Obama already scares the shit out of me, now I've come across this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy09UpI60F8 of the (I assume) self proclaimed "Obama Youth" chanting "Alpha, Omega, alpha, omega", dressed in paramilitary outfits, and reciting various Obama policies as if they had come down from mount Olympus! And, as if that's not enough, we have Obama replacing Che as the Left wing fashion icon at a Paris show! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And, if the Hitler, errrr, Obama youth chanting alpha, omega wasn't enough evidence that the Left thinks Obama is God himself, look at this!" "I Will Follow Him": Obama As My Personal Jesus Yes, I just said it. Obama is my Jesus. ... As with many spiritual enlightenments, mine came in the middle of a bleak, hopeless period of my life. The innocent, idealistic world of politics that had shaped my childhood, the one that taught me how the president is a good guy, one who makes you feel safe, gives a speech on TV every once in a while and one you'd feel honored to shake hands with, had been slowly whittled into a deep rooted cynicism to anything politically related. The crush of the Bush victory over Gore was only the first mar on my previously consummate ideal of the American administration. And the tragedies just kept continuing ... Then I found my miracle. Stumbling through my hopeless world, afraid to turn to anyone with my political questions of morality, my concerns about the afterlife of the country I called home, a voice spoke to me. http://media.www.smithsophian.com/m....shtml?reffeature=recentlycommentedstoriestab This shit is really getting scary. We're not electing a president, in the eyes of his supporters, we're electing a god.
"Because of Obama, I'm inspired to become an engineer." Yes, very scary. Young black men filled with confidence, stating that they can take responsibility for their own destiny, and study and become successful. Truly a frightening scenario. Edit: what actually is frightening are the comments left for that video. Those are the people who I find frightening.
I think this is the first time in a long time that the "youth of America" have been ever so passionate about something. I was on a college campus during the 2004 election between Kerry and Bush and the students hardly cared. The passion here on campus now is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Students are really excited about Obama running. His name is written all over everything.
Well.. ermm yes. Who are they to be gettin' all uppity!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Alpha, Omega, alpha, omega, alpha, omega............................... Because of der Führer, I've become inspired to become an engineer. Because of der Führer, I've become inspired to become a doctor. "Führer, my Führer, give me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need. I thank you for my daily bread. Be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light, Hail to my Führer!"
Damn if I ever "come across" entertainment like that. How does that happen? But I feel your fear. The next President is going to wield unprecedented power, thanks to the doormat Republican Congress Unitary Executive enlightenment of recent years, and face multiple temptations to employ it to the fullest in serious crisis, thanks to the fuckup Republican Congress and White House fallout from various unusual events of recent years. Bound to make anyone nervous.
The cynical edge That may be a bit cynical. The article tells a story, a personal one, but the narrative voice is not to be taken entirely literally. Figurative elements, including allegory, give it dimension or texture. From my reading, it seems that what you're scared of is that a politician you don't appreciate can rekindle waning faith in the American political and governmental structures. This seems in some way contradictory, as I have very good reason to not picture you as one who rejects certain glittering myths of Americana. As I recall, one of the things we do agree on is that there is great and worthy potential in the myth of America we learned; all that stuff about greatness and equality, hope and justice, is not supposed to be empty propaganda. And here we have the tale of a cynic coming back to hope. It seems a bit strange that someone finding the redemption of their faith in America should frighten you. There is no question that Ms. Mertens is at least a bit starry-eyed, and that, too, is dangerous. I blogged on this point in July: ... [It] seems a better proposition that Obama should choose the fine-tuning route. The challenge, though, will be to avoid the trap that Clinton’s rightward roll fell squarely into. Certainly, some paths Obama might follow will seem dramatic: bury the FISA reform, burn the