Voting has very little political significance but it does have a cultural significance.  I would recommend that you vote for Cynthia McKinney, Green Party or Ralph Nader, Independent, why because of the zeitgeist, that is the climate of the times. Do you really want to live in a country that promotes torture? Do you really want to live in a country heading toward a police state?

Voting for any Republican or enabling any Republican is cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Do you really want to live in the country ruled by the rich and powerful,with a government of by and for the rich and powerful? Well to achieve a society that supports the values you hold you must be part of the solution.

The truth is that we Americans live in a very dangerous country—-for all of the peoples of the world. If we can’t change it by the ballot then we must take up the bullet.

Re: Debater

I live in pro-gun country, not like I used too, but they’re still pro-gun.  I’m pro-gun myself.  I didn’t find it offensive.  All gun-owners most likely know someone who would depict what Obama meant if one were to take his comment in the context of which he said it.

My perspective is guns are all well and fine, when you are taught and realize their true lethal potential and respect that.  But to take guns to some level that means more to you than what guns actually are, is disconcerting.

Guns are tools and like any and every tool (especially dangerous ones, chainsaws, table saws, knives…etc.)  they should be viewed realistically and not emotionally.

As per your comment of “playing the game”, I’m not sure of your meaning.  I definitely feel that Clinton plays a vicious and cheating type game and then tries to qualify it by saying it’s OK because “that’s politics”, in effect creating her own mores.

Ah..so it was the ‘cling’ word that did it.

Yep..that’s just REALLY important Maani. Must have kept those Pennsylvanians agitated and depressed and feeling so totally humiliated. Might even qualify for a major Human Rights violation.

Good thing Obama apologized, since I couldn’t have been so bothered.

But wait…the latest poll shows that over 60% of Pennsylvanians didn’t have a problem at all with the ‘cling’ word, OR the CONTEXT of it, seeing as how it was all TRUE.

No rationalization..just fact. It must be the reality word that has more significance to them. Like, the reality of NO JOBS, and stuff like that.

Well clearly you are unaware of the fact that many of the people he was referring to were already religious and “pro firearms” before they lost their jobs and economy. So I would have to disagree that what he was saying was the truth. As nicely put by Maani above, the insult comes through his accusation that people now must “cling” to these things. The point is Obama should not have said things the way he did as it was insulting to certain people even if you aren’t one of them. Unless he wants to continue to be an easy target for Clinton, he needs to clean up his statements and not overgeneralize.

Well clearly you are ignorant to the fact that many of the people he was referring to were already religious and “pro firearms” before they lost their jobs and economy. So I would have to disagree that what he was saying was the truth. As nicely put by Maani above, the insult comes through his accusation that people now must “cling” to these things. The point is Obama should not have said things the way he did as it was insulting to certain people even if you aren’t one of them. Unless he wants to continue to be an easy target for Clinton, he needs to clean up his statements and not overgeneralize.

The word on which almost the entire debate over Obama’s comments pivot is “cling.”  That was unquestionably a poor choice of word.  To say that people “cling” to religion or guns or whatever has a condescending and dismissive connotation.

It is also worth noting that the person who first reported his words was a 61-year-old blogger (a regular on Huffington Post who attended the evetn at which he made them) who has been an Obama supporter since the beginning of his campaign, and posted his words because she felt that “if [I] did not write about it, [I] would not be worth [my] salt as a journalist.”

Thus, this 61-year-old Obama supporter (she has even contributed to his campaign) nevertheless felt that his words - taken in the context in which he said them - were troubling, and she reported that.

Would that some of the Obama supporters here were as honest with themselves about him as she is, and not so quick to justify and rationalize his every word.

Peace.

Well TheDebater,

I don’t think anybody is (or everyone) is ‘missing’ anything of what Barack Obama has said. Rather, we don’t see it as inappropriate, or insulting. So, there’s no reason to assume that he flies off the handle or goes on the attack, since he’s NOT done that.

And, in all fairness, not all Americans have problems with the TRUTH, or have been brainwashed into accepting that TRUTH is somehow ‘inappropriate’ or otherwise ‘insulting’.

So, yours is a wasted observation.

Hillary’s just bitter because her husband, ‘The World’s Greatest Politician’, whom she was heavily counting on to run her campaign, has been proven to be just ‘So So’, when he’s got a dolt for a candidate.

^ uncalled for.  I’m the one who needs to think, sorry.

Re: TheDebater

Well, I can agree with half of your position.  Since Clinton is “supposed” to be dem, she shouldn’t bring the party to its knees, since she knows she’s already lost.  Unless… and one could argue the point…. that is her intent.

Michael McAuliff at the New York Daily News “Mouth of the Potomac” blog:

“Obviously the fact that our contest is still going on means that John McCain comes in here and he’s feeling pretty good,” Obama said at the AP luncheon, dropping one big reason. “He can be a little more deliberate and pace himself, and that probably explains the close in the polls.”

And how has Obama handled this, in comparison, say, to Hillary Clinton?

“I have tried to figure out how to show restraint and make sure that during this primary contest we’re not damaging each other so badly that it’s hard for us to run in November,” he said, before offering a few more reasons. “Obviously it’s a little easier for me to say that since I lead in delegates and states and popular vote. Sen. Clinton may not feel that she can afford to be as constrained.”

