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 One Giant Leap for AmericaPosted on Jan 14, 2008America is downright giddy with the possibility of electing its first black president. You can feel it in the air whenever the subject of Barack Obama comes up. His recent primary performances have obliterated any doubt about his electability. We’ve never been here before, and this time we think it just might happen. The first “black” candidate to raise the serious prospect of actual election was Colin Powell in 1995.
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By Conservative Yankee, January 20 at 5:46 am # Manni"In the meantime, unless theManni “In the meantime, unless the Dems do something truly stupid and really shoot themselves in the foot, based on the current zeitgeist here, WHOEVER is the Dem candidate should win the general election, no matter what the right tries to throw at them.” I would like to point out that your reasoning here has two small flaws. First many folks are unconcerned about the war, or believe it is finally being won; (I am not one of these) I know the polls… Well, the polls are broad, and electoral districts are narrow, designed that way by folks wishing to pack like-minded citizens into voting blocks. The electorial college currently favors the Republicans which means a small number of people (in some middle state, say Wisconsin or Michigan where both Clinton and Bush have conspired to destroy the economy, will decide the 2008 election. Both those States (I would like to point out) have Diebold voting machines… and some Michigan cities have paperless ballots. Even aside from that, here in Maine (split delegate count) the Dems will lose 2 electors this time if they run Hill the Business shill. I consider my self fairly -middle- but I will vote for any candidate who has the best chance of defeating another Clinton… which this part of Maine can not afford. When Clinton took office in 1992, there were five shoe factories and four paper mills within 100 miles of my house. There is now one paper mill still working half shift, and it will be gone before the end of this year. Coincidently, the shoe factories made their plans to exit within weeks of hamburger-bill’s signing of MFN for China. In this part of the world we view Clintons as traitors.
By Kath cantarella, January 19 at 4:15 pm # It's happening, huh?REPLY TO MAANI: Hillary’s riding the women’s vote home. If it’s happening on the left, it’s got to happen a bit on the centre right, too. I’m not ashamed to say that, all things being equal, her gender and the precedent it sets would sway my vote. Her positions are very good, with wide appeal. I suspect the polls are complete crap.
By kath cantarella, January 19 at 4:29 am # P.S. Hillary is the most upfront candidate.More so than Obama, i think. But i’ll count myself lucky if there’s a President Obama next year. Bush’s US has had a huge influence on Australia, not just through Howard’s discipleship either. An influence especially, i believe, on the position of women here. I think the US has a huge effect on the position of women all over the world. US wars do too. War changes a society’s attitudes, it is such a patriarchal entity. If you guys can’t get it right, it doesn’t mean no one else can, but it does make good things harder to achieve, IMO. I would see a President HRC as a major step forward for women everywhere. Good luck.
By kath cantarella, January 18 at 10:31 pm # Maani, my apologies. I have read so many conflicting thingsthat my opinion can be of no help to anyone. My only concern here is to see a progressive AND anti-war person win the election (i wouldn’t have a clue who fits that description: i read one thing, then the opposite. How do you guys find out anything real?). This will also help my country, not just yours. John Howard’s gone, and when Bush is gone, it’ll be even better. Thankyou for replying to me.
By Conservative Yankee, January 16 at 9:05 am # By kath cantarella, January 15By kath cantarella, January 15 at 10:53 pm “If you give Hillary the nomination, you will have a progressive, moderate, antiwar president in 2009, and there’s absolutely nothing the Republicans can do about it.” Actually, If you give Hill-the-business-shill the nomination you will have a candidate for the general election hopelessly in hock to Big Pharma, the Insurance Companies, and off shore businesses. You will get a self-serving megalomaniac who some on this board have referred to as “Bush in a skirt” You will get an advocate for illegal workers, lowering the already stagnant wage, and unlimited H-1b visas. The only way this shill for corporate dollars can be described as “moderate” is to accept that, today, the policies of Ron Reagan, Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and Thomas Dewey would be classified as “liberal” Personally, I am not ready for that much re-writing of history.
By kath cantarella, January 17 at 5:43 pm # She has spoken in terms of unqualified support ofIsrael (Israel needs to be criticised for it’s own good, not just supported) and she used very strong terms in her speeches when she thought Iran was developing nukes. That’s what still scares me about her. I do believe she’s anti-war, though. She’s growling to avoid a war. But she needs to growl at Israel a bit, too. I think that’s the main reason so many on the left prefer Obama. The question is, can Obama beat McCain?