Patriot Act, pursue new energy production and distribution infrastructure, end farm subsidies, and apply a more subtle and finessed theory about our diplomatic habits. In the end, though, these will not produce any fundamental ideological change like Reagan did. In the first place, it is a lot easier to inject ignorance and superstition into a culture than to exorcise such demons. And, to the other, Obama’s pursuit would be to revive familiar, if largely dormant, principles of liberty and justice, brotherhood, and compassion that brought this nation such prestige .... The challenges facing the next president do not make fertile ground for fundamental change. Certainly, in the litany of woes facing Americans we might find the seeds to germinate amid the rot, but therein lies part of the choice. If, as critics claim, a McCain presidency would merely continue Bush policies, such fundamental change might become necessary in order to save the republic, but that route would be an awfully risky gamble played for incredibly high stakes. Obama, in claiming change, begs the question of what kind of change Americans want. But the question of how much change we can, as a nation, handle seems nearly moot .... If we expect in Obama a messiah of the American Dream, we will be sorely disappointed. If we propose the beginnings of a recovery, and significant progress in the rehabilitation of our nation, we can at least greet each new day with hope, and hold our president to a realistic, attainable standard. There will be tears. Many people place high expectations on Obama, and if conservatives' regard for the current Democratic-controlled Congress are any sort of expectation, there are many whose hearts are steeled by the superficial. Obama's predictable failure to be perfect in every regard may well push Ms. Mertens, and other hopefuls like her, into a deeper cynicism than she has emerged from. Broken hearts heal slowly, and always leave scars. ____________________ Notes: Mertens, Maggie. "'I Will Follow Him': Obama As My Personal Jesus". Smith College Sophian. September 18, 2008. http://media.www.smithsophian.com/m....Him.Obama.As.My.Personal.Jesus-3440311.shtml B.D. "Obama and expectation". B.D.'s Last Refuge. July 1, 2008. http://bdhilling.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/obama-and-expectation/
Faith in America and the ideals it stands for, that's a great and beautiful thing. But faith in a particular leader to the point you proclaim him to be your personal Jesus is scary. Take a leader who, in the eyes of his followers, can do no wrong. Throw in an economy tetering on the brink of collapse, a collapse that could include hyperinflation and economic/political chaos. And bad things can happen. Very bad things. I'd much rather have a comfortable old sock like McCain in charge in a time of crisis than the untested, messianic Obama. Guess what, I don't necessarily oppose any of that. I would have some concerns about our ability to prevent terrorist attacks after eliminating the PATRIOT act and FISA reforms, but if the president (whoever he was) thought he could get by without them, fine. I'd be an ethusiastic supporter of eliminating farm subsidies (and probably all other subsidies). More diplomacy? Fine, we're a bit tapped out right now anyway. And who isn't in favor of alternative energy these days? And if two polar opposites can agree on this much, why the hell can't we get jack shit done in Washington?
I would be very happy if Obama abolishes this silly "republic" and, in its place, instills an efficient democratic totalitarian regime. However, I hardly agree with Obama on anything, so it might not be so great. Anyway, great to see the American public begin idolizing their leadersPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! That's what makes them useful tools
You are assuming a more solid grasp of the implications of evidence on the part of the Obama idealists than we have seen in many years of Bush Youth - the adolescent congregations who were expressing adoration toward Our President in all those Christian schools (remember the videos?) have in large proportion joined the 27% that seem impervious to the blows of circumstance and event. If there were the slightest possibility that the Obama Youth Movement would spread as widely and with as much effect as the Reagan Youth movement did, morphing along the way via Bush Adoration ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=930gQZmC6iE&feature=related ) into that faction of American political life we know as the 27%, I would join Madanth in his alarms. But I think these Youths are more likely in competition for the same slice of the political mind, and have limited individual growth potential - we might even benefit from some disintegration of that bloc - - head.
