Topic: Barack Obama
Barack Obama - A Very Different Presidency [1] Obama wasn't Wright, but he did what he had to. [2] Obama is a wild card politically speaking, but that is a big asset not a liability.[3] Obama is new start not just domestically, but abroad as well.by Gary Trieste
(Libertarian)
Monday, June 16, 2008
Although I will most likely vote for Barr, I am provisionally glad to see Obama gaining electoral prominence.
In fact, I predict that he will take on Clinton as his Vice Presidential candidate [78% chance], and I predict that he will win the presidency [93% chance].
Yes Obama has socialist proffers, but so do almost all contemporary politicians, sans the libertarian ones. What critics point out to be his weak points, e.g., his lack of political experience and minimal ties to the Washington DC social hierarchy, his age, is exactly what I like most about him.
His so-called inexperience means that he will be starting out with a fresh slate, a newer outlook, a less entrenched and more forward looking stance. Like a teenager, he does not know his limitations in a visceral way, as would a wizened old politician. I did not like Hillary Clinton for the very reasons she touted herself, that she spent 8 years in the White House, and knows the political landscape so very well.
A McCain presidency would be even worse^2. Not only would he suffer the same political incumbency and dhry jaded, government-as-usual attitude, but he supports a virtual continuation of the Bush legacy, with a few minor tweaks so as to make him more stomach-able to the electorate. He is also an inveterate authoritarian with a bad temper, who believes that the collective always takes precedence over the individual.
Providently, the chance of McCain winning the election is a remote possibility. The collective ire of the American people against Bush, his international adventurism, and his domestic ministrations, makes it political poison to anyone having anything to do with him. Obama vs McCain will be a landslide victory for the former.
It is likely that an Obama election will give this country a breather that it hasn't had in a long time. Hopefully a new respect for the due process of law will return to the executive branch, not the usual expedience based philosophy of law - "Do it first, and see what we can get away with".
Given Obama's racial background, and the experiences that often come with it, he will have a serious respect for the effectiveness of immediate civil rights, not deferred ones, and the individual's legal protections against the strong arming of the law.
And yes, unfortunately I also think we will also see our individual economic rights more directly withered away. Obama will likely concurrently champion public funding, i.e. involuntary redistribution of our earnings, to subsidize the needs of those who did not earn those subsidies. However, notwithstanding the Republican lip service to fiscal conservatism, we have seen the largest public expenditures ever made under their supposed financial aegis. So, although in the light that Bush squandered our national savings internationally, I don't particularly fear more an Obama versus a Bush administration, in the squandering of it domestically.
The Obama presidency will be as close to a politico-social revolution against the hypocritical 8 year Republican incumbency as we will get for a long time. It will be a radical shift in what we have seen recently, as well as historically for the nation.
Notably compounding the political landscape shift, will be the stereotype barriers that will be shattered domestically and abroad by election of a 50% racially Caucasian president. It will be an inspiration for many who had crossed off the US as an irreconcilably racist and war mongering nation, and will show the world that we as a people will try to erase our mistakes in national leadership by electing a very kind of different leader.
Obama didn't play it too cool with the Rev. Wright controversy. But I think I can explain it.
I certainly believe that Obama knew of Wright's inflammatory opinions, but I believe that he didn't agree with them. Nothing in the public record indicates even a slight racial bigotry in Obama's personna.
In the Mainstream Media orchestrated public battle between Wright and Obama, Obama was forced to own up to his relationship with Wright, something that got publically more distasteful as the days went by. With Wright acting more and more like a loose cannon, and against Obama's hope and expectation that Wright would like to see Obama as our first 50% black president, Obama found himself having to defend the indefensible.
The dynamic of his candicacy demanded that he say something stupid, like he didn't know of Wright's positions and rantings, in damage control for sounding even stupider (or worse) that he sat through 20 years of that crap but didn't leave the congregation.
The reason I think he didn't leave was purely social, and largely political as well. He had gained a large group of friends in that congregation, with whatever influences and social ties that were concurrent with that membership. It would have been social suicide to leave and condemn the pastor. So as a matter of practicality he stayed; probably mentally sifting through most of what the pastor said that was valid and rejecting privately what was not.
And yet he must have known that that political bugaboo would rear its ugly pincers and eventually bite him in the ass.
It would seem to be behind him now, even though his explanation is not really accepted as true. But it is unlikely that McCain will hammer him on it much, as McCain has had his own pastoral skeletons jump out of his closet as well.
The election will nonetheless be very interesting.
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Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2008-06-16 12:09:33
Hi Gary,
I disagree with most of your article. Not the facts, just your opinions about what they mean.
The blow-by-blow isn't interesting but I wanted to point out why I disagree rather than how.
