Reflections of a bitch slap.
Offline It seems like only yesterday, that we woke up out of the 8 year nightmare. Having lived through the two Bush elections, I was extreemly nervous but hopefull this past November.
Unlike the prior two elections that dragged on, this was a welcome domino that fell on Election night. I was ready to stay up all night for the results. But, Penn fell, then Ohio then Fla, just merely under a couple ours and I was shocked, but pleased at how quickly it went. I knew that with those three states gone, Obama was going to win.
And it seemed after the second lection that the following 4 years would seem like 4 million. But, the day is finally upon us, and the house has fallen on the Wicked Witch of the West, and Darth Vadar and his cronies will be religated to the status of the hangover from drinking Mad Dog 20/20.
It is finally over, and no matter how bad the economy is, or how long it will take to recover, Every president and every politician needs to keep in mind what Bush failed to learn. You are not kings, nor dictators. Our constitution and voting system, however imperfect it can be sometimes, is perfect in one aspect, as long as it is protected, the oportunity in the future to change things is there if we seek it.
Election day should remind us, that we can, if we want, we can. Not only did we defeat ideology and theocracy, we bitch slapped a person who thought he was the center of the universe.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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You have a short memory there Brian. Kerry conceded at 11:00 a. m. on the 3rd of November. The only real wrinkles in the process were from the Green and Libertarian parties requesting a recount in Ohio and Ralph Nader requesting one in New Hampshire.
Apart from that, the worst part of the process was the usual attempt to steal the election by democratic party loyalists. Mainly filing lawsuits in Florida challenging the count in Florida but the filings were well ahead of election day (as a tactical measure just in case of a close count) and challenging Ohio's electoral votes in congress (which was a miserable failure due to the fact the congress was majority republican controlled at that point).
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The shit hasn't even BEGUN to hit the fan yet. Keep your eye on the birdy.
You are far too optimistic about this. Bush took more power for himself than he should have, and in all likelihood so will Obama and other future presidents. I suspect that Bush and Obama see the Constitution as more of a suggestion than chains that will bind them from abusing their office (as Jefferson put it).
I really am wondering: why do you think that Bush's power grab will deter future Presidents from acting like Kings? Bush failed to learn his lesson, and I'll bet that Obama will fail just as badly (on the 'follow the Constitution' lesson, not failure in general).
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
The OP addresses not just Bush, but his advisors, staff, etc. as being the source. I think that this past election has really proven nothing as far as what the nation really wants. What if Obama wasn't as young as he is? Would people still vote for him based on the Kennedy syndrome? Would they laugh at him if he was, say, the age of Reverand Al Sharpton? Jesse Jackson? People related with Obama because of his charisma, youth and no-bullshit swagger that the US tends to eat up (see Bill Clinton).
People say the election was about ethnicity. I say the election was about who could appear to embarrass this nation less.
Well I am skeptical of the whole Obama presidency.
From where I stand, I see him as the liberal movement setting him up as the savior of all things liberal.
He will fail. Deal with that.
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I agree that He will fail to be the savior of all things liberal, but i have to say that thanks to a two tier political system we didnt get much of a choice in the first place... But, I also have to say that on Novemeber 5th i was quite proud to be an american for a minute because with the election that brought the world opinion of us up just a little bit...
Obama is not change. Obama is 90% rehashed Clinton administration. Just because he made a million hollow promises during the campaign doesn't mean they will come true. I am no fan of the Bush administration by any means, but just because Bush is republican everyone assumes that they have to go polar opposite during the next election. You can't take the democratic victory as a sign that the masses are rising up to throw off the weight of the opressive Bush/Cheney rule. It is just simple minded people following the 2 party system just like MTV told them to. Charles Manson could have ran on the democratic ticket and still won by a landslide. Congrats America, you have just voted in a racist Muslim as your commander in chief simply because he belongs to a different party than the one you dislike. Unfortunately someone will probably kill him (most likely with some sort of firearm) leaving biden (who wrote most of the Brady bill) with a great excuse to whip up some more stupid gun control laws that will have no effect on crime, while taking away the rights of law abiding, responsible citizens such as myself.
