being assassinated by some crazy NRA-KKK nutjob, but you run those risks no matter who is elected. We’ve had all white males as President in the past, and some of THEM got assassinated, did they not?

I support Obama and I will be dancing into the polls in November to cast my vote for him. He is well spoken, intelligent, and when I watch his speeches, I BELIEVE what he is saying. I’m usually very cynical when it comes to politicians. McCain just seems slimy and mean to me. Not just because he’s old, and not just because he’s a Republican. I like Reagan even if I was a baby when he was in office, from seeing him on TV and stuff when I was older, and reading about him.

I know Obama can’t do EVERYTHING he is promising, I’m not that naive to blindly believe. (Pardon the rhyme, lol…) However, at least when I think about a future with him as President, I see it as a possibility.

rushfan: I, for one, am ready for a woman VP- especially this one. Have you seen her? She’s totally hot. I would definitely give her an additional 5 kids.

Dread Pirate:

I beg to differ

While I doubt a different party will ever get elected, there are more than two options. Additionally, there is never going to be a “perfect” candidate for you or anyone else. Some things in parties are direct contrasts of each other. (conservative values include pro- death penalty AND pro-life, for example)

If you don’t have an opinion to vote, you shouldn’t have an opinion when things go wrong.

If you have a young child and give it no rules, isn’t it hypocritical to yell at that child when it does something wrong? Same thing.

Well, there you are, all you good folks in the voting line. The McCain chips are down (via my Chilean on-line newspaper). If he gets picked, you’ll be a cardio-vascular accident away from Palin as Presient. And that’s Sarah, not Michael, by the way.

Hope you’re ready for that.

Uh, Mike, you need to crush some tinfoil on those rabbit ears around your brain pal. McCain isn’t ‘archconservative.’ Just ask Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.

Jeez, typical liberal hysteria.

And Anon, I’d like to remind you that if Obama wins, we’re also a cardiovascular event away from one of the biggest pantloads in the senate.

Wanderer – not sure if you’ve picked up a paper recently, but Hilary probably isn’t going to win now since she lost the nomination.

Rushfan: Certainly hope if McCain gets into office he doesn’t die. How old is he? How much political experience does Palin have? How much international experience? Lots, I forgot she is a former Miss Alaska. Rather ironic that the same qualities (lack of experience etc.) are going to be used to justify Palin as McCain’s running-mate as were and are being used as a weapon against Obama.

120. Zylen: Do you think they hadn’t considered that before? Military bases are technically American soil, so if you’re born on a base, you are born not in America but on American soil. He’s American, nice try.
To answer the question: not entirely. I can’t pretend to have my fingers on the pulse of America, but most people I talk to are open-minded enough about race to vote for the party or the best candidate. There are many, many people, however, I do *not* talk to. Those are the people I worry about.
I am voting for Obama. I don’t believe magic rainbows and the repopulation of the American Bald Eagle will come of his presidency, but damn, great choice with Biden. That’s what won me over.
Clever choice on VP, McCain, clever choice. You sly white devil, you.

i say yes. his skin color doesnt make a difference. hes a good candidate(sp?). but i think its a good (possible) change out of routine

As a Canadian i think that America is ready for a black president for the most part. i think that certain areas such as the deep south there will be more issues with it but overall i think Americans are ready. However, having said this i would be shocked if there wasn’t an attempt on his life. Looking back in time Presidents with more open views (for the time they held office) didn’t fare very well i.e. Lincoln and Kennedy but we can’t give up hope. GO OBAMA!

Wow, these kinds of things are popping up all over the place. I think that yes, America is ready for Obama and would have been ready for a woman too if a better one had been offered. I guess I’m just not sure what all the hub-bub is about. He’s a politician just like any other. I mean, I guess there’s novelty value to some based on superficial appearance and due to that he can appeal to minority demographics that may have been previously overlooked/unreachable by other politicans. I just don’t understand why people are making such a big deal about it. If he gets elected time will tell if he makes a good president or not. He promises to bring change to the white house and unite the people for the greater good of the country. If he is elected and is able to keep his word and make good on all those promises (surely a feat for any politician, lol), then that would be a very good thing for our country indeed.

Why shouldn’t we be? (although I do know some people in the south that still think they won the Civil War) We’re all about the freedom to do pretty much whatever we want in accordance to the law, and as far as I know Mr. Obama running for president isn’t against the law. So yes we are ready.

On a side note I personally do not like the term “African-American”, he was born in The United States of America, therefore he is an AMERICAN.

This list makes me sad. =( Your skin color, gender, speaking ability, etc. have NOTHING to do with your actions in office.

anon:

Yes, clearly it’s a cheap tactic, on McCain’s part, to pick up disgruntled Hillary voters. But I’ve said all along–if those people were so hooked on Hillary that they won’t vote for Obama, then they’re not really democrats anyway, and certainly are piss-poor citizens in any event… and are almost certainly just crypto-racists. OR so insanely “feminist” that they’d vote for the carbonized corpse of Eva Braun if she were running for president over ANY male in creation.

I won’t be voting for Obama but I did like when he said “if I do lose this presidential race it won’t be because I’m black”. That to me was very refreshing and says how far we have come.

Yep, Black Female here and I think we are ready. Look at all the bull thats going on now. This world can’t get any worse. Obama is a great man. Why pass on a great leader because some small minded people are not “ready” for someone whose skin color isnt white to become presedent. I could go on and on but I gotta go home. Getting off work :)

Yogi,i I think you can argue that she has just as much experience as Obama. She is running a state which I think comes closer to the Presidents responsibilities than a legislator. Being a Governor makes her Commander & Chief of the National Guard of Alaska. Plus I think overall she has more life experiences than Obama.

bucslim, (124)

“Anon – sorry, you’re just not going to prove that to me. I spent quite a bit of my time arguing this in the ‘your view’ question on global warming.”

Just noticed this. This is one of your serious entries, ya? Not comix bollox!

Well, so have I (spent time on the global warming site). If you don’t accept the twin spearheads of the issue, I certainly can’t convince you. You’ll just have to wait and see if you are right, and hope so. They are:

1)The vast majority of scientists have now accepted the issue, including those who have spent their careers studying all the disciplines involved.

2) That if you are right we can carry on as before and you can turn round and tell me, “I told you so”. If you are wrong you might not be here to hear me say that and I might not be here to say it to you. You wouldn’t even take that risk, so you must have 100% proof that you are correct. Yes? Otherwise why would you not take precautions *just in case* for your sake, your kids sake (if you have any), and for everything on this planet you hold dear (if only LV)?

If someone says “Doctors don’t know shit about medicine and there’s nothing wrong with me”, I guess that’s the end of any argument though.

And no. I’m not going to prove that to you. How on earth can I, or anyone else? The only thing that will *prove* it is by hindsight should it happen. (I’m optimistic: assuming survivors, note.) All we can do is look at unusual related phenomena and make well-educated guesses at what they signify. That’s what scientists do, from lifetimes of study, research and experience. And then they get together and add up their data, see how much agrees, what is forming patterns and what fulfils earlier predictions of many kinds. This is the work that has convinced them. They now need the backing of the rest of us, but will have to count without yours. I only hope they can count on the next U.S. president, black or white.

I think the majority of the country is ready for Obama & I’ll be voting for him in November.

Yogi said: “If America were as ready for an African-American president and first lady as we should be, Obama would win in a landslide”

Yogi, is it at all possible that if Obama was not black he would not be where he is politically speaking.

Yogi said: “If America were as ready for an African-American president and first lady as we should be, Obama would win in a landslide”
Yogi, is it at all possible that if Obama was not black he would not be where he is politically speaking?

I’m not asking that in a snotty condescending way. Someone asked me that question and I had to admit that he probably wouldn’t.

Sorry for the double talk. I guess I’m a typical politician

I agree Dave
The Obama’s campaign first put out a statement saying :
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency”

Then they retracted it and said

“We send our congratulations to Governor Palin and her family on her designation as the Republican nominee for vice president. Her selection is yet another encouraging sign that all barriers are falling in our politics and while we obviously have differences over how to best lead this country forward Governor Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign.”

I guess they could see the writing on the wall.

wow seriously? why does everyone keep saying mccain will be just the same as bush? does no one pay any attention to congress? mccain has gone against the bush administration more than any other republican in the entire congress. just because he’s white and a republican doesnt mean he’ll be the same as bush. maybe you should ask the question if america is ready for a moderate politician? because he’s not that conservative. he’s like leiberman but conservative instead of liberal.

but what really made me laugh this week was hillary clinton endorsing obama after all the bashing she did against him during the primaries. that made my week.

THANK YOU DAVE! Well said.

Palin is not running for President, but Obama is, but if you want to be a stickler, day count-wise she has more experience than he does.

I don’t understand the “nice try” comments directed at me about McCain not being eligible considering the government itself felt it needed to pass a resolution making McCain a natural born citizen. A resolution which was, oddly enough endorsed,by Hillary and Obama. If an American base on foreign land is considered American soil this would not have been necessary.

I think we are ready, but with McCain choosing a female as a Vice President running mate, America will be seen as sexist if Obama wins, and racist if McCain wins

It should no longer matter in America what color a person is. We ARE ready for a GOOD president, and Obama is that person.

Oh my god he’s black, He has a different skin color so we all must seclude him from our other great presidents (Those very few…)I think the U.S needs to get over the bullshit about how if someone is a different color you must hate them.I in fact,Would vote for Mr.Obama,too bad i cant.Truly i put more Faith in Obama than in any other candidate right now,i watched his speech,amazing,he knows what the American people need and want,and he knows what he is talking about.Very Intelligent man,Obama 08!!!

Yeah. Watching Obama’s speech solidified my decision to vote for McCain. What did he really say? he just made 28 promises, and i seriously seriously doubt that the majority of them will ever occur. Yeah he gave a speech, didnt really say anything though.

I think Obama will win not because he’s white but because he’s a democrat. We are a little bit tired and bored of the republicans.

White or Black president, racism issues can never be eradicated in a country of people with such diverse backgrounds. We need to get over our colour, religion, creed, etc. if we are to progress as a nation.

I just hope that we don’t have a situation like South Africa where racism roles got reversed post-aparthied.

ptbus0: Lol… that is an advertisement? Maybe I should turn ad-blocker off :lol:

The question is racist by it’s nature. The question should be “is Obama qualified to be President ?”. If you add the word “black” you make it race based and not qualification based and therfore you are racist by asking the question. The answer is – he does not have enough experience to be President.

The question is racist by it’s nature. The question should be “is Obama qualified to be President?”. If you add the word “black” you make it race based and not qualification based

Wamus – Get real…Obama’s ethnicity has been of key interest in the entire race for the presidency. The question is topical, relevant, and inoffensive.

and therfore you are racist by asking the question.

Get over yourself.

and therfore you are racist by asking the question.

Get over yourself.

** oops..typo in #191

Just a few comments. I think America is ready for a black president. I don’t think Obama is ready though. Heck, I even like the Governor from Louisiana. Bobby Jindal, he’s Indian.

As someone had said, it falls along the lines of Liberal and Conservative more than it does race. People need to look past Bush and not connect all republicans with him.

I saw where Obama is not totally black. Here’s the snippet….

“”Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother’s side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father’s side. While Barack Hussein Obama’s father was from Kenya , his father’s family was mainly Arabs.. Barack Hussein Obama’s father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father’s birth certificate even states he’s Arab, not African Negro).”

Don’t know what to take of this. I guess he’s still officially black if you only go by skin color, but really of arab descent.

what a stupid question. this isn’t a matter of race. the us has been ready for a black president for a long time. or some other sort of minority that doesn’t follow the WASP template.

what matters here as stated many, many times above is not the color of obama’s skin, what his parents chose to name him, or what his ancestors did hundreds of years ago. what matters is issues facing america NOW, the pointless expensive war in iraq, increasing higher education costs (i pay 20 grand a year to be taught in broken engrish by some chinese man who really knows his math, but not his english….and no that’s not racist), the increasing cost of food, and the despicable situation regarding our public primary and secondary schools.

i don’t care if our next president is green with purple spots, as long as he makes america once again the greatest country in the world.

It’s also disgusting how all the conservative columnists and writers ALWAYS refer to him as “Barack HUSSEIN Obama,” just to keep reminding everybody that maybe, just maybe, he actually is a “secret Muslim!” “Look folks, his name is Hussein! Just like that terrorist dictator bad guy in Iraq that we fought against! He must be a Muslim terrorist too! Vote John McCain! White guys for America!”

Yes. Good luck Barack Obama. Too bad I can’t vote :( Would have for Hillary Clinton heh.

Munken, When it comes down to it, it really is every man for himself.

Sad, yes, but it’s also the truth.

Don’t try to convince yourself it’s not like that.

no we arent ready

and before you say RACISTLOLOLOL” let me explain

what are the three things that should not matter in politics

race
gender
religion

what are we voting off of?

race
gender
religion

half the stuff you see on TV is spewing this garbage against the candidates

we arent ready
we neverwill be ready
not until we can stop focusing on useless things such as race and cant focus on what really matters

WHAT THEY WILL DO FOR US

I think the US is ready for the person best suited to do the job. Why should skin color enter the equation?

Yes, but not this commie punk.

I’m just still trying to get over that Randall said MILF.
haha

I think that we are, and that’s proven just by the fact of how far he’s already come. There is a good chance that he will win this coming election.

I think only half of America is ready for a black man to be president. The civil rights movement was only forty years ago, a time filled with lynchings, murders and bombings, and most of that generation is still alive. People are stubborn and stuck in their ways plus the kids that grew up around that kind of hate usually develop the same hate they see their parents display. Those people alone won’t give obama their vote regardless of how they feel about the issues. I wish I could say that we as a nation have advanced past this but it hasn’t happened yet. Plus hillary should be president she gets my write in vote.

it don’t matter if you’re black or white

The USA NEED a change and urgently. and to those that moan about Obama’s lack of experience, what experience did G.W. Bush have when he entered the White House….surely Obama cannot fare worse then Bush.

Have you noticed. Obama isn’t running as the first black president. I have yet hear him bring that up as a factor. He truely does rise above the issue of race and simply runs as a man with good ideas. I think people of all skin color can appreciate that. He attends a Christian church of black heritage, but he doesn’t seem to use that heritage for political gain in any way. How interesting is that?

I guess he saw that it didn’t work for Jackson or Sharpton and that he better run as a man with ideas that is black and not a black man that has ideas.

new york, (222),

I’m a middle-class, white male roughly three times the age of your 20-plus-something generation. I am sure the choice of US president will affect the world we all live in critically.

So I wish the hell I could vote for Obama, if even what you have written was all I knew. But I can’t. I’m not American. My future, our future, is in your hands. Please, please get it right.

segue,

Ass-umptions? Fall-back? I like it! Spike Milligan 2.

I don’t care if the potus is white, black, purple, etc. as long he does a good job.

He will get assassinated.
End of.

“How prominent is racism in the US?” Very prominent. But not necessarily against minorities.

We have black TV stations, black magazines, black organizations, and black legislation. While I agree that in certain parts of the country racism is rampant, large cities are very diverse and racism is considerably a non-issue.

In my subdivision on my street we have families who are white, black, hispanic, hindu, greek, muslim, chinese, and vietnamese. Off the top of my head. It’s really a non-issue. America is much more diverse than 30 years ago.

Many families have a white and black parent. White teenagers date black teenagers. For the most part it’s become irrelevant in my area.

Hispanics are growing at such a large rate they will be the majority in a few generations.

However, I think it’s unfortunate that many blacks still fall back on race and slavery instead of acknowledging personal responsibility. Life and progress are about ambition and determination; scholarships are abundant, opportunity is everywhere. You just have to work toward it.

yes

Yes the US is ready for a black president but i do not feel that Barack Obama is the man for the job come November. For me John McCain is the man, he has more knowledge for the position and deserves it more. Politically McCain is the better man and if the US feel that they want to put someone in just for the color of their skin then at least get someone who is competent.

segue, (228),

That’s why you got the Milligan award! Sorry to have pointed up thge obvious by crude analysis. I didn’t want to risk its subtlety causing it not to be fully appreciated.

#237. Anon
segue, (228),
That’s why you got the Milligan award! Sorry to have pointed up the obvious by crude analysis. I didn’t want to risk its subtlety causing it not to be fully appreciated.
****
Sometimes subtlety is a curse, but it’s one I’ll just have to live with.
;-)

I hope so, but I think a lot of Americans might say they are but vote differently.

I think he’s got a fight on his hands because of his color, he’d be a dead cert otherwise which is pretty sad.

Time will tell.

I’ll also add race is a factor, though it shouldn’t be. I highly doubt we will ever see a black republican candidate vying for president…ever…

Actually, here is exactly where McCain showed his true ineptitude.
Colin Powell would have been the best choice for Vice-President (actually, he would have been the best Republican choice for President), he is intelligent, experienced, and centered. Instead, McCain chose an inexperienced, far to the right-wing running mate, solely because:
A – she was a woman
and
B – held views even more extreme than his own.
This should come back to bite McCain in the butt, still, politics is a weird animal. Just when you think you have it figured out, it turns around and does exactly the opposite.

Wow, badlist, I’ve never read a comment from you that included complete sentences before. ;) I think you made a good point.

Is the US ready for a black president? Yes.

Does that mean we are obligated to vote for an unexperienced radical with a racist mentor who started his political campaign in the home of an unrepentant terrorist? No.

Don’t confuse rejecting Obama with rejecting the idea of a black president. I’ll vote for a black president some day… just not this one.

badlist,

“To be honest i really dont care who these people vote for as long as they educate themselves first as to what each of the candidates stands for.”

Never mind the 20 somethings. Never mind the party preference. ¿Pass an exam on knowledge of the issues and the candidates before you’re allowed to vote? Wow, That’d really thin them out.

Anon and badlist,
Yeah, but you’d be surprised at which party would be thinned out the most…
Just sad seeing a gross assumption like that being made, that a “Change” t-shirt, support of Obama, and being between the ages of 18 and 30 makes you a retard. Same could be said to those who listen to Rush Limbaugh and vote solely on his “pearls of wisdom”. (Sorry, Rushfan, I went there, but I will say the same about those who watch “The Daily Show” as their only source of political information.)

I most certainly hope so,coz I’m 1000000% behind him:)

Coming in late, but the choice of Palin is a bad mistake if McCain is hoping she will pick up the disaffected Clinton vote.

Apart from being a woman Palin appears to share absolutely nothing with Hillary so why would a Clinton supporter vote for her over Obama?

Is the USA ready for a Black President? I’m not convinced but I view the fact that one of the two main parties did not feature a white male as a serious candidate for nomination to be a big step forward.

Cheers
Lee

yes the United States is ready for a black president it just isn’t Obama.

I don’t think it matters what color his skin is.
I’m 13, and don’t really know anything about politics, but he seems like a pretty cool guy if I might say so myelf. Theres a really cool song about him by the hush sound. Its called We Believe [in barack obama] its really funny. You should hear it.

Why the heck would you vote for the current Elephant ticket? Giving Sarah the position of being the second highest official of the world’s strongest nation? I mean, what the f*ck! She can’t even guide her own daughter not to be f*cked by some perv guy! And rest tells that she’s a conservative? Whooah… On John’s side, picking Sarah as her VP makes him stupid.( I guess his brains is starting to experience the toll of gettin’ old.) Therefore, this just reflects what kindov choices he’s gonna make when he becomes the President. Utter stupidity. ( Plus his pro-war agendas.)

Sadly, the maxims of the Elephants nowadays strongly deviates and differs from what the Elephants were back then (Lincoln times)

The Reps nowadays still have the tinge of pro-slavery and extreme conservatism in their organizational veins.

Goin’ back to the real issue,
I believe America is ready ferit.
To be more specific,
America is ready for Barack Obama.

Dems rule!

Rinneganleks said “Why the heck would you vote for the current Elephant ticket? Giving Sarah the position of being the second highest official of the world’s strongest nation? I mean, what the f*ck! She can’t even guide her own daughter not to be f*cked by some perv guy! And rest tells that she’s a conservative? Whooah… On John’s side, picking Sarah as her VP makes him stupid.( I guess his brains is starting to experience the toll of gettin’ old.) Therefore, this just reflects what kindov choices he’s gonna make when he becomes the President. Utter stupidity. ( Plus his pro-war agendas.)
Sadly, the maxims of the Elephants nowadays strongly deviates and differs from what the Elephants were back then (Lincoln times)
The Reps nowadays still have the tinge of pro-slavery and extreme conservatism in their organizational veins.
Goin’ back to the real issue,
I believe America is ready ferit.
To be more specific,
America is ready for Barack Obama.
Dems rule!”

Rinneganlek, I know you are on the fringe just like there are plenty of ’elephants” on the fringe but you are really making an ass( No pun intended) out of yourself when you make such ignorant statements. Most of my friends identify themselves as democrats “and you my friend are not a democrat”. I happen to be a republican but without even asking “all” of my friends would not agree with what you just posted

Also, as I’m reading some of these, I’m seeing a lot of posts to the effect of “ohmegawd, why are we even discussing skin color, that’s not even an issue, you guys are racists”…

Have any of you been to the southern United States?

