Tuesday, November 4, 2008

President, "O" My President

Great news! Obama just won the presidency! That means that I will no longer have to continue looking for a job! He promised me that when he won, he would take money from all the evil rich people making more that $250,000 a year, and give their money to me. Glorious day!

30 comments:

Renae said...

Yes, he said that. Then he changed it to $200,000. Next it was $150,000. Our country has been duped by a complete nutcase socialist. I'm actually quite scared.

Eyepoke said...

It's too bad that the first "black" president will have as his legacy: "He only got elected because he was black, and he turned out to be completely brainless"

Mary said...

Here's what I think: The Dems now hold the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. They have 4 years, and time is ticking. It won't take long for this country to see what we've done, and I don't think there will be 8 years of this.

Renae said...

Our state didn't even have any Republicans running for MOST of the positions. SICK!!!

Mary said...

That's so funny, because when I went to vote yesterday, I noticed that while I lived in Illinois, Republicans didn't even bother to run for local positions, but here in Georgia, there were almost no Democrats on the local ballot! I'm also glad because my electoral vote didn't end up going to Obama this year, which makes me feel good.

Poor Illinoisans. Obama puts the "Ill" in Illinois. Come to think of it, he puts the "annoy" in Illinois also. I wonder...will they change the Illinois slogan from "Land Of Lincoln" to "Land Of The First Black President Of The United States - Barack Obama, Savior Of The World"? Just curious.

Mary said...

Hey Rena, I've been trying to figure this out for a while now...what is going on in that photo of you? I just can't figure it out!

Mary said...

Oops - Renae...

Unknown said...

What happens if the guy actually does some good and makes the country a better place? Or is that absolutely impossible? Will people eat crow? Offer him 4 more years? Just wondering...

Question has to be put out there, and it warrants a better response than "you must be one of those idiots that voted for Obama" ...

Renae said...

Mary, I was being silly and wearing a tu-tu on my head. I think Justice was holding up a peice of candy for me to open.

I'd be glad to eat crow, if Goober Face turned out to do some good for the country. Overjoyed in fact! However, if you look at his record, it doesn't seem bloody likely. The man is a psycho.

timpani76 said...

theefxman--I don't think it is EVER a good thing for one political party to hold as much power as the dems hold now, in fact, I think third parties should be holding a lot more offices just to keep the Reps and Dems from using their power to push their partisan, money grubbing, power hungry vested interest agendas.

Eyepoke said...

FX-

I'd love to talk economics with you sometime. Should we make a date of it? I'm serious, I'd love to arrange a discussion.

Also, are you pro-choice?

lizS said...

have you studied what obama did in illinois? i don't think any of us who are so very anti-obama will be eating anything but cow doo-doo for the next four years, along with everyone else.

Unknown said...

I'm not saying he has any credibility going in. I'm saying if he does anything worthwhile in the top executive office in the country. Also I seem to recall a Republican majority in House and nearly the Senate at the beginning of Bush's first term? Maybe someone can refresh my memory. I don't claim to be a genius "obviously not since I voted for Obama right?" ..

I am Pro-Life, but I don't let me religious and personal beliefs become the sole guiding factor of my political choices. Pro-life voting when it was embraced as a hot topic in politics 30 years ago has been a point of guilt votes for too long and needs to end..

There is and never will be a congressional ban on abortion. No matter who is president, or how long it's petitioted for. The best we can hope to do is educated our children, the ones we loves and our communities to make an impact at a local level. Then hope people can use common sense past that. People are going to get abortions whether they are legal or not. No life is worth ending, yet I will not be guilt voting for a party simply because of one issue that I can have greater impact on by helping those I love understand the implications of such an important choice. Once again I claim my prize as run on sentence king of the world..

Another thing, my mother had 4 miscarriages before I was born. There are so many people that lose children, or that don't have children that are incapable of having their own. So it boggles the mind when you here of someone wanting to through away something as precious as a life. I want you to perfectly understand that I do not believe anyone should have a choice to end a childs life at any stage...

