"A black sheriff?!": The Official Topic of Obama and New Era American Politics

[Brehvolution]

My wife is a teacher at a public school. Socialism pays my bills

Socialism

[Dickie Dee]

pat buchanan asks, "was hitler really that bad!?"

"leftist" MSNBC allows pat buchanan to ask, "was hitler really that bad!?"

[Human Snorenado]

...dude.  Seriously?

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Pat Buchanan is about as far as you can get from the new right. He's bedrock

I agree that Buchanan is definitely not new but the new right today seems to be a lot more forthcoming in expressing how they really feel.

[Dickie Dee]

It's funny, after reading that article, I don't see the line "was Hitler really all thad bad?" nor any derivation therein or anything that could be logically misconstrued as such.

But by "funny," I mean, "totally expected."

SMH

Though I guess someone in love with Pinochet wouldn't read that article and find it a gross distortion of history in Hitler's benefit.

[Mandark]

The key thing is Buchanan deliberately twisted the historical record and made bad arguments in order to make Hitler's actions look better than they were.  It's entirely fair to question his agenda.

See Anderson's comments to this blog post for examples.




PS  You've been telling a lot of people to fuck themselves lately.  You ever wonder if this is the most rewarding way to invest your time?

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I'm sure this has already made its round on the internets but Michele Bachmann wants us to slash our wrists in unison against health care:

http://coloradoindependent.com/36840/bachmann-slit-our-wrists-be-blood-brothers%E2%80%99-to-beat-health-care-reform

At least she got it partially right.

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/04/franken-calms-down-health_n_277687.html

Franken: 1
Me: 0

awesome, I take back my negative comments

[Dickie Dee]

Edit: Is your definition of "a lot" Mamacint, and Mamacint?

 

[Van Cruncheon]

holy shit i got a lot of catching up to do

this thread is clearly on the laffer curve

[Mandark]

I'm pretty sure JD snapped at T EXP a while back in the thread, about Rahm Emanuel's Seekrit Mandatory Service Plan.  Generally, I'd say he's been testy for about a year and is suffering from Ron Paul post-partum depression.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I recycled that joke, but I really like it.  So sue me.

[close]

[Flannel Boy]

libruls and their recycling.

[ToxicAdam]

I had to pay 120 dollars out of pocket to get my ears irrigated. I want public health care now! Someone else should have to pay for me shoving a Q-tip into my ear repeatedly.

[Brehvolution]

That's communist talk

[Flannel Boy]

Q-tipping point.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

<insert penis joke here>

[ToxicAdam]

Q-tipping point.

Veeery good. I wish I had thought of it.

[Mandark]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/04/franken-calms-down-health_n_277687.html

Franken: 1
Me: 0

awesome, I take back my negative comments

[youtube=560,345]SCNs7Zpqo98[/youtube]


This is a really good clip.  I'm not surprised at all, though.  Jon Chait and Paul Krugman have both vouched for Franken as an earnest wonk, and he's worked overtime to prove that he's willing to listen and engage with people rather than throw verbal bombs.  I think the need to overcome his comedian-gadfly past will make him a better senator than he would have been otherwise.

Also, he's totally citing that awesome Atul Gawande article on health care from the NYer.

[FlameOfCallandor]

  Jon Chait and Paul Krugman have both vouched for Franken as an earnest wonk, and he's worked overtime to prove that he's willing to listen and engage with people rather than throw verbal bombs.

Yes, but is he a servant of the lord President Obama? 

[Dickie Dee]

FoC, just so you know, this is my mental image of you when you post shit like that:

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[ShogunOfFear]

Has Obama appointed a czar czar yet to oversee the hiring of czars?  Just wondering with the Van Jones thing and all.

[Draft]

More like Franken talks down mildly agitated woman.

[Crushed]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

good god... the infamous indoctrination speech... he's gonna brainwash are children

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I'd like to see some stats on the center right and young people.  I can't see how this type of behavior is winning the center/center-right back into the Republican fold.  It just seems to be a vocal minority who goes around to various events to throw a fit.  It reminds me of the flagellators of the Middle Ages.

I also can't see how these events aren't raising a group of young people who will be completely apathetic or apolitical.

[FlameOfCallandor]

The speech is great for all the students who need extra time to finish their homework from the night before.