Living in a southern Missouri redneck town teaches you that actually, yeah, it matters a hell of a lot. I really wish it didn’t, but there are a bunch of redneck republicans that aren’t even really sure what the term “republican” means (they just know that “they ain’t electing no colored folk”) who I assure you will vote purely, PURELY based on the color of the candidate’s skin.

So yeah, hate to say it, but a majority of southern US is going to make the color of his skin extremely relevant.

Liam #248

“Barack Obama, if elected, will do as much as or more than Lincoln or Jefferson, but probably as much.”

Explain, in detail, how Obama will do as much or more than Lincoln or Jefferson.

What is your basis for this statement? His extensive (not) voting record in the Senate? His foreign policy? How many budgets has he balanced? What critical problems facing the nation has he solved or has a solution to? How is he going to stimulate the economy? How is he going to solve our energy problems? What in his past has convinced you, other than his speeches, that he’s ready to be president?

And before you answer, he’ll answer my questions for you, Change we can believe in. That’s it. So I seriously doubt you can have anything to say about Obama’s potential activities being on the same level as freeing the slaves and leading us during a civil war (Lincoln) or writing the Declaration of Independence and being a major contributor to the Constitution (Jefferson) Your statement makes little sense in light of those monumental contributions by those great men.

You have no sense of the history of this country, and thus have no basis for making the ridiculous claim that he is “almost the best candidate ever.”

Black, Asian, White, Native American… who cares. Do not raise taxes, lower government spending and keep this country from becoming a social state, that is all I care about.

Rinneganleks #263

“She can’t even guide her own daughter not to be f*cked by some perv guy! And rest tells that she’s a conservative? Whooah… On John’s side, picking Sarah as her VP makes him stupid”

“The Reps nowadays still have the tinge of pro-slavery and extreme conservatism in their organizational veins.”

Nice – another ignorant Democrat Liberal shows his/her ass on this website. How exactly is someone’s daughter getting pregnant have anything whatsoever to do with national politics? Now I’m supposed to vote for Obama because McCain’s running mate’s kid is pregnant? Yeah, that’ll solve everything! And what exactly is the ‘tinge of pro-slavery’ in Republican policies?

Complete and utter horsehit.

So much of this cascade of often virulent discord depresses me. I think I’ll just slink off and wait to see what happens when the time comes. Without over-much hope.

bucslim:

Oh for the love of Christ.

“His extensive (not) voting record in the Senate?”

FALSEHOOD. This nonsense got started with Obama’s voting record in the *Illinois STATE senate.* He did not vote in a number of instances there, which is common… he voted “present”–a practice in Illinois which expresses disapproval for a bill without actually voting against it. It was not the majority of his votes, and in fact he sponsored a large number of bills on all manner of legislation. His record in the US senate does NOT reflect a pattern of “not voting” at all… he has in fact voted regularly and again has sponsored a substantial amount of legislation.

This is just pure right wing smear tactics, this lie that Obama “doesn’t vote.” It’s pure bullshit.

“His foreign policy?”

And let’s have a discussion of Bush’s and McCain’s foreign policy. More blunders and illegal aggressions, that’s about what it amounts to.

“How many budgets has he balanced?”

How many have the Republicans balanced over the last 8 years?

But let’s just point out that Obama has run a campaign with enormous funds at his disposal and he has kept it in the black the entire time while his opponents on BOTH sides of the aisle ran theirs into the red. So there’s a budget he’s kept very well. Good enough for you?

“What critical problems facing the nation has he solved or has a solution to?”

This is such bullshit I can’t believe it. I know you were responding to the over-the-top comments of the original poster, but please… A) what candidate has EVER solved problems facing the nation, other than a sitting president? B) name ONE problem McCain has authoritatively addressed. And C) Obama HAS laid out his solutions to many of the problems currently facing us. He’s done this on his website, spoken of them in public, and just laid out much of his plan in his recent acceptance speech at the Democratic convention.

So enough with the crap.

“How is he going to stimulate the economy? How is he going to solve our energy problems?”

Again, see above. It isn’t Obama’s fault (or mine) if you just DON’T LISTEN or have your right-wing head too far up your ass to HEAR WHAT HE HAS TO SAY.

I like you, man, but I can’t stand it when people like you just repeat this blather like it’s some Pure Truth. It’s the furthest thing from it.

“What in his past has convinced you, other than his speeches, that he’s ready to be president?”

Pray tell, bucslim, what EVER convinces you that a man is ready to be president? Did you think Bush was “ready” in 2000? Why, because he came from that family, and because he was governor of Texas? Big fucking deal.

What makes a man “ready” to be president? Can you answer that? I’ll be damned if I can. MOST presidents grow up in the job. But yes, Obama is “ready” to accept the challenge because he’s clearly A) gotten things done on the local and national level, in the senate as well as back home, (and you want particulars, there’s whole websites out there devoted to his record. Again, it isn’t my fault if you can’t take the time to GO AND LOOK). B) he has the judgement, character, and temperament that fits a statesman. C) he’s an intelligent and thoughtful man, obviously, with some sort of vision. And this vision is what we need to get back on track in this country. You don’t like it, too bad… as I’ve said before, it’s time to drop the 80s/90s political crap and join the rest of us in the 21st century. “Obama too liberal” my ass. That old argument doesn’t cut it anymore. Stop living in the polarized politics of our parents and grandparents, bucslim. We’re in our 40s now, it’s time to grow up and realize that the world has changed.

bucslim:

“And what exactly is the ‘tinge of pro-slavery’ in Republican policies?”

Let’s begin with decades of conservative votes against *every manner* of legislation meant to address entrenched racist policies at the governmental as well as private levels in this country. And then let’s talk about repeated attacks by the right wing on Affirmative Action; attacks not only meant to correct its excesses but clearly meant to undermine it completely and begin the process of rolling it back entirely. Let’s talk about a party that has essentially written off the African-American community at every turn, who instead of choosing to listen to that community to hear its grievances, chooses to ignore them and occasionally (at most) lecture said community on its sense of “entitlement” as though the black community should just shut up and accept the fact that whatever’s wrong with it is its own fault. Meanwhile, we have nearly a quarter of the population of adult male blacks in prison, and a larger segment of the black population still lives in poverty than any other racial group. And what do Republicans have to say about this? Nothing. They just continue to pass more “tough on crime” legislation and continue to foster a political worldview that says if you have a problem, you need to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.

I think the fact that you asked that question, pal, indicates how out of touch you’ve become. C’mon. Join me in walking away from the conservative bullshit. *I* found out it was wrong and full of lies in the 1990s. It’s time for you to do the same, if you want to call yourself an informed and intelligent citizen.

rushfan:

“Let me get this straight, being against affirmative action equals being pro-slavery?”

Ha ha, cute kid. Nice try. I was clear enough in what I said. Don’t try to paint me as some off-the-wall nut. The stuff will spray all over you and you can’t wash that shit out.

As I said, the opposition to affirmative action has consistently gone BEYOND merely addressing its excesses. And that, yes, is what equals a kind of racism. “Pro-slavery” was the original poster’s words, not mine. But they’ll do for the kind of subtle racism proferred by the right wing.

“Talk about out of touch, you’re still lost in the sixties, hippie.”

HA HA HA! Wonderful! You haven’t a CLUE as to who you’re talking to, rushfan. I was a conservative probably BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. I had conservative credentials that you could only dream of, if you’d want to dream about such absurd things. Want a list? I’d be happy to provide.

“Stuck in the sixties” my ass. “Hippie” my ass. You’re a deluded youngster who has no clue to the reality of the world out there. Clearly you like to think you have said clue. But worshipping Rush Limbaugh isn’t a qualification for it, rushfan. And neither is mouthing the dogma of a failed party and a failed system and worldview, dear.

“…you’re acting as if no strides have been made, as if every minority is still oppressed, as if all hope is lost”

I AM? And where, pray tell, did I say ANY of this? (In fact I believe nothing of the kind).

YOU, in fact, are pretending that all is rosy or headed to rosey-ness. Nice delusion, and I wink at it. Keep it up. It’s the way to keep one’s head stuck in the ground. Things are always happier that way, if you pretend the world is always getting better just because some moron on the radio tells you so, rushfan.

“…as if government could or should have all the answers and help every single person succeed.”

Typical right-wing trick, re-inventing what I said to say something ENTIRELY different. In fact I said NOTHING OF THE KIND and do NOT believe this at all.

I was there, pulling bullshit debating tricks like that, again, BEFORE YOU WERE BORN rushfan. Nice try, but it doesn’t work on me.

LOOK AROUND YOURSELF, rushfan. Yup, some people get out of poverty on their own, sure thing, Tex. Many, however, are held down by ignorance, racism, and any number of other gamings of the system against them.

You forget or do not know that I come from a very different background from you. (at least, as I recall from what you’ve said about yourself on this site, in the past). I *know* from personal, first hand experience how the centers of power both economic and governmental work in this country—I’ve been there. You’re a deluded child if you think much of the system as it is is not gamed against the common, working class citizen.

NONE of this is about government “doing it for us” or “handing” happiness to us. I don’t believe that in the least. What I DO know and believe, however, is that there is a VASTLY unfair field out there that most people are forced to play on–and many of them, like you, don’t even know it or can’t even see it. You’ve bought into a bullshit distorted view of reality and there are people right now sitting somewhere laughing *heartily* at your fervent support for the way they want things to be and stay.

280. rushfan…Talk about out of touch, you’re still lost in the sixties, hippie.
****
rushfan, just as a point of actual history here. Randall referred to himself as being in his 40’s. That would make him *far* too young to have been a hippie.
The hippie’s were born in the late 40’s to mid 50’s, no later, some earlier.
Randall loses by a decade.

I see no point in discussing color of skin. It in all honesty dosent make us any different in side. We just look different. that being said, i am a US citizen, and i will be voteing for Obama. Not because he is a black man, but because i agree with his views, and i believe that this country needs to change, and MAKE PEACE WITH THE WORLD!!! No more war, no more sending my family and friends over seas to protect the oil that G.W. Bush is so tied into. You realize that his family is very very very close with the afgani (sp?) leader, and very tied in with all the oil companies in the country. John McCain is wanting to continue the war for OVER 100 YEARS!! Yeah he said it in a speech or two. I will not stay in this country is McCain is voted in. I wont do another 4 years of the same crap, i wont watch my country go down the drain. I have done my part for the change, i donate to Obama, i go to his rallies in my town, and i will vote for him. IF McCAIN WINS I WILL MOVE TO CANADA, maybe mexico sence i dont like the snow…

hahahaha..Democrats. Randall do you feel happy she’s on your side?

McCain 08

rushfan:

“Also, I love how you brag about your time spent as a “conservative.” So what, Randall.”

So what, honey? Been there, done that, that’s what “so what.” I know what I did, where I was, the things I was involved with, the people I was involved with, how close I was to the beating heart of the movement. I’m secure in those credentials more than you can ever know, ashamed of them as I know am.

“You’re on the wrong side of history now”

Always the people who truly ARE on the wrong side of history are the first to accuse others of being so.

You’ve mistakenly pegged me as some left-wing elitist. You haven’t the faintest clue how wrong you are. I’d love to educate you on it, but I’m highly doubtful you’d *actually* listen. I know the mindset you’re exhibiting far too well.

“You’re smug and smart”

Guilty.

“and I expect more from you. I fear your years in liberal academia have made you who you are.”

HA HA HA! Another wonderful bit of nonsense. :-)

Time will tell which one of us is right, rushfan. If you have the self-awareness and honesty of mind to recognize it.

rushfan:

by the way, I was hating hippies and railing against them, AGAIN, before you were born. I still hate hippies. Calling me one really burns my ass. You’ll be hearing from my attorney, therefore.

Disrespectful brat.

HIPPIE!

*sticking out my tongue and running away*

thats true Rush..MAN it’s hard to be a republican in college. did anyone see that Scrubs episode where they debate Iraq and Elliot stands up and proudly states she’s a conservative? That’s where I am now, but I did stay mum about in in school. I regret that.

Callie ~ You had me! I thought that was your post and dude I was disappointed. Use quotation marks, dude. :)

If Obama loses its not because he’s black but because he’s a socialist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (Scandanavia has a pretty good version of it). But Americans like spending money and are not very open to a big government trying to dictate how they should be spending. Someone has to pay for all the goodies Obama is promising (in addition to Bush’s donations to the rich over the past 8 years), be it now or in the future. I’m not convinced Obama’s current ideas will raise enough money to even come close. And most Americans would agree with me that higher taxes suck.
But then again, maybe there is actually real CHANGE in the wind.

I agree with everything rushfan said, in fact, I think I’m falling in love with her, and disagree with most of what Randall said, so there.

Randall – dude – bro – homie, listen, you’re right I was bringing down the douchenozzle from before, not comparing the two candidates. You’ve got to agree that I was right on and those peeps were out of line. Can’t you see what I’m saying? For God sake that dude was putting him up there with Lincoln and Jefferson!!! Those two idiots couldn’t be more full of shit than the outhouse pit in the park after Memorial Day!

Now I gotta run, apparently my head is stuck up my right wing ass.

As for rushfan – meet me behind the bleachers after school.

rushfan, I was trying to be sarcastic by saying that there was “real CHANGE in the wind” but I guess I did a poor job. I do agree with you. All the important reforms you mentioned are pressing. But they are also all political hot potatoes and nothing will move forward until things break down and there’s no alternative but to have tangible reform. Obama won’t change much, especially with the lousy partisan job Congress will likely continue to do even if he is elected. But I do think he is the lesser of two evils coz at least he publicly recognizes the demage Bush’s policies have done over the past 8 years. If any reforms are actually going to happen, it’s more likely going to be under Obama than McCain. Both candidates will do a similarly fine job (better than Bush). But Obama will bring with him new faces with fresh ideas while McCain will likely retain many of Bush’s people (or God, no more Cheney please). Plus I’m very uncomfortable with having an unbalanced supreme court for the next 30 years, which is a distinct possibility if McCain wins.

mvenges, no, I got you, I thought it was pretty clear that I was being sarcastic. :) I thought you made some descent points, except for the obligatory Bush-bashing. I’m not all up in the guy’s junk, but he’s not the anti-christ any more than Obama is the Messiah or McCain is my grandpa John, well McCain may be…anyhoo…yeah, I’m a chick, bucslim, you know that. ;)

My husband is a retired Air Force Major. He served four years in the Viet Nam conflict (and other countries we weren’t supposed to be in). He’d get finished with one rotation and immediately sign-up for another.
He has every medal the Air Force awards, mostly several of them (I don’t even remember how many Distinguished Flying Crosses he has!).
While he, like I, admire McCain’s service, he will not vote for him.
His reasons are many and extremely intelligent, but can be boiled down to this: McCain’s judgment is flawed and flighty, it changes with the wind and whether or not McCain remembers what he said last time.
I can go with that.

For the sole basis that I believe as a libertarian Obama will work for more “rights” and to preserve the “rights” of the populous

edit. before I get disputed.

I am a libertarian. Therefore from MY libertarian views… Obama is more rights friendly.

I know Obama is a liberal. As my highly conservative friend would point out (who is voting for McCain based on that he is A. a Conservative and B. Devote Christian. Which is true for both my friend and McCain them.

304. Anon…I come from a comfortable middle-class background and have been self-employed or freelance all my life as well as a rabid individualist…
****
Good God! I knew we had more in common than we’d discovered so far!
I’ll fill you in, but this is getting to be a bit like “separated at birth”.
;-)

My 304,

dyed-in-the-wool, not “died-in-the-wool”, before tempyra kicks me in the spelling-bee again!

It does though remind me of the famous response by MP Dennis Healey to criticism by opponent Geoffrey Howe in the British House of Commons, which Healey said was “like being savaged by a dead sheep”.

Oh I have eyes everywhere ;-)

I have been reading this topic, although I don’t really have a view on it.

Like others have said, this question doesn’t need to be asked. Obama is who America needs now in this desperate time, and he’s who I’ll be voting for. He’s the only one in a position to bring this country out of the depths that Bush has driven us into.

And Jill W.- post #33 (I know, way back) you first say that race shouldn’t have anything to do with it, then the rest of your post is all about Obama’s race. Care to explain?

jasontimmer ~ How is he “the only one in a position to bring this country out of the depths that Bush has driven us into. ” Exactly what position do you think he’s in? He’s just another politician, people, he’s not going to be the Savior-in-Chief or the Messiah of the United States of America. If he does *shudder* get elected, just watch how fast he drops the kook fringe left-wing base and runs toward the center. He’s already trying to do it now, so he’ll appeal to moderate voters. Just look at your precious Democratic congress. What exactly has Pelosi accomplished? Hmmm, can’t think of anything. Lefties are all talk and no action. After all, if they solved the problems they perpetually run on fixing, what would they run on?

Randall ~ Conservative and Liberal are common terms used in politics and it’s only Liberals who don’t like being called Liberals because your base is so insane. I’m proud to be called a conservative, mainly because I don’t feel I have to pass any litmus test to be such: I am not religious, I am not against gay marriage, I don’t fit the mold, and that’s okay. Liberals, on the other hand, are far less tolerant-just try to be a pro-life Democrat-there’s no room for you at the convention. The party of tolerance and “choice” is the one with the least room for deviation. No wonder you don’t want to be called a liberal. But you admit you’re a democrat, so if I refer to you as a democrat are you gonna cry about that too? ;)

Have a great day at school. And tell your daughter I said “hi!” I bet we’d all have fun at a bbq by the lake. I’ll bring the Dos Equis.

an excerpt from an article from last night

“The Republican gathering also featured Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat-turned-independent who was the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee. “I’m here to support John McCain because country matters more than party,” said Lieberman, who gave the night’s featured prime-time address.”

Even the Democrats don’t believe in Obama. Hillary smeared him for months and then threw herself at him like a cheerleader to the quarterback hoping he’d roofie her and she’d wake up VP.

At least you guys are keeping me a good chuckle for my money and keeping it “light-ish”. I expected a lot more poo.

I’m English and think Americans mainly will embrace him because he is black and they want to prove they are not racist, unfortunately, I don’t think he will win on merit but purely because of his skin colour. I for one would not like a black or asian person running britain nor would i like a white person running Kenya or Ethiopia unless the country was legitimately owned by the country from which that white person was from, i.e India in the days when it was a British territory.

370. bucslim: ~’cause he an asshole (asshole) odee-oh-dee oh A S S H O L E!~
:D I had to, sorry. It just…flowed.

Wow. What a bunch of short-sighted blowhards. Conservative? Liberal? Why the hell does any of that matter? Can anyone here look me in the eyes and tell me the country is better off now than it was 8 years ago? Can anybody look anywhere and say that with a straight face?

The simple fact of the matter is that McCain supports Bush’s policies, foreign, domestic and economic. His voting record indicates that he voted pro-Bush policies 90-95% of the time for the last two terms. It is largely these policies that are responsible for the reprehensible state of this country: inflation skyrocketing, housing market tanked, corporations and conglomerates swimming in flabbergasting record profit margins while the average American scrapes the couch cushion to buy gas to get to work, the gov’t infiltrating our personal lives like never before, an expensive and needless war that to this day is still raging…I could go on and on.

My question: Why, if you know that the former administration’s policies didn’t work, would you elect a man and a platform that is assured to continue those same policies into the next 4 years? It’s logic. Obama may not necessarily be the ideal man for the job, but he is certainly the lesser of two evils. Don’t let your blind devotion to your party decide whether or not to dump the country in the crapper.

Slickwilly:

Thank you. Naturally I agree with everything you said, 100%.

Callie, I will have to support Randall on that point. Roll back the clock about a half a year ago and you will see the jibes taken at McCain by Guliani, Romney, et al. The nominees clamor to the top and basically whomever raises the most money wins. Then, the losers turn around and support the winner 100%. It’s happened with every election since, I’d guess the latter half of the 20th century, if not earlier.

All I heard was blah blah stole the last two elections blah blah expensive and needless war. The same old tired liberal, sorry, Democrat bullshit. Guess what? The surge is working in Iraq (why else do you not see it on the news anymore-the news is too good to report) and Bush won fair and square, get over it.

Cedestra, I think a little different this year was Hillary was actually praising *McCain* in the primaries in her attempt to discredit Obama. The good news is McCain can use all that crap in awesome commercials!

Randall ~ Assumption on my part, I guess. Bill O’Reilly’s a registered Independent, too. You are aweful quick to defend dems and bash republicans.

Which party wants to implement the Fairness Doctrine to silence it’s critics? Which party wants to penalize corporations for so-called “windfall profits?” Which party has positioned itself so that it would benefit from defeat in Iraq? Which party’s leadership credited Iran’s “good will” with our success from the surge instead of our brave troops and Iraqi soldiers? Which party is a slave of the teacher’s unions and won’t even consider use of vouchers to empower parents?

wow. i’m a time-traveler now.

A Nun O Miss: McCain would be pleased to know that if he wins he will get 8 years instead of 4. Wow, Republicans really are powerful.