So call me a cynic, hypocrite, whatever you want, but I will not hold it against you, and I won't feel alienated.

Unknown said...

For those of you that may choose to devalue my opinion based on my grammar. I was too busy typing what I truly felt to go back and spell check. ;)

Eyepoke said...

I dont get it.

Eyepoke said...

Are you saying you are pro-life in theory, but think it is a lost cause?

Eyepoke said...

Economics?

Renae said...

Nor do I believe that abortion should be the only issue. However, it does say something about the man's values. He voted three times against a bill that would make it illegal to kill babies that survived the abortion process. That is, he voted in favor of killing live human beings. That tells on his character. Not only that, but he has THE most liberal voting record of anyone out there. Look at his "associations." These are all signs of what kind of person he is. If it smells like poop, there is probably a reason, and he stinks to high heaven. He is not the kind of person I want calling the shots for me.

And just for the record, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with race. If he were as white as an albino's arm pit, I'd still think he was a poor excuse for a human.

If he ends up doing good things for us, I'd be shocked, but I'd happily eat crow.

Vain and flattering words... I'm sure he will be a "candidate for change." I'm just not sure I want the kind of change that he will be bringing. He sounds a LOT like a socialist, which is one step away from communist.

lizS said...

for my two cents, the abortion issue was so far down on my list of reasons why i hate obama that it was seriously close to an after thought. this guy is the biggest snake in the grass i have ever seen, and that includes clinton!! i just do not see how you can miss it, if you have any kind of thought process at all. i really don't.

Unknown said...

I'm saying I'm pro-life and that I haven't seen any pro-life canidates that have held the office succesfully put a ban on abortion. Even if the course was flipped with a republican president, and a full majority of republicans that abortion would get banned at any stage of life. Call me naive, I am not saying anyone is naive for thinking it would happen, I just think it's as unlikely as some here think it is as unlikely Obama will make the country a better place.

As far as the mans state record goe s I think there are skeletons in everyones closet. You have to remember to that 90% of bills put forward for voting have some pork in them that both sides try and squeeze in. So you end up with bills that say " Let's not litter and let's charge those that do $1000 per instance. Oh and let's also raise park grounds fees 20% to the local tax payers to line our pockets while we give 5% of that to minimum wage workers to cleanup the littered areas."

I think there can be no justification for voting down a ban on abortion, but hopefully as president he will have to develop better moral judgement and then show some true change. Like true bi-partisanship let's try and write some laws that are straight foward with one goal.

Law one 1. End Abortions? No Pork.

Law two 2. Make rape a crime punishable by a minimum of 10 years in prison. No Pork.

Law three 3. Require sexual predators to be indentified on their state drivers license. No Pork.

Law four 4. Make sexual predators fall under the same working discremetion of a convicted criminal. No Pork.

Those all sound amazing on paper. But we are never going to get it either way. If this man makes any change at all, it better be big, it better make a difference, and it better not ruin the lives of our families.


The other thing to remember is whites are going to be the minority no matter who is president by 2050. There has been study after study to suggest this. We need to end the racial focus of this country before we are shunned at ever street corner by the time our children are grown.

I think Obama can be the stepping stone to the major attitude change of the country. I've heard so many of my racist neighbors, friends and family admit that they voted for Obama and it makes me wonder what he has done so right?

While we try and figure out the formula for his success I think it will be good to have him in office. Then we can get people to focus on development of the country, instead of division of local communities. If this can be accomplished then I imagine all of our ideals above can be reached if not today, then before our children have to worry about their own future.

R

Eyepoke said...

Fx, its sad that you really don't think we can ever end the slaughter... Ever watched Braveheart?

"We can! And we will!"

It's America. We broke the back of slavery even though in its day that seemed as impossible getting rid of abortion must seem to you. It cost us and is still costing us (its one reason why we have BO), but it can be done.

Human beings throw off injustices and overcome evil all the time.