( in response to the violent shitstorm this is likely to kick up, I have very little care for any issues aside from gun control. Do whatever you can with the economy and the continued bombing of brown people worldwide, just leave my bill of rights the FUCK alone.)
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence." - Bertrand Russell
Stewie: Yay and God said to Abraham, "you will kill your son, Issak", and Abraham said, I can't hear you, you'll have to speak into the microphone." "Oh I'm sorry, Is this better? Check, check, check... Jerry, pull the high end out, I'm still getting some hiss back here."
Muslim? C'mon.
And so what if Obama was. What is lost in all this is the Constitution which not only demanded that government not make the issue of religion a litmus test, but encoraged the voters to not make religious labels a priority, but common issues.
If Obama really was the terrorist the right wing nuts painted him out to be, he wouldn't have even gotten past his first week of campaining.
It took far too long for women and blacks to get the right to vote. It took over 200 years for voters to get beyond someone claiming to be a Catholic. Mitt Romney has the same problem getting ellected that all the atheists reading this do, the xenophobia of a label.
We have Jews, Muslims, a gay man, and even an atheist in our Congress.
"No Religious Test" is in OUR Constitution and getting over the color of one's skin as a maturing society is a great advancement, but it does not make all humans "equal". What makes us equal is that we all want the same things. Humanity's goal should be that death is something other than what we inflict on each other.
To tweak Martin Luther King Jr's famous words, " I want to see the day when a human, is not judged, on the color of their skin, or the party or label they claim, but by the content of their actions."
When America reaches that point, then we will be living up to "No Religious Test".
King himself wasn't fighting for just blacks, he was fighting against the world of phobia that surrounded him at the time. If we simply, as a societ, say, we can stop now, because blacks are equal, misses the greater point that phobias still remain, and fear will aways remain unless we face it.
The fear people have of Muslims is the same fear that Muslims have of other Muslims. It is the same fear right wing baptists have for left wing Catholics, missing the point that BOTH are human. It is the same fear that causes Palistinians to fire missles into Isreal, and the same fear that causes Israel to invade Palistine.
What scares me is that the people fear that without the purely symbolic, and not manditory "So Help Me God" part of the cerimony, which is NOT in the Constitition... that somehow, Obama, or Bush's, for that matter, what scares me is that what they claim to believe is more important than what they actually produce. If the last 8 years proves that labels shouldn't matter, then why if we can get past skin color, why cant we get past party label and religious label?
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Exactly. All politicians will make mistakes. In fact, all politicians will LIE. This will be even more true when dealing with a less experienced individual such as Obama.
Of course I prefered Obama over McCain. I'm glad that's over with and done.
But when I see these "Obama parties" and all the farfetched optimism on the news, I just want to bury my head in my hands. Yes, it's great he's the first African American president. Yes, it's great we got rid of Bush. Yes, it's great that we have a Democrat for a president (IF you're a Democrat, at least)... but President-Elect Obama is not Christ incarnate. Shit. He even admits it himself. I just watched a pre-inauguration speech the other day, where he says (not the first time, either) that he WILL make mistakes.
And you know what, that's probably an understatement. I am actually frightened by the level of pipe-dream optimism surrounding his election. It's simple logic; if a whole damn country builds themselves up THAT much... that's all the more it's going to be let down. Why do Americans have to be so stupid? Why are they always searching for quick fixes and miracle cures and superhero saviors? They don't exist. History has taught us that, so why can't we remember it? I mean, I know that the "American people need hope/change" and blah-blah-blah... but the last thing people need is false hope. It's as if Obama is standing there saying "No, seriously guys... it's not going to be that great. I mean, it might take me two terms*** to get anything done, y'know..." and their response is "WOOOO!!! YES WE CAN!!!!!!11111oneoneone"
Seriously.
***he actually did mention that fact in one of his speeches.
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