Its an almost guarantee that if McCain is voted to be our president, he will surely be voted in again after 4 years…no thanks to the south.

Randall: “Which party has been responsible for the dangerously widening gap between rich and poor?” Answer: Democrats and that damn NAFTA.

A Nun O Miss: maybe since there are more voters in the North and West, you should blame them for who ends up as President.

Which party has Keith Olberman?

My head’s buried in the sand? I thought it was stuck up my right wing ass!

rushfan:

“I was seriously raising legitimate issues about the stances of the Democratic party…”

*I* was SERIOUSLY raising legitimate issues about the SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP and out of touch Republican party which has lost ALL SENSE of perspective and totally lost its values! Why do you think I LEFT it? I was a member of the Republican party from the year I could VOTE, rushfan.

YOU are accusing ME of “partisan crap?” PLEASE.

and “anti-war?” Are you saying you were IN FAVOR of the war in Iraq? Pray tell us, young lady… WHY? What justification do you have for it? What did it accomplish? What USE was it? What did all those young men lay down their lives for?

Don’t get sanctimonious with ME about this war crap, rushfan. As I’ve said here before, I come from a military family. And THEY are the first goddamn ones to know that you don’t blindly support wars just because your country and your president is pushing them.

There was no earthly reason for that war in Iraq. It was stupid and wasteful from the get-go, the product of neo-conservative elitists like Wolfowitz who thought we could “bring democracy” to all of the Middle East if only we tried. And thousands of lives later and what do we have to show for it? NOTHING. Al Qaeda still out there, Bin Laden free, BILLIONS of dollars down the drain, our economy in a shambles, and the world hating us.

Pointless, useless, and wasteful! AFGHANISTAN and Al QAEDA should have been the focus. I said this ages ago here—I wanted to see Bin Laden’s head on a pike outside the capitol building! Okay, not really, but figuratively, it’s what should have come to pass. We should have never HEARD of the Taliban again! But they’ve been continually raiding and staging resurgences in Afghanistan ever since Bush blundered into Iraq and declared “mission accomplished.” But today the Taliban continues to commit atrocities–IN MANY INSTANCES AGAINST WOMEN who dare to ignore their insane religious invectives and “laws”–and all because WE haven’t put our focus where it SHOULD have been.

It was nice that you created that list of violence against women a while back—but does it not bother you in the least that at least ONE group is allowed to CONTINUE its violence against women out there in the world because WE who could have CRUSHED them did NOT, because we had to go and invade a country that had NOTHING to do with the attack on our shores?

Bothers me. I’d love to know why it doesn’t bother YOU.

And now for a moment of comedic relief during the Rushfan V. Randall political extravaganza…

Hillary Clinton, when asked by Tim Russert why she voted for the war in Iraq, said she “thought it was a vote to put inspectors back in”. The name of the resolution was “A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.” Ha, ha, ha…that might have fooled the voters in Arkansas but you are on a national stage now, missy. Anyway, Barak or John…both are better than Hillarious Clinton.

and another thing…Nobody is “for” war. Sometimes it is necessary to win the war to win the peace. The reason the Isrealis are perpetually at war is because the international community does not allow them to defeat the Palestinians once and for all. They have the ability, they just use *amazing* restraint and don’t obliterate their enemy. And they’re still hated! So there goes y’alls theories about America being hated all over the world because of Bush. We are hated by haters and appreciated by the countless people all over the world we help with untold amounts of humanitarian aid. The war on terrorism is some tricky shit. We’re not fighting a country, we’re fighting an ideology. It sucks, but I’d rather have George W Bush at the helm right now than a guy who wants us to pass some “global test” before we make any moves or some other twit who thinks global warming is the biggest issue we face. It’s not. By a long shot. I for one don’t want to live under Sharia Law. How about you?

Rushfan: I’m here all week…tip your bartenders and wait staff…drinks are free if you’re gambling.

Im always right!

rushfan: akin to the word “sumbitch”

-bucslim

twas a joke fine sir. Don’t get all bent out of shape just because someone made a joke on the ‘your view’ involving a black person.

gotta get back to work, later days!

also..
U.S. Citizen votes don’t have alot of power in the end. The electoral college does. And my view is that greedy old white men will elect greedy old white men. therefore, until we get a good amount of greedy old africans, or greedy old women, we aren’t ready to have a different colored president.(tis a joke people, calm down)

Steady rushfan, steady.

Slick ~ I like you, man. But you have no idea what you’re talking about. Granted, you are obviously educated. But I am not a Republican hack, my comment was not in support of Republicans, it was in response to Randall. I’m honestly shocked by your strong reaction. We disagree. Isn’t that what makes America great? That we can disagree? I support the war. You don’t. But you made some leaps in logic to condemn me so forcefully. I’m just some mom in Texas who doesn’t want some pussy in the White House who’s gonna back down in the face of terrorists, which is honestly what I feel we’ll get with Obama. My best friend is a yoga instructor vegan anarchist… we don’t all have to have the same views, but we can still be friends and respect each other’s views, right?

Well apparently they ARE ready or else he would not be in the position he’s in…although that could just amount to people just not wanting a female president haha maybe the next ‘your view’?
And for the record I don’t base my opinion on gender or race.

S.D.Schaffer:

I’ll retract nothing, pinhead. You made no proviso, in your original bullshit statement, about “bills passed in to law.” You asked for ONE piece of legislation that Obama had written or co-written in the senate. That is ALL you asked for.

You were flat-dead wrong, pure and simple, and nothing more than yet another mouth for right-wing propaganda bullshit.

On these two tickets, I’m paying very strong attention to the running mates. We have a very old (the oldest running for president) man who could easily die in office and a black man who could easily be assassinated (although if anyone would have been assassinated by now, it would have been Bush). So, what’s left is an inexperienced, extremely right-winged woman and an experienced, plageristic man. I think we should be looking long and hard at the running mates.
So long as the SS does their job, the more stable ticket seems to be the Democrats.

rushfan:

“We are in a global war on terrorism and Iraq is one front in that war.”

No, it isn’t, and it never was. It’s convenient to ignore the truth and the facts and evidence when they don’t agree with you, rush, but it isn’t *honest.* Saddam’s Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and there’s no evidence that he even exported terrorism of *any* kind directed at the US. And there was never any evidence of any kind that he was trying to produce a nuclear weapon. It’s long been established that all of these excuses were invented by the Bush administration–the problem is that Congress has never had the guts to call him on it and impeach the son of a bitch. But I take it you never heard of the Downing Street memo, or any of the other documents and testimonies which establish that the Bush administration *knew all along* that they were lying to the American public and to the rest of the world, distorting and fabricating whatever they felt they needed so they could carry out whatever nutty strategic “plan” they had in mind which demanded that they invade Iraq and topple Saddam. I applauded the fact that a bastard dictator was overthrown, but the simple fact is that we had no justification for it, and it was a monumental strategic error.

You can harp all you want on this, promoting the propaganda that we’re now “winning the war in Iraq” and that “the surge is working” as though these contentions somehow make the whole thing okay–utterly ignoring how A) it was WRONG in the first place B) a HUGE waste of lives, time, resources and our economy and C) it accomplished NOTHING of a practical value beyond ending the rule of a lousy tyrant. Nice, that last, but hardly worth what we put into it. Every SINGLE other aspect of it has been a complete and utter FAILURE.

“After 9/11 it was necessary to take any and all threats seriously.”

I love this kind of bullshit rhetoric. As if no one WOULD take threats seriously after 9/11. Sure.

“Actually, it was necessary before 9/11 but Clinton ignored all terrorist attacks from the embasy bombings to the USS Cole.”

I’m not here to defend the poor foreign policy maneuvers of the Clinton administration. I, in fact, agree that he fucked up. But I find it telling that you find it so easy to criticize *Clinton* for his errors in this regard–but you won’t raise a voice to criticize BUSH for *his* far greater errors. Clinton could at least say that no one could have conceived of a 9/11 plot before it actually happened (I certainly couldn’t imagine it–to this day it still seems like some crap they’d invent in a Hollywood movie)… but what excuse can Bush use? Where is Bin Laden? Why is the TALIBAN still operating almost *freely* in Afghanistan? And more besides.

“The international community (not just the US) had intelligence that said Saddam had or was close to developing dangerous weapons.”

Wrong, and a blatant falsehood. The fact is that no such intelligence ever existed–the best they had were unproved suppositions and faint indications here and there, most of them completely untrustworthy.

Again, you are spouting right-wing propaganda which hasn’t even a smidgeon of truth in it.

“The UN passes how many resolutions? He used chemical weapons on his own people.”

What does THAT have to do with 9/11 and the war on terror? Again, it was a meaningless and pointless DIVERSION from where our attentions SHOULD have been.

“We happen to be winning the war in Iraq.”

Again, irrelevant.

“The soldiers you feel sorry for, I feel proud of.”

AS IF I’M NOT PROUD OF THEM. I TOLD YOU, rushfan, don’t pull that flag-waving “you hate America and hate our soldiers while I’m a patriotic TRUE Amurrican” with ME, young lady. What the hell did YOUR family EVER do to serve this country? Do they have the same record as mine? I highly doubt it. Yet you feel free to impugn MY patriotism? Get off it. Moreover, those soldiers you’re so “proud” of–in fact, informal polling has indicated that a *majority* of them feel their time in Iraq has been *wasted* and that they have NOT been fighting the *real* enemy there.

REAL soldiers, rushfan, don’t just blindly cheerlead for whatever conflict they’re sent into. They KNOW when they’re being bullshitted, and know when their time and effort is being wasted. Why do you think so many former generals and admirals have come out with criticisms of this war, and criticisms of the Bush administration’s handling of it? Why do you think so many generals have left service? Why do you think so many of them protested Rumsfeld’s reckless decisions and attitudes in regards to how the war should be prosecuted?

“Did you watch all of those brave Iraqi citizens risk their lives to vote? Well, I did.”

Good for you—another irrelevant pull at the heartstrings and self-congratulation. Have you checked in how many of those noble Iraqi citizens have taken up arms against us? And how many of them have *died* needlessly in the in-fighting? And how many of them are now angry as hell at us?

“Well I for one don’t need the mainstream media to form my opinions for me and I sure as hell don’t need you to talk to me as if you know it all because you sure as hell don’t.”

What you sure as hell DO need, rushfan, is some education and to listen to SOMEONE other than Rush goddamn fucking Limbaugh. Ignoring the “mainstream media” doesn’t make you smart, rush. Not if you’re not filling the gap with something other than one sided propaganda.

“and another thing…Nobody is “for” war. Sometimes it is necessary to win the war to win the peace.”

Exactly the typical kind of talk one hears from armchair generals who don’t go themselves, but feel comfortable to rah rah rah for whatever action they feel “needs” to be taken.

“The reason the Isrealis are perpetually at war is because the international community does not allow them to defeat the Palestinians once and for all.”

See my earlier point about this. That statement is reprehensible.

“They have the ability, they just use *amazing* restraint and don’t obliterate their enemy.”

But apparently you think they should do just that? Obliterate them?

“We are hated by haters and appreciated by the countless people all over the world we help with untold amounts of humanitarian aid.”

More nonsense self-congratulation. No, rushfan, we are now distrusted and hated by people all over the world because our foreign policy the last eight years has been bullying, self-serving, reckless, and one-sided. We’re no longer the leader we once were, we’re a bullying bull in a china shop that looks like it’s trying to lay the foundations of empire. Whether true or not, that’s how it appears to people the world over. Of course, it’s convenient for to deny that and pretend it ain’t so, sitting where you sit… but that doesn’t make you right.

“I’d rather have George W Bush at the helm right now than a guy who wants us to pass some “global test” before we make any moves”

The mark of a true leader, rush, is not just blundering in and doing what you think should be done, when everyone else advises you its wrong. That’s the mark of a bully and a self-righteous idiot, which Bush has been proven to be. There’s nothing wrong with listening to one’s trusted and true allies and friends and acting within some accord on their feelings. Yes, sometimes you gotta take a lead and be out on your own—but handled properly it never becomes what it HAS become. Bush’s problem is that he was incapable of handling this situation thusly–instead, he handled it like no one else in the world mattered. That kind of crap may play in the trailer parks but it isn’t the smart way to run a superpower.

“Moreover, those soldiers you’re so “proud” of–in fact, informal polling has indicated that a *majority* of them feel their time in Iraq has been *wasted* and that they have NOT been fighting the *real* enemy there”

Reaaaaalllly? I am young (you know this) and graduated from college just last year. I have SEVERAL (as in more than I can count on one hand) friends who are in the military and have gone/are going to serve tours. These are well educated men, three of whom have master’s degrees at or before age 24 and are from both military and non- military families. Not one of them signed up for the help with college tuition, and not one of them is of the “Heh. Guns. Let’s get shooting” mentality.

And they ALL are pround to serve, and fight for their country. Not one of them has complained to me about his time being wasted. Are you in Iraq Randall? No, I don’t believe so. You can informal poll and much as you want, as can I, but you and I will NEVER have a soldier mindset- I don’t care if your family goes back more generations than Lt. Dan’s did, you have no right to come on here spouting “soldiers hate the war!” as a defense against it. My grandfather was shot down over Germany and spent 3 years as a POW during WWII, and even he keeps quiet about this situation because he simply thinks it’s not his war. If you want to honestly complain about a solider wasting his time, that, pick up a gun, get on the front line, and become one..see how well your pompous blowharding does there.

Furthermore, you can’t tell me that 8 years ago after 9/11 whichever party was in the White House coule have stood by and not done anything. Do you honestly think if we had a Democrap in office back then we wouldn’t be at war with someone today?

Oh so if we were in Afghanistan, you would suddenly become pro-war? You would join up on the side of Buc, Rush, and myself? Or you would sit in your liberal university office and shake your fists at the people serving there?

And you’re damn right if I’m ever called upon I’d go serve. Did I sign up? No, because I’m quite little and would probably just get in the way on the front lines, but if there were ever a draft, and women were included, and I was drafted, hell yes I’d go. You tout your military background as proof of patriotism, yet seem to have a deep hatred of this country and most of the people in it except for your daughters, your neighbor Mike, and your hot co-ed’s.

Let’s say your boy gets elected. Let’s say he dies. ( I know it’s a long shot, but it’s entirely possible. Obama could drop just as easy as McCain) Biden is now President of the US. Psssst….Biden voted FOR THE WAR. Now what?

Well I simply cannot agree with the stance you are taking on this Randall. I completely agree with callie on this. There is plenty of good news coming out of Iraq, and a lot of that is coming from soldiers who’ve fought there.

It’s just too simple to toss out the mindset that this is all George Bush’s fault, we shouldn’t be there, let’s get out tomorrow. Yes, we were all deceived. Yes, we might have been hasty. But as I’ve stated numerous times elsewhere, Congress, most democrats included, approved of this action, and they’ve been running from this fact ever since.

Despite all of Bush’s blunders and miscalculations, the violence in Iraq is decreasing, oil profits are going to the republic instead of a sadistic thug and his cronies, terrorist organizations have to find other places to train and plan, and religious sects and tribes are debating upcoming elections. This cannot be described as anything other than a success and a vast improvement over the regime that was there before. But you’ll never hear about this from any democrat because their main focus on Iraq is for our failure. Most will give you some sort of half hearted blather about how they support the troops, but do not support their mission. They will never see the hypocritical nature of their sentiments because a soldier’s duty is to kill the enemy and destroy their ability to make war, not to sit on their ass and bitch about their dissatisfaction with their commanders or the plan of action.

The rest of my feelings on Iraq can be summed up nicely in an article by Christopher Hitchens in Slate. And we all know what an empty headed deluded right-wing sympathizer Mr. Hichens is.

http://www.slate.com/id/2197007/

Bucslim: And while you’re “winning” the war in Iraq, the war that you were manipulated and out right deceived into joining, my Soldiers are dying in Afghanistan. Where you should have been in the first place. The UN has stated that the terrorists in Afghanistan are both better equipped and better organized than the resistance in Iraq. The Taliban, the ones that George W. Bush lied to you about, the ones that were not in Iraq until after the American invasion. Yup, great job winning the war. Too bad you didn’t use your military might to eradicate the real threat, not the one that involves big business and oil.

callie:

“Oh so if we were in Afghanistan, you would suddenly become pro-war?”

Are you not listening, callie? I have said TIME and TIME again that the real war WAS in Afghanistan. Nobody should be “pro-war,” per se, but yes, I was ALWAYS in favor of prosecuting THAT war, against the Taliban and Al Qaeda–THE PEOPLE THAT ATTACKED US.

I mean, what is this bullshit? Where have I not SAID this?

“You would join up on the side of Buc, Rush, and myself?”

Hey doofus! I’ve got news for you. I’ve no doubt we’re also on the same side when it comes to many things. Why the hell would this be different? What are you trying to say, and pin me with?

“Or you would sit in your liberal university office and shake your fists at the people serving there?”

Uh, clearly, moron, you think this is the case. Equally clearly, you’re dead wrong. About a lot of things, as it happens.

“And you’re damn right if I’m ever called upon I’d go serve.”

Convenient to say, not easy to do.

“Did I sign up? No, because I’m quite little and would probably just get in the way on the front lines,”

Uh huh.

Look, the point is this shouldn’t be about impugning people for going or not going. That’s not a valid basis for argument. It is IRRELEVANT. About the only thing you can say reasonably is that if someone is super-gung-ho for war, then they themselves should be prepared to go. That’s an old saw, we’ve heard it a million times. There’s truth in it.

But beyond that, drop this shit. It isn’t what this argument is about.

“You tout your military background as proof of patriotism,”

NO. WRONG. I “tout” my FAMILY’S military background simply in DEFENSE of people who IMPUGN my patriotism, etc. Big difference. And the reason this is done is because 99.9% of the time, the people shooting their mouth off at me about this are people who NEVER served in combat themselves and have had NO immediate relatives who served in combat. It happens every time. It’s a common pattern. People with no knowledge of war, either personal or inherited, are EVER the first to be the cheerleaders for it, and the first to impugn the patriotism of OTHERS when they oppose war or criticize it.

“yet seem to have a deep hatred of this country”

Oh I do? And from what statements of mine did you draw this brilliant conclusion? Where’s your proof of this, your evidence?

AGAIN… common and shallow tactic of the brain-dead self-righteous right wing… accusing others who disagree with their fucked up worldview of “hating” their own country.

So cliched it ought to embarrass you to use it, Callie.

“and most of the people in it”

Well there you’re getting closer to the truth. You’re right, I don’t like a LOT of my “fellow Americans.”

“except for your daughters, your neighbor Mike, and your hot co-ed’s.”

I got no problem with this. Though my base of friends and people I admire IS considerably broader than just my neighbor Mike.

“Let’s say your boy gets elected. Let’s say he dies. ( I know it’s a long shot, but it’s entirely possible. Obama could drop just as easy as McCain) Biden is now President of the US. Psssst….Biden voted FOR THE WAR. Now what?”

Piss poor debating tactic, callie. This isn’t some litmus test about who opposed the war when. I wouldn’t care if OBAMA had supported the war originally. We have only two choices in an election, and no matter what, Obama is the superior choice BY FAR over McCain, who hasn’t YET learned that the war was wrong and a huge mistake.

AND, of course, there’s much more to it than the war. McCain stands for a dozen other things, at least, that amount to four more years of the same godawful shit we’ve suffered under the last EIGHT years with Bush.

bucslim:

“Well I simply cannot agree with the stance you are taking on this Randall. I completely agree with callie on this.”

I’m not surprised. I’m sorry man, but with you and I being about the same age, and discussing matters with you again and again, I’ve long since drawn the conclusion that you stopped *thinking* about your politics long ago. You clicked yourself into a political slot and you’re staying there, with no hope of being dislodged, and logic, facts, evidence, and changes in the world be damned. That’s where you’ll stay.

That’s wrong. Dead wrong. It’s called polarization and close-mindedness. It’s what we, when we were young, used to rail at the hippies and old school ultra-lefties about. That they were polarized and glued to out-of-date and illogical stances that ignored that the world had changed and that some of their experiments weren’t working. *They* ignored the evidence before their very eyes. *They* thought that Marxism was the wave of the future and that our values were to be laughed at. We were their grandkids, children, and younger brothers and sisters and we opposed them because we knew they’d been proven wrong and that the world had progressed beyond them.

But here you’re doing the same thing THEY did. You’re clinging to a worldview that’s rigid and you won’t change it—damned if I know why, because you seem smart enough. But I can *guess* why.

“There is plenty of good news coming out of Iraq,”

Where is the RELEVANCY of this? I don’t care if the war had gone GREAT from the very beginning and the Iraqis had freakin’ PARADES for us every day! It’s IRRELEVANT. The war was WRONG and a mistake and a DIVERSION from where our focus SHOULD have been.

WINNING a war doesn’t make it “right,” bucslim. It just ends it. And I remind you, the “plenty of good news” you’re touting isn’t what you’re playing it up to me. You’re making it sound like all is now hunky dory over there. In fact it’s not, and all there’s been is a reduction in the HUGE amounts of violence.

