Barack Obama Wins US Presidency 3709
Last night, around 11pm, all the major networks announced that Senator Barack Obama had won the election. Soon after, Senator McCain conceded. There were no crazy partisan court hearings, just a simple election. This is your chance to talk about it and what it means for the future of our nation.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'll Tell You What It Means (Score:5, Informative)
The Dems may actually get 60. They're at 56 now and there's still 4 seats in the "too close to tell right now" territory.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Reputation (Score:2, Informative)
- Increase Capitol Gains Tax
- Let the Bush Tax cuts expire in 2010
- Raise our Taxes
- Pass the unconstitutional "Fairness Doctrine"
- Remove the ability for union's to have secret ballots
- Expand welfare instead of trying to make people self-sustaining and get them off of it
Yeah... those are some *great* things to look forward to.
Did you hear his speech? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anyone know about the rest of the US? (Score:2, Informative)
they actualy dont pay taxes there.
Re:Deck chairs on the Titanic (Score:1, Informative)
Correction: the deck chairs on the Hindenburg. /colbert
As an Englishman (Score:2, Informative)
Let me say this:
THANK FUCK.
Re:Reputation (Score:2, Informative)
We hate to burst your bubble, but the reputation of the USA has been steadily going down the tubes starting with the war in Vietnam. George W. Bush was merely the final product of a climate that grew since about that time. Bill Clinton was no peacemaker either, and don't forget that Billary cheerfully threatened to totally obliterate Iran [youtube.com] if she were to become president.
We have seen nothing to convince us, so far, that Barack Obama is anything more than a smooth-talking exponent of the same war- and fearmongering system, and that he won't do what he is told by the corporate fascist establishment like every good puppet before him. Before Bush; the USA's reputation in the world was gravely damaged; after Bush; it's simply destroyed. It's going to take more than electing a biracial candiate to start rebuilding it from scratch. It will take a generation or two at least, if it's going to happen at all.
Sincerely,
The rest of the world
You just made his point (Score:4, Informative)
The Patriot Act was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican president.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Informative)
well, see over here, as a state employee in .fr, I make less than 30k net a year.
out of that, I pay about 3k in income tax, and another 1.5k in local taxes.
thing is, I don't have to worry about things like health insurance... when I go to the doctor, I present my state health insurance agency card, and off I go. same when I go to the pharmacy to pick up the goods... add to this, that my mother, who just came out from a double breast cancer also didn't have to pay a cent to be properly treated (including 4 or 5 surgeries)...
now, try to beat that with the current fucked up healthcare system you have in the US...
Re:yeah (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
Yes [blogspot.com]
Re:You just made his point (Score:5, Informative)
98 Senators voted for the Patriot Act. Only one voted against. The Republicans weren't alone in passing it.
357 Representatives voted for the Patriot Act. Only 55 voted against. Again, the Republicans weren't alone in passing it.
Note that the political climate of the time was such that if the Democrats had controlled both houses of Congress, odds are it would have been passed by similar majorities.
Re:Anyone know about the rest of the US? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Reputation (Score:2, Informative)
The world's opinion of us effects:
1. The value of our money, which has been plummeting as other countries diversified out of it. This has contributed greatly to the economic dip which started in 2006 / 2007.
2. Our ability to set international agendas to our benefit.
3. Which leads into our now-gone ability to enter into foreign entangelements without footing the entire bill.
4. Our ability to sell domestic goods at a high price and import foreign goods at a low one.
5. Our ability to attract tourist dollars and command a premium for "Made In America" goods.
6. General civic pride: Let's not be the laughing stock of the Nucular countries, shall we?
As a small example, in the past 8 years we've seen the emergence of a euro-traded (instead of dollar-traded) international oil market. This exposes the US economy to more of the reprocussions of regular international currency fluctuations, and is a contributing factor in why gas pushed over 120 dollars per barrel this past year.
Re:The Real Surprise is in Alaska (Score:5, Informative)
They know he'll be expelled, but that the Governor (
Palin) will appoint his successor to serve out the rest of the term.