I believe Obama is bought and paid for by the super wealthy Socialist elite who fund the Democratic Party. They knew 8 years ago that Hillary would be running and they wanted a minority candidate but ... not Hillary. They have been preparing for the Obama presidency for years; long before Obama knew he was going to run for president.
When viewed in this light there isn't any need to concoct elaborate rationalizations for Obama's behavior in this situation or that issue. Obama does what he is told by the power brokers who will make him the first Black President. He is bought and paid for. His lack of experience and official record is their "get out of jail free" card. If Obama blows up they can point to his lack of a public record and claim they were misled.
No matter what he says about foreign policy, he will rely on the war powers act of 1973 just like Clinton did unless there is a real war, then he will jump in with both feet just like Democrat presidents always do.
The only change Obama will bring is a faster ride on the death spiral of an empire in decline because he doesn't even understand that it is happening. He will hasten the collapse of "the American way of life"; the only question is, will he hasten it more than McCain? Who knows? We all lose either way and there isn't any "breather" coming. Our leaders have sold our future to the devil of inflation, collected the rewards and now the time has come to pay. Inflation is a powerful friend when it first gets your support but when inflation gets hungry, it eats your future, and your children's future, and it doesn't make one bit of difference if the President at the time has an "R" or a "D" by their name.
Well, unfortunately I think the wealthy socialist elites have put on such a convincing show that I have actually bought into their prefabbed storyline that Obama is just a regular guy with a disadvantaged past, great perseverence and good oratory skills.
Certainly there are powerful behind the scenes entities that are funding his rise to power, but like the deluded fool I am, I don't think it has been preemptorily scripted in advance for years, and although the man may owe political favors, I don't think he has been "bought and paid for".
As to he rest of your post, certainly Obama may unconstitutionally utilise his warring powers as have other presidents.
I don't think Obama will bring a faster spiral death ride. I think he will bring a slower spiral death ride than either Clinton, McCain or Bush. The way things are, I don't think anything will change that unless a very radical shift is made in the way our federal govt allocates it expenditures - along the lines of slash and burn policies of Ron Paul. We can't keep funding our regular outlays of cash to the rest of the world, when we are needing it here ever so much more. The same goes for internal domestic pork type fundings. We are broke, but it just hasn't filter down to the general public in a really exigent way yet.
If and when it does, then MAYBE we will have the populace ready to elect a Ron Paul type reformer.
Are either of you seriously contending that there's a dark-robed gathering of villains in some secret torch-lit cave bankrolling Barack Obama? If so, please contact the FEC immediately with your information.
Gary, don't be tempted into Jahfre's line of cynical thought. You can go online and see exactly who is funding Barack Obama. It's We the People, with an average donation size of under $200. I believe he reached over one million individual donations. He's also barring PAC money from his campaign.
Jahfre, don't be so filled with despair that you fail to see the good when it comes. A people-powered campaign took on the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, and won. Yes, Clinton was the establishment candidate, as the rush of superdelegates who endorsed her before the first caucus showed. Obama didn't surpass her in that regard until around the date of the last primary. Hillary was considered inevitable and everyone wanted to be betting on the winning horse. Barack beat the most well-oiled machine in modern political history, the Clintons, and won, and did it via a bottom-up grass roots people-powered campaign. Someone put it aptly when they said that if Howard Dean was the Wright brothers, Obama is the moon landing.
Gary, you are right in that Obama represents hope for the ending of the Bush years, marked by rank incompetence, the politicization of everything, and greed. McCain's pick of Sarah Palin shows we'd have more "heck-of-a-job" Mike Browns under McCain.
Obama inspired me enough to declare a party affiliation for the first time in my life, and cast my first primary vote. I planned on switching back to independent, but what I've seen from him so far has made me stay. I don't see a death spiral ahead like either of you. I see two men committed to making us safer, who will use force as the last, not first, option, who understand the concerns of average folk, who care about those who are uninsured and can't afford health care, who care about the loss of jobs, rising debt, and dependence on foreign oil.
We're not broke, Gary - we're just spending more than we take in. There are three solutions to that: spend less, take in more money, or both. Obama's plan will cut taxes for 95% of the public while slightly raising it on those who are well off (or should I say made out like bandits when Bush gave them tax cuts during a time of war). We don't need to slash and burn, nor, frankly, is that what the American public wants. We need to seriously trim the military budget - we're spending as much as THE REST OF THE PLANET EARTH COMBINED. That's a wee bit too much. We're also giving tax breaks to oil companies with record-setting profits, and war profiteers like Halliburton. Stem cell research or road repair aren't the blood-sucking leeches; it's military/industrial concerns. Tame those, and we won't have more bridge collapses or levee breaches.
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Although I will most likely vote for Barr, I am provisionally glad to see Obama gaining electoral prominence.