CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States
There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .
Why I've Decided to Start Supporting Barack Obama
this entry brought to you by saul williams, "sunday bloody sunday"
John Edwards was the kind of guy that I had confidence in. I really liked the things that he stood for, and I was annoyed that the other candidates barely touched on the subjects he always brought to the front. For one thing, I am absolutely sick to death of lobbyists. I think lobbyists are absolutely killing Washington, and I fear that it might have gotten so bad that it's beyond a point of no return. The same goes with big corporations doing essentially whatever they want to do, screwing over America, not paying taxes, etc. I heard a Republican saying that the reason John Edwards didn't resonate with the people is that the working man knows that you can't do anything to Big Business. If you raise their taxes to give relief to the middle class, as John Edwards was saying, it affects Big Businesses' bottom line, and since they don't have taxes as relief, they raise money by laying off people. His argument was that the government bullying Big Business was futile, and the people know it. I thought this was the biggest pile of bullshit, though-- while what he says may have a thin vein of truth, that doesn't mean we ought to just let Big Business have a free ride to do whatever it wants to do while the middle class continually gets more and more screwed until the sun explodes. I, for one, was willing to believe in a man who was talking about these issues.
Nevertheless, John Edwards dropped out, and I find it a little disheartening but it's not as if it was a surprise. It has been obvious for a while that Edwards wasn't going to win-- maybe there'd be a fight for him to win if Obama wasn't running, but with Obama, there's just too much positive attitude going in terms of history alone, with Hillary and Barack both running, for Edwards to win, and I understand it. And I don't mean that in a cynical way at all-- the person typing these words is of mixed descent, so I don't mean that in a "A White Man Can't Get a Job Nowadays" kind of way. Out of everybody in the world, I want change too. I want the rest of the world to be comforted by the fact that we're not so full of ourselves that we can't allow some brown in the highest office.
The problem is that up until recently, I liked Hillary and Obama about equally. For as much as people talk about the Obama campaign and change, the two of them are almost essentially the exact same candidate, the difference being that one of them is perceived as being career-centric and an opportunist, and the other as, well, Martin Luther King Jr.-like. Obama doesn't quite fill me with confidence. I like the word that's used, "hope", because he definitely fills me with hope. But with hope comes the chance to be let down. And I'm not 100% sure Obama won't let me down. He's in an awkward position of being of having to please all of the people all of the time. As a glowing beacon of change, there will be so much attention on what he does and doesn't do, that he won't be able to do anything. There's also the fact that, between the two of them, Clinton is much more specific about certain issues, whereas Obama is much more vague, running almost entirely off of the steam of, again hope. I think that it's almost necessary for Obama's vagueness-- specifics will only show that he essentially is the same as Clinton, and therefore needs to run on a campaign of personality, which he can definitely win-- lack of personality was one of Al Gore and John Kerry's downfalls, but people like Obama, and, for that matter, Bill Clinton and John Kennedy, had it in spades.
With that said, I like Hillary. I like her a lot. I believe she'll do a good job as President. I almost believe it more than I believe Obama will be. Which is frustrating, because it seems almost hypocritical of me to say that I think now I'm supporting Barack Obama. Why would I support someone who I think with a lesser degree of certainty will be a good President than his opponent?
What frightens me about Hillary is the rest of 2008. I'm afraid of what the Republicans will do to her. I'm afraid of the slime campaign. For some reason-- I believe it to be sexism, I really do-- the Republicans frothingly hate Hillary Clinton. What bothers me about this is that you can disagree with her politics, but what about Hillary Clinton makes anyone hate her? Did she send anybody's children off to die? Did she capitalize on 9/11 to her own benefit again and again and again? Did she make tenacious, desperate, and ever-changing links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq? Did she hurt the economy, displace jobs, triple the deficit, and put our country in a recession? It seems to me what the Republicans hate about Hillary Clinton is what's between her legs. The only thing that she did that was disagreeable as a First Lady was suggest a plan for Universal health care, instead of grinning like a moron for the camera and read stories to elementary school students and showing up on Barbara Walters. Even the main insult her opponents have against her is to call her a dyke.
But just because I sympathize with her plight as a woman and see right through the bullshit machine of the other side doesn't mean she fills me with confidence. Quite the contrary. If she wins the candidacy, the next 9 months are going to be ludicrous. They're going to be filthy, they're going to be disgusting, they're going to be unconscionable. And if she wins the general election, the next four years are going to make me wish I lived in another country, even if she ends up being a good President. Imagine, for example, if you'd been a George Bush supporter for the past 4 years, and imagine every time you turned on the TV, you heard people lambasting the guy you supported. Now imagine the things you were hearing about him weren't the truth, and you'll start to imagine what it'll be like if Hillary wins. Sure, if she slips, they'll pounce, but she doesn't even have to slip for them to pounce. They'll just make shit up, just like they have been for the last 15 years.
