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| Thread: Barack Obama -- dialogue on his candidacy |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Peacemaker
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posted February 02, 2007 06:42 PM |
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Aculius
What makes you think he's anti-abortion? Who told you that? Shawn Hannaday? Bill o'Reilley?
http://www.issues2000.org/Social/Barack_Obama_Abortion.htm
One of the things that makes me a little nervous about him is that he is pretty straight-line Democrat. Not that I don't necessarily like that, I just hope he can still capture the moderate Republican vote. If he or some other Dem can't do that then this entire exercise is rendered academic.
The remarkable thing is how many moderate Republicans call into C-Span's Washington Journal every morning and say things like, "I don't agree with a lot of his positions, but I still like him because I think he can heal the country...."
The powerful intellect and presidential charisma of this man seems to be overriding heretofor divisive social issues, just like abortion and stem-cell research, both of which he supports.
Before any of you decides whether you agree with Obama's stance on the issues, you should inform yourselves as to what the stance is.
http://www.massscorecard.org/Senate/Barack_Obama.htm
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the_gootch
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Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
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posted February 02, 2007 06:53 PM |
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Quote:
If you want your party to rush once again headlong over the cliff of utter unelectability like a bunch of crazed, strategically challeneged lemmings then back Clinton. She is a very polarizing figure which, for better or worse, fairly or not, is despised by millions of Americans.
Right. Let's talk about your generation and unelectability. Can we say Mondale and Dukakis?
Obama has the unique strength in that he voted no to war in Iraq long before it became fashionable. Clinton has that shameful stigma attached to her. At the time it seemed sensible because, among other things, it was seen as political suicide to vote against going to war.
I know she's polarizing. She's also incredibly effective. Is she effective enough to get some southern states to go blue? I don't know. I think so. I also like her chances than Obama's.
The ugly fact of this matter is that Obama looks black to the Billy Joes and Bobby Rays. And that's enough for them to vote against him 8 times before breakfast. Let's not forget the tactics that Bush's crew used to ensure McCain lost South Carolina in 2000.
Race is omnipresent my friend. And you and I in our multicultural upbringings cannot forget how different it is in rural and suburban America. So in a sense I do agree with Consis. I will most undoubtedly vote for Obama if he's the candidate of choice. Illinois will undoubtedly go his way instead of Hillary's.
But how his viability plays out on the national stage remains to be seen. Nonetheless it will make for the most gripping candidacy of my lifetime.
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Peacemaker
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posted February 02, 2007 07:00 PM |
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Quote:
But how his viability plays out on the national stage remains to be seen.
Well said, sweet.
Now I have another suggestion for you: Obama's black side may just well be working as much to his advantage with the remainder of the constiuency as it is working against him in the South. There are just as many people -- particularly the youth and college votes, who are sick to death of the Stupid White Men who've been running the country into the ground. I predict that Obama will cause a surge in the voter turnout like you've never seen since Bobby Kennedy was on the scene, including disgruntled Republicans. Christ, my mom's even thinking about voting for him.
In fact, I can't hardly believe some of the people who are thinking of voting for him.
As for the Mondales and Dukakises of "my generation," thanks for underscoring my point. Like lemmings, rushing headlong toward certain defeat.
IF WE WANT TO WIN IN THE GENERAL ELECTION WE HAVE TO START FORWARDING ELECTABLE CANDIDATES.
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Consis
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posted February 02, 2007 10:18 PM |
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Edited by Consis at 22:24, 02 Feb 2007.
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Eowyn/Hillary Clinton
Theoden was not utterly forsaken. The knights of his house lay slain about him, or else mastered by the madness of their steeds were borne far away. Yet one stood there still: Dernhelm the young, faithful beyond fear; and he wept, for he had loved his lord as a father. Right through the charge Merry had been borne unharmed behind him, until the Shadow came; and then Windfola had thrown them in his terror, and now ran wild upon the plain. Merry crawled on all fours like a dazed beast, and such a horror was on him that he was blind and sick.
'King's man! King's man!' his heart cried within him. 'You must stay by him. As a father you shall be to me, you said.' But his will made no answer, and his body shook. He dared not open his eyes or look up.
Then out of the blackness in his mind he thought that he heard Dernhelm speaking; yet now the voice seemed strange, recalling some other voice that he had known.
'Begone foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!'
A cold voice answered: 'Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.'
