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Why did Barack Obama have to be President right NOW?
Posts
The level of expectations heaped on Obama by his supporters and the media were borderline cult-like.
You think that level of adoration has survived into August, 2010? I really don't know what to say to that.
Rigorous Scholarship
Perhaps this is coming from ignorance on what he has or has not accomplished. But HCR and finanicial reform, studen load reform and all the like may be horrible in a conservatives eyes, but is it really a product of Obama? Basically, what makes the right "loathe" him.
Or is it just the same retoric? I heard my dad always talking about how much he hated Clinton. I think most of us Dems hated Bush, but I think that is also a lot less simply hating the other party and more hating the specific administration. I think many of Bush the second's haters likely didnt find his father too bad, and would admit as such.
Eh, I dunno. I think the level of excitement was broderline cult-like. But i think a lot of the folks who got really excited about obama still think hes done a pretty fantastic job with the cards hes been dealt.
The people who have turned on him would be those who werent that passionate to begin with.
People on the "Left" got excited by him, and that pretty much laid the basis for disdain. Also maybe the average republican didn't care about his ethnicity and the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, but enough did and do to make fuss about it. Plus "Hope and Change" equals "Doom and Gloom" for them because apparently American politics is a zero-sum game.
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
Yeah, this constant election bullshit happens because constituents want to keep feeding the cycle.
I followed it quite closely. I saw crowds of supporters and good press.
It wasn't cult like at all. Yeah the shepard fairey painting being put on T-shirts was kind of creepy, but he's just an Ed Hardy wannabe.
#FreeScheck#FreeSKFM
Speaking only for myself, a big part of the reason I don't like Obama is because I never got the sense that he likes America or is particularly patriotic. He comes off as the typical left-wing academic who views the US as being too patriotic, too religious, too gun-loving, too individualistic, too different from socialist European countries etc. etc. His comments during the campaign about people bitterly clinging to guns and religion were pretty revealing of his views of Americans who don't come from his educational and social class.
I live in DC. I know a lot of people who are like Obama- smug, self-important and disdainful of anyone who is not part of their particular world.
If you thought the driver of the bus was about to drive it off the cliff, wouldn't you want to replace him with a new driver?
Rigorous Scholarship
Have you ever considered that maybe you deserve it.
Instead, hes holding onto his accomplishments and not really letting them take up too much of the cycle, so that when he does need his polls to be inflated he can really start telling his base all about what hes done. Hopefully, by that time, unemployment has dropped a bit more so we can see real progress there (not that we havent already) and said accomplishments dont turn off some of those still suffering from the recession.
We will have to wait and see if Im right, but you dont see a lot of the Obama administraition trying to convince us theyve done a good job. In the Bush years it was constantly "look, everything sucks, but we kept america safe! No more terrorists, right!? So good job us!"
With Obama, theres no "well, yes unemployment sucks, but it has dropped a bit and job creation is the highest its been in X months. Also we passed health care reform, made sweeping changes to the financial market to prevent another collapse and have begun pulling out of Iraq."
No, instead its "we have to make jobs. That is all." Which isnt going to drive his numbers up, but if he was chanting about his accomplishments now, people would be absolutely sick of hearing about them for the election.
Its funny, because in a lot of ways, I was a conservative, heck, I still am in some cases. But I am on the complete opposite side of this one then you. His attitude about America is what drew me to him. I get physically sick when I think about the "Americuh first" crowds. I absolutely despise the entire "real, hard working americans!" type mentality.
Like, I HATE truck commercials because they try to imply that if you need to load your truck, your a real American, and you are better then some guy who works at a computer! Guess what, if I didnt have a great education, I could probably find some manual labor job that people would try to glorify. I also have some very contraversial views about how we glorify our military.
But the thing that puts me over the edge is that theres people out there who think that folks like me, who feel this way, are someone hating America. No. Im not. Obama isnt. It has nothing to do with loving this country.
Yeah, I'd like an answer for this as well. My complete and utter disgust for George W. Bush was a rather sharp decline from 2001-2002, post-9/11, where people were like, "Do you support the President?" and I answered, "Yeah, I do. He doesn't represent my ideology or my politics, but my guy lost the election. And he seems to be inspiring this country and improving its morale."