“It’s just too simple to toss out the mindset that this is all George Bush’s fault,”

Why? He is the president. IN PARTICULAR in regards to matters of foreign policy, the responsibility ends with him. That’s tradition and simple fact. It was, in the end, HIS decision to support the neo-con idiocy about Iraq, and to go to war there when the war in Afghanistan hadn’t even been won yet.

“Congress, most democrats included, approved of this action, and they’ve been running from this fact ever since.”

What’s your POINT about this? No shit, Congress voted for it. And? So? That makes it right NOW? Did that EVER make it right? Did it ever make it the SMART thing to do?

NO, to all of these questions. Your point is irrelevant. I don’t even know what it is, to be frank.

“Despite all of Bush’s blunders and miscalculations, the violence in Iraq is decreasing,”

and again, this is IRRELEVANT.

“oil profits are going to the republic instead of a sadistic thug and his cronies, terrorist organizations have to find other places to train and plan,”

Wrong on both counts. A) it STILL looks, to the rest of the world, like we went to war for self-aggrandizement and for control of oil. True or not, looks *matter* in the world. And this is still how it looks–like imperial America acting in its own selfish interests. And with no real *point* to the war, that perception, however incorrect it MAY be, remains. B) I can’t believe you can say this about the terrorists… Iraq became and still is a MAGNET for them. AND the very people who attacked us are not only still there in the region but are still operating and to some extent still in power in Afghanistan.

Every time you say stuff like this, it’s like you’re living in a dream world… of Sean Hannity’s and Rush Limbaugh’s invention.

“This cannot be described as anything other than a success and a vast improvement over the regime that was there before.”

And WHAT did that accomplish for US? Was it WORTH the price we paid?

And again, you’re being ridiculously rosy. Hatreds and in-fighting continue in Iraq. Unabated. Slowed, yes. But for a LONG overdue modest reduction in violence… you’re proclaiming some kind of victory? And you refuse to acknowledge how ABSURD that is?

“But you’ll never hear about this from any democrat because their main focus on Iraq is for our failure.”

Because it has BEEN a failure. A pointless, wasteful, unnecessary failure. All those resources and men should have been devoted to fighting the REAL enemy in Afghanistan. NOT in a country that had NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11.

It was, in the end, HIS decision to support the neo-con idiocy about Iraq, and to go to war there when the war in Afghanistan hadn’t even been won yet.

Actually, it was congress who voted for it in the end. They passed it. Dems included. Back to seventh grade civics with you.

I just need to get this in here.

When 9/11 happened, I was in my office at the university. A friend in Texas called me (or was it chatted me? I can’t recall now) and, knowing I was from New York, told me to check the news–something was going on in NYC. “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center.” I figured, weird, but okay… and so I told a couple colleagues and we went down the hall and flicked on a TV in an empty classroom… and for the next few hours we all sat and watched it happen.

We didn’t know then who did it, but of course it was obvious that it was organized terrorism. And in the ensuing days we found out who was responsible (except for the conspiracy nuts–they think Bush and the Illuminati were responsible).

I had personal thoughts going on at that time which I won’t share, because this isn’t about me. But I will say that I was deeply angry. I was also deeply troubled. I had little confidence that the Bush administration would handle the situation well. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

At any rate, I wanted the Taliban CRUSHED. I wanted Bin Laden hunted down like the miserable piece of garbage he is, along with all of his lieutants. I wanted and still want him to pay for what he had done. I wanted his deluded and repugnant followers punished or killed. I wanted to see the Taliban and hate-mongering assholes like them wiped from the face of the earth. I still do.

But what happened? We can witness what happened. The Taliban and Bin Laden are still there. Al Qaeda still exists. This is a failure and betrayal of *monumental* proportions.

Iraq instead became the focus. For no good reason. For an idiotic, unrealistic plot to “bring democracy to the Middle East,” devised by the very kind of elitist intellectuals people here are railing against… except those intellectuals were arrogant neo-conservatives.

And like good sheep that some of you are, you ignore the facts of all this and wave the flag like you’ve been taught to do, and proclaim admiration for a moron in the White House who managed to turn a situation where we had almost the ENTIRE world’s sympathy and support into a situation where we have almost the entire world’s distrust and antipathy.

I am deeply angered and offended to my core that Bush not only let that opportunity slip out of his hands but that he practically pushed it away. And deeply angered that the REAL enemies here have YET to be fully vanquished and crushed the way they SHOULD have been. Instead, what did we get? A dog and pony show which would have been laughable had it not cost so much in American blood and resources.

The yahoos here will call this “anti-American.” Well they show their true colors when they do so. THAT is the kind of attitude that makes me fearful for the state of our society and the state of our democracy. It takes an informed and responsible citizenry to keep both going. But flag waving sheep make for tyrannies, not healthy societies or healthy democracies.

Randall – I’m finished debating this with you. I’m sick and tired of your constant juvenile ‘oneupsmanship.’ You keep telling me how closed minded I am and ignore your own pigheadedness. Time and time again I state my opinion based upon the facts as I see them and you go off on some stupid bullshit laden rant essentially making me the love child of Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter. And yet you yourself are as every bit closed minded on this topic as you suppose I am. You ignore the facts and make up shit about me that isn’t true. It’s pointless to keep arguing facts with an insufferable know it all. I’m pissing off so you win.

I personally think we can handle a Black U.S president. I am “young” as my parents say and since I do not label myself as a Democrate or a Republican I am whats wrong with the country. I personally think people voting for a “party” and not the right person for the job is the problem. Who cares if they are black, white, man, woman, old, young, Democrate, Republican. The issues they stand on are the important reasons to vote. I may not know a lot about politics but I know how to make up myu own mind.

trojan_man:

Thank you. I know we disagree a lot of the time on political/social issues, but here you see, yes, that we both, you and I, are using our grey matter. Others, sadly, are not.

bucslim:

I can do nothing but shrug and say “whatever” to you. So be it.

But one last thing:

“You ignore the facts”

I would challenge you to point out to me one SINGLE “fact” that I have ignored. One.

And something else. You have always come back at me and hit me with this crap about calling you something you’re not and pinning you with labels. Well sorry, but it’s bullshit. Your words and your stances speak for themselves, pal. *I* don’t label you. You do.

If a candidate as smart as Barack Obama comes along, we should all vote for him no matter what race he is.

Some people support Obama simply because he is black. Some people don’t support him simply because he is black. I support him simply because he is a smart man.

And again, this is simply a “debate” to you, is it? I would advise you to take your responsibility as a citizen of this country more seriously than that.

Um…what is this to you? Do you think the candidates are reading this closely? That John will see this and just drop out of the race? Are you under the impression that you’ve changed anyone’s mind on this forum? If anything, you’ve served to make my convictions stronger. I was born with an elephant in my heart just as sure as your were born with a stick up your ass.

I take my responsibility as a citizen quite seriously. I turned 23 less than a week ago and have a damn good grip on politics, culture, and despite what you think I’m actually very smart and graduated with honors a semester early. I’ve voted in every election, both national and local, that I’ve been eligible for, I recycle, and I volunteer at my local animal shelter. I also engage in healthy political debates online because I enjoy them.

..Did it mean more to you than it did to me Randall? I apologize for the heartbreak.

callie:

“Um…what is this to you?”

It is NOT about cute debating tricks and oneupsmanship, or counting coup on an opponent. It’s about truth, facts, intelligence and what is right. You, on the other hand, have been playing games, and nothing else.

“I was born with an elephant in my heart just as sure as your were born with a stick up your ass.”

Well, as you see, putting together cute, but utterly irrelevant rhetorical jabs are clearly more important to you than THINKING about the question and FACING it.

And to go beyond this, you don’t even know me. You know nothing of my family history except what I’ve already mentioned. In point of fact my family were and still are Republicans. I myself was a card-carrying conservative Republican from the time I could vote in the early 80s until the mid 90s. The difference between us is, I have a brain and a conscience and can examine questions with critical thinking skills which you obviously don’t yet possess. I’d advise you to grow up and seek them out, or cultivate them.

I’m quite pleased that you vote and take your citizenship seriously, though it seems lacking to me thus far. It’s nice to hear that you volunteer and pitch in. And I don’t care if you want to be a right winger, that’s your prerogative.

But when you stop being HONEST and stop facing the hard questions with integrity and truthfulness, that’s when you’re wrong and behaving badly as a citizen. You want to vote for McCain, vote for him. But don’t lie about how great things have been under Bush and how the war has gone swimmingly. Find decent and honorable reasons for your stances–don’t hide behind propaganda and mindless dogma and rhetoric.

So..now that I know what it’s NOT, care to answer my actual question and tell me what it IS? And I’m the one playing games. Yeah.

Callie,

When the (second) war against Iraq was first being mooted, I remember reading and watching on the TV plenty about something called weapons of mass destruction being the casus belli. We were assured this information was totally reliable and the product of the full force of U.S. national intelligence.

If that had convinced and worried any of your politicians as much as it did me at the time and I had been one of them, I would have voted to go into Iraq, even if I gad been a blazing left-wing commie.

But there were no WMD were there?

Sorry, Mom,

You said it already. Still, it doesn’t hurt to come another way from another observer of another nationality living in another part of the globe!

by that logic, all the people currently against the war (the majority) are not to be trusted. How about just standing up for what you think is right no matter which side of the fence you fall on.

Callie, (415),

or is it callow? Oh dear. I didn’t ask you to prove Randall was correct about the need to improve your logic, deduction and argumentative powers.

Watch my lips, watch them very carefully, because I chose my words here deliberately. Did my first paragraph in any way state or imply “don’t trust the (i.e. any) majority”?

“beware, v.i. & t. Be cautious, take heed.”
“trust,(as) v.t. & i. Firm belief in the honesty, veracity, justice, strength of a person or thing. Person ot thing confided in. Reliance of truth of statement, etc. without examination.”
Since those two words appear to be synonymous in meaning to you, I suggest you go away and take a lesson in English comprehension and then return to the forum. I’m being neither patronising or intellectually snobby. I would expect reasonably educated pre-university upper schoolchildren whose native tongue was English to know and understand the difference.

I hope you can now go back to 414 and appreciate exactly what I was explaining.

As for standing up for what you believe in. Good Grief. Fuck whether that’s exactly the same as eveyone else in the world (easy), or you are entirely alone (difficult, often requiring courageous strength of character, may even be risky). Do it. Or at least don’t go against it, since sometimes it may simply be too dangerous to support openly, unless you are prepared and willing to suffer the consequences.

That I cited Churchill as someone who did precisely that and you immediately called my point to question really does prove Randall, I fear.

By the way, please note the only personal *insult* I offered here was a slight tease on your name I couldn’t resist. Sorry. You’ve provided all the rest yourself.

First: “making me the love child of Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter.” ::involuntary shudder:: Why, bucslim, did you have to put that image into my head?
Secondly: #400- Callie, I don’t have the political know-how, the time, the patience, or the fervor to keep up with the ongoing political debate. However, I will say that is easily the most assanine thing I’ve heard from you, if not on this whole list. And that includes the statement made by diogenes’ dildo. Did you get that from “The Red Book of Political Quips” featuring Rush Limbaugh? Stop painting people blue or red and making broad statements about them.
Thirdly: Anon, I’m a tad confused. As far as I know, my name wasn’t hijacked. Those statements above were made by me. I think I grouped you with badlist at some point; the statement I made about filtering voters based on current events was a snide comment, but I think I misread your original statement. I thought you had said something about 20s somethings being retarded, etc. etc. My n00bie head took offense ::sniff::

Cedestra, (419),

I don’t think I’m dreaming (or properly, nightmaring!). On a couple of sites you’ll find pointless references by me to numbered remarks by *Cedestra* that don’t exist (correction: no longer exist). The one I remember and have just checked is Nº 390 of the Animal Testing topic. You’ll see my second item: an enigmatic comment to *Cedestra* which actually absurdly refers to the same posting (390). The original 390 was silently removed, presumably by the site administrators.

A lot of nasty stuff was banging around at that moment, which happily appears to have been snuffed out, although I imagine the perpetrator(s) is/are still reading all this.

Perhaps the whole episode blew up and over whilst you were *off air*. I suggest you contact jfrater or Cyn to check. If I then prove to have been caught up in some terrible confusion I didn’t and don’t understand, let’s just drop the whole thing.

Assuming there is something behind it, I think you need to know, and would also be grateful for an acknowledgement to put my mind at rest.

Thanks and regards.

I’m personally not ready for “Obama”. Not that he is black, that has nothing to do with it. I personally do not like him. I think he is all bullshit. What makes me mad is that he is pretty popular with my generation, the 20-somethings…and the main reason being, because it’s “cool” to be for Obama.
Whenever I ask people around my age why they are going to vote for him, they never can give me a good answer…”Oh he will make the “CHANGE” this country needs.” Ok, idiot. If you pay attention to what he is offering this country and you really like what he stands for, then more power to ya! Everyone has the right to their choices and opinions. I just wish more people would make up their minds for themselves before deciding who should rule our country for the next 4 years. Just because he seems like a cool guy that can play basketball and such, does not mean he will be a good president.
I will be voting for McCain. He stands for what I believe in, and don’t get me wrong, ALL politicians are liars, cheaters, and bullshitters. I’m just voting for the lesser of two evils.
Back to the subject though, I think imo that most people in this country are fine with possibly having a black president. But there still are MANY people who are not cool with it. Pertaining particularly to the retired white male population.
Whatever happens, happens. I just hope whoever becomes our next president fixes our countries problems efficiently.

Mickey: the change America needs is NOT a bigger government…and some of his policies are exactly that. Don’t just support him because he is not a Republican. No matter what you think, John McCain is NOT George W. Bush.

Anon: I responded on the animal testing list. It seems someone has been using my alias: I hadn’t posted to that list in a very long time, if I ever had. I’ve been very heated on the science fiction list and posting occasionally to this one, but not that much. I agree with Jamie; ad hominem attacks only make you look stupid. I try to make my posts slightly reserved because I just can’t sink my all into arguing with people I’ve never met. Seems a waste of time. I used to work myself into a lather whenever I was ganked (killed) on World of Warcraft (damn you, Alliance gnome rogues, damn you!!!), but I got over it and really stopped putting so much energy into it.
I find my politics/ideas don’t agree with rushfan, bucslim, and usually kiwiboi, but I find all of them mature and well thought-out people. Randall and I have similar views, but I don’t agree with the name calling (but agree that sometimes it just has to be done). Same with SlickWilly, although he’s generally more cheerful, and segue and Mom242.
I think you, Anon, and I have similar ways of thinking and being, so I was confused at this (quote in a quote): “badlist,

“To be honest i really dont care who these people vote for as long as they educate themselves first as to what each of the candidates stands for.”

Never mind the 20 somethings. Never mind the party preference. ¿Pass an exam on knowledge of the issues and the candidates before you’re allowed to vote? Wow, That’d really thin them out.”
For some reason I took that as you’d be thinning out the 20-somethings. It’s not holding as strong in my mind as before, but I can see how it can be taken both ways. I thought you were hurting my feelings as a 26-year-old :) If you meant generally, then yeah, I’d like that. That would be good.

418. Kase, I read http://www.cracked.com/article…..nters.html
I read *ALL* of it. It was funny, disturbing, and all too true. I’ve noticed the numbers of spammers, the folks who show up and post one or two nasty or meaningless posts, then disappear into the cosmos.
Well, okay.
For the most part they really do no harm. They just spout off, because they can, and then go find someone else to bother.
BFD.
They’re mostly kids. They’re bored (the first sign of a weak personality and a poor mentality). They can’t come up with anything more original to do. Again, BFD.
Oh, and btw, Kase, I’m female, *not* a dude. Hard to tell here, I know. I just really hate being called “dude”. I think it’s a generational thing.

Cedestra, (427),

Thanks for your long and careful reply. I found your other one across on Animal Testing and briefly acknowledged there.

Thinking about it, you were also lodged at the back of my mind as one of the people who fitted into what I might call (but none too seriously!) my *like-mindeds*, here. Mind you, agreement and disagreement with anyone can vary interestingly from topic to topic, even allowing for broad trends. Your placement is borne out by your own list above, which coincides pretty well with mine. There are valued co-incidental thinkers and highly respected *opponents*. Then come all the rest, a great range grading from people just as well-informed, but who almost seem to be speaking a different language. (At times they’re close to being exclusively cultural- or generational-plus-jargon, as per the *dude* comment of segue in 429). Right down in the pits sink the mercifully limited and deleted e-scum. E-scum is probably a bad metaphor, since scum at least floats, and this stuff is the stinking, lowermost, anaerobic crud! For that reason I was confused by your *hi-jacker* (just as you were about my 20-something-itis) and trying to wring some sense out.

Yup, I think I understand how Randall is Randall though. I’m very slow to anger. Yet I’ve been trying to contain my sometime seething frustration at one or two opponents on LV (reasons for that reaction are varied and complex), and only managing with difficulty at times. They’ve managed to set my mind in Randall mode. I stop short because I want to win or block them with cold logic, not offer the chance of an *escape route*.

I do always try to be careful with my wording and sense, so am (a) sorry you thought I was attacking your age group, and (b) glad that was sorted out. Every time people post up about *old white males* here, my hackles rise, especially as I like to kid myself my values and mental flexibility are the exact reverse of what they intend! Why can’t they just put SOME old white males? It’s not the *old* that gets me either, its the crap that goes with it. Ageism? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

I don’t know if we are ready for Barack Obama OR John McCain.
It would be choosing the lesser of the two evils, if you could call it that. It’s more like, choosing an equal evil!

I think it’s sad that you have a thread on if America is ready for a black president. Being in my thirties (and also living in the south), I think the majority of everyone I know is more interested on having a president who can properly run the nation. More important than your skin color is how you plan on combating rising energy prices, relieving over taxation, improving education and boosting the dollar.

436. Chewie, from who do you get your information? Or do you just make it up?
Obama has written or sponsored over 100 bills in the Senate. 100!
Do you see a difference between zero and 100?

delpsecies (#435): You do realize that the very best way to boost the dollar is to stop spending a trillion dollars a year on war? Who do you think will end the conflict in Iraq fastest? Who has pledged the most resources to alternate energy sources? Who has the least ties to big business and the oil industry? Answer those questions before you cast your vote.

i think that if obama gets elected, he will get assasinated. Shitty to say, but i really think so.

“Your View: Is the US Ready for a Black President?”

Not THIS black President.

Randall –

I can agree with that, I but all in all the president is on the short end when it comes to being a powerhouse in the big trifecta (Exec, Leg, and Jud Branches). I also think that congress will not be as complacent this term as they were the last few terms because of what has occured, the roughriding. But i really don’t care either way, America is not ready for a black president. Vote for McCain in 08!!!

Dan:

Your rock is getting cold. Go craw back under it. Moron.

As a non American citizen I hope you do not mind my input of opinion on this highly topical debate. Due to the extensive coverage of the American elections which we receive in the United Kingdom I have come to the conclusion that Barrack Obama is the best man for the job and if I were indeed a United States citizen I would vote for this amazing man in a second, I believe that America is a great country, the majority of people there are friendly, un-biased and welcoming to everyone regardless of colour, race or gender. I wish Mr Obama all the best in his election campaign and sincerely hope that Americans vote for him in the election. Thanks x

Oh please. That’s just ridiculous.

Anyways all I know is that I’m voting for Obama this fall. We’ll have to see how America does, won’t we?

well i can’t exactly support any of the candidates since i’m not american, and yes that is true they don’t need a bigger government, they need a smarter leader…and from what i seen of him he seems to be very intelligent. comparing intelligence to bush…a brick would be smarter!! and yes i know mccain isn’t bush…i don’t think anyone could be him (thank fucking god). my point was simply that americans haven’t been thinking straight these last few elections. they voted for bush twice…they need someone who doesn’t have the book upside down and his head in ass. as i said obama gave me the impression that he wasn’t in it for himself…but for his country. i feel he truely and sincierly(sp) wants to change things. sure mccain probably does too.. but i didn’t get the same feeling from him when i watched his speech. on a personal level i don’t follow politics really..politics to me is like american idol- only worth watching the auditions..because chances are the one you want wont win and if he does he makes one album and then he’s gone from the spotlight- same thing to me because it’s fun to watch the candidates during their campaigne run, then the one you want either wont win or if he does he’ll go strong for a little bit and then fuck up.

mickey:

“…americans haven’t been thinking straight these last few elections.”

You got that right, Mickey.

See, the big problem with much of the middle class and lower class (or working class if you like) of this country (the US) is that they repeatedly vote against their own self-interest. The Republican party over the last eight years (but really it started long before) has clearly shown how it is unbreakably tied to big business and that it’s true agenda lies in securing more and more favors and breaks to large corporations, big oil, and the like. But it fools the working classes of this country with a lot of smoke and mirrors about it, distracting them with patriotic bullshit and promises of “tending the economy” and “keeping taxes low,” neither of which is really true, when you look closely at the facts.