[The Fake Shemp]

Xbox gets named dropped in a Presidential speech.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

is there anything the right wing won't freak out about needlessly?

[Human Snorenado]

is there anything the right wing won't freak out about needlessly?

No, and if the Democrats were smarter they'd use that to their advantage by saying one thing one week, and then the opposite the next.

"THE KENYAN SOCIALIST MUSLIM WITH A RADICAL PASTOR WANTS TO FORCE YOU INTO GOVT. RUN HEALTHCARE!"

...

"THEY WANT YOU TO HAVE MORE CHOICES!  HOW IS THAT GOING TO WORK???"

[Phoenix Dark]

Just imagine if we capture Osama within the next couple  years. The right's reactions will be priceless 

Seriously, he's telling kids to
-study hard
-go to class
-listen to your teachers
-if you're poor that's no excuse to be a bad student

I thought conservatards loved personal responsibility? I'd imagine some folks will buy the "bububu he changed the speech after we protested!" line, but most REGULAR Americans will look at that speech and say "lol, now I remember why I voted against those fucktards back in November. Good jon Obama"

[Crushed]

I'd imagine some folks will buy the "bububu he changed the speech after we protested!" line

Just googling for a link to the speech, one of the first things I got was the Free Republic full of people trying to rationalize it as "the original speech was all about UHC and socialism, we scared him off, folks!"

Now they're saying it's him trying to just work his way into their minds for more speeches, which will convince children to turn in their parents.


Oh, and this part is apparently super-objectionable to them:

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

Seriously. They object to this.

[Phoenix Dark]

But if our children cure AIDS, won't that make their children sexually active since there would be no consequences? Is curing AIDS really what we want our children to do? 

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Most freepers themselves are poor and relatively uneducated.  The thought of students growing up to be engineers or doctors probably intimidates them because it shows that some people have the opportunities and initiative that they never had or took advantage of.  To add insult to injury, these industries lie in areas that clash directly with evangelical or conservative beliefs.

Self loathing might be the main reason why this movement exists, IMO.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

But if our children cure AIDS, won't that make their children sexually active since there would be no consequences? Is curing AIDS really what we want our children to do? 

I swear that's an actual argument against the HPV (cervical cancer) vaccine.

Self loathing might be the main reason why this movement exists, IMO.

I think that's way too simplistic of an explanation, but then again, the whole movement is way too simplistic.

I think what we're seeing these days is the result of a healthy swath of the population that for the better part of the last generation, hasn't been properly informed.  If you're a guy who only listens to Rush, watches Fox News, and shuns any other sort of information from the 'Liberal Media Elite', then of course you're going to be an angry, confrontational, ill-informed boob.  The problem is that the traditional forms of media, the ones that were actually informative and useful, have fallen out of use over the last decade (newspapers), or have become degraded themselves over time (network news and all cable news especially).  A person can know everything about the Micheal Jackson case these days far easier then they can the health care debate.  In fact I'd bet money that that is the case for most of America.

When so few people are properly informed, when so many rely only on their self-congratulatory echo chamber of news outlets (the left is also somewhat, but only a little guilty of this), it should be no surprise that debate and compromise itself is in danger of going away.  What with so much certainty floating around, who wants to talk things through?

[Stoney Mason]

I think what we're seeing these days is the result of a healthy swath of the population that for the better part of the last generation, hasn't been properly informed.  If you're a guy who only listens to Rush, watches Fox News, and shuns any other sort of information from the 'Liberal Media Elite', then of course you're going to be an angry, confrontational, ill-informed boob.

Nailed it.

[Mandark]

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
 
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

This has been the conservative message about education and opportunity since I've been following politics.  Hard work and personal responsibility instead of using social disadvantages as a crutch.  They eat it up when Bill Cosby says something along these lines, and sets him up as a counter to the "victimization" narratives of the NAACP.

Of all things, this should have been the last to turn into the Controversy Of The Week.  They should have been making perfunctory statements about the importance of education -- if they noticed the speech at all -- rather than threatening to pull their kids and imputing a fascist agenda to the president.  It's nuts.  They're nuts.