I mean, Iraq pretty much annihilated that opinion of mine, but I'm not a guy who goes through life with a checklist of People I Must Hate At All Cost without any policy-based rationale.
I'm talking about (the "bitter clingers") would probably look at me the same way they look at Obama.
Rigorous Scholarship
So you loathe him because he not only tells you the uncomfortable truths about America, but asks you to work with him to fix them.
A) Republicans. It's a time-tested tactic, most often seen in the runup to Presidential debates. Build up the other guy's expectations, set the bar for him as high as you possibly can, then slag on him when he doesn't clear said bar. Hillary did it too; you'll remember the whole 'celestial choirs singing' quote. Make him out as a god, get everyone to expect godhood, then beat on him for disappointing everyone.
B) Reading between the lines when there was nothing between them. Supporters heard what Obama said, and his
C) charisma caused them to build him and his policies up in their own heads. They got in their heads a mentality of "all this and more" when that's the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do when picking a candidate. They attached campaign promises to Obama that he never made. They attached positions to him that he never held. And the Republicans sure as hell weren't about to set them straight.
I give Obama about a B so far. Given all the bullshit he's had to put up with, he's moved the ball on a hell of a lot of things in the first half of the term. He got so much stuff done, on so much contentious policy, that the House had to ask him 'please, no more tough votes'. And in the face of frequent unanimous opposition and bad-faith negotiation from the GOP, and a constant drumbeat of 'is he ACTUALLY a citizen?' He may not have been at the forefront, but Congress wouldn't have gotten done half of what they did if Obama wasn't sitting there.
On the other hand... he should have been pushing more. You've heard the comparisons between 'Candidate Obama' and 'President Obama'. People voted for Candidate Obama, figured he was going to raise hell, and then he became 'President Obama', the guy that just wants to quietly focus on policy and not have to raise hell. He's been giving back and giving back and giving back until bills get to pretty much the exact amount he campaigned on, and only then does he come out of hiding and start pressing. (Which means he's winning his battles, but they feel like losses to all involved.) You can't shake the impression that, even with the fact that he's getting his agenda through (however delayed), he could be doing more. He's having a 50-home run season, but it feels like it should be 60. He's getting 120 RBI's, but it feels like it should be 140.
You've got to lay the bulk of the blame on Reid, though. If this were the Minnesota Twins, with a 3-4-5 batting order of Pelosi, Obama, Reid, Pelosi is Justin Morneau, Obama is Joe Mauer, and Reid is Nick Punto. You have to pitch to Morneau because Mauer's hitting behind him, but you don't have to beat Mauer directly if there's Punto sitting there. Walk Mauer and then strike out Punto.
"HE'S AN EMPTY SUIT GOD-KING WHO HATES AMERICA!"
Uhh.... well, I guess suddenly those criticisms I had about how his appointments at the Fed aren't doing enough to stem unemployment seem kind of irrelevant.
If our choices are between "I like Obama" and "HE IS SECRETLY ROBOT HITLER FROM THE FUTURE COME TO GAY RAPE OUR UNBORN CHILDREN!" I guess I'll go with "I like Obama."
So.
Rigorous Scholarship
Modern, I don't really have a problem with your opinion, but I think you're extrapolating a bit too much. Obama may very well have criticisms and critiques of some weaker or inhibiting aspects of American culture, but I highly doubt that translates into him "not liking America" or "not being patriotic." My girlfriend does shit that drives me crazy, but that doesn't mean I don't love her.
And as for the clinging to guns and religion thing... check out The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, as well as the book's inherent focus on the likewise consequences of economic decline. People in general become more conservative and reactionary during recessions, like the one we've been experiencing for awhile. In fact, clinging to guns and religion were just two items... given what we've witnessed recently, especially re: immigrant backlashes and the Ground Zero Mosque, I'm betting we could add a lot more items to the list. I think it's a very important observation, not a "Fuck you America!" from Obama.
Or are we forgetting that Bush grew up in a wealthy Connecticut family?
And the bible and guns comment was pretty much straight on. As a person who lives in an area with loads of bibles and guns... yeah, we already disowned people who think Guns and Bibles are the One True Way. There's a difference between gun owners and gun worshipers.