But the Republicans *have* had that great trick up their sleeves, which is that they learned once and for all, under Reagan, that the way to win over the vast middle and lower classes of this country was to play up to their populism. The Republicans didn’t use to do that, prior to Reagan… populism was back then more successfully exploited by the Democrats. But somewhere along the line they (the Republicans) figured it out, and began to steal it away… and then, in due course, a great chunk of the American people came to believe the Republican line, which continually says that “your taxes are too high, and the Democrats want to raise them even more” like a broken record. Sometimes, yes, our taxes HAVE been too high, and sometimes Dems have wanted to raise them. But it’s rarely been as simple as that. Even now, no one’s paying attention to the fact that Obama’s plan raises taxes on NO ONE in the middle or lower classes — only on the very rich, and on big business… and this ONLY to bring us back to more fair ground, because the ultra-rich in this country have been reaping benefit after benefit for YEARS now while A) the gulf between rich and poor has grown dangerously large and B) the middle and lower classes have been paying more and more.

Yet still, a lot of them can’t get the wax out of their ears or the mud out of their heads and LISTEN or THINK or PAY ATTENTION to the facts. We’ve had eight years of Republican rule and nothing but scandal, gigantic favors to the ultra-rich and big corporations, (witness the latest scandal with our Dept. of the Interior and Big Oil), a huge failure in oversight, a ruined economy and a housing market in one of the biggest messes since WWII. AND still there’s a big segment of this population who thinks McCain is the answer, when it’s HIS party that’s done all this, and worse, the last eight years. Not to mention a DISASTROUS foreign policy which McCain wholeheartedly supported… but because of lumpen flag-waving nonsense, a big number of people still think HE’S better equipped to handle foreign matters than Obama, who at every turn has shown superior judgment. It boggles the mind.

But it doesn’t really, because as I say, all this is the result of a well-oiled tactic played up by the right-wing since the 80s—to always fall back on appealing to the baser instincts of the American people and to fool them by constantly telling them they’re paying too many taxes and that the Democrats want to raise them even more. And it still works today despite the great economic success of the 90s, driven by a *Democratic* administration. If the tactic EVER had any truth in it (certainly at one time it had some) it certainly doesn’t now. But people still fall for it.

Randall: What you’ve described in terms of people voting against their own econmic interests happened here in Australia for 11 years, and was also achieved through populist rhetoric. The lower-middle and working class folk voted for a government whose main goal was to minimist worker’s rights and to shift to on economically ‘rational’ society, thus causing these voters no end of harm. This was achieved through the rhetoric of fear to great success.
The other problem is that in Australia, the two major parties are meant to be ideological opposites, but are now very similar. People still hang on to the belief that this is not so. From my understanding, somthing very similar has occurred in the US in terms of the majority of domestic policies that do not carry religious overtones espused by both parties (i.e. universal healthcare = socialism = political death, and won’t be touched; welfare = bad, and gun ownership = a right)… Please let me know if I’m wrong?

Man, spelling errors abound in the post: this is what happens with no sleep :-(

you know what i don’t get is…… this man is half white, and was raised by a white mom. why is it all people see is a black man. i know this is off subject, but halle berry gets critized for her roles with white man, when her mother is white. i just don’t get this at all. yes i heard the saying we all bleed the same blood, but if our mothers and grandfathers don’t like a person because of his skin color, well….the devil will not have a hard time collecting souls. i feel not hate for people like this, but sorry…..cause hell is forever.

liquidfire:

What you are talking about (if I understand you correctly) is what I’ve talked about here before–people of the lower and middle classes voting against their own best interests. They’ve done it time and time again over the last thirty years, fooled by a Republican party that plays them like cellos at the philharmonic.

But we’ll see. Maybe finally people are waking up. Depends on who wins this election, then we’ll know.

456. longball: /sigh You won’t vote for a man who, when learning how he differed from what his pastor was saying, turned away? I’m sure some part of the reasoning behind him leaving his church, however large or small, was political, but would you stand behind a man, a symbol, who said said many things you didn’t agree with? And is that your only reason? Church loyalty usurps all other qualities in a president? Sarah Palin *also* switched her churches, from a Pentacostal church. So, you have no major ticket to go with.

Yes, I do…just not this one. This has nothing to do with melanin count. Simply put, those policies Obama has voiced are pure socialism. Those he’s danced around are ill-defined, superficial and outright. All would be disastrous for our country.

Sign up to fight ageism in the UK

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/low-wage/
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/low-wage/

Are we ready for a black President, YES, BUT not Obama.
Are we ready for McCain and Palin, NO NO NO NO.
What we need is TRUE separation of church and state and candidates that are not right wing religious fundamentalists.

Yeah we are ready for a black president, but not this socialist…

1. Universal Healthcare- that is a socialist program. those who can pay will and those who can’t get it for free.
2. Redistribution of Wealth – taking from the rich to give to the poor
3. Follower of Saul Alinsky.
4. Democrat

Thats 4, Randall. Looks like a socialist agenda to me.

WHY DON’T WE JUST KILL THE POOR, AND KEEP THE RICH HAPPY

Do anyone know why the depression started?

Here’s my prediction on the election, focusing on the polls presented at usatoday.com. It’s still early in the election and, of course, these are just polls, but here’s where I think we will see our interests lie:
First, forget Florida. It’s no longer contested- they’re all for McCain-Palin. Our battle states to pay strong attention to are Pennsylvania and Ohio. If either candidate wins both, it’s over. The back-up states to look at will be Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico. I think, at this point, Nevada will go for McCain and Colorado and New Mexico will go for Barack (the polls support this at this time).
Here’s the nauseating thought: if McCain gets Nevada, Ohio, and Colorado and Obama gets Pennsylvania and New Mexico, we will have a TIE, 269-269. Ugh. My call, at this point in time, though, is 278-260 Obama. (I would have called McCain last week in line with the polls.)

obama 08 for life!!!!

I can only speak for myself, but I AM ready for a black president.

O-B-A-M-A!!!!

Team:

You are, quite frankly, an idiot. Unequivocally, without the slightest bit of doubt.

“The MARXIST Obama?” I see. So he’s a “marxist” now. Sure.

Stop breaking the prozacs in half, Team. That might help.

Here we are, facing one of the greatest economic debacles of the last 50+ years… ALL OF WHICH IS THE DOING of Republicans and their over-the-top insistence on a “look-the-other-way, the market will correct itself” philosophy with little or no oversight or regulation… AND WE ARE PAYING THE PRICE FOR IT… and now, WHO IS IT who is calling for near-socialistic buy-outs and controls over that same market? Bush and the Republicans. The hypocrisy is so thick it could only be cut with a meat cleaver and would have to be slow-cooked for hours before you could bite into it.

“The Marxist Obama.” What is it, Team? You don’t want your ultra rich buddies making over $250,000 a year to pay a few more taxes? Because they’re the only ones who will, under Obama’s plan. The rest of us falling under that threshold get a tax CUT. And if you don’t believe me, just open your goddamn eyes and look around ANYWHERE at any accredited news site which will VERIFY this.

But I highly doubt you even KNOW anyone making that kind of scratch. Which is the amusing thing—that middle-class or even working class dupes (such as yourself, probably) will ACTUALLY sit here and protest the election of a man who is out to help THEM… they will actually protest him on behalf of the wealthy…. a wealthy class, moreover, who wouldn’t lift a finger to help YOU get YOUR taxes lowered–because they HAVEN’T, EVER, regardless of administration or time period.

Or could it be, Team, that you don’t like his health care plan? EVEN THOUGH it is, in fact, slightly more conservative than Hillary Clinton’s? Don’t like the idea, perhaps, Team, of people actually being HELPED when they need it, actually being able to have healthcare in the RICHEST NATION ON THE PLANET? When every other civilized, developed nation has SOME kind of health plan for their citizens in need…. but oh no, not the US… that would be “marxist.”

Sure.

BTW Randall…

When Barack Obama, a/k/a “The Messiah,” ran for the Illinois state senate in 1996 he sought the endorsement of he New Party and used New Party members as campaign volunteers. In case you don’t know – and you probably don’t – the New Party was a Marxist organization made up largely of former members of the Democratic Socialists of America and ACORN. Vote for him anyway. After all, he’s for change and he’s black. What more could you ask?

Team:

Okay, *I’M* “funny” because I’m simply reporting the FACTS about Obama… whereas YOU are doing nothing but pulling conspiracy theories out of your ass?

Oh, but YOU have the “proof” that Obama is secretly a marxist who will bring the country down, don’t you? Never mind that ALL the major news agencies AND the Republican Party–who would drool to get their hands on evidence that Obama was actually some kind of “marxist”—never mind that THEY haven’t heard any of this and aren’t reporting it—because they must be all ignorant dupes, right? Right Team?

Get out of here, whackjob. And take your ignorant, racist, pinheaded views with you. Do us all a favor and stay away from the polls on election day. It’s because of assholes like you that our democracy grows closer to the precipice of failure every day.

Well, Team just told us another interesting tidbit about himself.
Besides being racist, he doesn’t believe man has had a hand in global climate change.
I wonder who left the asylum unlocked the day he got out?

Jesus I feel like I am talking to torridjoe…

Team:

I have no idea who “torridjoe” is, but instead of just posting your BS here pell-mell, why don’t you RESPOND to me, and disprove what I’ve said? Why don’t you offer up an argument to support your ridiculous views, instead of just evading and hiding from what I’ve said to you?

Again, because you’re an intellectual coward.

segue:

Oh, I know… but I have no false hopes that this jerk will “get it.” Rather, my intent is to shut him up and show him up for the ignorant bigot that he is.

Maybe eventually I will get bored reading your drivel… But until then, it still just amazes me that anyone would want to be a Democrat…

team:

And how old are you, I wonder? I suspect I’m arguing with some thickheaded teenager…

But I doubt you’d tell the truth in any event.

But, “team,” if you have so much truth to trumpet, then show evidence. Give proof. Don’t just cherry-pick op-eds… because for every ONE you produce that supports even remotely your trailer park knee-jerk idiocy, I could produce TWENTY that would contradict it.

INTELLIGENCE, “team,” is being able to recognize when one’s beliefs, however cherished, are failing, and need re-evaluation. Yours have failed. Face up to it like a man and begin some self-examination. Because the person who is so certain of their wisdom, as you are claiming to be, is always the person who knows the least and will be the first to fall flat on his or her face.

@500. Team:

http://polaris.moviments.net:8000/

Has little to do, but I think you should take a look. At least to see how the crisis is seen in other places.

To recover the topic
Even Swarzenager was asked for this question. And he answered that had some doubts about it. So I don’t think is that much stupid the question. (You may say he’s not the best indicated to talk about that but at least some of you may had voted for him)

iamscience:

*I’m a joke*? *I’M* a joke? This from a bigoted asshole who actually breaks down someone’s ethnicity to DECIMAL POINTS of percentage—AND clearly to smear Obama as…. *GASP*…. AN ARAB! And ah yes, by such a person I’m told to “grow up.” Uh huh.

The presumption, also, of lecturing a TOTAL STRANGER on how they’re “so attached to a ‘man of change’…” etc. etc. ad nauseum — meanwhile, you haven’t a REAL clue as to why I support Obama, nor how I am, in fact, the farthest you can get from a blindly credulous voter.

You’re not even worth the argument on this. The very idea of bringing up some imaginary “5 billion dollars” is laughable when the country, at the behest of a Repubican administration, is now facing the necessity of pumping NEARLY A TRILLION into a failed economy.

You’re simply a wretched, repugnant voice of emptiness, “iamscience.”

iamscience:

The funny thing is, “iamscience” (and again, do change the name—it’s offensively absurd for a creationist to even hint that they have something to do with science) that regardless of my use of insults (insults which, by the way, you sorely deserve) I still come off as well-spoken, erudite, and coherent. Whereas you come off as shrill, moronic, clumsy and illiterate, what with your poorly-constructed sentences (and thoughts), lack of punctuation, and poor spelling. Image is everything, “iamscience,” particularly in your use of the language, and particularly when your words are all that’s speaking for you. *You,* thereby, come off sounding like an inbred hill-grazer.

Moreover, the pathetic use of a piss-poor shot like “time to change your diapers” is a clear indication that you’re A) not at all creative or inventive, and very likely quite thick in the head B) not at all funny or witty and C) quite lacking in taste, as anyone *with* taste would recognize that the use of wheezy old cliches of this nature (“time to change your diapers”) would compromise their standing severely with outside observers.

In short, you’re an uncouth mouth-breather who can’t even cough up a decent jibe, let alone a coherent, persuasive argument.

Now then… there was no “point proven” beyond the point that you are exactly as I’ve described you here. I am, yes, quite fed up with having to deal with moronic idiots such as yourself who A) oppose the candidacy of Obama for nonsensical, fictional reasons (most likely hiding racist and bigoted motivations, in fact) and B) attempt to undermine (on another thread) science by attacking (pathetically and ineffectively) evolution. It’s clear to anyone with a brain what you are, “iamscience,” so I feel no need to further justify myself. I have no patience with your kind and see no reason to indulge in said patience.

Again—it wasn’t the question of Obama’s ethnicity (the proper spelling of the word, by the way) that was the salient issue here, “iamscience.” It was your absurd and offensive precise little breakdown of it, to the decimal point. It quite simply made you sound the dull-witted redneck that you apparently are.

It’s also amusing (and amusingly incorrect) how you automatically assume I am a liberal. While I’m sure it would please your pinheaded, bigoted mind to so pigeonhole me, I can assure you that you have failed miserably. No, I am not a conservative Republican—though I once was. But neither am I a liberal.

What YOU are is all too evident.

I’d be interested to see how, in your convoluted, twisted mind, you felt I “contradicted myself.” Of course I did not, in the least, but it might offer me further amusement to hear your reasoning behind this. It certainly might afford amusement to others looking in who can recognize you for the dogmatic fool that you are. It’s always fun to watch big-mouths fall flat on their faces.

“iamscience”

See my posts directed at you over in the creationist thread. I do not for a moment believe that you are actually an astronomer–but if by some bizarre chance you really are one, then you should be ashamed of yourself and of the piss-poor education you received.

Which was from where, I wonder? Liberty University perhaps?

And stop calling me “brother,” asshole.

The old trick you’re using now, of feigning reason and rationality when earlier you were called out on your bigotry, again falls flat.

The mere fact that you have completely misread this point of this thread (it is NOT that anyone will or should vote for Obama BECAUSE he is black) indicates that you simply aren’t that savvy or intelligent an individual, which is further supported by your left-handed invectives about “scientific inaccuracies” and the like. Further, yeah, “iamscience,” I wouldn’t expect some average shmoe to bother with grammar, spelling, and proper sentence structure—though it would always behoove them to do so—but again, I KNOW *real* scholars and scientists of several different disciplines, and they INVARIABLY express themselves much more professionally and thoughtfully than you have, either here or in the creationist thread.

If you really WERE in college for nine years, then I submit to you that you greatly wasted your money.

Team:

Angry that I have to deal with monumental stupidity; bitter that people such as you never learn, and that I and my family, children, and friends are forced to suffer the consequences when people like you get your way in this world.

IAMSCIENCE, you obviously get all of your information from that font of knowledge, Rush “I am an IDIOT” Limbaugh.
Omaba’s father was Kenyan. Black, native Kenyan. NOT Arab. If his father were Arab, it wouldn’t make a whit’s worth of difference, but he wasn’t.
Maybe *your* father was intelligent. That didn’t matter, either, did it?

rushfan, I actually regretted posting that as soon as I did. It was the idiot who posted I was angry at, not Mr. Limbaugh, whom I have listened to.
My apologies.

…yeesh, talk about hostility. I’m guessing you folks are asking for a concession?
@segue, I apologize for having these facts straight. Now your right about the Kenyan connection, i didn’t dispute that (or get into what his cousins do and have did there, but that’s for another gladiator event), but your just going to have to bear with me and read the entire post. Follow the link. If not, its no skin off my back, though with all the insane anger here and the assuming and speculation…and name calling, i guess that can be taken figuratively. And I appreciate you joining the ranks of Randall and calling me names. Furthermore, when you get into honestly calling people who you dont agree with’s parents (father in my case) names, it speaks a good deal about where and whom you direct your “anger” or “hostility” at. But, see, watch this, I’m not going to call your parents anything, but, assuming I had, the wrath of Randall and his crew would swell up and accuse me of resorting to these tactics because I would obviously be, “losing” was it? so I would be the bad guy and the evil registered Independent that I am, how dare I right?

@ rushfan, sorry to lose your loyal following, I guess I started with a fan and lost it all in once ((laugh))

@ Randall, …”Angry that I have to deal with monumental stupidity; bitter that people such as you never learn, and that I and my family, children, and friends are forced to suffer the consequences when people like you get your way in this world.”
Agreed, in general terms though, I mean, no point in getting angry however, I’m glad to be in America, a place where you have obviously mastered the English language with such finesse and lean how to be an impeccable speller all the while calling people liars, (insert the 3 cuss words used above and elsewhere towards me here), bigots, red-necks, so on and etc, etc and blah blah blah whine cry, boo hoo….dude seriously, you can point and blame and cry and be the freaking victim here, but your a dime-a-dozen, down on his luck, better than the rest, everyday man. I seriously can’t be angry or mad or upset with you…brother…because truly, I feel for you, i truly do. And I really mean this man, good luck in whatever you do….

@Randall… You procreated? God help us all…

@Chickensoup… No it doesn’t matter what the color of his skin is, but what does matter is his policies that would be bad for this country… I don’t care if he is black, white, pink, orange or any other color of the rainbow…

Well….

Obama’s cousin in Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya; It is the first widespread violence in decades. The current government is pro-American but Odinga wants to overthrow it and establish Muslim Sharia law. In fact his half-brother, Abongo Obama, is Odinga’s follower. Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaigning to speak to Odinga on the phone.

Obama’s cousin Odinga in Kenya ran for president and tried to get Sharia muslim law in place there. When Odinga lost the elections, his followers had burned Christians’ homes and then burned men, women and children alive in a Christian church where they took shelter.. Obama SUPPORTED his cousin before the election process here started. Google Obama and Odinga and see what you get. like it or not,
But I like the bush nazi connection as well, nice, just a bit farther removed. This has a bit more to do with Obama than Bush’s grandfather trading with some nazi’s…but pick and choose huh?

Lastly, this is the U.S. elections Chickensoup, not the world elections. Countries worldwide dont consult us on who they elect and vote for and nor should we? So, no this factor does not need to be taken into consideration…at all.

As i mentioned before, I am a registered independent, I had been doing alot of searching to see who at the base would be the best for America, and seriously, after some of the absurd assertions and speculations and matter-of-fact statements, frankly, I can’t vote for a guy who’s supporters seem to mirror some of the crap seen above. I’m scarred – but for the sake of America, I hope this isnt a close race.

Irregardless of who wins, I would just like to say how refreshing it was to see two candidates who could piece together an argument and never created their own adjectives? Neither of them were perfect, by any means, but it was comforting to know that the next president will have some means of intelligence and public speaking.

iamscience:

You get called names because you are, quite simply, an ass who deserves it. Again, raking up all this nonsense about Obama’s apparent muslim “connections”—and that’s not supposed to be transparent fear-mongering and racism, is it? Noooooooo… of course not!

All this bullshit about Obama’s “cousins”—and what you trying to tell us, “iamscience”? Hmmmm? Why not out with it, instead of the implications?

A) I haven’t found any definitive proof that these guys ARE even related to Obama…. but…
B) So what if they are? What is meant by “cousin?” I have “cousins” in England, Calabria (Italy) and Greece that I’ve never seen or talked to. I know they exist, but that’s it. Jesus Christ, I haven’t even seen or talked to many of my cousins here in the States—I couldn’t even tell you all of their names. My situation is of course the norm, not unique.
C) How CAN Obama then be held responsible for or even said to be in sympathy with these “cousins”? Answer? HE CAN’T.
D) Any normal person would know this… so your point? Clearly you’re trying to smear Obama with veiled hints and innuendo. Yeah… you’re a class act, “iamscience.” Right up there with the morons in white robes and hoods.

And you expect to be lent legitimacy in this, and not be insulted because of it?

Which brings us to your incessant whining about MY treatment of you since you showed up here:

“all the while calling people liars, (insert the 3 cuss words used above and elsewhere towards me here), bigots, red-necks, so on and etc, etc and blah blah blah whine cry, boo hoo…”

The irony, of course, is that you repeatedly complain about how I’ve addressed you here—rather than simply taking it like a man and answering me back with some kind of logical argument… which both here and over at the Creationist thread you have UTTERLY FAILED TO DO. Of course this is to be expected; you have nothing to say. You’re simply an uninformed, ignorant bigot who thinks his ravings about Obama should be listened to. Meanwhile NOT ONE legitimate news source on either the right or the left is seriously reporting this bullshit about Obama that you’re peddling… and why? Because it’s a non-story. It’s simply character assassination by association, with a thin film of racism on it.

“dude seriously, you can point and blame and cry and be the freaking victim here,”

Laughably ironic coming from you. *I* played the victim? How so? YOU have played victim since you showed up here, repeatedly crying over being insulted and mocked, without once offering anything reasonable or logical for anyone to listen to beyond your nonsensical bullshit.