Remember in the first month or two of Obama's presidency?  Right wing pundits vacillated between "ZOMG SOCIALISM" and "heh indeed, the liberals were tricked into voting for a center-right candidate  ".  Well, they've officially resolved that contradiction.  No matter what Obama does or says, he's an extremist and a conspirator against the country.

I feel a bit dumb for being even a little surprised by this.

[Stoney Mason]

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
 
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

This has been the conservative message about education and opportunity since I've been following politics.  Hard work and personal responsibility instead of using social disadvantages as a crutch.  They eat it up when Bill Cosby says something along these lines, and sets him up as a counter to the "victimization" narratives of the NAACP.

Of all things, this should have been the last to turn into the Controversy Of The Week.  They should have been making perfunctory statements about the importance of education -- if they noticed the speech at all -- rather than threatening to pull their kids and imputing a fascist agenda to the president.  It's nuts.  They're nuts.


Remember in the first month or two of Obama's presidency?  Right wing pundits vacillated between "ZOMG SOCIALISM" and "heh indeed, the liberals were tricked into voting for a center-right candidate  ".  Well, they've officially resolved that contradiction.  No matter what Obama does or says, he's an extremist and a conspirator against the country.

I feel a bit dumb for being even a little surprised by this.

You should never be surprised by the ability of people to hold two completely contradictory notions in their head depending on whatever the current situation is at the moment. I know people down South who belong to blue collar unions but hate Obama because of teh socialism. My old/new observation is how fascinating it is to watch identity politics operate in this country based on race, and class, and of course the usual right left divide.

[recursivelyenumerable]

To: SWAMPSNIPER
“You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free.”

This is what concerns me the most...our kids’ history and social studies textbooks are distorted and paint America as a country that has much to be ashamed of...

He wants us to “make our nation more FAIR...and more FREE?”

And Socialism is the way to do that??? I think NOT!!

Soooo glad Virginia is NOT airing this video to our children!!


36 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 09:30:38 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by Lisamei62 (Right Wing Extremist Mom)

To: TheZMan
Yeah I got the same sour taste from his example of AIDS being the great disease of our time.

Its not like curing Cancer or Heart Disease is any kind of big deal, right?

I mean, didn’t his OWN Mother die of Cancer?

But of course, AIDS is THAT ONE disease that is officially sanctioned by the Politically Correct Intellectuals on the Left as THE GREAT SCOURGE on the WORLD.


39 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 09:30:58 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by R0CK3T

To: Feline_AIDS
He wants our children to think he’s a “nice guy”...or that he’s “cool”...so that when he starts really asking them to “help him”...(like turning in their parents who may say some not-so-nice things about him)...they might be more likely to support him...after all...he’s THE PRESIDENT...and Mommy and Daddy must be wrong for saying those things!

UGH...


62 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 09:39:17 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by Lisamei62 (Right Wing Extremist Mom)

To: buccaneer81
Everyone keep in mind that the one speaking is the one who approved the appointment of a pedophile-enabling, drug abusing, radical homo-nazi to the DOE as the director of “safe schools.” It all comes into perspective.


73 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 09:44:20 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by fwdude (It is not the liberals who will destroy this country, but the "moderates.")

To: buccaneer81
Obama says NOTHING about the greatness of this country and for kids to be proud to be AMericans — a simple thing one would expect of the President of the United States.


74 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 09:44:25 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by SmartInsight

To: PghBaldy
“You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free.”

Yep. This is liberal indoctrination.


99 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 09:55:42 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by KansasGirl ( Obama's heroes have always been left-wing radicals.)

[Mandark]

Speaking of maintaining contradictory opinions, what's with the far right wing opposing Obama's attempts to liberalize the government's detention and torture policies?

If you thought that the president was a radical communist/fascist with designs on undermining the constitution, brainwashing our children into the Obama Youth, setting up death panels, and compiling an enemies' list so he can send them to concentration camps, then why in the name of God would you want to give him unchecked power to arrest, imprison, and torture anyone he wants?

IT MAKES. NO. SENSE.

[recursivelyenumerable]

To: Rebelbase
I’ve scanned it twice and see nothing wrong with it. Kids should be having this kind of stuff pounded into them on a daily basis by their teachers and parents.
So you believe that we should "pound into them on a daily basis that the "need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free?

