Post: #1

I haven't been feeling the level of hate lately that I need to stay motivated, ergo this thread.

I was just watching an interesting TED talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_rudd_are_...o_conflict
about how the USA and China can avoid becoming active enemies like Athens and Sparta did in ancient history.


And it reminded me of why I thought Obama's Victory was such a good thing for race relations in America and between America and the World.

I'll try to keep it short, as the most fun of this thread is going to be the awesome hissy fits from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle here...

But I HOPE the good thing about America is we bitch and bitch but hardly anyone is setting off bombs in our own country to kill each other.

1) OBAMA'S ELECTION SHOWED BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA THERE IS NOT PERVASIVE HATRED AND DISTRUST OF THEM.
Oooh! That feels good.

2) OBAMA'S ELECTION SHOWED BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA THAT THEY CAN ACHIEVE SOMETHING GREAT IF THEY ARE TALENTED AND PURSUE A WORTHY GOAL. Thurgood Marshall, 1st AA Supreme Court Justice to AAs: "Boy, you've got to be BETTER."

3) OBAMA'S ELECTION SHOWED THE WORLD THAT AMERICA IS TRULY A COUNTRY THAT CAN RESPECT THOSE DIFFERENT THAN THE MAJORITY /PLURALITY.

I am not a big fan of Islam, but doesn't electing a man whose father was a Muslim make the THINKING people of the world see us as open minded? And aren't those by far the most important people to win over? The brutes who see us as weak... well, remember the Nazis and Imperial Japan.. they thought we were too soft too, didn't they?

A huge proportion of the MOST TALENTED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD emigrate to America, and you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

OK, I hope this is one of those popcorn threads...

Post: #2

Post: #3

In all honesty, a lot of the societal issues we disagreed with would have happened with or without Obama. I still feel mildly negative that Obama won and not someone like Gary Johnson or Ron Paul, but that was inevitable. All in all your argument is sound and it isn't as bad as some people think it is say like the Tea Partyers. I also wouldn't have been mad if Mitt Romney had won either, but in terms of foreign relation Obama has been a great propaganda tool as he's heavily featured in foreign media(especially Japan), regardless of issues with Russia and China did come about(they would have happened anyway and a Republican would not have been as easily received and could not have pushed off the inevitable for atleast a while like Obama).

TL;DR: All in all politics are rigged these days. I would prefer a well received puppet to a non well-recieved puppet.

Edit: I will also admit a Republican would not have gotten away with a lot of the foreign policy blunders Obama made during his term. Benghazi was a pittance compared to throwing Libya into turmoil, funding terrorists in/destroying Syria creating ISIS, and escalating issues Russia over Ukraine which is in THEIR sphere of influence causing the current Civil War.

Post: #4

From an outsiders view he has done alright but at the same time he hasn't. Consistency is key here for USA, now more than ever.

On one hand the US doesn't want to delve into South America in order to influence it, with Cuba being brought in from the cold on official terms. I'm not too sure the drug war is going to feel the same love.

However we see the US trying to create a sphere of influence in Ukraine and South East Asia where it can throw its weight around without the two big super powers, China and Russia butting in. That is disillusion and dangerous.

I would think what term is left for Obama he will allow the Japanese more concessions for a non-pacifist military policy like their military and government has been pushing for in order to combat China.

As for Ukraine, well that whole thing is a mess and I am certain it will rear its ugly head with Clinton in the White House.

So to sum it up, Obama is a 50/.50 President.

Post: #5

(04-12-2015 06:32 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  1) OBAMA'S ELECTION SHOWED BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA THERE IS NOT PERVASIVE HATRED AND DISTRUST OF THEM.
Oooh! That feels good.

That feeling lasted up until Henry Gates and the Beer Summit. Since then its been a subtle stream of bitch smacks.

Post: #6

Your post makes logical sense. Sadly, we don't live in a society of logic-oriented people. We live in an emotionally-driven one fueled by our 24/7 media.

So, yes, while you would think that Obama getting elected twice with majority-white voters would let people think racism has receded, the opposite has happened.