A sword rang as it was drawn. 'Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.'
'Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!'
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. 'But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.'
The winged creature screamed at her, but the Ringwraith made no answer, and was silent, as if in sudden doubt. Very amazement for a moment conquered Merry's fear. He opened his eyes and the blackness was lifted from them. There some paces from him sat the great beast, and all seemed dark about it, and above it loomed the Nazgul Lord like a shadow of despair. A little to the left facing them stood she whom he had called Dernhelm. But the helm of her secrecy had fallen from her, and her bright hair, released from its bonds, gleamed with pale gold upon her shoulders. Her eyes grey as the sea were hard and fell, yet tears were on her cheek. A sword was in her hand, and she raised her shield against the horror of her enemy's eyes.
Eowyn it was, and Dernhelm also. For into Merry's mind flashed the memory of the face that he saw at the riding from Dunharrow: the face of one that goes seeking death, having no hope. Pity filled his heart and great wonder, and suddenly the slow-kindled courage of his race awoke. He clenched his hand. She should not die, so fair, so desperate! At least she should not die alone, unaided.
The face of their enemy was not turned towards him, but still he hardly dared to move, dreading lest the deadly eyes should fall on him. Slowly, slowly he began to crawl aside; but the Black Captain, in doubt and malice intent upon the woman before him, heeded him no more than a worm in the mud.
Suddenly the great beast beat its hideous wings, and the wind of them was foul. Again it leaped into the air, and then swiftly fell down upon Eowyn, shrieking, striking with beak and claw.
She did not blench: maiden of the Rohirrim, child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair yet terrible. A swift stroke she dealt, skilled and deadly. The outstretched neck she clove asunder, and the hewn head fell like a stone. Backward she sprang as a the huge shape crashed to ruin, vast wings outspread, crumpled on the earth; and with its fall the shadow passed away. A light fell about her, and her hair shone in the sunrise.
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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Peacemaker
Honorable
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Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted February 02, 2007 10:27 PM |
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...and the angels did weep and they did sing a fine, high-vibradoed harmonic chord, and the clouds parted, and the kettle drums did boom,
kinda like this....
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
BOOM............BOOM............BOOM..........BOOM
........BOOM...........BOOM............BOOM..........BOOM
(I love you Consis, but I'm not real clear on what your point is here... or are you having visions again???)
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Ecoris
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posted February 03, 2007 03:27 PM |
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Please, tell us what Éowyn, Merry, the Lord of the Nazgûl and the battle of the Pelennor Fields is doing in this discussion.
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Consis
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posted February 03, 2007 06:24 PM |
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Ecoris,
Eowyn represents everything needed to bring down the great enemy. I think the little LOTR excerpt is a good representation of what we face today. My country is rampant with bigotry and 'glass ceilings'. Of course we all want to break the molds set down by our racist forefathers but these leaps and bounds cannot be made without a champion for the cause. I simply feel like Obama may indeed be a champion to a great cause but this is not his time. This is the time for a new Susan B. Anthony. Before blacks gained the right to vote, women gained theirs. I do believe this to be correct representation of American civil progress. Some people want to jump on the band wagon and scream "rights for everyone!" . . . But in reality only a revolution moves people quickly. The progress is slow but worth the time. Revolution is still a very dangerous word. I don't think people are ready for an African American president yet.
All this talk about African Americans is almost entirely moot before its maturity anyway . . . Anyone who neglects the power of the hispanic vote surely sets themselves up for inundated folly. Historically speaking: our hispanic voters generally don't turn out in large enough numbers to make much of a difference. But what if they did? And who would they vote for?
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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
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Ecoris
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posted February 04, 2007 11:59 AM |
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So the 'great enemy' is still the cleavage between black and white people? How pronounced is it nowadays?
My country is rampant with bigotry and 'glass ceilings'.
I don't understand. Could you elaborate?
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Peacemaker
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posted February 04, 2007 06:52 PM |
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Consis may I inquire
-- as to which state you live in? I think your surrounding demographics might be speaking a completely different language to you than mine are to me. Obama is being touted by some as a "post-racial" candidate; that his generation (me) is beyond such considerations and thus his parentage is practically a non-issue in the face of larger concerns, such as the power of his intelligence, political charisma, his ability to bridge the rift in Congress and perceptions of him from abroad.