Is that what we want our children to do, "fight poverty and homelessness?" "Fight crime and discrimination?." "To make our nation more fair and more free?" I guess we want them all to grow up as community organizers and work for ACORN.

I was taught in school in the 1950s and 60s that America was the land of freedom and opportunity for all. How should we now make our country more fair and more free? Obama's big government that took over the car industry, banking, insurance, etc. and sets executive salary levels? Or Obamacare? Or cap and trade? This is all about the Marxist philosophy of economic justice and redistribution of wealth.

And this crap that Obama is working hard for you is just more of a cult of personality. Obama is not the government.

112 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 10:06:30 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by kabar

[Mandark]

Quick, someone pull recursive out of there before he snaps and goes native.

[recursivelyenumerable]

To: Rebelbase; kabar
In 0bama’s new world, new Amerika, he needs these kids to work for the state, “for the country.” The entire speech is socialist propaganda and indoctrination. The speech really isn’t about education, but about how 0bama and the new Amerika needs them to work.
He needs them to start thinking about how to work for the country. Those critical thinking skills are not what you are considering, they are the critical thinking skills of the scholastic socialist model.

195 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 10:48:26 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by EBH (it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government)



@Mandark yeah, FR threads are like Pringles for me

[recursivelyenumerable]

To: HollyB
there is a whole lot in there about misery
The Democrat philosophy - make people think their lives are miserable, then they turn to you to help.

Beyond that...If Obama wanted to do a speech, fine. But a welcoming one...Welcome back to school, challenges ahead, opportunities, new beginnings, etc. Exciting and optimistic not this humdrum, woe is me, sad thing that he tries to turn around by telling them they can overcome. It is like getting run over by a tractor, then being expected to stand up and cheer thank you.

First this will be way over the heads of many students and inappropriate for the younger ones because of the talk about AIDS etc.

Secondly, in most schools kids will not pay attention anyway...they will be talking, laughing, passing notes, etc. Obama is such an egotist to think that kids will listen intently. Go to any school assembly and tell me who was listening, and who remembers what was said?

Third, and most importantly. If Obama wants to talk to our kids he should address real issues they need to hear about for their own self worth and respect. Such as: -

1. Pull your pants up and cover your underwear, and get pants that are your size and not sized for Bozo the clown.
2. Don't have multiple ear, face, body piercings and tatoos.
3. Wear normal hairstyles, not all shaved off, not purple and red dyed, not glued in spikes, and not in fuzzy dreadlocks.
4. Do not have a baby until you are working and can pay for it and can be an all-the-time parent! Do not expect the govt. to pay for your children anymore if they are born before you are married and you or your spouse are working.
5. Learn to speak ENGLISH...Not Spanish, Eubonics, Hip Hop, Jive. If you want a good job, you must be able to communicate in English!
6. Walk lifting both feet, not sliding and slouching across the road. Walking tall and proud is a sign of self-confidence.

7. Do not expect handouts. Handouts do not make you equal. Handouts make you less than equal because they make you dependent. Government, like me, wants you dependent so we can be in control. But do not take them, or you will never be free again.

246 posted on Mon Sep 07 2009 12:19:38 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time) by CitizenM ("An excuse is worse than an lie, because an excuse is a lie hidden." Pope John Paul, II)

[Mandark]

More than a little telling how CitizenM (if that is his real name!) puts so much emphasis on white, middle-class cultural signifiers, no?  "Normal hairstyles" my tuchus.

[FlameOfCallandor]

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/04/average-home-price-in-detroit-falls-to.html

According to the Michigan Association of Realtors and Detroit Board of Realtors (data here), the average sales price of a Detroit home fell to $12,669 in February (Year-to-Date), a -42.5% decline from the $22,016 average home price during the same period last year (see chart above).

  What a shithole.

[Stoney Mason]

Sort of slightly off topic (but not really) but I just found out my nephew who is in the marines is going over to Afghanistan in May of next year. I know many of us probably have family members or relatives over there so it's not like my emotions are unique but the news left me feeling sour today and with a sense of dread and sadness.

Just amazes me all these years later that we are still in a country we have no business in fighting the remnants of a war we have no business fighting. Just utterly foolish.