By Conservative Yankee, January 17 at 5:45 am # Re: Re: By kath cantarella, January 15By Maani, January 16 at 7:33 pm So Maani...which of these entities (whom you seem to trust) has exposed the innate corruption you bemoan when talking about “911-truth?” and which person withing any of these entities has expressed interest in a REAL investigation concerning the happenings of that day? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. What I said (if you read my post again) is that the whole of the USA has moved to what used to be referred to as “far right” Remember the liberal distortion of Barry Goldwater’s campaign slogan..."In your heart you know he’s right” retort: “Yeah FAR right” Barry looks like a leftist compared to Bush Cheney, Negroponte, Bolton, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Khalilzad, Rice, and Hadley You disagree?
By kath cantarella, January 15 at 10:53 pm # i believe there is such a thing as the female vote,and that it is the most powerful voting block in the country. Hillary Clinton has cornered the market on that vote by her brilliant pro-choice but anti-abortion stance, and by virtue of the fact that she is female. She probably won’t get less than 40% of US females voting for her, she’ll probably get more. All she needs is 10% or 20% of the male vote and she’s in. If she runs against McCain, she has also cornered the anti-war vote. If you give Hillary the nomination, you will have a progressive, moderate, antiwar president in 2009, and there’s absolutely nothing the Republicans can do about it. With Obama as Vice President preparing to take the top job in a term or two, you are looking at a progressive government for 4 to 16 years. In that time, the nation, and the world will heal, and there’s nothing rhetorical about that statement. I can guarantee you that Hillary knows all about the votes. She is one smart cookie (nevermind the squeaky voice). What a terrible job she is taking on with someone else’s war to clean up and a foundering economy. Every move she makes and the media will come down on her like a ton of bricks. Why is she doing it to herself? If you think about it, we have all been incredibly ungrateful to her, simply because she isn’t charming. Corporate she may be, all the front-runners are corporate by necessity, but she’s no war-monger. And she will win the ultimate election. Hillary Clinton for President. Obama or Kucinich for Vice President (and future president). Cross your legs, boys.
By kath cantarella, January 16 at 2:11 pm # Re: Re: i believe there is such a thing as the female vote,Hi Maani, None of the front-running Democratic candidates are the full solution, but they are the necessary thin end of the wedge. It is clear to me that the US system is at the absolute nadir of corruption, and there can be no ‘sudden leap’ to fairness. Thinking that way is not only very unfair on Obama (and Hillary), it will also get McCain or Huckabee or Romney elected, and i can’t see much difference between those three and Bush. There is a noticable difference between the leading Dems and Bush however. If the Dems are smart, they have already won the election.
By Henry, January 15 at 4:30 pm # In this democratic primary, IIn this democratic primary, I feel people get lost in the importance of a candidate’s stated polcies. I would like to make two points. One, we have seen from how George Bush ran and still runs the country that the policies a candidate promises during an election are by no means assured to be put in place. In fact, the policies advertised tell only two small things about a candidate. 1) Where they stand in general on an issue/ where they think the public wants them to stand on an issue and 2)The ability of the candidate to hire good assistants to write intelligent policies for them. Go Obama!
By Sharon Ash, January 15 at 12:13 pm # Well, Puff the Magic Dragon!!!Congratulations go out to you, The Reverend Shockley, as you have managed to make Dennis Kucinich look like a realists by comparison to you and your dreamy world of white and black branches on the tree. Okay, so who wants to be first to strike up a few bars of Kumbaya as we all hold hands and watch the ice caps magically begin to reform, and the national debt disappear......