I believe we will win this fight. I can see the day coming. The only questions are how long will it take and what the final body count will be. Furthermore, win or lose, I for one hope to be found fighting.

The biggest obstacles are not the hardcore pro-choicers- The biggest obstacles are the fence sitters- those who are pro-life in thought, when they take thought, but are not in thier actions.

The real key is judges. The Supreme Court will someday over turn Roe v Wade, unless the spiritual debt incurred by the blood of millions of innocents destroys America first. In order for the court to overturn that descsion, however, Presidents must appoint clear thinking Justices to that court. Bush gave us 2 of 9. BO may or may not appoint a supreme court judge- but even if he does not he will certainly appoint many lower court judges who will consitute the pool from which higher judges will be chosen.

Your ideas on how to handle abortion should it are good. They parallel closely some of my own ideas that I am writing up for my own blog. It is true that we need ideas for how to handle and enforce abortion laws when we win this fight.

Anyhow--- I need to go to bed.
peace love dope

Mary said...

Wow! Awesome discussion! I'll try to fit in as many points as I can remember from what was said, but it's late and I should be in bed right now. Rob, I'm glad you came on and gave your opinion. It's not easy when you know everyone mostly disagrees with you. What would I do if Obama ends up being a good president? "I'll eat my own head sir!" Here's a short list of some of the reasons that Obama scares me:

1: His buddies are racists. People can try to deny that fact all day and night, but look at the people he hangs with. People have a tendency to gravitate toward people that are like them.
2: He wants to take money from the "rich" people and give it to the "poor" people. The Cubans in this country have been having coronaries over this because they remember hearing this kind of rhetoric from Castro 50 years ago. This is Socialist policy, and it's a very short slide from there to Communism.
3: He is the most Liberal senator in the country. That frightens people like me, who think that the less the govt. is involved in their lives the better we'll be.
4: He acts like the only important part of his heritage is the black part, when it was his white family that raised him and helped form him into the successful man he is today. That tells me he is an opportunist! (I know, aren't ALL politicians?! Good point.) But if we are going to make this into a racial issue, let's remember he aint all black.
5: Did you hear? He's already renegging on his campaign promise to cut taxes, and is saying that with the "mess Bush made" he's going to have to actually raise taxes. Didn't take him long to break that promise. What other campaign promises is he going to have to break and conveniently blame on the former administration?
6: Ditto on all the abortion stuff. Abortion is wrong. Period. You can call it guilt voting all you want, but part of the beauty of voting is that you get to make your decisions based on your conscience and what you think is right. That is what has made this country such an awesome place to live for the last 232 years!

There's more but I can't think. I was surprised to find out that you are pro-life. I didn't know that about you. Honestly, I think the Pubs are as bad as the Dems anymore, and I am anxiously awaiting a viable third party that I can get behind!

Mary said...

Renae- Oh! It's a tu-tu! Ha! The way the photo is cropped, and the lighting, and the tiny hand, it's really hard to tell. It makes much more sense now.

Mary said...

John- Just so you know, EFX is my brother-in-law. He and my sister live in St. Chuck, so it wouldn't be hard for you to get together. I think you guys would get along. You're both weird.

Unknown said...

Some of Mary's comments are hard to defend against since I'm not a member of the mans family or a friend of his. Perception is the key here it seems. From what I perceive of him he took time off the tail end of his campaign to go visit his dying white grandma on her deathbed, and has spoken emphatically about the upbring he received from her on more than one occasion. I don't think he would have done this just to "save face" for a press that feels he is racist..

As far as the wide spread belief that all his friends are racist. I think I mentioned above that a lot of my friends are racist, even my mother and father. I have a lot of racist tendencies myself I would love to blame on my parents, but we make our own choices as hard as they can be and shape our own future.