“but your a dime-a-dozen, down on his luck, better than the rest, everyday man.”

Funny. And bizarre. Was that some misquote from a bad song, perhaps? Because I can’t make heads or tails of it otherwise. I’m down on my luck? Hardly. I have a nice position at a major university (and not whatever back-of-matchbook institution YOU attended, if you in fact ever really did attend) make a nice living, have a nice career going, lots of great friends and beautiful, smart kids, and so on…. if that’s “down on my luck,” I’ll take it, pinhead.

And “better than the rest, everyday man”? Smoking something perhaps, “iamscience?”

Again, your incoherent babbling belies your claim that you are an astronomer/scientist. I don’t believe it for a moment. As I pointed out here and elsewhere–you don’t talk like one, you don’t address others like one, you don’t comport yourself like one. Not in the least. And no one with a proper education in science would believe the crap you believe NOR would they make the mistakes you’ve made.

“I seriously can’t be angry or mad or upset with you…brother…”

And I repeat. Don’t call me “brother.” It’s sickening.

“because truly, I feel for you, i truly do. And I really mean this man, good luck in whatever you do…”

Spare me.

What I wish for you is that you wake up out of your ignorance and bigotry, so that you can become a proper citizen of this country. Because right now you’re just part of the problem.

It is irresponsible to think that a Negro can run the USA. Case closed.

532. nina_beretta: I rarely discourage anyone from voting, but I’ll make an exception in your case.
It’s exactly the low-information voter, like you, who tends to make poor decisions in the voting booth. What you need to do, nina_beretta, is get some *FACTS*, not just the dribble that’s being handed out by the ultra-right wing, Fox News, and the trash rags.
Information, nina_beretta, information!
Not knee-jerk reactionism based on lies and innuendos.

mutter-mutter-mutter

Just do everyone a favor and stay home on November 4.

im not from the upper class either, “segue,” perhaps you shouldnt be so quick to judge who has or hasnt any information on what or who. I dont know you or your situation but I bet Obama or McCain dont give a shit. How about you, “segue” do everyone a favor and let everyone have an opinion without jumping outta your wheelchair or hopping off your cane or walker and stommping on people whose opinoins or views dont match your own. Kisses!

Jordan, I don’t think he means what you think he means. He doesn’t mean the presidency, he means America. I know it doesn’t matter that he’s black but there’s alot of folks out there who think it does matter what color skin he is and that’s what the question is essentially about.

segue: I’d often wondered about your nickname. In classical music, it is used to mean “keep going” (ie from the end of one movement to the start of the next). Maybe that’s what you’re referring to.

okay okay…geeeeez i was just posting my opinoin like everyone else on here, im sorry if my views dont sit well with anyone else, but since everyone left their 2 cents on the sub i wanted too. “segue,” Im appreciate your commentary…no hard feelings…just wondering…how come you havent given anyone your 3 cents…?

541. nina_beretta, I did post my opinion about five hundred posts ago.

535. nina_beretta: Wow, I can understand that you are retarded and classless and may even be old enough to vote (fingers crossed on that one), but you need to leave. Seriously, I have not tolerance for bitches who say shit like that about people who frequent this site and has put forth nothing but a great image.

No. Nor do we need to sully the democratic system and elect a person based mainly on their race, as will be the case should Obama be elected. This country is not ready yet to decide based solely on qualifications.

545. Cedestra, thank you.

#531 willie please do us all a favor and kill yourself now you racist piece of shit.

549. segue: No problem. She actually made me ill from the statements about your condition. I may not have, but you handled yourself with class. :)

rushfan, you should never have to be afraid to voice your opinion here, or anywhere. I understand your statement about the “vibe” though, and can understand the gag it might (metaphorically) place on your posts.
Don’t allow that to happen. It’s criminal.

554: You could be the Elizabeth Hasselback of listverse! Just kidding…that’s getting downright ugly. We have a good group of regulars that form good opinions and, for the most part, are well behaved. I consider anyone else to be trolls that deserve nothing more than a quick kick in the box.
You and I wouldn’t agree politically, but if you read a note on another list, I had said we were missing your opinion on this list. I think Anon or segue or someone else had pointed out that you were missing.

#547 Lee? Just because your not a regular here doesn’t mean your opinion should be considered wrong. YOU ARE ENTITLED to YOUR OPINION. Hang in there.
Not a Regular, TG

I think I’m seeing something of an over reaction here, and I’d bet it has very little to do with race. It’s interesting. No one can be that angry out of the blue, and that it’s misdirected anger is practically in neon lights.
Makes one wonder.

OBAMA AND BIDEN IN ’08!!!!!!

MT, I am going to tell you this because I like you (also, I agree with you).
The more exclamation marks one uses, the less powerful the statement.
Multiple exclamation marks are the sure sign of a diseased mind.

girlymac:

Your doddering, confused, erratic old man and his brain-dead MILF of a running mate are going to lose and lose big in a month. And after that, idiots like you with your racist garbage will be further marginalized, as you so richly deserve.

girlymac:

Yes, girly… key word being *I* THINK. YOU don’t.

girlymac:

No, girly… the fact simply is that you’re not worth the trouble. PLENTY of substance has been given on this thread in support of Obama. You’re invited to read through the comment list. But in any event, YOU have not given one iota of substance, yourself, with which to work with. All you did was pop up here, make a very brief (thankfully) racist tirade, and then you’ve popped back up with repeated one-liners that SAY NOTHING. Your only “opinion” amounted to racist garbage, and your statements since then have amounted to EXACLY ZIP.

So to repeat–you’re not worth the time or trouble. If you had something substantive or intelligent to say, you’d have said it by now—AND you wouldn’t have said what little you already HAVE said.

Simple as that.

Boo-Hoo! Mr. Randall thinks I’m a one liner..I only came onto this stupid ass site to f*uck with you IGNORANT ASSED LIBERALS! This was FUN, while it lasted!!
Get jobs and a Life Jerks! hahahaha, Boo-Hoo!

Why doesn’t anyone care that Palin violated Alaska *ETHICS* laws? Shouldn’t this send up some red flags about her character? Or McCain’s judgement?? I would have expected the liberal media to be pounding this into the ground.

MT: Glad to know that.
See, though, in person, we would have been laughing our respective asses off. I’ll be sooooooooo glad when *everyone* is hooked up visually. My computer has a built-in camera (video & photo), but the next person has to have the same system…I want universal access!

girlymac:

“Mr. Randall thinks I’m a one liner..”

A) No, I said your POSTS had amounted to little more than one-liners. You seem to have a poor grasp of the English language, girly. Were you perhaps a high school dropout?

“I only came onto this stupid ass site”

B) Well, to come onto a “stupid ass site” to waste one’s time repeatedly seems to me to be a uniquely “stupid ass” thing to do. I could think of a number of better ways of spending my time. Do you want help with that? Let’s see… what would some moron like you enjoy? Nascar perhaps? Isn’t that on?

“to f*uck with you”

C) Truly, only a clumsy idiot would attempt to type out the “truncated/censored” version of “fuck” and end up typing “f*uck.” Very good.

“IGNORANT ASSED LIBERALS! This was FUN, while it lasted!!”

D) Your sense of “fun” is, to say the least, infantile. Hmm. Nascar must NOT have been on.

“Get jobs and a Life Jerks! hahahaha, Boo-Hoo!”

E) Got both, thanks! And yours is… working the fryer at Arby’s, probably? Yes, probably.

add Iamscience to above..I don’t really want him on my side either.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…It’s hard being a young republican. I’m proud of it though :)

Callie and Rushfan:

But you see, both of you—this is another reason why I left the Republican party and walked away from conservatism (there were of course many other reasons as well). I one day discovered that people like us (if you don’t mind being lumped in with the then-conservative Randall from the 80s) were in a shrunken minority in the “movement,” and that it had fallen to mostly thugs (like, I’m sorry to say, Rush, your beloved Limbaugh–whom I used to in fact *kind of* like and listen to, way way back when, though I never fully got behind him–but also, more to the point, people like the wretched Sean Hannity and his ilk) and various kinds of liars, distorters, and… sorry, but yes… rednecks. It became too populist for me. I went into conservatism because of Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, and Ronald Reagan. I had more in common with someone like George Will, therefore, than someone like the godawful Hannity or Sam Brownback or Mike Huckabee, etc. etc. etc. The latter types dominate the party today. And it isn’t the kind of conservatism, I feel, that Goldwater would have cottoned to. He’d be wiping the floor with most of these guys if he was still around today, I think.

For me this began with Newt Gingrich. That’s when I started to feel a sick feeling in the pit of me somewhere. I never liked him and never believed for a moment that he was of the caliber of a Goldwater or a Reagan. And then a swamp of Gingrich’s were suddenly everywhere, and that, along with other changing ideas I was having, made me walk away from these beliefs and this philosophy for good.

You see, you two weren’t there. You grew up knowing ONLY the post-Gingrich conservatism, and I simply, and frankly, can’t see how anyone can get behind that intellectually—REALLY intellectually—and really believe that this is for the good. I still believe that Barry Goldwater was an honest man to the core who tempered his views when he saw times were changing—he could adapt—and he had true libertarian-ish views on what conservatism was, as did Reagan. And I believe Reagan meant to do great good, and it seemed wonderful at the time even though, years later, it ended up leaving a bad taste in the mouth. But Reagan himself I believed to have a kind of honesty and integrity of the same variety as Goldwater. Buckley, of course, was Buckley. But he too tempered his views when needed, and of course he was the intellectual center of that entire movement. There were others of course… but for me the whole point was, I believed in getting things done and getting things changed—it was a “radical” conservatism in the sense that, it was meant to turn society around and make things better for everyone. I wanted to see poverty and injustice addressed and if possible wiped out–or at least as close to that as we could reasonably get. And I wanted America to be a force for good in the world. We’d been led to believe, growing up, us Gen Xers, that the Left of the Sixties had fucked all this up and made things mostly worse. Some of this–maybe most of it–was true, but some of it wasn’t. But I wanted to have a break with it, nevertheless… new times, I felt, demanded a new kind of voice, a new philosophy. And it seemed like that was what conservatism could be, for a time.

But then it faltered, I feel. It went south. It fell into the hands of thugs like Gingrich and his army of followers, who were worse and worse each passing year, until even Gingrich was made to look almost like Goldwater. And today, it’s in the hands–largely–of people like this girlymac. For the most part, yes.

It’s a new century, and the world has changed hugely. I’m sorry, but I really feel that conservatism has become less and less relevant. Liberalism is really gone too. The old liberalism. It doesn’t really exist anymore–not in numbers. What’s replaced the real conservatism, to me, is a kind of right-wing populism. And that’s not what conservatism was meant to be, I feel. And on the left, the old radicalism has long been discredited.

But it’s not the 20th century anymore. The Cold War is over, we’re in an economic debacle which can largely be placed at the feet of Republican philosophy, and we’re in need of a new vision. I’m sorry ladies, but McCain just isn’t it. I liked him once upon a time. I still feel he’s at heart a good man… but he never was presidential, even when he was younger. And certainly the party he represents has gone bankrupt on us, in terms of ideas.

I miss the 80s sometimes and those days of idealistic conservatism—but I’m sorry to say, in my book it just didn’t work in the long run. Just as 60s liberalism didn’t work in the long run. They’re both played out.

Randall:

A fair enough argument and I will only counter with this:

Young people are stupid.

Yep. I graduated from college a year and a half ago, and as a general rule (there are exceptions, of course), most of my peers were liberals. Unfortunately, they weren’t well informed liberals, or for that matter informed at all. The following is a true account with a friend I’ll call M, a tragically uninformed “democrat”

C: Dick Cheney shot someone in the face today.
M: Dick Cheney?
C: (thinking she didn’t hear me) Yeah…Dick Cheney shot one of his hunting buddies.
M: I think I’ve hard of him. What show is he on again?

I wish I was making that up.

The point is that I consider myself well-informed. I grew up with two very smart parents who stressed the point of a good education. In the interest of full disclosure, I did grow up with a die hard Republican dad and a middle of the road Democrat mom. When I went off to college, I wanted the chance to debate politics- smartly. I wound up surrounded by a bunch of kids who couldn’t name the VP and whose biggest issue was legalizing pot. Seriously. I’ve only been eligible to vote in one election, so I can’t say I’ll be voting along the same party lines my whole life. I just want to be better than the “I like weed and doing things without rules” mentality that liberals my age have, because someone my age will run for president in 20 years, and that scares me.

With that, I have put in an our and a half of overtime, and I don’t even get overtime. I’m going home.

Can some American(s) please answer this for me: Is anyone seriously going to vote for Obama just because he is “black”? Is anyone seriously NOT going to vote for him ditto? Is this an issue? Is this THE issue?

After all, we’re America and we’re possibly the most mixed up nation in the world. We’ll level entire cities and then turn around and send money for relief right afterwards lol.

In response to post #587 made by astraya:

I personally heard two of my friends discussing Obama/McCain not too long ago. Neither of them said ANYTHING about policies, choices, ideas, etc…

They both made it very clear where their vote was going, and that is towards Obama. When I asked them why, they said: “Because he’s black of course! Why vote another white guy in?”
(One friend was black, one friend was white.)

Yes, I’m American. Yes, they are American.

Sometimes, it IS as easy as “Oh, he’s this way, or that way, I think he’ll do better.” as is the case for this. “He’s black? I’m voting for him.”

So, yeah, this is not THE issue, but it certainly is A issue.

Either way, I support Obama (just throwing that out there!)

The US IS ready for a black president.

Callie:

I believe the Bradley effect is actually the phenomenon of minority voters, presupposed to support a minority candidate, ending up voting for the minority candidate’s opposition for any number of reasons.

You’ve been missed bucslim. :)

I think that while the “Bradley Effect” used to be true, the average American has outgrown that childish behavior.
I have already voted, for Obama, because I find his approach to the issues, overall, superior to McCain’s.
I also believe he is far more intelligent, and more steady.
One of the biggest pluses of all, he has no Sarah Palin holding him back.

Slick:
There’s something called a reverse Bradley effect, I think. Pundits are theorizing that’s what happened to Obama in New Hampshire (he was projected to win by a landslide but Hillary took the state) maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.

At any rate, maybe (hopefully!) segue is right and we no longer think that way. Only time will tell. I’m just happy people are getting out and voting, no matter your candidate. Unless you plan on writing in Gilligan or something. Why do people ever waste their time with that? Hundreds of years to come up with our system and people want to vote Spongebob Squarepants President. Lame.

bucslim:

I don’t know what you mean; I’ve ALWAYS been well-rounded and reasoned.

Judging from some of the comments above, I dare say The US isnot ready for a black President… It seems that racial tension bubbles just under the surface for many people who feel disenfranchised, be it due to low socio-economic circumstances, low levels of education and job instability (but please note that not all racists are poor, and not all poor people are racists).

I’ve noticed that one of the accusations levelled at Obama time and time again is that he is a Socialist. I’m not from the U.S. and am priveleged enough to live in a country where we have universal health care, and so I want to know: Why is Socialism seen as a great evil? Is it because of it’s evokation of Communism?

I just can’t understand why policy which improves the quality of life for ALL citizens, not just the rich, is seen as a bad thing, even by the poor. Same deal with taxation. It works for Europe, which consists of some of the oldest and strongest democracies in the world.

I appreciate any rational response to my question and thank you in advance for your help :-)

604. JayArr: Change representative democracy to representative republic, and I think you’re pretty much spot on (I just have this *MAJOR* problem with people using democracy instead of republic or democratic republic….I don’t know why, it’s a quirk, I admit it’s a quirk, it really doesn’t even make a difference in the scheme of things. Yet I can’t let it just go.)
Anyway, I agree with you. As long as we elect the best person for the job, none of the absurd qualifiers should even exist as considerations.
There will always be the few for whom no amount of qualification can overcome whatever their particular bias is. Those people are…well…unfortunate.
Most people today, thank heavens, have overcome that kind of mindset, and will vote for the best person whoever it might be.

Maybe Obama has a cat he’ll bring.

A sibling and I are in an intellectual e.mail argument about Obama-McCain right now.

jbjr:

…Really?

People like you should be required to take a test before you can vote. Sickening.

I recently received the following piece of thought provocation as a circulating e-mail. Not sure whether it belongs here or in ‘Next President’, so am posting in both:

“The following might help put the presidential race — and race — into perspective.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?…..think about it.

Would the country’s collective point of view be different?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his
standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her
charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven
planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes
negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:

Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.

Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:

University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.

Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:

United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:

Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester

North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study

University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism

Matanuska-Susitna Colle ge – 1 semester

University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism

Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.”

Some perspective on how the rest of the world feel about Obama vs McCain:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/22/2398181.htm

Anon:

Bush went to Harvard too..He must be as smart as Obama, right?

School isn’t everything. Biden plagerized his way through U of D. It’s documented.

When you go to have surgery done, do you want the guy who’s been doing it for years and knows exactly where to cut or the guy who’s been doing it for 6 months but has a really fancy degree?

Don’t be swayed by fancy schooling. Be swayed by what you want for your country.

“By my understanding neither of the candidates has been President before. Therefore America is surely choosing between two first-time surgeons?”

That’s a fair enough point. However..if both of them are doctors (or politicians), who deserves to be chief of medicine (or POTUS) In this case, their schooling shouldn’t matter, their qualifications up until this point should. It comes down to who YOU..not other countries, not your mom/dad/sibling/spouse thinks is best.

I got into Penn State, American, and George Washington and I chose to go to a small school in Maryland. Any one of those universities would have looked much more stellar on a resume than the one I ended up at, but in the end it was about what what best for me and my continuing education.

I’m just saying these “powerful messages” can all be broken down. This one is obviously pro-Obama. Where’s his class ranking? Where’s the mention that Biden has been caught plagerizing several times, both at college and in his political career? I’ll go find an email that sheds a postive light on McCain just as easy as you found this one.

Randall: Why are you hating on rocks, now?

Randall: Mmm, so would you be saying that she’s smarter than A rock but not many rocks with pooled intelligence? Or maybe you are willing to recant and say Palin’s intelligence is lesser or equal than one rock and help make the rocks feel better about themselves. You know, rocks have come a long way in their fields of study. Why, just the other day I read a smashing paper written about the study of rock stacking as a replacement for space ships in space exploration. Utter nonsense, if you ask me. I was told, though, that only 132 rocks were needed to write such a paper- usually, of course, at least 200 are needed to write any paper of substance.
So, let us not count our rock-friends out of the line of intelligence. Now bricks, on the other hand, bricks can just go to Hell.

Yeah, you’re largely hate free Randall. Unless a person believes in Jesus or is anti-abortion or likes Led Zeppelin over the Beatles, or thinks the stats on global warming are skewed, or is a republican or puts only white guys in a list of top rockin bands, or thinks Truman is a mass murderer or votes for Hillary or likes Coke instead of Pepsi. Then it’s ok, because those people are just assholes, right?

bucslim:

Yeah, except for all that, Hate Free.

Man, I hate it when people start dis’n rocks – what’d they ever do to us that we didn’t force them to do in the first place???

Playing devil’s advocate here on the doctor bit… if one doctor had 10 years in practice before the other doctor started, but had also ‘lost’ an average of three of the ten patients he operated on each year, I’m thinking I’d take my chances with the younger doctor that has only performed a total of three surgeries but all patients survived… hmmm….

I have stated my opinion loud and clear here in Atlanta Ga. today by voting early for the next President of the United States……Barack Obama.

MT:

Vote early, vote often. :-)

633. Randall: Vote early, vote often.
****
I had an uncle who lived by that rule…and got away with it too. But that was in the 20’s – 50’s Australia, and the polls weren’t so tightly regulated.

I voted, by mail, last week. Obama/Biden. Why wait until the last minute?

But they still make great paper weights!

Don’t be a square, man!

L 7 weenies…

Beware malevolent alien rocks in space. With anger they sometimes smite our fragile Earth mightily. Even a carefully self-directed, teeny weeny meteorite might end the pretensions of Obama or McCain, and a truly enraged monster might end the pretensions of us all. Rocks may well have the last word.

But bricks, they’re a joke. Like cauliflowers, fantail goldfish and poodles, they are the creations, artifacts and slaves of humanity. They can kill, but only at our behest, and only one person at a time. Collectively they have indeed rebelled and fallen upon a fair quantity of us, but to no purpose or avail. Unlike rocks, they cannot cause extinction events. They are useless without us and when we become extinct, so will they.

641. Anon: “They can kill, but only at our behest, and only one person at a time.”
Well, except for the Great Rock Incident of 1957 in which 13 people were killed by one rocked ricocheting off of each other. Wiped out almost half of a small town in Nevada!

I once shared a fruitcake with a witch… boy, what a great day that was! We sat on a clock statue and had a mug of hot eggnog with it… ah, the memories…

Fear the Brickish Empire! I’m more of a Rocktopia kind of guy, myself.

JayArr,

Me, I’m Cock of the Rock (and take that any way you like).