By havisham, January 15 at 6:55 am # are you kidding?of the many things one could say about the factual evasions of this “essay,” i’d like to focus on its assumption that transcending the “angry black man” is some sort of progress. with a growing prison population comprised mostly by poor minorities, with disparities in education, healthcare, and life expectancy--with disproportionate numbers of unemployed black men, do we really want a “black” candidate who puts those issues on the back burner just so he won’t appear “angry”? positive thinking can have a positive impact, but holding hands around the campfire and turning your back on injustice, having an african father and a white mother is a far cry from being born in a black ghetto in the u.s., and it’s mistaken to think that any of the presidential candidates has a special insight into that kind of life. the fact that obama went to an ivy league school at all is consistent with admission trends in elite education--admit children of immigrants, mixed raced people, and upper middle class minorities and count them as “black.” if anyone is trapped in the past it is the author of this essay, who thinks that race is still just about skin tone--it’s not. that well-placed “people of color” can make it to the top of a profession is no surprise--but do they really represent the experiences of most of the other people who happen to have a similiar skin tone? it’s the 21st century and not the 19th--we need to be more critical about the ways we talk about race.
By Conservative Yankee, January 15 at 6:16 am # It is my estimation thatIt is my estimation that the time for the “multihued candidate” has passed. To place Shirley Chisholm below Obama is pure non-sense as Shirley clearly stood for something. In her time a unpopular something, having to do with equal opportunity for all folks IRREGARDLESS OF COLOR. Shirley wasn’t talking about race necessarily. She referred to “folks living in rusty trailers, run down slums, and on worked out land. Shirley was particularly interested in children (she had a Masters in Early Childhood) Anyone who claims ANY of the current candidates is “inspiring” must never have heard Shirley speak, and speak she did in places where current candidates won’t go. Bed Sty (where she was born) and East New York, as well as West Point, where she spoke AGAINST the Vietnam war, and the University of Utah where she spoke about Diversity! Courage was her forte, and she walked among the people fielding questions from even the guy with rags wrapped around his feet. She rode the Subways and city buses and shunned “limousine liberals” A great woman, and fully worthy of any high office this country might offer. We should be so lucky as to ever see her like again.
By louis Proyect, January 15 at 6:06 am # Obama's economic advisershttp://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/obamas -economic-advisers/
By Richard Burton, Trieste, January 15 at 5:08 am # Dear Sir,Barack Obama has beenDear Sir, Barack Obama has been somewhat reticient about a small business intelligence unit he worked for after his elite education (see New York Times), a company which was later bought by UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit. Given:- 1. the rather suspicious nature of similar small companies (consultancies?), such as London-based Freshminds (see http://www.freshminds.co.uk); 2. that Barak Obama is half Kenyan, born 1961; and 3. that Kenya was British-ruled until December 1963; might one be justified in suggesting the possibility that Mr Obama is a Manchurian—or perhaps Mancunian—sort of Candidate. A created rainbow character with numerous and apparently true ‘legends’, but in fact a product of the Anglo-Saxon Deep State types with addresses in West London and their cousins across the pond, beholden to them for his entire career? I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, Richard Burton
By Ostrogoth, January 15 at 12:26 am # keep your infatuation out of politics“Now our collective voice rises even higher and the “Yes” of our initial infatuation becomes the “Yesssssssss!!!!!!” of pure love. This good feeling will be more critical in the upcoming elections than his brief political tenure.” This uplifting, feel-good article fails to touch the ground at any time. Tell the hundreds of thousands of torture victims and relatives of murdered Iraqis how they should have a good feeling about Obama. Obama has done nothing to help them and much to hurt them. His rhetoric against the war is just empty rhetoric, intended to assuage our collective guilt while he rakes in ever more cash from AIPAC and the oil lobby. Has he done anything to impede the fascists’ nuclear saber-rattling against Iran, a nation guilty of no crimes other than possessing huge oil deposits and opposing Israeli apartheid? Uh-uh. Obama was conspicuously absent when the Senate passed the AIPAC resolution authorizing war against Iran. Like the dutiful politician he is, Obama was out on the campaign trail, kissing babies and making mothers feel good, while the US Senate was authorizing WWIII. First things first. But whenever the Zionist lobby, the oil lobby, the defense lobby, or any other lobby calls in its markers from corrupt politicians, there’s Obama, the dutiful pol, ready to serve. If you’re satisfied with good feelings, hope, unity, bipartisanship, and generally happy rhetoric while US fascists continue murdering and plundering at home and abroad, then Obama’s your man. Or Hilarious is your woman, as you like.
By lib in texas, January 15 at 8:38 am # Re: It's a good thing thisMaani, excellent critique. Add Your Comment |
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Newsroom Carnage Continues at The Washington Post
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