(Insert title here) This is where I think you're missing something. The Jesus comparison has a figurative grain to it: A politician as idealistic and inspiring as Barack Obama is something the American people haven't seen in along time. Indeed, it seems a safe presumption that it hasn't occurred during Ms. Mertens' life. Of course she's dazzled; this is the sort of thing she's only heard about in myth. The problem there seems to be that you would rather have an established advocate of the very policies and capitalistic principles that got us into this mess find our way out of it than someone so many people—desperate for someone to trust—are so enthralled with and willing to gamble on. Your point also touches—perhaps unintentionally—on something peculiar about conservative arguments. Bill Clinton, often decried as a liberal, rolled on gays in the military when he lost Sam Nunn's support, and eventually signed the Defense of Marriage Act. Facing a veto-proof majority in both houses (90-8-1/362-57-15), Clinton signed the revised Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Yet the alleged liberal—referred to colloquially by liberals as "the best Republican president ever"—is criticized for recognizing when he couldn't win. More importantly, though, the Clinton experience shows that a president cannot simply do what he wants without an unnaturally compliant Congress. The Bush years are evidence of what happens when a president has an unnaturally compliant Congress, and two things Bush has been comparatively spared is strong resistance from mainstream media° and a talk-radio industry built around vicious partisanship. Your fear might be more justified if, first, we could project the Democrats to win a supermajority (67-75%) in both houses, and, to the other, that they would use it. My sunniest realistic outlook is that Senate Democrats might get a cloture majority. Although the question of whether they would use it is a difficult one. Microcosmically, on the state level, the Democrats won a supermajority in the legislature in 2004, as well as the governor's mansion, and failed to use their newfound clout. At the federal level, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Pelosi have given President Bush a surprising, even alarming, amount of what he wanted. Will Congressional Republicans bend the way the Democrats have? Unlikely. Will Blue Dog Democrats suddenly find their courage? It's possible, but I haven't much faith in that. Furthermore, given the political realities of the near term, what, really, can Obama do? He has steep challenges before him. The intermediate paragraph I omitted from my blog quotation: But look what stays on the back burner. Health care? Education? Prison reform? Even something so fundamentally necessary as general poverty relief is cast into doubt by the spectres raised over the last seven and a half years. If the Bush administration has succeeded at anything, it has laid stumbling blocks of all size and manner along the path to American progress. It seems almost a cynical proposition, since everyday life has no obligation to make any sense whatsoever, but Bush may have accomplished one of the greatest evil coups in American history: If you can't beat 'em, just make it impossible for 'em to do what they do. The challenge for starry-eyed hopefuls like Ms. Mertens is to remember that there is only so much Obama can do. The challenge for conservatives is to get a grip°. I mean that sincerely, not as a partisan jab; look, during the primaries, we heard loads from the right wing about flag pins, middle names, posture, an incendiary preacher, "terrorist fist jabs", and pretty much anything but substantial issues. We hear about Obama as a rock star and a personality cult, how the evil "liberals" in the Democratic Party and the horrible "leftist" mainstream media is so unfair and sexist to hold a woman to the same standards as her male counterparts. What the hell is going on with the Republican Party? I suspect we'll disagree on major elements of the answer. But we have a mainstream news media more willing to follow the likes of Matt Drudge in pursuit of scandal and sensation, a right-wing propaganda industry dedicated to stirring hatred between the people, and a bunch of politicians chasing after the votes of an electorate that is largely either cynical or uninformed. The republic is in the throes of a sociopolitical philosophy that values individual gain—of both wealth and power—above all else. I won't say the Democrats are without culpability, but their guilt is its own. They have utterly failed to put their foot down, repudiate the conservative machine for its dishonesty, conduct themselves accordingly with honor and dignity, and suffer the political costs that come with that. We still would have ended up in a fiscal crisis, and probably in a tragic war based on lies. But at least they would be better positioned to actually lead as they emerged from exile to supplant the corruption that has been the trademark of the Republican Party throughout my political life, and the essence of conservative politics throughout history. In the end, all it really takes is leaders who genuinely believe in mythical virtues like hope, equality, and liberty and justice for all. These are, unfortunately, quite scarce right now. So people are lining up behind Obama, ready to give his rhetoric a chance. If things go well, his failures will be genuine, and not betrayals. If things go poorly, maybe we'll get another Bill Clinton out of it. Either