It was basically a choice of "yes" or "no" to giving a Republican seat to the Democrats.
Everyone knows Stevens is going to prison. His reelection just serves as a placeholder for the person who's actually going to take the Senate seat in his stead.
I don't believe that the Governor can appoint herself to the post, so at least the Democrats don't have to worry about hearing the words "Senator Palin".
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
You say that now, but once he walks on water and converts water into wine, you'll eat your works, oh yes.
Re:I'll Tell You What It Means (Score:3, Informative)
First off, we haven't had a divided government since 06.
How is a Republican president and a Democratic congress not a divided government?
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
Does a person below the poverty level even pay income tax?
Yes.
Re:First thing I thought about... (Score:3, Informative)
According to exit polls (not actual votes), 95% of blacks voted for Obama. 5% actually voted for McCain, so yeah, they decided to make history and put into power the first black president. The exit polls show that ~65% of Asians/Latinos supported for Obama. Only 43% of whites supported for Obama. If this has been a whites-only election, McCain would now be president.
AGE: The results indicate that older voters are more conservative, with support for McCain gradually increasing from 32% (median age 23) to 44% (median age 34) up to 53% (65 or older). People become less liberal and more conservative as they advance in years.
Any theories why that might be? Perhaps they are trying to protect their lifelong-accumulated wealth from Democrat redistribution?
In short... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.economist.com/vote2008/ [economist.com]
Re:Two words (Score:1, Informative)
This is exactly what the OP is talking about. When everyone has nukes there is no such thing as a 'most powerful country' everyone has the ability to annihilate their opponents completely.
Secondly, the US hegemony is over. These are the days of united European dominance.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Two words (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The thing that absolutely amazes me... (Score:5, Informative)
and yes, I'm still pissed at him for breaking his promise over campaign financing.
Then you're pissed over nothing, as he never promised to take public financing. He promised he'd be willing to work on it with the Republican candidate - big difference. If you need to hold something against him, there's always his FISA flip flop.
Re:Two words (Score:2, Informative)
It is hard to even find a "news" show any longer
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
I assume he signed it into law...but, Clinton himself didn't relax regulations. That requires legistlation from congress.....the executive makes no laws, only congress.
That's part of why I don't see Obama doing all that much. He as president simply does not have the power to carry through with his promises along the campaign trail. The president makes NO laws.
Re:First thing I thought about... (Score:2, Informative)
Utter nonsense. MLK wasn't even referring to racism when he said these words: he was referring to Vietnam and America acting as "the policeman of the world".
Here's the context:
Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "you are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name."
Do you think that MLK living today wouldn't speak the exact same words about Iraq as he spoke back then about Vietnam?
Re:The party of big government (Score:1, Informative)
I have to point out that the moderates and fiscal conservatives are the ones being culled from the Republican party. They just lost four of them in the Senate and goodness knows how many in the House. The ones remaining are far more likely to be wingnuts.
Re:Two words (Score:4, Informative)
1) Assembly of God fundamentalist. No separation of church and state for them, they'd like the biblical version of sharia law.
2) Shows no sign of intellectual curiousity. Like Bush, she accused of being stupid, but isn't. Just ignorant. Ignorance can be cured, but I'd like a leader who curious enough to have looked into the kinds of questions she's been asked on her own.
Re:More than Two words (Score:2, Informative)
The truth is that the economic crisis happened because the financial markets found new ways to be greedy that no one understood.
It wasn't even a new way to be greedy, we just forgot what was learned in the great depression: that it's a bad idea to allow commercial banks to underwrite securities. There were many contributors that helped cause the current economic troubles, but certainly one of the most important was the gradual erosion of Glass-Steagal [pbs.org].
Re:Two words (Score:2, Informative)
Well, correct, but misleading.
The economic effects we are seeing today are in a large part caused by the radically inflationary policies employed by Greenspan, who reigned during the Clinton presidency. The housing bubble can be easily traced to the US Central Bank policies, and some critical changes to banking and investment regulations also took place during that time.