And then he sounded a little like he’d need some sort of amulet or wooden stake (or maybe Al Gore, Chuck Schumer, Rahm Emmanuel and Nancy Pelosi) to finally defeat Clinton. “There aren’t many figures in American politics who could sustain 11 straight losses and hang into a race and raise $35 million,” he said. “So in that sense she’s unique.”

And lastly, he suggested with a chuckle that she’s working off the GOP playbook.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2008/04/deployi ng-republican-arguments.html

What everyone seems to be missing is that what Obama said was inappropriate. Perhaps he didn’t mean it to come out like it did, but either way he should have not let something that insulting slip to the public eye. It makes him come off as someone who flies off the handle and goes on the attack when things don’t go as desired.
As for Clinton attacking his statement and using it to her benefit, that’s politics! No one can be mad at her for doing whatever she can to up her popularity. She’s just playing the game. And if Obama is as smart as some of you claim, he’ll start playing the game too.

No wonder Gore doesn’t want to jump into the fray.

Stick to the issues.

I still can’t believe Republicans offer MCain over Ron Paul, mindboggeling.

It’s time for Obama to run an ad using the clip he’s been saving of Hillary, Paula, and Monica snacking on weiners at a fund-raiser, and laughing their a**es off about the differences there’ll be between the new Clinton White House and the old one.

^ your sophomoric postings are wearing me out.  Get a grip; stop for a moment and think about what you say.

You know, fish, I wonder if the next election cycle will have someone quoting Barack Obama’s bitter words after nothing has been accomplished after another four years of anti-American economic and class warfare… And I wonder if Obama will condemn them as divisive, hateful and against the common man…

Politics makes liars of us all.

^ ^ you, Jackpine savage, and Purplegirl.  I’m impressed and as an ex blue collar worker myself (master machinist) I concur with your view (especially the bitter part).  The only place I like bitter is from the hops in my IPA.

This ad is ugly; McCain has always been ugly and Hillary is getting uglier by the minute.  I can hardly wait for the real battle to begin.  SCOTTY; beam me up NOW!  Please, please, please!

RealFish,

Thanks so much for posting these words from BILL CLINTON from 17 years ago!!

He was of course, ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! The irony and hypocrisy is gonna be the death of us all.

Meantime, I honestly don’t even see how Obama ‘misspoke’ though I certainly do see how it could have been TURNED INTO THAT!

In reality, I have seen more people ‘turn to their faith’ in the passed 8 years, (faith they ‘just got recently) and I know damn well it’s because there isn’t much of anything else LEFT!!

So yeah, I can see where it might be taken that way by SOME people, but in all honesty, it was simply helped along.

It’s like an e-mail that I got from another one of my faith infused friends, that said something to the effect of ‘Oh, I didn’t even know I wasn’t supposed to like that.” (Whatever it was)

Anyway, Bills words have played out…

”...if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, ‘What happened to everybody’s job? What happened to everybody’s income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?’” ....

This is EXACTLY what has been happening…blame on the ‘immigrants’ or blame it on whomever else, but don’t blame it on the ones that are responsible.

And, while we bicker and fight over the jobs, or the housing, (that’s the real nasty one in my area now..housing,).. they’re putting people on the street to put others in..I feel like I’m an Arab in Palestine or somewhere instead of Southern California, and the most expensive zip code (at least in terms of housing)on the globe.

We’ve got people fighting over the ‘right’ to pay a grand a month for cubby hole in a 30 year old structually deficient building.

I kid you not. And, the pressure apparently goes all the way up the ladder of the bureaucracy…they’ve gotta do this new aged, ‘housing cleansing’ to make room for new people and if their numbers of evictions aren’t up, I guess they lose their jobs too.

And while all of this is going on, (the fighting for resources) the thugs are still robbing us blind.

It is ironic that where Obama was making a point that politicians take those who are frustrated and bitter and use emotional issues important to them to divide them and divert them from more important issues (you know: war, economy, Constitution, etc.?) that Clinton/McCain cast this as an attack on the people who are victims of such political divisiveness.

Yes, yes, yes: Obama did not explain his thought clearly enough to avoid them being misinterpreted. Shame on him. He mis-spoke.

That’s not quite the same as lying about something (a la sniper fire); this is an actual example of what mis-speaking actually is.

And how does Clinton attack his mis-speaking? She attempts to turn his words into something that seems very emotional and that voters will take very personally and uses that to stir them up, and to divert them from more important issues (you know: war, economy, Constitution-shredding, lobbyist-led privatized government, etc.).

In short, she uses the very tactics that he was saying have harmed this country, and have divided and polarized people (something she is quite good at) over the past 30 years.

BTW: I’m a beer drinking, rural Michigan resident who worked a large part of my life in blue collar jobs. Just a touch of disclosure there. Oh, yes: I’m very bitter about being manipulated by Big Government “populists” who stir us all up about red-meat issues then forget we even exist as they ship our jobs overseas.

Finally, I offer the words of Bill Clinton, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, while he was on the campaign trail in 1991:

“When their [GHW Bush administration’s] economic policies fail, when the country’s coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, ‘What happened to everybody’s job? What happened to everybody’s income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?’”