(To Consis and The Gootch) This campaign may very well be one of the most critical in American history, if not the most critical one. This droning whine about Obama's "race" is tiring -- shouldn't the real question focus on whether he can dig us out of the global dungheap that Bush has managed to plunge us into?
There are two overshadowing issues that the next president absolutely has to get a handle on, lest we face a global crisis of unprecedented proportions. First, I submit to you that the Middle East is hanging perilously on the edge of disintegration. If it goes, we all go with it. And if anyone wants me to explain exactly why and how that will certainly happen, I will be happy to in a separate post or thread.
The second issue -- our current status as an utterly failed leader in the international scene -- must be cured before we can have any real positive impact on the first issue.
Even assuming Hillary Clinton could get elected, which is a far stretch, I ask you to be honest with yourself: which one of them do you think would be more effective in regional diplomacy throughout the Middle East? A White woman, or (as you keep saying) a "Black" man whose middle name is "Hussein" and whose father reigned from North Africa?
Are we going to look the most potent American political mind, who has turned up precisely at the moment when we desperately need the precise skills he represents, straight in the eye and say... "No, not White enough"...?
If what you are both saying is true, then I would cynically say this to America: you will get the results your own short-cited racist attitudes deserve: failure, and a future for this country that is rapidly becoming perilously uncertain in the face of what is now a growing global anti-American sentiment, with what was once a kernel of terrorists at the core. But what was once a kernel has now become a major, unifying movement fuelled through our miserably failed foreign policies and "war on terror" even beyond the wildest imaginings of those of us who predicted it.
I would say this, but I can't afford to. Because I have a ten year old son, whose vulnerability to the draft during the next decades into a series of wars started OVER NOTHING, does not have time to wait for those of you who think "it's too soon" for Obama because of something so utterly irrelevant as the color of his skin.
Post-Script: Gootch, what you are saying about Obama and the "Billy-Bob's" of the world may be true. But mind you, it is ten times more true of the larger sector of the constituency whence the Billy-Bobs hail when it comes to a vote for Clinton, who if anything has already begun fuelling an anti-Democrat movement among that sector. I don't know if you're even aware of the degree of loathe these people have for the Clintons. You know I follow this stuff and watch it like a hawk. She is tainted goods, man. She will lose if she runs.
Please don't be a lemming. It's time for realism. We don't have time for the wishful thinking and rationalization that got us into the mess we were in in 2000 and 2004. If you really believe after watching the campaign for a few months that Obama is not electable because he has black blood, then start looking at some of the other candidates, people like Mike Gravel, or Bill Richardson, who don't have the insurmountable baggage that makes Clinton a sure loser.
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted February 04, 2007 07:49 PM |
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Some thoughts on political science
Now I want to point something out about trends in behavioral and social science when it comes to the voting habits of a given constituency.
Typically, when there are a handful of unremarkable candidates, people tend to vote in blocks. They tend to look at those citizens around them, and start glomming onto the largest, noisiest crowd. This is particularly true when the candidates don't really have anything special to offer, and don't capture the voters' imaginations, or move them to make a decision that runs against the tide around them.
Now there are pro-blocks and anti-blocks. An example of a pro-block is the mass of now disillusioned folks that voted for Bush in the last election. An example of an anti-block is the group of folks that despise the Clintons.
Once in a great while comes a candidate who tends to infiltrate the existing blocks and inspire their members to break away and start following that new candidate, because they finally hear and see something that makes them want to choose this person, to vote "for" someone instead of "against" someone, and that impulse outweighs the mob mentality of the block to which they formerly belonged. Something about this new candidate hits them in the gut, and causes them to break away.
If you don't believe that Obama is doing this then lick your finger and stick it in the air. Watch Washington Journal in the mornings and listen to the people calling in. Listen to whether they are Democrat or Republican (there are separate phone lines for each), listen to the state they are calling from (the MC always announces this) and then tell me you don't detect an overwhelming phenomenon-- a broad cross-section of people from both parties and all the states, including the southern ones, that are saying they favor Obama. Many of these same people (Dems and Pubs alike) will also say they can't stomach Clinton. Get a piece of paper and keep score if you'd like; each time someone mentions Obama or Clinton, write down the party, the state, the name of the candidate, and a + or - to indicate the comment. Then add them up and watch your heads spin.