way, though, more and more people see it as the better choice compared to a continuation of the dishonest, warmongering, pandering policies of the Bush administration. What they're hoping for is a genuine leader. You know, the stuff of myth and American greatness. ____________________ Notes: ° resistance from mainstream media — With few notable exceptions, the press has pandered to Bush administration in ways Bill Clinton could only dream of. In an era when conservatives still complain of the "liberal bias" of the mainstream media, the press given Bush much of what he wants. While economic necessity might justify some of the lack of real investigative reporting over the last eight years, does it really do much to justify the media's pandering to conservative talking points and covering for conservative candidates? Can you name for me one major incident during which the mainstream media, so allegedly liberal, followed the lead of a muckraking organization in pushing lies to the fore? Former Arkansas Project agent David Brock calls what he did to help the fight against Clinton "political terrorism", yet it was effective. His mudslinging eventually helped bring Clinton to impeachment. Yet throughout the tragic tale of the Dubya debacle, impeachment as a genuine topic of discussion has been anathema to the mainstream media. For all the Bush administration and Republicans in general seem to complain about the media, they haven't had to face anything like Clinton faced, and they have certainly benefitted tremendously from the shortcomings of the press over the last two terms. ° The challenge for conservatives is to get a grip — For the record, since the question has a high probability of coming up, the challenge for Democrats is to pry their heads out of their asses, take what gains they make in November, and set about doing some real and genuine work for the American people. If they manage to achieve a cloture majority in the Senate while maintaining their majority in the House, they will have no excuse for inaction. While it is highly unlikely that the Democrats could pick up a supermajority—requiring fifty-seven more seats in the House and seventeen more reliable seats in the Senate—I cannot conceive of an excuse, with Obama in the White House, for the Democrats to not set about attempting the redemption of the myth of America. As for liberals? Well, we need to gather 'round the fire and figure out how to exert greater influence on the Party that is so mistakenly attributed to us. Works Cited: Mertens, Maggie. "'I Will Follow Him': Obama As My Personal Jesus". Smith College Sophian. September 18, 2008. http://media.www.smithsophian.com/m....Him.Obama.As.My.Personal.Jesus-3440311.shtml B.D. "Obama and expectation". B.D.'s Last Refuge. July 1, 2008. http://bdhilling.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/obama-and-expectation/
The west and the world will realize what the conservatives in America have known all along... that Obama is nothing but a man... no, worse -- a politician. And yet even worse - the best politician Americans have ever seen. And yet EVEN WORSE -- the guy with one of (if not THE) most liberal voting records! He fooled everyone that he will fix things and walk on water. Obviously this snake oil salesman will make America worse, and people will be hit with a nuclear bomb of reality when they realize the king has no clothes... but by then it will be too late. Will the Obama youth stop going to engineering school then?
Bill Clinton was only a man, one too ready to compromise I feel. His administration wasn't really able to accomplish much (certainly when compared to their goals and expectations at the beginning) because of the fantastic resistance it met. But he is still very popular, and draws huge crowds wherever he goes. Were he legally able to do so, I'd bet he would have had an excellent chance at becoming president again had he run this year. Obama is only a man, and the next president faces an awful confluence of problems. No doubt, those with too high expectations will be disappointed. I'm just hoping that whoever gets the job can do it, and our present free fall can be brought to at least a gradual descent. The first step in getting out of a hole is to stop digging. But why shouldn't blacks in America take pride in the fact that a man they view as one of their own (we are still at a point where half black means black) is a serious contender for the highest office in this country?
Conservative confusion One thing that seems strange to me is that these conservative factions never take up their differences with one another. On the one hand, Obama's voting record is insufficient to say anything positive about him. Yet, along comes another faction that says his record is sufficient to hang him by. Which is it? Both factions seem entirely happy to profit by one another's accusations, and ne'er the twain shall reconcile.
Why the confusion, grasshopper? Yes, he hasn't voted on many issues (i.e. not much experience, and avoidance of voting on controversial topics altogether), BUT whenever he did vote, it was left left left. Like McCain said -- it's pretty hard to reach across the aisle from that far left Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
That viewpoint is one of McCain's biggest problems. In essence, he is saying that people like him will not negotiate or compromise to those who they have fundamental differences with, regardless of whether they are reaching. This is why he prefers war to even attemping diplomacy.