The media is in the business of selling grievance and winning awards for how they sell it. Since the president's two elections upended their premise of America being racist, they have fed us a diet of never-ending "big stories" to make it seem like racism is all-encompassing. This is how they keep themselves being relevant and this is how they win the big awards.

I worked in these newsrooms. I saw who won the awards and who was giving them out. The committees are filled with '60s holdovers thinking that outside their air-conditioned offices it's still Selma '65. Any story on racism goes right to the top of the pile when awards are considered -- no matter how bad or questionable that story is. (The same goes for stories about sexism, so expect media coverage on that to get amped up further if we get a female president.)

While the stories on Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown (to name two) were newsworthy, the media blew them up into OJ Simpson-styled "events" and that likely would not have been the case if we'd still had Bush as president and they were able to find racism in his very presence.

The ubiquity of these stories has caused, in my opinion, Americans to become even more alienated from each other, racially-speaking.

***

If you don't mind me going off topic here, a similar corollary can be drawn between the old Cold War threat of the US being bombed and the new hysteria on global warming (i.e. climate change).

I'm old enough to remember when the media barraged us non-stop with "end of the world" pseudo-news events about nuclear holocaust (magazine covers, endless articles, etc.). The most blatant example of this was a TV movie about nuclear bombing in '83 called "The Day After," which was followed by (get this) hours of news commentators like Ted Koppel opining about the subject and days of newspaper editorials. This was for a TV movie!

Scroll ahead to the 1990s, and the post-Cold War years. Finally, finally Americans did not have to live each day thinking the Soviet Union was going to attack.* So what does the media do? They drum up another end-of-the-world threat by making global warming the centerpiece of all their reporting.

Gotta keep the people scared to control them and keep them tuning in. I blame the media, not the people.

* Sidenote: This was drummed into kids heads almost every day at school. Wonder if the post-'50s "live for today" drug ethos developed in American schools because kids grew up being told tomorrow might not come. I also wonder if it helped kick into gear the hedonistic post-1970s divorce culture when the first generation of Cold War kids came of age.

Post: #7

(04-12-2015 06:32 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  1) OBAMA'S ELECTION SHOWED BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA THERE IS NOT PERVASIVE HATRED AND DISTRUST OF THEM.
Oooh! That feels good.

Technically this is correct. However the media and the SJW's are dead set on showing otherwise and unfortunately they are succeeding. While Obama's election or Obama himself are only tangentially related to this, what happened has happened. Race relations are in my opinion worse than they were ten years ago and probably the worst they've been since the early 90's.

Quote:2) OBAMA'S ELECTION SHOWED BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA THAT THEY CAN ACHIEVE SOMETHING GREAT IF THEY ARE TALENTED AND PURSUE A WORTHY GOAL. Thurgood Marshall, 1st AA Supreme Court Justice to AAs: "Boy, you've got to be BETTER."

This is also technically correct. Unfortunately, like above, this is competing with the victim narrative and the victim narrative is winning, again thanks to the media and the perpetual outrage machine that is social media.

This is why I think black men in particular need to get away from the left, since the left pushes the victim narrative all the while refusing to solve the real issues that disproportionately affect that demographic like the "War" on Drugs.

Quote:3) OBAMA'S ELECTION SHOWED THE WORLD THAT AMERICA IS TRULY A COUNTRY THAT CAN RESPECT THOSE DIFFERENT THAN THE MAJORITY /PLURALITY.

I am not a big fan of Islam, but doesn't electing a man whose father was a Muslim make the THINKING people of the world see us as open minded? And aren't those by far the most important people to win over? The brutes who see us as weak... well, remember the Nazis and Imperial Japan.. they thought we were too soft too, didn't they?

I don't think the world particularly cares or will treat us any differently than they otherwise would have.

They'll get their good feels and then go on back to business as usual.

Obama's numerous foreign policy blunders as already mentioned are far more consequential.

Quote:A huge proportion of the MOST TALENTED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD emigrate to America, and you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

This is not as good as it seems, for reasons I mentioned in the food stamp thread, and if people want to immigrate here they will do so regardless of who's in the White House unless it's a real extremist.

And let's be honest, Obama has been nothing but extremely friendly to the left's culture war and feminism, meaning he has been anything but good for the men on this forum in that regard.