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'll Tell You What It Means (Score:5, Informative)
Barack Obama's stance on just about everything. [barackobama.com] I hear this argument a lot that he's just saying "change" without any concrete ideas for how to do so, but it's simply incorrect. The campaign's series of YouTube videos starting with "Blueprint for Change" also details what he'll actually do as president: You can watch the Obama campaign's videos here [youtube.com].
Re:Two words (Score:5, Informative)
That argument doesn't work anymore. Just because Fox News is a right wing tabloid doesn't mean they all have a bias. If the truth doesn't support your reality and the other news organizations won't bend their coverage to support your viewpoint, that doesn't make them biased.
And yet... they ARE [cmpa.com].
Re:Two words (Score:5, Informative)
Got a source on this? I just went to http://www.hrblock.com/taxes/tax_calculators/index.html [hrblock.com] and plugged in the poverty level for both a single taxpayer and married filing jointly with 2 kids, and in both cases the result was a refund via earned income tax credit.
Re:Two words (Score:5, Informative)
Fox news is the least serious of any of the major national news
outlets or publications. They are the sort of people that make
you wish old man Buckley was still around so that he could show
them how it should be done.
They have a tabloid style. They are more sensationalist and
well for the lack of a better way of putting it... they
elevate unqualified kook nobodies to the role of pundit.
A genuine party rag from an earlier era was a more respectable news source.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
So?
68% of the young vote went to Obama.
68% of the hispanic vote went to Obama.
68% of the "first election" vote went to Obama.
68% of the "previously gave up on elections" vote went to Obama.
This wasn't just a landslide in the black community.
Blacks can't relate to a geezer WASP and fundie nutbag from Alaska. Imagine that.
The Palin nomination pretty much killed his appeal to anyone outside of the Republican neocon base (which doesn't include blacks).
Blacks not voting for Palin/McCain is like blacks not voting for David Duke (no big surprise)
Re:I think.... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's not be too hasty here: It's not like Obama didn't also receive major support from industry donors [opensecrets.org]. So while we shouldn't discount that part of this victory is owed to our corporate overlords, we still, as you say, shouldn't discount that part is due to the folks in your neighborhood.
Money talks; let's hope the unprecedented small donations from individuals this time talked loudly enough.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
Re:Would it not be interesting... (Score:3, Informative)
It was originally that way until the 12th Amendment in 1804. Apparently the practice ended because people were worried that the Vice President's party would murder the President to take power:
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Re:Two words (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Real Surprise is in Alaska (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Two words (Score:4, Informative)
Both the government and individuals are up to their ears in debt, and the only way we can even continue to pay the interest is to borrow more. The government has really good credit, but that doesn't mean spit when there isn't enough money to pay the bills, and the only way out is to print more money (or default). One way leads to hyperinflation, Weimar style, and the other leads to nasty, mutually destructive trade wars, and a flight from dollars (which also causes hyperinflation as all the trillions of dollars sitting in government reserves flood the market, bidding up prices on EVERYTHING priced in dollars).
Re:I'll Tell You What It Means (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think that's accurate at all. Obama has had clear and easy to read information on his website for months now stating his policy on the Iraq war, the Economy, Healthcare, and other major issues. He came right out and had the most no-nonsense tax policy ever, and he clearly beat McCain on taxes.
At least with Obama, he was up front and said "if you make more than $250,000 you might see a tax increase." McCain doesn't even tell you that the $5,000 tax credit you get back for medical insurance probably won't cover the average family of 4's insurance premiums, costing the middle class more. McCain hid a middle class tax hike by not being truthful with the American people. Obama was up front that we'd all have to make sacrifices, and you know what? It paid off. Obama got a higher percentage of the voters that even make $200,000 or more! It goes to show that even affluent, educated Americans in the higher tax brackets don't mind making a few sacrifices instead of borrowing against our children's future.
As soon as the Republicans move away from the slash-and-burn, anything for a quick buck, overspend and hope our kids will bail us out economic policies of the neocons, then they can finally start rebuilding their party.
Where are all the so-called "conservative" Republicans, and what did the religious wackos and crazy spending neocons do with them?