[The Fake Shemp]

I disagree that Afghanistan is a war not worth fighting, and I say this as someone who has a brother enlisting in the armed forces and will likely be sent there as well.

I do agree that we cannot continue to fight this war the way we have been (limited support, limited troops, reliance on military contractors, etc.).

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

While it help paints me a ultra-liberal stereotype (the kind who loves NPR and such), I still can't help but love This Modern World.

[Phoenix Dark]

I disagree that Afghanistan is a war not worth fighting, and I say this as someone who has a brother enlisting in the armed forces and will likely be sent there as well.

I do agree that we cannot continue to fight this war the way we have been (limited support, limited troops, reliance on military contractors, etc.).

Why is it worth fighting in your opinion

[Human Snorenado]

Those poor kids, the socialism melted their minds...

Obama's speech was just dripping with socialist values, especially when he told kids "I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter."

Oh, and the part about students setting goals for their education and asking for help when they worry they won't succeed? He is stealing the words right out of Karl Marx's mouth.

edit- the juxtaposition between some of the commenters underneath the article (the usual gang of right wing interweb idiots) and those kids is pretty comical

[The Fake Shemp]

Why is it worth fighting in your opinion

To stop a nation from collapsing into the hands of a militant organization that harbored and trained the very people that committed terrorist attacks on US soil, and also threaten to destabilize a neighboring nation with actual nuclear weapons is not a war worth fighting for?

The reason behind war is sound, the strategy is not.

[The Fake Shemp]

Furthermore, Aghanistan is the remnants of meddling and disastrous American foreign policy decades prior. It's not like we simply walked into a situation that was peachy. We are indirectly responsible for the mess.

The fact that Americans are willing to destabilize a country for political means, happily let the Air Force carpet bomb it to hell, but lack the stomach to rebuild it, is pretty depressing.

[Human Snorenado]

We can't even rebuild New Orleans after Katrina; why should anyone think we can rebuild another country we know nothing about?  Most of this is what comes of almost 30 years of letting people who don't want to govern do the governing.  Basically, you don't let a shitty homeowner run an apartment complex across town if you can help it.

[The Fake Shemp]

This is also a pretty sad argument.

For all purposes, we've broken something, but because we've showcased an inability to fix things properly, we should run away from our consequences?

Leaving a country to becoming a narco-state sounds like a good way to protect American interests!

Basically, you don't let a shitty homeowner run an apartment complex across town if you can help it.

To a degree, but it's really more or less trying to pick the lesser of two evils, without any of the foresight to realize that the organization and your interests will collide one day.

[Oblivion]

Is Cheebs still banned? He doesn't seem to post in Poligaf either for some reason.

[Human Snorenado]

Is Cheebs still banned? He doesn't seem to post in Poligaf either for some reason.

He's been busy preparing himself to view the next Diablo Cody movie and mourning Ted Kennedy, he doesn't have time for internets forums shenanigans.

[Phoenix Dark]

He's on Shia Loves Mommy

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32737911#32737911
 

[Kestastrophe]

It was an indoctrination speech before we had protested...........and decided for our kids that they should not hear something from an authoratative black man.

[Kestastrophe]

o God, this was in my hometown last weekend:
http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2009/09/hundreds_gather_for_tea_party.html

Jackson resident Bill Spencer attended the rally and carried a sign that showed duct tape over the mouth of President Barack Obama. Spencer said he was at the rally because of the economic effect the Obama administration's agenda has had.

"It's putting businesses of Jackson almost out of business. I come from a locally run family business here in town," Spencer said. "I don't want to mention it, but that could just kill us."

FUD

[Kestastrophe]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574400831593074454.html
They're getting creative now. This dude argues that government regulation is the cause of why our healthcare is inaffordably expensive.


But the WSJ semi-redeemed themselves by publishing this right below:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574401163387229496.html

The most notable literary response to last year's financial crisis was not to turn to the obvious genre—books about Wall Street shenanigans in the 1920s—but to skip several historical stages and to go straight to Ayn Rand's 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged," in which heroic titans of industry are persecuted by a meddling government. The book's sales skyrocketed in early 2009, proving that when bankers puff asset bubbles and wreck the world, a large part of the public can be counted on to learn from that experience that bankers are the real victims of society, presumably deserving even more tax cuts and deregulation.