I know neither of you is old enough to remember what happened to this country when Bobby Kennedy popped onto the scene, but it was a very similar phenomenon. His charisma and inspiration stretched across party lines, penetrated existing block-think, and utterly captured the imagination of the American populace to a degree that the deficiencies many perceived got mowed down in the larger tide.
It takes a certain kind of person -- a certain kind of leader -- to break down the smallness of socio-political mob behavior. That's what is happening with Obama. And never in our history have we needed that kind of leadership as much as we need it now.
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Consis
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posted February 06, 2007 05:19 PM |
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*sigh*
Anyone watching the news? Now tell me I'm the only one who thinks the way I do.
" A W B " -----> Articulate While Black ? ? ?
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Celfious
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posted February 06, 2007 05:48 PM |
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I like obama, but I dont like his plan to enable the non working class without "extra" motivation to get them off their seats.
I would be happy if we get a black president.
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What are you up to
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Consis
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posted February 07, 2007 02:32 AM |
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Celfious,
I have read many of your posts and threads here and at Guardians Grove. I will never understand you. I have no idea what you are saying and I never will. You probably won't understand this post . . . bah . . . what is the point of even talking to you. This is pointless.
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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
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Celfious
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From earth
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posted February 08, 2007 05:28 PM |
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Edited by Celfious at 17:36, 08 Feb 2007.
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Consis, I'm not social in the way a lot of people are, and I admitt people consider me awkward, crazy, nice, and wierd. But I'm considered intelligent by people who hear me speak in real life, and I down myself by saying what is true, that I am stupid sometimes. I smile when I do say this for many reasons.
Reguardless of what people think I dont look for people who I believe are sick or invalid in ways and discourage them, and bring threads off topic. Thats nasty behavior, no matter how much acceptance you recieve from your cliques, if any. You believe in your heart and mind (I think), that I am this, or that, perhaps slow and you then in turn critisize me... Congradulations on what your doing.
I am actualy probably quite different from what you presume.
What I meant was, lazy people who are fully able to work do NOT deserve a check for life, like -so I hear- Obama is close to proposing. He proposes giving the working classes money to the non working class.
The least he could do is make programs which gets these lazy able people out there making the US a better economy. Sure, give them a helping hand, but not forever, and especialy not drug addicts.
And hey, maybe by your statement you meant no offence but I know you have a problem with me, mainly by your past posts which are obviously offensive.
Shake of hands I am always willing with anyone. (see, there I go this sentance has no proper context of englishness but I understand it,,, whats wrong with me lol)
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What are you up to
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Celfious
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posted February 08, 2007 06:38 PM |
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I concluded I'm a radicle, peacemaker, and I dont like Clinton, but for the most part I "prefer" Obama.. I prefer him, not like him lol.
Someone says "get the troops out" and the people are happy, hence they have no radical interests. I guess that means America is running smooth and fine.
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The_Gootch
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Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
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posted February 08, 2007 10:43 PM |
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You know, sometimes it makes my brain hurt to read your ramblings. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. When you were in the service people could actually understand you.
Since you've gotten out your ability to string together coherent thoughts has suffered exponentially. I'm past the point of trying to understand your whys and wherefores. I'm only here to serve you this.
Until you can string together coherent thoughts in threads again Celfious, expect to get your nose thumped everytime you stick your face into big boy threads.
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Celfious
Promising
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From earth
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posted February 09, 2007 05:17 PM |
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People in real understand me, and I excelerated in my online communication skills.
I'm gonna leave soon. No turning back
omg and thanks for highjacking this thread, it probably looks like it is my fault too.
Before I go I will make a poll thread asking if I am understandable or not. Honestly I will feel somewhat sorry for those who cant understand the way I talk. Everyone with a hint of intellect understands me in real life.
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Celfious
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posted February 09, 2007 05:23 PM |
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intuition and sense from whats commonality, is what it takes from time to time.. You rely much on outer language.
If you dont get that then its not my fault.. Though it does explain how you can achieve the ability to listen better, not depending on a particular..... level of understanding.
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Consis
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posted February 09, 2007 05:58 PM |
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Celfious,
Quote:
I will make a poll thread asking if I am understandable or not.
Why? What is the point?
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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted February 10, 2007 07:05 PM |
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Back on Topic
Obama announced officially this morning.
The polls are already surging.
You can watch the whole thing by clicking on the "Click here to watch" link in the upper right hand corner of the photograph on this page.
http://www.barackobama.com/#
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