Liberal Rapture

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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Why Does Obama Hate White Voters?

God forgive me for linking to the Huffington Post. But even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. Sean Wilentz lays it out.
In every presidential election they have won, the Democrats have solidified their historic link to white workers, not dismissed them. Obama and the champions of a new party coalition appear to think that everything has suddenly changed, simply because of the force of their own desires. In any event, Obama had shown no ability thus far to attract the one constituency that has always spelled the difference between victory and defeat for the Democratic Party.

Obama intends change indeed. He intends to destroy the historic underpinnings of the Democratic Party.

Having attempted, with the aid of a complicit news media, to brand Hillary Clinton as a racist- by flinging charges that, as the historian Michael Lind has shown, belong "in black helicopter/grassy knoll territory," Obama's supporters now fiercely claim that Clinton's white working class following is also essentially racist.

The Obama advocates declare that we have entered an entirely new political era. It is not only possible but also desirable, they say, for Democrats to win by turning away from those whom "progressive" pundits and bloggers disdain variously as "Nascar man," "uneducated," "low information" whites, "rubes, fools, and hate-mongers"who live in the nation's "shitholes."

Let me add as a Progressive: Obama's campaign is anti-liberal. It is racist in tone and deed. Should Obama succeed in forcing his will on the party there will be no reason for me and millions of others to remain Democrats.

My mantra remains: The fundamental force animating Obama's campaign is not Hope and Change. It is Resentment and Anger.

Now I must go shower off after spending a few minutes at the Huff Post.

Labels: Michelle Obama, Obama, race, Racist

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Be Afraid

On a previous post a comment was made asking what are we afraid of if Obama gets the nomination?

I'm afraid in the next few years the shit is going to hit the fan and we need someone who is present and doesn't just vote "present."

We are running out of oil. John is Mr. Peak Oil guy and can tell you that our whole economy is based on cheap oil. Cheap oil is gone. Hello $200 per barrel. We're going to need someone in the Oval Office who can offer solutions and not platitudes.

I live in Florida and was hit by three hurricanes in 2004. Charlie was BAD. Global warming will increase the severity of hurricanes. I don't trust someone who caved on nuclear regulations for his home state to fight for a carbon tax.

There is a global food shortage. Can someone who is concerned about the price of arugula deal with the price of rice? Or the lack of rice? Or corn?

We are losing our standing in the world. A man who sat in a pew for twenty years and never saw a problem with a pastor who had the audacity to dry hump on the pulpit to mock a former Democratic President is not someone who I want representing me. A man who says he transcends race but race baited and only disowned his racist pastor after the pastor accused him of acting like a politician has no moral compass or morality.

I am afraid of Michelle Obama. She complains because she got in to Princeton despite her low test scores. Wow, that's such a drag. She complains about paying back student loans. Man, I feel so sorry for her. She went to two expensive schools and they actually expect her to pay for it?

I'm afraid of never getting universal health care. Senator Obama's plan stinks and he used Republican talking points to put down Senator Clinton's. I just can't see him pushing it through.

I'm afraid of re-living Jimmy Carter's presidency.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to vote for McCain. Because you can scream about the Supreme Court or a Bush third term but we need a grown up in the White House and if that grown up isn't Senator Clinton I'll take my chances with McCain.

Labels: Food shortage, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Michelle Obama, Obama, peak oil, race

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Hillary: Stay in the race no matter what!

Vote Totals - including Florida and Michigan. Every single uncommitted vote in Michigan I counted as an Obama vote.
Obama: 14,738,256
Clinton: 14,734,256

That is a 4000 vote difference nationally. 4000. With Pennsylvania yet to come. Gee, I wonder if Hillary will flip the total there?

So to all those who say Clinton should get out - I say: SHUT UP!

Labels: Clinton, Hillary, Obama, race, votes

Sunday, March 23, 2008

The poisonous campaign of Barack Obama

If I ever reflect on how it is that I went from being a huge fan of Obama's, to a person who was excited about him and waiting to hear his plans, to wondering why I was not hearing anything tangible, to coming to terms with that fact he had no intention of clarifying anything, to coming to understand that he was a shallow pretender, to loathing everything his campaign represents - I will look no further than this email I received today from an Obamite:

let me guess with all respect,
-- you are below college education. thats for sure. right?
-- you have a working class background. thats also for sure. right?
-- you are not interested in politics. thats possible. right?
-- you prefer to eat cheese stakes at geno's. thats also possible. right?
-- your are just a bad bad-boy who likes to play mind games. maybe. right?
have a nice day