Anon, I used to be one too – until my wife decided to hit me with a brick…

Callie,

Sounds like you might be advocating governor Palin for President and downgrading the other three senators then!

You know, if you leave a fruitcake out long enough, it will become rock hard; Thus, allowing you to use the fruitcake as a weapon, paper weight, missile, general object of destruction, etc. and allowing the rocks and bricks to lie about in a heap (as rocks and bricks are wont to do), so re-establishing the delicate balance of life.

segue: you posted 655 as I was typing 656. Can we call S Palin a fruitcake then?

Who will be ‘666’? (It was segue on the other list, wasn’t it?)

Wow… Interesting how conversations turn around here… Gone from racial acceptance to presidential eligibility to the delightful topic of… Rocks?

I suppose rocks do, in fact, rock. But, on to the thing I came here to say…

As for America being ready for a black president… Undoubtedly for intelligent, younger members of society, yes. I fear for some of the backwoods, secluded populations though. I also fear that Obama will become a likely target for assassination. I’m not ready to say that America has grown up enough to be free of it’s ‘colored glasses’ view of things. I have my own views of racism, they tend to get me in trouble. Personally, I believe that while the prejudice of whites against blacks is horrible, and is portrayed as such, the massively growing prejudice of blacks against whites is inevitably taken as part of todays culture or ‘okay’. I get so sick of it. Why should the ‘n’ word be treated with respect by all others when black people themselves are so inclined to toss it about casually amongst themselves?

So, all in all, while I support Obama, I don’t want to see him get the presidency simply BECAUSE of the fact that he’s black. I want to see him win because his proposed policies are better, he presents himself well, and as a member of the military, he seems my only hope for not experiencing a ton of deployments to the middle east.

One thing I would like to see any of the candidates even MENTION would be whether or not they plan to bring back up the number of species actively protected by the government. Since Bush’s term, the number has drastically decreased.

All of this, and Palin scares the bloody crap out of me…

I love it when a plan comes together!

Oh, and why is it that when a rock is born, that’s as big as it will ever get? The older they are, the smaller they become. If only it worked that way with my belly and with many politicians’ egos.

Get – in – muh – bellee!!

ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Obama rocks!!!

And now back to the far more fascinating topic of rocks (The Top 10 Rocks in Geology, someone?).

Maybe I should change my aka from Anon to Andesite.

“I talk to the rocks, but they don’t listen to me” (Sends off for straightjacket from Amazon, small percentage of purchase price to LV.)

It occurs to me that if we gave our children a box of wooden or plastic rocks (but not a Barbie-style Sarah Palin doll equivalent) instead of building brick sets to play with, they might grow up with a much more harmonious approach to the natural world.

JayArr,

“… why is it that when a rock is born, that’s as big as it will ever get?”

It ain’t necessarily so. Have you not noticed that rocks go in for re-incarnation? Small, rounded pebbles combine anew as massive chunks of conglomerate. Innumerable grains of sand, individually as physically feeble as Monty Burns, reappear as sandstone mountains, with all the innate power of Monty Burns’s amoral mindset. In fact ultimately all rocks are subsumed beneath the earth’s mantle and phoenix-like, are reborn to the world from the fiery interior.

Such is the wonder of rocks.

(Thinks: how much longer shall we be allowed to get away with this indulgent non-seqitur?) Ah, but if we delicately avoid Little Rock and bring the subject back on topic by asking, “Is the US (and the World) Ready for a Black Rock?”, we find the answer to be a resounding “Yes”, with around three dozen global entries in wiki.

Well, with that I guess I’ve truly hit rock-bottom. So …

………………………THE END………………………

I don’t know whether to add this here or under “outbursts in public” re Michael Richards.
I was watching “America’s next top model” last night. Okay, my wife was watching America’s nest top model last night and I was sitting next to her. One of the contestants is a “straight out of central casting small-town, apple-pie” young (white) woman. Two others are a motor-mouth self-proclaimed “black” woman (ie about 25% African ancestry) and a transgender “woman”. The white woman said something about the black woman’s incessant talking and within milliseconds the black woman had parlayed that into in insult about race. Later, the transgender accidentally encroached on the white woman’s personal space and she pushed her away. Soon after, that became “intolerance for transgenders” and they ganged up on her and reduced her to tears. I was firmly on the side of the white woman, if that doesn’t make me sound racist or intolerant of transgenders. I don’t like motor-mouths of any “race” (ie human or Martian). The concept of transgender freaks me out, through lack of ever having met one.
At the end of the episode, the black and the transgender were up for elimination. The black woman was.
Intriguingly, there’s another woman on the show who is even darker than the one I’ve just been talking about, and she hasn’t said anything about race, and appears to be a reasonably personable young woman.
(Some of you may have seen that on US television a few months ago.)
I think my point is that as soon as race (or gender) becomes an issue, years or centuries of hostilities come into play. If this election was between McCain and Biden (the two old white men), would the debate be about race or gender?

I imagine Rice v Mobama would be run on “experience” v “change”.

All Americans Vote on November 4th!

It’s not over yet despite what the polls say.

The Republicans will lie,cheat or steal to win an election so don’t take our large lead for granted.

OBAMA/BIDEN IN ’08!!!

I hope so. However, with all his talk about change and not being specific about what he’ll do is kind of worrying me. He certainly knows how to do the talking but can he walk the walk? We’ll find out . . .

8 Days & counting for all of us Stupid/Ignorant Republicans! Can’t wait to see how many white votes add to the very small population of black votes in this country….Oh, but we aren’t ‘voting’ for Obama BECAUSE he’s BLACK or are we? I mean that might be considered a racist act. Wouldn’t it? To vote for a man because of his skin color? Please! LIBERALS can call be everything in the book, if that makes you feel better. I depend on the knowledge that it’s a LIBERAL spouting off…Hey, what else CAN YOU DO? & Yes there are MANY MORE JUST LIKE ME who are voting for a man on SUBSTANCE & not because of RACE!

OK, you’re everything in the book.

679. bucslim

Maybe you and Faux News should be asking why thousands of registered voters were purged from the roles in Colorado by the Republican Gov. Thats a lot worse than any regristration fraud. It’s also not an isolated incident. You Republicans should take your loss like men and move on.

OBAMA IN ’08!!

rafterman:

So you’re all in favor of how the last eight years have gone? All happy and content with our vastly diminished world image, our mountainous debt, our wildly out-of-control budget, our monumental economic disaster, our six + years of wasted war in Iraq while Afghanistan has been neglected (where the real enemy was), the slow erosion of our civil liberties, the flight of jobs overseas, encouraged by tax policy? All happy with all this, and eight years of corruption both in government and in corporate America, to boot?

But yeah, go ahead and vote to keep THAT party in power which has urged on, caused, or vehemently supported all this. That makes good sense.

Voting party line, and particularly for a failed party’s failed philosophy and actions–and particularly in times of crisis–is the act of an irresponsible citizen–one who does not take his or her responsibility AS a citizen seriously, or with any sense of gravity.

Anon E Mouse(684) – I believe the end of Barak’s statement was whether we’d be better off than we were …”four weeks ago…”

682. rafterman: the game is over. McCain has already lost, and he already knows it.
Palin is already positioning herself for a 2012 run, which the RNC will quash.

MT – thanks for proving my point.

buc:

I love you man, but you’re being disingenuous. Those two elections–particularly 00—were highly suspect. Let’s not pretend they weren’t. But let’s not be coy about it from the other angle either—this kind of thing has happened in American elections before, and both parties have been guilty of it. Trouble is, even when it WAS done, in the past, we usually ended up with a decent president despite it. This time, we got badly burned. Twice.

Not being disingenuous. Just responding to the point that we can’t seem to let it go that McCain might be on the verge of losing.

There’s plenty of bitching to go around on both sides here pal.

Sorry MDWhite i disagree
If you think Mcain should be elected that is your choice im voting for Barack Obama. Maybe in America being black will be good and the thousands of black people who dissapear in america(register themselves as white because of light and caucasian features)will may think twice and say hey:” being black aint that bad after all”
The black image is tarnished today from BET saying the race is all gangsters and pimps hopefully Barack Obama’s presidency can change this.

MDWhite, (694),

“…and our country will suffer for it should he (the *man-child*) be elected”

Ah, just like it has done (and, unbelievably, twice!) under your incumbent (and mercifully nearly *excumbent*) daddy’s-boy, you mean?

Oh, Randall, every once in a while I’m reminded I haven’t told you in a long time how much I admire you.
I admire you. More. I find you astonishingly brilliant. (Believe me, this is *not* a compliment I hand out lightly).

People! Listen to Randall on this. He has all of his facts at hand. All he says about Obama is true. If I still had the strength, I’d be fighting by his side but, alas, I haven’t that luxury. Randall is a fine, intelligent person. Put his rants aside and listen only to his facts.
Once you truly absorb the facts about Obama, there is only one choice this year.
Vote Obama.

700. bucslim: I’m not in love with the dude. I just admire his mind.
You’re just jealous because your man is going to lose.

buc:

My skin is sensitive and supple, yes… but can also take it in the places that count.

buc, Randall and I *have* disagreed, but we handle it like intelligent grown-ups. We have responsible arguments, based on facts, and come through still friends.
I don’t disagree with him often, but if I do, I’m not afraid to tell him so. He’s not scary.

706. anakin4me: It’s lovely to see the calm voice of reason…finally!
Just as a side note, although everyone with half a functioning brain knows Obama has been a life-long, practicing Christian, if he were a Muslim – SO WHAT? He isn’t, but the fact remains, so what? Isn’t this nation founded on the principle of religious freedom? The man could be a practicing Druid, and he’d still have gotten my vote.
He’s simply the best man for the job right now.

I’ve already voted Obama, now go and do likewise.

segue – anakin4me – you’re both wrong. He’s Jim Jones and you two are next in line to drink the Koolaide.

buc:

You and a couple others keep harping on this notion that Obama has somehow “bewitched” all of us and that we think he’s some kind of “messiah.”

Get off that kick. It’s insulting to the intelligence of people such as myself, segue, and others. I, at least, have perfectly valid reasons for wanting the guy to win over McCain. I’m not “fooled” or in some kind of mind-clouded ectasy.

Find another tack for arguing this over. That one’s BS, and it’s kinda offensive to people such as myself who don’t get “swept up” by politicians.

Callie,

I paraphrase again Winston’s (Churchill’s) quotation about the best argument against democracy being a five-minute chat with an average voter.

So it may be better not to look too deeply into the idiot fringe or knee-jerk voters on all sides of any political contest (you have *disowned* some on your own party’s commenters here, I believe). Better just hope and pray they cancel one another out, and that those capable of more mature, profound and flexible judgement ultimately call the shots.

Randall,

You’ve insulted my intelligence on this tread time and time again. I dropped it a month ago because you dissected every syllable I wrote and explained to me how crazy I was to even consider voting for someone other than your appointed messiah. A few posts back you said someone was being irresponsible for voting for someone other than the person you’re endorsing. In previous posts you’ve insinuated things about me that were totally false. And now you have the gall to tell me to change my tactics and get off the kick? You can’t accept the fact that there are other people schlepping around this country who see things differently than you and that they might be right. You have no faith in people to make informed decisions for themselves so you go off on lengthy explanations full of browbeating and insults.

I’ve explained clearly why I’m not voting for Obama and I know plenty of smart, hardworking, honest and good people who are doing the same thing. I don’t owe you any explanation of myself and frankly I don’t give a shit whether you think I’m stupid, irresponsible or fucking of my nut.

So go ahead, take every sentence I’ve written and write two paragraphs on it for your fawning fans. Or don’t. Either way, I don’t give a damn. You bore the shit out of me.

Your beginning to bore the hell out of me sounds better than shit, don’t you think?

Heartbreak Ridge – Gunny Highway

No, Anon, it wasn’t the best potential leadership we had to offer, it was simply that those were the only choices we were given; Kerry or Bush…and Perot, who never had a chance and was only there because he bought his way in.
That our system is flawed is no secret. Yet it works. It works well. No one man can have more than 8 years to screw things up, and if he screws things up sufficiently in the first 4, he usually gets voted out of office.
Usually, but not always.
Still, it works.

segue,

I was really simply getting in a bit of last minute tongue-in-cheek stirring. In fact that knowing old bird Winston said it yet again in, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.”

As for leadership material, I suspect the best of it everywhere often remains buried and untried, perhaps not always even in politics. I have a friend who considers leaders should be reluctant and appointed against their will, because they are then devoid of corruptive ambition. Well, history doesn’t really back that as a regular option either.

As you say, similar to UK reaction, a US bummer is indeed usually shown the door after a first session. So I return to ask Republicans why they expect the rest of us to have confidence in their voting judgement this time around?

Oh and I forgot, MT, I’m voting for the Ted Nugent / Pat Buchanon ticket. I mean, why shoot one moose when you can shoot them all, with a bow and arrow no less!

Slick,

“… you are nothing less than an imbecile. A deaf, blind, lazy, willfully ignorant imbecile.”

Well then, with voters like that, probably just as well Dubya isn’t coming around for a third term!

MT, bucslim, etc. Lewis Black said it best “It’s no longer enough to just like the guy you are voting for, now you’ve got to hate the guy running against him.” You guys have successfully taken it to a new notch, disliking people who likes the guy who is running against the guy you like. You’re not the only ones though, my car got keyed and the window smashed because I had a McCain/Palin sticker on it. They wrote “Your stupid” not “You’re” but “your.” Now I’m left thinking, my stupid what? Darn vandalizers and their sentence fragments.
But seriously, the repair cost me $7,000, and the paint another $1000.

khen913,

“It has become hip to dislike, to disdain, conservatives …”

Could it be a little five-letter conservative word is responsible for that?

Dubya.

Never mind your next five seconds. As an unfranchised Englishman I have gained a great deal of insight into what Obama stands for by absorbing the studied and time-consuming explanations of Randall and others in the 727 postings above yours.

As a franchised American, have you even bothered to read them?

bucslim:

I took some time to get back to you on this because I wanted to avoid raising this any further on the hostility meter. You should know I’ve never had anything against you and to my knowledge the only time you and I have ever disagreed is in regards to this topic.

I’m quite sure I’ve spoken abrasively to you and at you when it comes to politics. But I find it rather disingenuous of you to accuse me of “insulting your intelligence” and “dissecting” your writings and such, when every time the subject of politics has come up, you’ve made it your consistent practice to speak flippantly and mockingly of those whose political stance differs from yours. Now, there’s no problem with this–it’s your right and I do the same thing. But to complain the way you are so doing here is to illustrate that you can dish it out but can’t take it.

And again you continually (and boringly) return to this mantra of referring to Obama as my “appointed messiah.” You’re usually much funnier than this. What you sound like, when you say such things, is bitter and disillusioned, and trying to convince yourself of something you suspect in your heart to be untrue. But that’s just my opinion.

However, I don’t feel I can leave it this way with someone on this site that I genuinely like. To my knowledge we’ve only ever disagreed about politics…. let’s leave it at that and let me say that I’m sorry I’ve offended you.

I’d like to touch on what Phender said…

First of all, I’m sorry you had to go through that. Second, what is wrong with people? There was a story in the paper about a man who kept getting his McCain sign stolen, so he electrifed it and ended up shocking a nine year old who was trying to steal it and replace it with an Obama sign. (He was fine, but still)

On Halloween, I found an Obama sticker on the floor and decided it shouldn’t be there and it would be a good idea to rip it up. Now, I was a bit impaired, so maybe it wasn’t to absolute best choice, but I certainly wasn’t implying I wanted to kill/maim/harm Obama HIMSELF, just the sticker. Almost immediately I was callest a racist bitch and nearly got into a fight.

I just don’t understand. I support John McCain, but not enough to put myself in harms way for him. I don’t support Obama for President, but he’s a perfectly fine man and I wouldn’t attempt to shock people who do like him. It’s all just getting out of hand..I want it to be Wednesday.

Callie:

Yeah… a lot of the civility has gone out of politics. Not that there was that much in it to begin with…

bucslim:

Thank you for being gracious.

And I’ll say the same on my end… I can see where some people might feel they just don’t have much of a choice in this election… they don’t like McCain, but are turned off by Obama’s policies, and perhaps what they perceive as his inexperience.

But as I’ve said, I don’t think the experience thing is a real issue–it’s a chimera. He’s a smart guy and obviously capable. And how many presidents really ARE all that experienced when they go into that job? Brains and coolness and quickness make up for a lot. Whereas Palin–is clearly just an idiot. She’s not bright, she just knows how to handle herself in public. I honestly feel with great confidence that Obama can handle the job. And I honestly feel with terrible certainty that Palin could not.

The other stuff–I can see being turned off by Obama’s policies, of course. Now, they don’t turn ME off… because I think it’s time to bring the country back to the Center. But of course I can concede that people might agree, sure, that the last eight years have been awful–but still might not want to turn the other way.

I DO understand this. However…

I don’t see another alternative at this time. It always happens this way in our history—certain “movements” or philosophies or ways of doing things play themselves out—and then something new has to come in and smash it and rebuild the paradigm. Capitalism isn’t going away, it’s not going to be shunted into the trash heap of history… but it has flaws that we have to recognize and work on, we’ve now seen. Otherwise it seems to work. But it’s not just some free-running system that can self-manage. It’s a tool, is all. And like any tool, it needs management and watching over, otherwise it just runs nuts and causes havoc. Imagine starting up your car and then just putting it gear and and sending it down the road. I mean, somebody needs to be driving the damn thing. You just don’t want to keep building things into the car to make it run worse and worse… you wanna keep it tuned up and running well and efficiently… but still *under your control.* Once upon a time we placed too many restrictions on it, and the thing was sputtering and crapping out on us. But in recent years we’ve gone too far the other way and not only poured rocket fuel into an engine not meant to take it, but then we got out of the driver seat and let it go crazy. It’s no freaking wonder we hit a wall.

As for the other stuff—we’re looking at a world where things are changing—we’re gradually accepting a LOT of things that were unacceptable 50-100 years ago. And we’re facing the fact that health care IS something like a “right” and we ought to damn well do something about it–and we’re behind the curve on that one. And we’re coming back to the idea that America is a society, not just a brand name, and we owe something to each other, we can’t let the society be riven in two between “rich” and “poor” to the point where there’s this huge gulf between them—because while that might satisfy our instinct towards self-determination, it ends up undermining the democracy badly.

See, I love this country, I always have. I’m proud of it, I’m proud to be an American, I’m proud my ancestors came here instead of staying in Europe and taking it. But because of all this, I fear for the state of our democracy and for the state of the republic. While part of me agrees that self-determination and self-responsibility is key, I also am forced to recognize that we all have to live with one another AND keep a successful, viable society going. Nobody’s ever tried before what we’ve been trying for the last 200+ years. We’re inventing this as we go along. And to my eyes some cracks have started to appear that need some attention and some repairing… otherwise, in time, the whole thing could come crashing down. And I don’t want that. The IDEA of America is still the best and most sublimely wonderful idea mankind has ever come up with. I don’t want to see it fail. But it’s headed there if we don’t drag the thing back onto the path.

Sorry for the speechmaking. It just explains why I feel the way I do and why I think taking the keys out of the hands of the Republicans is needed at this time. They’re like drunken frat boys at a party, and we can’t allow them to drive any longer. Even if the other guys might or might not be great drivers—at least they’re not hammered.

kiwi – (insert smiley icon) yeah.

734. Randall: I agree, a BIG loss is the only thing that will really get the attention of the big C, big R, Conservative right-wing Republicans.
It might also get the attention of the big L, Liberal Democrats. That much power is, or should be, a sobering fact.
Whatever happens, it’s time to recenter this nation. Time to come to grips with the fact that we’re in big trouble, and it took us 8 years to get here. It will take several years to get *out* of trouble.

Hey, you guys need to go on you tube and type in Sarah Palin got pranked. These radio guys from Montreal got a hold of her by acting like the president of France. F her. Shes an IDIOT. And yes the USA is ready for a black president. I’m goin to the polls today, and Obama has my vote.

Go Obama!! Yes we are ready and he will be president today!!!! He gives me hope that we ( African Americans) and anyone male, female or any given race can be anything we want to be!

NOBAMA
NOBAMA
NOBAMA
NOBAMA
NOBAMA
NOBAMA
NOBAMA
NOBAMA

Vote McCain/Palin 2008

745. Quiana – Go Obama!! Yes we are ready and he will be president today!!!! He gives me hope that we ( African Americans) and anyone male, female or any given race can be anything we want to be!

Really? You hadn’t already gotten that message from Clarence Thomas? Oprah? Thomas Sowell? Bill Cosby? Venus and/or Serena Williams? Condi Rice?

Well, obviously so.

This posted a few hours before the result will be known.

It occurs to me a fun LV exercise in say a year or two’s time might be to take the Top 10 pro and Top 10 anti LV quotes (and I mean essentially thought-provoking, not rabid comments) about the winning candidate as a topic.
They might be drawn from those above combined with others from Who Should be Next President.

They would, of course, be attributed to their respective posters in their full glory. Probably as one quote per contributer. Then there could be a free-for-all over them based on the performance to that time of Obama or McCain, whoever.