And that leaves us with Barack Obama. He's a guy who I agree with on the issues-- when he talks about them, anyway-- and he's a guy that, while I'm not exactly 100% confident in, does fill me with hope, and I do genuinely want him to do well. I want to support him. And there's definitely something to say about hope. There's definitely something to betting your chips on the underdog-- although in this case, a rock star juggernaut of an underdog-- and throwing caution to the wind, simply because dammit, why not? Why not a black president? Why not now? It's not as if there's anything he says that I disagree with. My only hesitation is that I don't know where he stands with confidence. But then when I think about the things he does stand on-- one of the two candidates running for office right now voted for the war in Iraq, and the other did not-- I think, okay, he's a guy who's definitely pointed in the right direction, and just because I don't know for sure from where he's been that he'll be the guy that I want him to be, why should I doubt him? Sometimes you hire the young hotshot executive that has shot up the ladder on a swell of pure enthusiasm merely because why not take a chance? And sometimes that guy ends up being exactly the invigorating kind of new blood your dying cooperation needs. I do think that this country needs new blood, a younger vision, a different vision than the old boy's network.
The thing that concerns me about Obama more than anything, however, is what it'll be like in four years. Say that Hillary Clinton wins the general election in November, and she ends up being a bad President. The opposition will say, "See? We told you not to let another Clinton in office. We warned you about those Clintons!" The only thing that will be hurt will be Clinton's name. But if we let Obama in the office and he sucks, do you know what they'll say? "Well, we tried a black man, and it didn't work. The whole 'Black Guy President' was a failed experiment. Let's go back to the Old Boys' Network, where we know what they'll do." Imagine, if Obama is a successful President, how the next black man-- or woman-- will be received when he or she runs. They too will be able to run purely on enthusiasm. Imagine, then, what it will be like if Obama is a poor President, or even just a middling President. They'll be shouting "Not another one! Look what happened last time! We can't trust those blacks to run the country!" The race card has been surprisingly and refreshingly absent with Obama's campaign, and that's because the racists are holding their tongues, and some may even be hoping that they're wrong. But if they perceive that they might be right, may the Lord help the black man that follows.
If Obama wins the election, he can't just be a President. He's got to be an excellent President. We're talking FDR, JFK, WJC excellent.
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with love from CRS @ 8:10 AM
1 Comments:
So essentially you are living in fear. The Neo-Cons have setup a fantastic cluster fuck for the next president no matter who it is. It's most likely going to be a democrat so this works in their favor as the next president, if they are anything like the vein of presidents that preceded Bush Jr., will be terribly bogged down for their first four years simply cleaning Bush's giant pile of shit off of the carpet.
They have a very high chance of looking pretty miserable. But if we decide who to throw our support behind on who will suck least then we might as well go the fuck home and let Grandpa "I'm a Born Again Neo-Con" McCain continue you the Bush Business As Usual.
I think you are off when you think that Hillary failing will be seen as nothing more than "We warned you about those Clintons". The name Clinton is ubiquitous with "Democrat" ....when you think Clinton, you think Democrat. As for Obama being black. I'm VERY happy and even more surprised that I have yet to hear the word "Nigger" uttered even by the most ignorant rednecks talking between themselves unaware of my eves dropping. And Colorado isn't exactly the most progressive state. And while I've heard a bunch of racist crap in the news the farthest its gone is to imply that Black people will unwaveringly vote Obama because he is black (implying that blacks haven't the intelligence to decide on issues). But I have yet to hear ANYBODY say they think Obama can't be a good president based on his race. I gotta reiterate I live around lots and lots of hicks. Now, if Obama was strutting around looking like Afrika Bambaataa citing Malcolm X as his inspiration and THEN HE FAILED. Yeah.... I can see a bit of a backlash there. But Obama, to his credit hasn't been running his campaign as a "black man" but just as "a man".
Now I know I am jumping around like a three legged cat on crack in a room full of angry mice, but I gotta tell you this whole topic of Hillary vs Obama for the Presidential Title is a bit premature. Lot of Polls still show McCain beating Clinton by a respectable margin. While Obama is handing McCain his ass. On something of a side note, I have read a handful of blogs/articles that talk about how there not only being a "wave of change" in America caused by Obama, but around the world as well. The world recognizes Obama as a change from the course and Hillary as more of the "business as usual". Hillary's nasty and desperate shift to highly negative campaigning demonstrates that she can "play the game" and it's a game we are all fucking sick of. Hillary says she has experience...but at this point that's akin to saying "I have experience stealing applesauce from homeless veterans". She represents what is wrong with what the government has become...what America has become. But Obama as a second (or is it first generation I can never remember how that works) generation minority making it to the top position in the "Land of the Free" reminds people of what America USED TO BE!
Jumping again - Clinton is an easy target with an established cache of ammunition ready to be used against her. The Neo-Cons are having a much tougher time defining Obama and therefor he's harder to effectively attack. He doesn't Polarize the conservatives the same way the Clinton name does, and he is motivating not only the Democratic base, but swing voters as well.
Blah....sorry to the incoherency. I just discovered that Absynth is legal in the US again after 99 years. The Green Fairy is a mighty fairy!