Re:Two words (Score:1, Informative)
You miss that the BBC are profoundly anti-American. Not in the way you imagine from that word's more recent usage, but rather in a sneering, post-colonial kind of way. This has been especially evident during the Obama campaign where for 21 months we've been told that the US "may not be ready" for a "black president" as if the US was some sort of petulant, mentally unstable child that had to be babied through the steps of civilisation, all while neatly ignoring the fact that the UK has never had a black/minority prime minister, or to my knowledge a black/minority member of the cabinate (they have a number of minority MPs).
This type of hypocrisy is common on the BBC, of course. The US has made greater steps to equality in 232 years than the UK has in its entire multi-millenium history.
Re:The thing that absolutely amazes me... (Score:3, Informative)
It's great, but at the same time I think the reasons behind it are sort of sad. The rest of the world doesn't want to see the US invading other countries for bullshit reasons, pissing away its potential for greatness in a never-ending, pointless, money-wasting war on terror that is unpopular both at home and internationally.
We're also sad about seeing attacks on the US, 9/11, American troops dying overseas, and the constant and growing hatred of the US not just amongst the Middle East but amongst the population of other "allied" nations.
International people are interested not really for the well-being of the USA and the well-being of Americans - but because the USA is one of the few countries that can royally fuck things up for a lot of people everywhere else around the world.
The thing that saddens and frustrates me more than anything else is the amazing achievements that have come from the USA - things like being the first country to put a man on the moon. I can't help but wonder where humanity might be if the last 8 years had gone a different way and all those trillions of dollars had been pumped into something other than a black hole. I'm sure the citizens of the USA would be better off and I feel that the rest of the planet would be as well.
I would have voted for Obama if I was a US citizen and I'm glad he got in. Like most of the non-US people I have hope for the first time since 9/11 that things might just have a small chance of getting better.
Re:Two words (Score:4, Informative)
He's not white. He's not really "half-white." He's black. He's also half of African descent and half of European descent.
Being black is like being red-haired or left-handed. It's a constellation of physical characteristics that have been lumped into the idea of a "race" by a few hundred years of domination. The same is true of being white. These races are historical inventions which used certain physical features for their rationale. Now these inventions have a certain cultural reality to them, which is why we talk about "African Americans," as a shorthand for describing the communities of people whose ancestors were brought into the US by slavery and who share a cluster of cultural experiences. Obama, of course, was not born into that community - he was raised by a white grandmother, his father came from Kenya. etc. - but by virtue of being black, he was associated with that community.
Yes, it's complicated. But you can work it out. It is important to not think of being white as the same as being Irish, and more like being red-haired.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'll Tell You What It Means (Score:3, Informative)
China is communist, not socialist - please look up the difference.
Australia is conservative, not socialist - believe it or not, both are capable of limiting rights to an uncomfortable level - usually just for different (spoken) reasons. Many countries that lean strongly towards conservatism (such as Australia) limit the citizens rights uncomfortably, and many countries with a more socialist leanings (such as the Netherlands) do not. That's not to say that there aren't socialist countries that do and conservative countries that don't, just that it's not as black and white as you make out.
Re:Reputation (Score:1, Informative)
Well, to be fair, in the video you linked to, Clinton said that "If Iron lanched a nuclear strike on Israel, then the U.S. would totally obliterate them". That is quite a far cry from immediately doing a pre-emptive strike on them the second she becomes President.
As a Canadian, I hope that Obama will be able to do what many people feel he is able to do. I feel that it is still to early to tell, but hope that things will start changing for the better.
Cheers
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
"all the words and ideas"? The only thing you mention that has anything remotely to do with socialism is taxes. But accepting the need for taxes does not make one a socialist, any more than building freeways makes you a nazi.
US taxes are at a historically low level. Returning to a level a bit more like what you had 70 years ago or more will not make you any more of a socialist country than you were back then.
Fear mongering of your type is always trite, but your attempt was particularly uninspired and sleep-inducing.