That being said part of my point above was that racists , on both sides , need to have someone that they will listen to in power show them the light. That's the biggest problem facing our generation right now I believe. This coming from someone that works at a 77% enrollment/work force) black work environment. I hear and get a lot of racist comments and lopsided anticipation from those I work around every day. The kind of people that say " if you don't have a black person working in your department you are racist, ok you got one, now if you don't have 2, then 3, ok now you have 1 white lady.. that's fine. ".

Once the pot is filled so much in the other direction, I can guarantee the cycle of "let's move away from them and let them have that town, we can just move farther out to suburbia and start our own place" will not be possible due to jobs for our children being that much harder to find as they are weaseled away.

I don't think the answer to that is find some magical way to stop shipping jobs overseas. Companies are greedy and you can throw money at them all day long and they'll be smiling and thankful and give 100k to children's hospital, then they will keep shipping jobs overseas and turning record profits.

No, I think as eyepoke said racism was overthrown at the highest levels and through blood, sweat and tears in the court system and through commuinity effort. But that never made it down through the hearts of those that live under the flag.

As that problem of racism has never truly been fixed I think we need to focus on one major problem at a time. While abortion should be the highest priority on the list, racism is the one we have a massive opportunity to address. Imagine all the things we could accomplish if we had universal acceptance in our own society. We could all focus on bigger issues than ourselves like abortion. We could all learn that education is the key to job placement, not color which would help end educationally unbalanced work environments and white job opportunity decline. It would end the cycle of whites flooding out of their "demographically challanged areas" which always end up falling apart economically because the white that have money leave them at, and the blacks that barely afford the houses they moved into don't have the money to spend at the circuit city that's closing in florissant (the only one in the state closing so far). Did I mention that the lease is up on the schnucks plaze on west florissant and that schnucks has been closed for a year as well as half the places in that mall. The owner isn't planning to renew the lease in 2009 so the whole thing will likely shut down. Walmart and Sams club have the highest shrink rate up there as well, one of the lowest profitable stores in the country.

I don't think taking peoples money and giving it to people like the black residents of Florissant to supplement their housing so they can revitalize local business is the only idea BO has for his presidency. I would go out on a limb to say if you asked the man dead on about the scenario he would say that's not what it's intended.

There again you can't just give someone a bunch of money and expect them to do the right thing with it, whether it's a stimulus package that people pay their debt down with instead of buying american products, or a 2% tax cut that people use at the end of the year to pay their debt down.

So again dealing with the underlying cause of the demographic paradigm, before it's completely fixed itself in 40 years where we are the big losers should be the top issue I believe. Fix racism, and hopefully the trickle down effect will cause balance in education, then jobs, then economy, then future generations. That I think is the biggest challenge I've worried about for my children since before they were born. One of the main reasons I didn't want kids. Now that I have them, it's more important to me than ever to not only overcome my own racist tendencies, but to make sure the only time they hear about it is in a text book.

Thanks for listening, and for Pete's sake will someone please get me some punctuation for Christmas?

R

Mary said...

I didn't say that ALL of his friends are racist, but many of his very close friends are.

It's funny, you mention white flight. This happens a lot in St. Louis. (East St. Louis, prime example.) I have now lived in LA, St. Louis, and Atlanta. I know that's not a ton of experience, but I have never seen a racially mixed neighborhood (aside from one or two black families in a white neighborhood in STL) in STL, but there are a lot of neighborhoods here and on the West coast where people can and do live comfortably side-by-side. I think that since your experience is only in STL, you don't know that people across the country can and do live nicely together. On the other hand, I agree that there is often unease between races on both sides. No we don't trust each other fully. There's still a "them v. us" mentality, but it's not an American phenomenon. This is human nature, and you find it everywhere. I think that we can all be good to each other, but the mere fact that we're different will always create a certain amount of unease that no amount of legislation and "restitution" will be able to erase.

As far as greedy corporations go, yes, some corporations get greedy and put their own personal interests above the country that allowed them to prosper. But if our country didn't impose ridiculously high taxes on these companies, they would certainly be more likely to keep business here. If it is more cost effective for them to do business here than ship orders back and forth, don't you think they'd rather have it done nearby than 1/2 way around the world? Consider if you were a business owner, and you could make something here for $80, but you could make that same product in China, and bring it back here for $3. Which would you do? If you don't like corporations that do business overseas, then don't buy stuff made in other countries. Buy American. That's where your power as a consumer lies.