I loath these people. I will vote for McCain or no one if Obama gets the nomination. Not because every one of these assumptions is wrong about me. I have a BFA, come from a middle class background, am obsessed with politics, and am a bad boy but not a "bad bad" boy. (A cheese "stake" would be a bizarre and pointless item so I have no use for it, but I do like a cheese steak every now and again).
I will vote for McCain or not at all because of the dripping, oozing condescension that Obamites have for those without college degrees. Because of the high end, fraudulent contempt Obamites have for the working class. Because I do not want to sit through another 4 years of an administration populated by those who think "cheese steak" consumers are less than equal partners in a democracy. I don't give a flying crap where the prigs land on the Left/Right scale.

By lying overtly and covertly about who he is Obama has poisoned this campaign and this country. He has used his considerable talents as an orator to fool the chattering classes and the media. He has used skillful oratory to blur his questionable past, rewrite our recent history, and open another gash in the wound of race in America. He has taken the difficult issue of race and turned it into a Benetton commercial and wonders why Pennsylvania isn't buying it. He breathlessly compares his grandmother to the putrid Wright and wonders why his grand "speech" didn't take. He has taken the low road, while claiming the high one. He has lied about his intentions for the wars if elected. He has lied about his association with his church: Our Lady of Perpetual Resentment. He has plagiarized speeches, lied about both Clintons, lied about NAFTA, and run a dishonest, ruthless campaign. He has willfully associated with bigots, slumlords and terrorists to further his career. (Yes, William Ayres is a terrorist.) He has turned the idea of meritocracy on its head by elevating vagueness and self promotion to messianic heights. He has accomplished nothing of note in his public life and insults those who have. Finally, the clip below of the staged "woman fainting" at his revival meetings is seemingly minor but goes to the heart of the Obama ideology: Illusion over reality.

He is a fraud.

I loath his campaign for good reason.

Voters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, and North Carolina can drive a stake (cheese?) into the heart of the Obama campaign - or Republicans, Independents, and 25-40% of the Democrats can in November.

Let me tell you: if Michigan and Florida had not been thrown overboard by Howard Dean and Donna Brazile - Obama would not matter. "God Damn, America!" is not going away. It is testimony to the willing irresponsibility of the media that Wright's bile was not shown to the nation earlier. If Wright had been known to us in January, Obama would be a footnote now. It was out there to be seen. It is only compliant, brain-dead, synchophants in the MSM that kept those tapes off the air for so long. With two candidates that cannot get a majority of the delegates we have a real monster on our hands.

Obama has never been qualified for the Presidency. But staying in a church in which your pastor screams GOD DAMN AMERICA! from the pulpit disqualifies him forever. He is responsible for his actions. His action in this case was to make excuses. All the ass kissing by all the kings men - and women - (Olbermann, Dowd, Rich, and the rest) can't put Obama back together again. Independents are falling away like Greenland glaciers. Republicans will be energized. And half the Democratic party will be angry.

Finally, when all is said and done - it is his lunatic supporters I fear most. We have gotten a small taste of that happy mob turning ugly this week. Imagine what they'd do with a President Obama (lol) stranded between his own rhetoric and reality.

Labels: campaign, Obama, race, Rev. Wright

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Obama buries his grandmother before she's dead.

BHO told Hillary that words DO matter. I agree. They don't matter as much as actions, though. Obama put his own LIVING grandmother in the same context at Rev. Wright. It is grotesque. This is the woman who raised him while his "free spirit" mother was gone. Here is why that speech of his Tuesday does not and should not matter: He gave lip service to "black anger" and "white resentment" without honestly seeming to understand what causes "white resentment". Using the ancient comments of one of the women who raised him as a theater piece to make a point in speech calculated to save a political campaign goes to the heart of the problem. Obama does not get it. With people like Rev. Wright there is never enough progress. They use history as a battering ram while at the same time ignoring it. Progress has been made, but members of Obama's church don't seem to think so. Michelle Obama says in the clip posted below that her husband as a black man "could get shot at a gas station." without bothering to note that statistics indicate that the shooter would most likely be black as well. Any conversation about race (Lynne pointed out that we are often about to start a conversation about race but rarely go on to have it...remember the Imus affair.) must be as much about responsibility as it is about injustice. It's 2008, not 1968. This is what Michelle and Barrack Obama don't seem to understand. In not understanding this they telegraph and confirm the worst suspicions of many non black voters.