To sum up, you're right that he's good for the feels, but on substance he has been anything but unless you're in very particular demographics.

Not that I think the alternatives would have been much, if any, better.

Post: #8

I've tried to stay off the bandwagon and be as fair as possible with Obama, but there's just not much to like:

- Involvement in Libya after winning the election as a dove
- Involvement in Syria (not just involvement, but equipping Al Qaeda affiliates) after winning the election as a dove
- His reactions to the Trayvon Martin / Michael Brown cases
- Amnesty for millions of illegal Mestizo peasants
- His efforts at gun control following Sandy Hook
- Trading Bergdahl for Taliban commanders

Post: #9

It's always about choices. Not whether Obama is the best possible president, but whether he was a better choice than McCain or Romney.

I donated $500 to McCain's 2000 campaign and did some volunteer work. That McCain was a guy who was against the high-altitude bombing of Serbia and resulting issues like killing civilians and destroying the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

The McCain who ran in 2008 was a different guy, just as the prudent realist Dick Cheney who was Secretary of Defense in 1991 was a different guy than warmonger VP Cheney.

It's like McCain went insane. Has there been any crisis in the last ten years that he hasn't taken a bellicose stand? Georgia in 2008, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," Libya, Syria, Ukraine?

Plus he picked that twit Sarah Palin as a running mate, probably because she stimulated some blood flow into his aged penis. Having those two close to nuclear codes was an unacceptable risk.

There was a better case for Romney, but you really didn't know what you were going to get - the moderate and reasonable Massachusetts governor, or the hawkish and callous plutocrat who ran in 2012?

Post: #10

So let's tally this up: a self-described 50 year-old mental health profession feels the need to create an incendiary race-baiting thread under the guise of boasting about America's "improving" race relations, all the while openly admitting that he -- a white man -- needs "hissy-fits" from "the other side" so he can feel better about himself about all the race-based rancor he is hoping to stir up?

You can dress a turd all up in the world's most beautiful dress, but a troll thread is still a troll thread.

2/10, would not bite on bait again. Probably.

Post: #11

He was probably the only one who voted 'Highly Positive'.

G

Post: #12

Post: #13

I add that Obama has been a huge disappointment, especially in not cleaning out the stables by prosecuting the Wall Street mortgage securities fraudsters and cracking down on other frauds like HFT. Too much of his "stimulus program" were handouts to "anti-poverty" and other social engineering non-profits rather than putting all of the money in infrastructure improvement and jobs for regular people rather than sociology BAs.

The best that can be said about his foreign policy is that he didn't get the USA into a major war, at least one that he started rather than continued - yet. Libya, Syria, Ukraine are all fiascos.

Post: #14

-Doubled the national debt, much of which was domestic favors to unions and other programs encouraging gov dependency.
-Gave amnesty to millions of illegal aliens
-thousands of pages of new regulations from gov agencies under his thumb
-blocked keystone, and most drilling on fed gov lands.
-forced young men to pay for everyone else's healthcare
-insults christians regularly (and frequently defends Islam)
-hates gun rights
-inflames racial tensions every chance he gets.

It blows my mind all these millennals think hes looking out for their best interest. All the debt and regulations is killing incentives to hire labor. He's clearly trying to punish America and bring it down for what he believes it did wrong.

How can you even say youre 'disappointed' with Obama? Socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried. He's never held a job....what were you expecting?

Post: #15

IKE, stop trolling us and get that Viagra so you can fuck your 18 year old Pinay unicorns anytime you damn well please. Also get a good pill cutter so you can cut your V into halves and quarters; you'll find that a little goes a long way.

Post: #16

3 day suspension for blatant political trolling.

Post: #17

I was still a bit naive and optimistic when Obama first ran for president and got elected. But during these 8 years, I've been disappointed over and over again. My dreams have been utterly crushed.

At first I was willing to write off some of Obama's painful missteps as just being due to irrational Republican sabotage (which is true to a certain extent, for example the stimulus given to banks without placing any restrictions on them), but there are so many tremendous blunders or evils made by his own hand that over time I've just become disgusted with not just him as a person, but American politics in general. Think of:

- wantonly spouting hysteria about the "gender wage gap" and "campus rape epidemic"
- defending NSA's domestic and international spying
- not closing Guantanamo or stopping torture
- bombing unrelated countries
- first attacking and then allying with Assad

The list goes on and on on and on...