Then there's a fundamental disagreement that goes beyond Obama. He's just the latest person to come and tell you that your selfish, jingoistic ideals are not such a good idea.
Your joking right? What about the whole summer recover tour thing? All the trips he's made to the midwest to give speeches on how great his recovery plan is? He is right now, today, trying to make the case for how well he handled the auto companies. Saying how all three companies are profitable for the first time in years thanks to him. Of course he is doing this at a FORD plant so the whole thing is hilarious. Every democrat I have seen interviewed, including Obamas own people like Gibbs, basically say yeah unemployment is still high, but its going down slightly thanks to us. Few days ago Obama was making a speech trying to take credit for the drawdown in Iraq, even though he is only following the plan Bush signed with the Iraq goverment.
Hey hey, let's not get into that. Dude's like one of two conservatives on these boards that's allowing us access to his thought process.
MM is hardy as hell. I don't think anything could scare him off. He's the T-1000 of conservatives.
I think we probably have very different and incompatible ideas on what path this country should take.
For what it's worth, I find the whole desire to pretend to be a regular guy one of the worst trends in American politics today. I was surpised it worked so well for Bush, given his background.
Rigorous Scholarship
Neither does being disdainful of those things mean that "you don't like America", because those traits aren't the only thing that makes America. Nor anywhere being a majority thing. From my viewpoint jingoism, militarism or fundamentalism have had no stake in any of the positive things that come into my mind when I think about America. And I have a pretty positive view of America, moreso then of most other countries in the world.
You start treating your country like a religion, you slip into some very ugly ethnocentric habits in a real hurry. You start rationalizing some very ugly acts of yours because you're the one doing them, and you discount some very good ideas from abroad because you didn't come up with them first.
But we're right and you're wrong so...
You're at least honest about it and willing to discuss it, which is a big plus.
Hey, something you can agree with Obama on. Disagreeing without being disagreeable.
Man. That came off as cynical. I've been living in DC too long.
Rigorous Scholarship
No, we're right because facts are facts.
The "I don't like Obama because he's not patriotic enough" is 100% silly goosery at its finest, and anyone making that argument is worthy of nothing but contempt. Nobody gets to claim that Barrack Obama, John McCain, George Bush, Karl Rove, Al Franken, Nancy Pelosi, or any other politician "hates America." If you make that claim, you deserve to be ignored, mocked, and scorned.
"I disagree with what (Obama / Bush) wants to do" is understandable. "(Obama / Bush) hates America" makes you a stupid jingoistic goosewit.
Eh, I havent noticed it much. Could just be a media disconnect as of late on my part. But it could also be that those things he is disucssing, I dont consider those his "wins." His big wins are financial reform and HCR. At least, to his base. So he is likely saving those up to be used when firing up his base is needed. The equivilent to Bush's "we kept america safe" would be Obama responding to Afghanistan critisim with "We passed monumental Healthcare reform!"
I'd like to point out that real earnings actually fell over the last decade - and some people are saying over the last 40 years - for all except the top earners in this country.
Prior "redistribution of wealth" is not your enemy. Future redistribution may very well be. That, or the starving unemployed masses that will tear me and you limb from limb. (I'm in DC too.)
But it's hard for anyone to look too bad when they're the follow up act to GWB. Living through his presidency was akin to watching a huge, otherworldly train-wreck.
Though it's impressive how many republicans woke up to realize they were living in a train-wreck and managed to blame the new president of the train for it.
No, I'm certain that he likes America. Like, a LOT. Probably more then Modern Man if we count it by the sheer effort he's done towards being associated with the country as much as humanly possible. I mean, he has reached the apex - you can't get more American then to be the President of the United States. Maybe if you'd die and would be canonized as the patron saint of America.
plus he wears that flag pin all the time
I have never understood this aspect of American politics really, I can't see how being in an almost constant state of election runup is useful in any way
Basically, I doubt we'll ever convince each other to change our positions. But we're not the type of people politicians care all that much about, since we're both probably straight party-line voters.
Rigorous Scholarship
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, and all that.
Well he could have called out the blue dogs nationally on television as the fuckmuppets they are
He could be talking about how the Senate has a responsibility to end the stimulus as being against the Senate constitution, hardly anyone does that