Nixon has been smeared as “Tricky” partly because “Tricky” rhymes with “Dicky”. (Did anyone actually call him “Dicky” to his face?) “Tricky Lyndon” or “Tricky Gerald” would just never have caught on.

284 to 146 electoral votes. Blew McCain away!!!

Well your humble commenter bucslim has been proven wrong. I wish Obama good luck. He’s gonna need it.

To all of my adversaries and opponents here on our beloved web site, all is well, well maybe not ‘all.’ (I lost a shit wagon of my retirement money in the stock market) Here’s hoping the President Elect will cut me a break, instead of rewarding all the scallywag corrupt bankers, insurance and brokerage firms for pissing away my golden years, maybe he can bail my ass out when I’m at Shady Acres Retirement home Chronically Incontinent in his ‘share the wealth’ plan.

Cheers, congrats, I’m not a sore loser. The sun will come up tomorrow (everybody!) betchor bottom dollar (unless it’s in stocks) That tomorrow, they’ll be sun . . .

liquidfire- who do you think you are. you are more bigoted with that statement than anyone of the “rednecks”.

with that said, we will now find out if America is ready for a black president. this will be an interesting four years just because we have never seen this before.

In response to your question, “Is the US ready for a Black President”, yes. We are ready.

Woo Hoo! What an emotional day for the U.S. Hopefully some of our credibility and respect will be restored during Obama’s presidency. I voted for the first time today, and I hope I, and the rest of us that voted Obama, made the right choice. We shall see.

Does anyone remember a time when the pundits were predicting a Rice v H Clinton election?

Congratulations USA!

Oh…and good luck with that $1 trillion trade deficit ;)

But, seriously, you made a good choice. Let’s hope for a White House we can all, globally, respect again…free of nepotism and underhandedness (and, maybe, a fresh injection of common sense into various human rights-restricting legislation and practices).

Go Obama!

kiwi – the fact that not all bankers are scallywags doesn’t cure my incontinence. Or weak stream or incomplete emptying or going often or sexual complications due to taking my medicine or the pee spot I get after going.

Asked and answered! :)

We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that’s all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
‘Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
No, no!

I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

There’s nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

I WANT TO SAY TO RANDALL, THANK GOD FOR AMERICANS LIKE YOU, FOR MONTHS NOW I HAVE PAID ATTENTION TO THE THINGS YOU HAVE SAID, AND YOU HAVE INSPIRED ME TO GET INVOLED WITH THIS ELECTION. I HOPE EVERY SINGLE DAY A CHILD IS BORN INTO AMERICA, WILL HAVE JUST HALF OF YOUR INTELLIGENCE …….. I AM A BLACK BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, AND HAVE ALWAYS SAW THROUGH COLOR. I HATED LIVING IN THE SOUTH, BECAUSE I’M ALWAYS IN AN INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIP. PEOPLE HERE STILL FIND IT UNACCEPTABLE, BUT NOW I FEEL A BARRIER HAVE BEEN BROKEN, AND SOME WHITE AMERICANS WILL LOOK DEEPER THAN JUST COLOR. WE ARE ALL AMERICANS. I DON’T WANT TO GET RELIGION, BUT ONE OF THE LAST COMMANDMENTS WAS TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER…… I’M WAITNG….. ANYWAY THANK YOU RANDALL.

BUCSLIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, THAT WAS FOR RANDALLLLLLLLLLL. I LOVE YOU BUCSLIMMMMMMMMMMM. LOL.

THAT WAS SOOOOOOO FUNNY. YOUR LITTLE GIRL, OUR FUTURE.

“You are sadly deluded if you think that Americans are respected abroad. Why then would so many of you pretend to be Canadian when traveling?”

I dunno. Maybe because crazy people would kill us just for being American. Just a guess. There is nothing we can do to stop terrorists or crazy random people from hating Americans. Also, you couldn’t pay me to claim to be Canadian. Oh, and *you* are sadly deluded if you think that Canadians are respected in America. :)

I think we might be “globally respected” already by the people who realize 1.how much money we spend helping nations in need after natural disasters (Iran, China, Pakistan, etc.)

rushfan – really? Of the 22 UN Development Program nations providing foreign aid to developing nations and to fight extreme poverty, guess where the USA stands in the official rankings? Let me tell you : 21st.

And if you want some additional perspective, for each dollar donated as aid, the US spends $32 on defence. Oh, and a hefty proportion of US aid goes to Israel.

2.American citizens on their own go abroad to provide assistance world-wide (doctors w/out borders, etc.)

Which is, of course, true. But it is true of most developed nations.

3. We provide military assistance to nations in need (think Kuwait)

Kuwait? True; but it is equally true for Russia, the UK, and other nations…all of whom maintain formal defence relationships with Kuwait. And if you are referring to the 1990 liberation, let me remind you that the liberators comprised a multinational coalition.

And, of course, the magnanimity that the US (and the UK amongst others) maintains for Kuwait has nothing, of course, to do with those enormous oil and gas reserves…

I could go on and on and on. We do not need to alter our behavior to be more “popular.” Popularity is overrated.

Who mentioned “popularity”? Because I didn’t.

Terrorists want to kill us (and you) because of our freedom and what we choose to do with it. Not because of who is president of the US.

Firstly, I never even implied that terrorists hate the US because of who the president is; where did this come from?

And, if you really believe that terrorists want to kill us because of “our freedom” then you are being deliberately fucking stupid (and I say “deliberately”, because I know from reading your postings from time to time that you are very far from stupid). Start by reading some authoritative histories of the middle east if you want a clue to why terrorists hate the USA (Britain, too, I hasten to add).

And I trust you’ll forgive me for my cynicism when I remind you about the thousands of fools in New York City, in particular, who would happily sing Danny Boy and donate funds to the IRA every Friday night in their drunken state because their dear old great-great grandmother emigrated from Ireland. Well, I was in London as those particular terrorists were regularly letting off bombs purchased with those funds and which indiscriminately killed innocent people. Strange how the romance of this particular type of charitable giving dried up after NYC got a taste of it on 9/11. Don’t moralise to me about the US and terrorism.

And my comments regarding respect for the White House is more to do with clearing out the last 8 years of the grotesque erosions of civil liberties that Bush’s example has led a number of western governments to inflict on their citizens since 9/11 (you Americans can look to the Patriot Act, Extraordinary Rendition, Gitmo, torture etc), blatant nepotism (that lady friend of Bush’s he wanted as a Supreme Court judge / Cheney and his buddies seemingly dipping their bread etc.) and other ancillary practices (Plame etc) that have tainted the White House. Let’s (UK included) welcome the likelihood that we will get some integrity and respect back into government.

Overall, I think that Obama is a charismatic and honest guy; a breath of fresh air. America needs these qualities now, more than ever, in its president…Republican or Democrat.

But we’ve already seen in the world reactions to Obama’s election that the world, for the most part, doesn’t hate us—it simply wants the US back the way it was before Bush–a good partner, a fair and just friend, a reliable force for good.

Randall – amen to that.

I’ll finally be relieved when Mr. Bush is gone for good, I wish Inauguration day was sooner. I hope Bush decides to stay out of politics for good and maybe go back to baseball or something, although the Movie “W.” was fairly entertaining even though it was ficionalized. It would be best for him and the rest of the world if he retires. Congratulations to Barack Obama!

I am SO proud of my country!

Oh and I answered my own question. American’s pretend to be Canadians because they can’t nail that Kiwi accent.

Ah, Canada… Sometimes I wish I still lived there.

Must say, as I have just gotten the news that my Christmas may very well be spent on a plane headed for Iraq, that I am overjoyed with the selection of Obama for president. I volunteered for the service, so I can’t really complain about the fact that I must deploy… But I must admit; I’m scared shitless (pardon my language).

I can only hope that he has the chance to improve our country’s image, as we so desperately need. And I won’t go into deep detail, but I vastly agree with all that was said in Kiwiboi’s post at number 785.

Anon E. Mouse – thank you for your sacrifice. You have my admiration and respect.

Hi Kiwiboi! Just read your post #785. Not bad. I’ll add some info to what you had posted. Approx. 10 years ago, we, the U.S. military, went down to a South American country and killed more than 30,000 people to bring an “drug” lord to trial here. I believe it made the back page of the New York Times…maybe. So the U.S. must first stop participating in “terrorism”, before we condemn it! Perhaps with Obama as President, and Democrats in more influencial position, the “warmongering” of the U.S. will finally come to a halt.

I’ve only read bits and pieces of the current discussion but I’m going to add something anyway.

I have no doubt that throughout the world Americans are hated by different people for any number of different reasons. Some hate us for our success and freedom, some hate us because of Bush, some hate us for our military, some hate us for our culture, and some hate us for our economy.

Still there are many throughout the world who love Americans.

In my short 25 years I have had the privilige to meet, speak with, and even befriend people from Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Canada, England, Poland, Germany, Spain, Russia, China, S. Korea, Philippines, France, Iraq, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, India, Israel, Sri Lanka, Japan, Denmark, Egypt, Fiji, Indonesia, and Vietnam. With all of these people, I was never prejudged for being an American. I found that smile translates into a positive for every country and culture. That being polite, showing interest in their culture, and making even a bad attempt to speak their language can negate any preconceived opinions.

So I know that the discussion was about how people view America as a whole but you can’t do much to control the government beyond a vote. But you can do wonders by being a good ambassador for America….or any country that you are from.

i just want to say to all the first time black voters…..

if i ever here one of you bitches talking shit about white folk being racist im going to fucking lose my mind. The record level of new black voters, some of who have never voted for 30 OR 40 YEARS!!!!!! is more racist than anything ive ever done or said… they only voted because it was a black canidate…i guarrentee it. Ive even asked around where i work and live and that was the response i got 90 percent of the time. so fuck all of you…racist bastards.

McCain in 2012…we’ll need him to fix the fucked up-ness that Obama the Drama Mama caused…

To add a frivolous touch of lightness, but still fully on-topic:

We have a truly splendid political and social cartoonist contributing to our Chilean daily paper. Quirkily, his name is Jimmy Scott. His sharp humour is infallibale and guaranteed to draw a laugh on the dullest of days.

Today’s offering sees Barack and Michelle standing linked together and seen from behind. By their side is a black painter and decorator getting ready to renovate for them. His overalls are paint-spattered. He is carrying a paint tin and roller. They are all standing on the lawn looking towards the WHITE House. The painter says, “Mister President, Might I make a suggestion …?”

Sorry I can’t share the peerless draughtsmanship with you.

Mom,

“He’ll be dead by then. (not that I wish it, very honorable man)”

Gor blimey, thanks a bundle, duckie! Same age as yours truly, who’s got half a lifetime’s work to finish yet before he pops his clogs, meets his Maker, shuffles his coil, drops off his perch, pushes up daisies, snuffs it, feeds the worms, kicks the bucket, bites the dust, goes belly up, and in all other ways gives a faithful impression of the legendary Monty Python parrot.

astraya,

I think I’d better step up the work rate rather than bank on those years, Bob Hope and the Queen Mum notwithstanding!

Ah, but who knows how I’ve suffered either at the hands of mine enemies.

Many thanks to all of you who have wished me well. It’s truly appreciated, and I will be sure to keep you updated.

I’m not really sure whether or not I was really afraid of McCain dying or not… I just know that the thought of Palin running the country thoroughly scared me.

As I said before, America was ready for a black president but not this one… He moved to the center to get elected and with him, Pelosi, Reid and Frank running this country, it will be only a matter of time before Obama will be moving back to his liberal/leftist ways…

Anon; My apologies, and I was being a tad flip. He has had 3 heart attacks though, so odds are definitely not in his favour; buy then again he will be well tended. I was in fact quite sincere in my praise of the man, he served and continues to serve his country well.

Has nothing to do with being a sore winner. Just shows that McCain is NOT capable of making the right decisions, and that Obama is the right President, I’d have preferred Hillary! (excuse the quotes, can’t print in bold)

Callie; The people who are treating Sarah Palin with the most contempt are the republicans. Yup all her fault McCain lost. I thought her a flake too, but she doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment from those supposed to be her allies.

I guess it is just easier to blame her than G.W.

I wanted to post a comment after the verdict was in.It looks like America IS ready for a black president after all.God Bless him,I think he’ll do a great job..

WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON THE TV AND HEAR NEW PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH?

“My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of the Iraq regime has been completed.

Since congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete.

This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq. This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now time to begin the reckoning.

Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict. This list is short. The United Kingdom, Spain, Bulgaria, Australia, and Poland are some of the countries listed there.

The other list contains every one not on the first list. Most of the world’s nations are on that list. My press secretary will be distributing copies of both lists later this evening.

Let me start by saying that effective immediately, foreign aid to those nations on List 2 ceases immediately and indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay for the costs of the Iraqi war. THEN EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER IT’LL GO TO OUR SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM SO IT WONT GO BROKE IN 20 YEARS.

The American people are no longer going to pour money into third world Hellholes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption.

Need help with a famine ? Wrestling with an epidemic? Call France .

In the future, together with Congress, I will work to redirect this money toward solving the vexing social problems we still have at home. On that note, a word to terrorist organizations. Screw with us and we will hunt you down and eliminate you and all your friends from the face of the earth.

Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try France or maybe China .

I am ordering the immediate severing of diplomatic relations with France, Germany, and Russia. Thanks for all your help, comrades. We are retiring from NATO as well. Bon ne chance, mez a mies.

I have instructed the Mayor of New York City to begin towing the many UN diplomatic vehicles located in Manhattan with more than two unpaid parking tickets to sites where those vehicles will be stripped, shredded and crushed. I don’t care about whatever treaty pertains to this. You creeps have tens of thousands of unpaid tickets. Pay those tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, Beamers and limos be turned over to some of the finest chop shops in the world. I love New York.

A special note to our neighbors. Canada is on List 2. Since we are likely to be seeing a lot more of each other, you folks might want to try not pissing us off for a change.

Mexico is also on List 2. Its president and his entire corrupt government really need an attitude adjustment. I will have a couple extra thousand tanks and infantry divisions sitting around. Guess where I am going to put ’em? Yep, border security.

Oh, by the way, the United States is abrogating the NAFTA treaty – starting now.

We are tired of the one-way highway. Immediately, we’ll be drilling for oil in Alaska – which will take care of this country’s oil needs for decades to come. If you’re an environmentalist who opposes this decision, I refer you to List 2 above: pick a country and move there.

It is time for America to focus on its own welfare and its own citizens. Some will accuse us of isolationism. I answer them by saying, ‘darn tootin.’

Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world has only earned us the undying enmity of just about everyone on the planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in America. It is time to eliminate homelessness in America.

To the nations on List 1, a final thought: Thank you guys. We owe you and we won’t forget.

To the nations on List 2, a final thought: You might want to learn to speak Arabic.

God bless America. Thank you and good night.”

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier.

Copperdragon:

Grow up.

Copperdragon: What are you upset that our Prime Minister at the time wasn’t stupid enough to believe Bush? That he knew Bush was lying about WMD’s in Iraq? That he knew that Al Qaeda was in fact a far greater threat to Hussein and his rule than they ever were to the Americans? That there is no way he would have been funding them?

Also you would have all American troops pulled out tomorrow? Leave the civilians with no protection after destroying what security they had? Did you know that before the war Iraqi females could hold public office? That they were educated and were doctors? Lawyers? and the like?. Now they dare not due to increased fundamentalist presence?

Like Randall said – grow the fuck up!

Copperdragon:

Pompous ass? Hardly. If anyone’s been pompous here, it was you in that absurd post of yours.

On the one hand, you seem to be implying that you’re against the war in Iraq (you asked me if I was a fan of it–which I am obviously not–as though to indicate that you yourself were not) and yet you then proceed to childishly call to task those nations who were ALSO against it, as though they were wrong to not support Bush in his misguided and criminally stupid enterprise–in fact you clearly delineate that they are now, if not enemies, at least no longer valued friends, and will be punished for taking a stance that they thought was right! Where’s the logic in this? There is none.

If a friend is doing a stupid, perhaps even illegal thing, you don’t simply follow him into the muck and mire out of friendship. That’s quite simply asinine, and shows that you have no backbone or sense of right and wrong. The war in Iraq was a totally unnecessary, misguided, ill-considered affair, and many nations disagreed with Bush’s insistence in prosecuting it. They have no obligation to support the US right or wrong, Copperdragon—and neither do you, if you’re a responsible and free citizen of a supposedly free country. In fact, quite the reverse–it is your RESPONSIBILITY to oppose the actions of your country if you feel your government is doing wrong.

So what the hell is your stance on this? It all sounds (besides being completely illogical) like the usual childish populism one hears from people who talk out of both sides of their mouth—because on the one hand they’re right there complaining about their government if they feel it’s doing wrong, but GOD FORBID a foreign national or government in turn criticize said government—how dare they! And they then call for the usual isolationist bullshit—“America first, let’s look to ourselves, let’s close our borders and throw all the foreigners out, yadda yadda yadda…” Childish nonsense. We’re all citizens of the goddamn world besides being citizens of our individual nations—and in fact this is even MORE so in a nation like the United States, where the actions of our society and government can–and usually does–have wide-ranging effects on the rest of the world whether we want them to or not. And closing ourselves off the way you jingoistically call for is not only absurdly silly, but impractical and unrealizable to boot. The days when the US can stand alone are long, long past—if they were ever real to begin with, which I frankly doubt—and if you don’t believe this, then let’s practice what you preach and see what happens to this vaunted economy of ours, and what happens to our blessed little place in the sun when we turn our backs on friends and allies and tell them to forge for themselves. Our international relationships are a two-way street, not at our command and whim. And what someone like you fails to see is that other nations DO have a right to disagree with us and even condemn us and tell us to fuck off if they feel we’re doing wrong.

Your whiny bullshit about how “a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world has only earned us the undying enmity of just about everyone on the planet” is just that—bullshit. In point of fact, when the US has behaved reasonably, honorably, intelligently and openly, we’ve had the great friendship and loyalty and ADMIRATION of most of the world, or at least half of it. And look at the enthusiasm Obama’s election has engendered around the world—the fact is that people in other countries are HUNGRY for that kind of leadership from America again–as opposed to the last eight years of hostility, bullying, haphazard, illogical behavior and obstinate unilateralism. The behavior of the Bush administration hasn’t been that of a good friend or even a good ally—it’s been that of an asshole government that says it’s going to do what it wants and “you’re either with us or against us.” Which is a comic-book-style attitude, not a thoughtful, grown up form of statesmanship. And the world has had a right to call us to task for it.

But when the US has led intelligently and reasonably, we’ve had cooperation and friendship from the greater part of humanity.

So cut the crap. You sound like a half-assed teenager who hasn’t got a grasp of reality, but instead thinks that it’s his way or the highway. And then gets pissed when people rebel against his demand for respect and attention. Pathetic.

What’s copperdragon’s proposal to treat a nation which gives support for Afghanistan, but not Iraq? Ah, we know from Canada. All or nothing. Love me, love my dog.

buc,

How do you view the very considerable external rejection of the Iraq action by numbers of nations which are often inclined to support US policy with sympathy, as many did for, say, Afghanistan just mentioned above? Is it possible that the US population had to a very large degree been made hair-trigger happy by those recent traumatic events, and so was very easy to push into action without overmuch resistance or questioning? I certainly remember the intense debate and scepticism about WMD that went on in Chile at the time (Chile not supporting the action, of course). If the administration did in fact cynically exploit such a psychological state of its populace, it would seem to me it has a lot more to answer for than has that same populace.

buc,

The problem at the outset, I believe, was that Dad had shit on junior. In other words everybody wanted Saddam out and Dad goofed up a perfect excuse and opportunity during Gulf 1, when Sadman was eating onions, eggs and cabbage as fuel to propel himself AfastAP away from the cowboys. But you (we) just slipped the six-shooters back in the holsters, went away and let him start all over again.

I’m not going to deny I hated so much what the bugger did to the Marsh Arabs and Kurds, apart from anyone else he didn’t like (a perfect imitation mini-Hitler or -Stalin). I badly wanted to believe Dubya myself and see Sadman finished off by the rest of us as knights in shining armour. But the armour was tarnished and rusty, and Bush has ended up as the second sad man. As Randall has said, no one could deny the benefits for, say, the Iraqi Kurds, but the price (literally and figuratively) has just been too high. I’ve taken oil out of the equation as I simply don’t know enough about that scenario. But I’m assuming Saudi is the only really serious source to worry about in the region.

But whatever my political sympathies, as a sympathetic outsider I want to see you team get its act together again. Stan needs Ollie, (or the donkey needs the elephant). Democracies don’t usually work so well when one of a virtual two-party system is off the piste. Besides which, that situation isn’t healthy for democracy, full stop.

we’re ready for a black president thats for sure, just not Obama

LGK,

Er, I’d just like to point out that *expireance* is an extremely unfortunate (Sam Goldwyn style of) typo indeed. Assuming and hoping to blazes it is a typo. Perhaps you’d care to reassure us?