Whether BHO and Wright likes it or not, whether it is "fair" or not is beside the point. The fact is much of the nation is sick to death of taking the blame for what appears to be callous irresponsibility. The haranguing of Bill Cosby by black "leaders" when he dared state that some of the problems in the black community were the fault of the black community is a good example.

To put his own Grandmother in the same category as Mark Furman is desperate.

Thanks to Scott for pointing this clip out. The guy who made it was fired from the McCain campaign today - but I am sure he's employed by a Swift boater by now. It is a sad day when a GOP operative has to be the one pointing out the obvious.

Labels: Obama, Obama Grandmother, Obama's Church, race

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Questions about Obama's judgement will not go away.

I commend Obama for his speech today. He tried, at least, to get out in front of the conversation and I like that in a politician. He tried to put the Wrong Reverend Wright in some context. Though he was moving (of course, we expect no less at this point) and personal there is only one context for Rev Wright that matters politically - He said "We should not be singing God Bless America we should be singing God Damn America." from the pulpit...

From the pulpit of a church he refuses to leave. That is the context.

I admit this: I am sick of Black Anger. My liberal guilt has morphed into liberal exhaustion. I know many who feel the same way. Many are fed up with making excuses and hearing excuses for bad behavior. For what? To hear a man spew bile from a pulpit? And to then hear a major party candidate make excuses for his membership in this man's church?

An African American commentator said on Fox - "you just don't understand the black church."

No. I don't. If Wright is any indication I no longer care to.

What Rev Wright exposes from that pulpit is not "black anger" so much as it is creepy paranoia. The sermons we have all seen are lists of every screwy idea that too many white voters have long suspected had currency in the black community:

A contempt for the country.

A belief that AIDS came from the government.

Willy nilly, shockingly mean spirited, sexual jibs at President Clinton (for the purpose of rewriting history and Bill Clinton's entire life.) The casual, joking dismissal of Bill Clinton's record on race is disgusting.

An attack on Hillary Clinton's ability to empathize because "she has never been called a niger". Meaning, one assumes, that she just doesn't get it. But lets call this what it is: an attack on her WHITENESS.

A grotesque reference to 9/11.

There is nothing unifying about any of this.

And Obama did not leave this church. By playing fast and lose with race during the past 3 months Obama has become THE divisive candidate. It may not be fair. But there it is. When a Clinton campaign aid said something remotely off base about race she put an end to them. And apologized. Obama made eloquent excuses today.

The BHO campaign used race all along. When it worked in South Carolina they used it and tried to tamp all questions about it down when the political winds blew the other way. His race did not matter - unless it did. Axelrod dictated the when and the where - and the Olbermanns played along. Wright ruined that. The talking points about race have been ripped from Obama's hands. It turns out, Mr. Axlerod, the world is not a Benetton ad campaign.

Tonight I was seeing a truly ridiculous rendering of the otherwise sublime Sweeney Todd in downtown Los Angeles so I have not seen any media. I am sure they are dutifully awestruck. I am not at all sure it matters. Time Magazine has a bunch of responses to the speech. Some are glowing, some not. Michael Munger a professor at Duke said this: A black candidate named Barrack Hussein Obama can't have questions about his patriotism, and commitment to America, not if he is going to beat a genuine war hero. I think Obama is unelectable.

That sums it up neatly. Democrats face and awful choice. A choice created when Obama's handlers decided to make South Carolina a referendum for black voters by race baiting Clinton's LBJ comment.

Questions about Obama's judgement will not go away. It is possible Obama might become a first class Senator given time. I wish he had not gotten this far before Wright's views were aired. He could then slide easily back to the Senate. Now his nomination will ensure an ugly, hateful fall campaign. Clinton's merely ensures a nasty one. After his speech today it is hard to fathom a scenario now in which he beats McCain. The GOP convention will be 4 days of singing God Bless America. There is no state Bush won in 2004 that he can turn blue. None. There are at least 4 Blue states that will go Red. Probably more. He condemned part of what Wright said but not the man. He needed to use his enormous gifts as an orator to obliterate any connection to Wright. He did not. Again, it may not be fair. But the majority will not tolerate a President who tolerates Rev. Wright's idea of America. I acknowledge that this fact has elements of racism.
A white candidate with an awful white preacher in tow might get by. A black one cannot.

Labels: Clinton, Obama, Obama's Church, olbermann, race