All in all, my impression of Obama has changed from this:



... to this:

Post: #18

I do not post very often.............

But when I do.

It is against a TROLL of GIANT ProPorTions.

Post: #19

If serious, this poll would need an "Indistinguishable from not Positive or Negative" option.

Post: #20

The extreme emotional reactions to Obama seem to be based on unreasonable expectations.

The far right fringe really wants him to be the black devil muslim incarnate. The ultimate boogeyman to knock down.

The far left wants him to be the real life version of the hollywood magic negro all the white liberals and various race cheerleaders grew up watching on tv and film.

The truth is he's just a mediocre dude who skated in on charisma and some good skills at playing the political game. He's good at being a politician but mediocre to bad at actual policy and effectiveness as a leader. A lot of suckers bought into the swagger, charisma, and tough guy talk.

He's no different than any other mediocre pro-status quo leader the U.S. has been putting in the past half century or so.

These past few generations of politicians know where their bread is buttered. At the end of the day they are beholden to lobbies and established interests of the elite. The biggest lie is that any single president has the power to "change" anything. It'll be the same bullshit over and over again until the current party system or alternative parties along with powerful financial backing are created to reform the system. I forgot which Roman or Greek philosopher made the observation that it's almost inevitable that Democracy decays when powerful interests intercede over the will of the people. That's what you are seeing now a.. slow decay of American society and the political system.

Post: #21

I was a dumb femliberalcommie indoctrinated mf back in college. I couldn't look beyond the President's skin color (I'm Black), and ignored the history and his pre-presidential fuckups. It probably wouldn't have mattered, however I did not make that mistake a second time. And I shan't make it again with the old bag Hillary.

Post: #22

choichoi - It blows my mind how democrats deny school choice vouchers for inner city kids and yet they keep lining up to vote democrat.

Post: #23

Obama was like the Tim Tebow of presidents. There was so much excitement, fanfare and people that were genuinely 'fuck yeah' about his election and optimism about perhaps a return to cool Fresh Prince and the Cosby show race relations before rodney king and public enemy fucked it all up. I remember when white people would watch shows with black people on television...now Tyler perry bullshit exists on segregated TV channels....anyway I digress.

Obama, like Tebow was all hyped up and a big talker, but when it came time to deliver was garbage. I remember being at a 2008 rally he spoke at and thinking "fuck yeah, this guy is going to set the record straight. He's black, which means he doesn't have his asscheeks wide open to the usual political suspects and he's going to show poor people that 'the man' isn't keeping them down because of their skin color"

Now where are we? totally ineffective laws, pansy foreign policy and the veil pulled back on racism. That its not some sort of 'deep seated historical prejudice' but a tool used by those in power, regardless of their skin color, to keep those that are stupid, and not in power fighting among themselves.

Right when Obama got elected, when I believed 'racism was real' I thought...holy crap, some crazy white power person is going to attempt an assassination. Guess what, hasn't even come close, even with bumbling security. If racism were 'real' then there should be scandal after scandal at least of the president being disrespected by alabama mayors or denied into some country club or not allowed in some sort of church. So thanks Mr. President that showing the color of your money most certainly trumps the color of your skin in america.

Post: #24

(04-12-2015 06:15 PM)choichoi Wrote:  I was a dumb femliberalcommie indoctrinated mf back in college. I couldn't look beyond the President's skin color (I'm Black), and ignored the history and his pre-presidential fuckups. It probably wouldn't have mattered, however I did not make that mistake a second time. And I shan't make it again with the old bag Hillary.

Good for you. But the problem is what the hell will the Republicans really offer up instead of Hitlery? We're in pretty tough times where you almost literally have to "pick your poison!"

Post: #25

This really does have to be the worst set of presidential election candidates i've seen in my lifetime.

Michael Dukakis looks like Thomas Jefferson compared with this limpdick 2016 bunch.

There's not even a mediocre safe choice to fall back on.