Re:W00t! Welfare for all! (Score:3, Informative)
You can thank Clinton for the bank mess that Bush was forced to clean up. Check this link out from 1999.. .to bad people didn't listen back then.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1 [nytimes.com]
Re:Two words (Score:4, Informative)
And your use of "latte belt" shows you have no clue of the large portion of the countries population in urban areas.
Both groups have very strong opinions and ideas. Both groups have their histories and values. And both groups have a vast majority of people who CANNOT see the world from the point of view of the other side, or even grant that point of view validity, which it does have. I've been around both sides, and they aren't nearly as different as they'd like to think, it's typical 'us against them' that people do to make themselves feel more unified as a group.
Palin would have increased that schism and animosity. Obama won't help, but he won't do as much to hurt it either. McCain probably would have been the best middle ground in that respect, of the for P/VP options.
Re:Two words (Score:4, Informative)
You can't take a cell sample from somebody and pop it in an analyzer and come back and say "this person is 93% black and 7% white".
Not in those certain terms, no, but close. [dnatribes.com]
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:5, Informative)
Guess what? Whites are no longer a majority in this country. (IE: Less than 50% of the population).
Whites make up 74% of the US population according to the Census Bureau [census.gov] .
Re:I'll Tell You What It Means (Score:3, Informative)
"Lagom is best", is translated as "Enough is as good as a feast"
To get the actual meaning I'd say "an adequate but not excessive amount works the best."
As in:
To get lagom drunk.
The foods spicing was lagom.
The bath temperature was lagom.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure he strongly supports affirmative action.
You have to realize there are still folks around here who grew up in school systems with one room for the entire primary school which were essentially a holding tank to keep them off the streets... really no formal education. Some of those people are only 60 years old. Is affirmative action the right solution? I don't know... but how do we actually make things right for people who got shafted so badly by our public education system?
Re:The thing that absolutely amazes me... (Score:3, Informative)
Obama is half black (African-Kenyan) and half white (European-Irish/English). His father was a Muslim and later atheist, his mother agnostic Christian and maybe atheist.
Sorry, but the Arabs can't take any credit for him.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Informative)
You interfere with the free market, force banks to make loans to people who clearly can't afford it just so they can meet some loans-to-minorities quota, and this is what you get.
False.
75% of the sub prime loans your are referring to were under no obligation, federal or otherwise to do so. They were made by unregulated organizations that resold the mortgages for a quick profit.
In fact, the limited regulation that required these loans be made tended to make the borrowers less like to go bankrupt because the oversight prevented extortionate interest rates.
This was a free market problem, not a government regulation problem (unless you want to argue that there wasn't enough government regulation).
Re:I'll Tell You What It Means (Score:3, Informative)
Original quote:
Francois Guisot (1787-1874): "Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head."
Churchill said something similar, but he was probably paraphrasing Guisot.
And Kerry got 90% of the black vote... (Score:1, Informative)
> When 96% of the black vote goes to one candidate, it's pretty clear we have a long way to go.
John Kerry won 90% of that same black vote. The reason they vote Democrat is because the Democrats were the ones to put an end to segregation.
Yes, a very long time ago Lincoln helped them, too. But the Republicans were fighting for segregation and "states rights" was a code word for racism because it was expressing the opinion that the federal government shouldn't have the power to force the states to treat everyone equally. While there are libertarians nowadays who are not racists and who believe that for other reasons, they have good reason to be worried because there are still people out there who hate them for no other reason than the color of their skin.
Even if they do everything right, there are people who assume they're on welfare or that they're lazy, or that they are promiscuous and judge them without knowing them. So they get sensitive about it, and that rubs white people the right way when they accidentally offend someone. But hopefully those days are ending. They're not gone yet, not by a long shot, but Obama won a majority of young white people. We're a new generation and we want to put the bad old days behind us.
They call it the "black experience" now, because many "black" people have mixed ancestries. They call it that because it's the way you get treated, even if you're half-white (like Obama). And racism is still harsh because there's no way to hide the fact that you're black and there's no way to turn it off when you'd rather not deal with the consequences. You have to face it down, each and every day. That's hard sometimes!
But hopefully. Just maybe. We can all face it together.
Re:Two words (Score:2, Informative)