Archive for the ‘Elections’ Category

We Voted For You Now Listen To Us

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

For a short time – mostly during the primaries – I was under the sway of Obama’s rhetoric, and mostly ignored those instances where he moved towards the center. I justified things like his support of FISA and gun rights as his pandering to the right in order to get votes, under the assumption that he would show a leftist face behind a centrist mask once he was elected.

I acknowledge now that I cannot pin all my hopes on that expectation, nor on one man, since unlike Bush thinks, the POTUS is not an all-powerful dictator. Thus he alone does not have the power to institute the kind of “CHANGE” that he preaches. You’ll notice that in my endorsement of Obama, I recognize that I am voting more for an ideal than for a man. I have become skeptical of Obama in recent weeks, but I will still vote for him as the best viable option, since third party candidates – by virtue of their non-presence in the mass media – have no chance in hell.

Obama and Socialism

Monday, October 27th, 2008

The attempts by the political right-wing of the United States, in their accusations of Barack Obama being a “socialist” in his economic plans, either doesn’t know what socialism is, or is dependent upon their audience’s likely ignorance of the term. First of all, socialism cannot be defined as any one thing, given that it is a broad and often conflicting set of ideologies. One of the better-known offshoots of socialism, however, is communism, and the right is just short of channeling Joseph McCarthy and yelling the deadly “C-word” in Obama’s direction. As Victor Davis Hanson at the National Review suggests, Obama would have everyone making the same salary, regardless of their role in the workforce.

So that we’re clear, that would be communism. And it is even further from what Obama is proposing than libertarian free-market capitalism. One need look no further than Obama’s surrogates (a practice the right is obsessed with when it suits their agenda) to determine whether or not his economic policies evoke communism. Cue Warren Buffett, currently the richest man on the planet Earth, and one of Obama’s campaign advisors. Buffett would have more to lose than anyone were the United States to somehow become communist, so I doubt that he would support a candidate running on such a platform.

A Thousand Words

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

West Virginia & Gas Tax Holidays

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
“I think Democrats across the country tomorrow will be asking themselves why Senator Obama — with all of his money, with all of the great press, with voters being told he was the inevitable nominee — why did Senator Obama lose West Virginia by 15 points or so?”
—Howard Wolfson

No, actually, Mr. Wolfson, they’ll just be thinking that most of the people in West Virginia are stupid ass-backwards hicks. Or perhaps that’s too generous and most Democrats won’t give a passing thought to what happens in West Virginia. What does happen in West Virginia, anyway? Does anyone but the people in West Virginia even know or care? Probably not.

It’s funny how Hillary Clinton has to scrounge for whatever little support she can muster – such as in inconsequential places like West Virginia, and through meaningless policies like the gas tax holiday. As if people will say:

“Hey, we’re thousands of dollars in debt, but you’ve saved us $70! Thanks Mrs. Clinton!”

Really, how does anyone take this woman seriously?

Clinton Evokes The Dark Side

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

To say that the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominating process has divided the party is an understatement. It’s created a chasm – along racial, religious, social, and economic lines. The people who support Hillary Clinton do so with zeal and with a contempt for Barack Obama’s campaign. The reverse is true for people who support Barack Obama, except there seems to be the added dimension of how those supporters feel about Hillary Clinton as a person. Using myself as an example, this campaign has made me not only condemn Clinton’s candidacy, but has led me to expressing something verging on hatred for the woman herself.

I have used all sorts of euphemisms to describe her, regrettably ones that highlight that she is a woman, even though her gender has absolutely nothing to do with my disdain. It just so happens that our language has assigned feminine-associated words with negative attributions