I knew that that Walmart was in trouble. I went there with Lori not too long before I moved from there and they checked everyone's bags and receipts before they left the store. I understand that poverty breeds crime. I understand what you are saying about white people moving out of there, but I simply (maybe this is MY own ignorance) don't understand how if the white people could move, the black people can't. If it were dangerous for my family, I would find a way to move. The problem with the social programs that BO is pushing, is that it doesn't encourage people to try harder. People think that this is free money for them. They find ways to live on the tiny pension they are given, because it's easier than having to get a job. I am absolutely for a hand up when a person legitimately needs help. I don't believe that it is right for a country as prosperous as ours to allow people to starve, but just throwing money at people doesn't help the poverty problem. It makes it worse, because it doesn't give incentive to get out there and get an education or get working.

I agree that racism is an issue in our country. I don't think it will ever be fully cured on either side of the racial divide. I do think that if everyone got over themselves and started treating each other like people instead of a threat, our country would be much better. As long as we're apologizing for slavery, when no one in this country living today has ever held slaves, and making "restitution" by just paying black people (none of whom have ever been slaves in this country) for living, is a giant step backward. Yes, slavery happened in this, the freest nation in the world. That was a travesty! Some of our founding fathers who shouted the loudest for freedom from their old oppressive governments had slaves. We get the hypocracy. Dwelling on those things when minorities now have more rights than white people, does not fix the problem. It stirs up the hornet's nest.

How was my punctuation? Did I get it right? ;)

Unknown said...

The thing I love most about debates ( sarcasm, and the reason I mostly avoid them ) is it takes forever for both sides to clarify their original talking points. Right now I don't think I've been 100% clear and concise on what I'm trying to say and believe. Which is why I think it best to end this conversation now and let the original one filter back into being. :)

Take it as a win if you want, I'm not trying to win, just trying to explain why I made the choice I did. Like you and I hope many people that are facing the reality of it now, I hope things turn out the way 52% of america is hoping.

R

Unknown said...

That last part didn't make any sense. (insert joke about any of it making sense here)

I was trying to say.

Hopefully together we can face the fact that he is in office. That the 52% percent of us that "fell" for the "the power of change" get what we prayed for.

R

Bruce said...

i do hope for a positive change in our country. smaller taxes, smaller government, greater individual responsibility, and an improved work ethic are ecential to the success of our nation. racizm is dumb. i have trouble from time to time not because what i have been tought, my fam tends to be relativly open minded, but because of the experiances i have had. i have been told flat out that i was not going to get a job that the employer wanted to hier me for because i "didnt have a dark enough tan." that has acually happend 2 times to me. i think it rediculis that race should be an issue at all in the talk about BO. i did not vote for him because i think he is wrong. wrong is many different ways. and while the people he hangs with are a big deal because, like what was already said, you tend to gravitate toards people like yourself, the real reasons i did not vote for him lie in his stated intentions. he tried to make a joke of people calling him a socialist, but that is what he is. i think i can speek for most people and say i dont trust the government to make good choices with my or any body elses money. i think the government should have to raise its own money. show us you can do well makeing(and i dont mean printing) and spending your own money and maybe ill trust you to do well with mine. the fact that my 07 charitable contributions where as much as joe bidens(he make about 50 times what i do) tells me what i need to know about how much a lot of dems want to help other people out. i truely want our country to be better than it ever has been, but i think conservitive pricipals is the way to do it not lib. i hope BO governs from the center but based on who is picking for his cabnet i think its an empty hope.(and while you may not have good puchuation, at least you can spell)

Mary said...

Bruce - we'll try not to give you too much grief over the spelling issues. Just because you can't spell doesn't mean you can't think clearly. ;)