Obama '08?

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

blatham wrote:

Quote:

And it is irrelevant?

How is the average Joe or Jane supposed to interpret the comment?

Hyperbole to be sure, but doesn't it reveal a certain mindset that should be of interest to voters?

Well, there's the problem. Her 'mindset' is not all that is in play. There's the hearer's 'mindset' too.

We know, for example, at least pretty approximately, how Ann Coulter's 'mindset' will understand what Ms. Obama said. But that will be quite different from what my mindset will 'understand' or the mindset of black women from Arkansas will 'understand'.

And as folks on the right, in this time and place, are heavily primed to 'hear' her comment as unpatriotic or america-hating or something like those, the political activist folks on the right will pump this for everything it is worth.

So, it'll be a PR problem.

This is a disappointing reply.

Sorry. Didn't mean it to be. I like your post above, which I've just seen now.

I don't know what else I might have added to engage the aspects that interest you, McG.

The election will be, as you say,

Quote:

This election, irrespective of who wins the Dem nomination holds the promise of being the closest thing to a referendum on ideology that we have had in a long time.

Of course, it won't be just that, because there are a lot of actors in this play whose interests won't permit honesty of intent and who would thwart or alter a real 'referendum' in order to gain or to maintain power.

America-- Love It or Shove it
Posted February 21, 2008 | 02:49 PM (EST)


Oh, the shame of it. The ungrateful, unpatriotic, uncouth comment that shocked the sensibilities of real Americans everywhere: Michelle Obama, speaking in Milwaukee, says "Let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are ready for change..."

Partisan pundits and bobble-head political spouses are quick to blanch and gasp, "Why, I'm always proud of my country!" They mean that thing, too. There hasn't been a moment--not a single one--that they haven't been 100% proud of America. America, right or wrong. The disinformation campaign that launched a disastrous, deadly war for corporate gain in Iraq? Guantanamo? Abu Ghraib? Black sites? Illegal spying on U.S. citizens and the outing of a CIA operative? Where's the shame in that? None of it matters. A real American is an unfailingly proud American.

Clearly, Ms. Obama has a problem. Or somebody's going to make her one.

No matter that what she's proud of is a dynamic this nation has not seen in decades: Citizens, by the millions, are shrugging off the cloak of apathy, getting energized, engaging in the political process, registering to vote. Caucusing for change. Voting for better government.

But she said those words... heavy, hot-button words which, out of context and leached of intent, can mean whatever partisan politicos want them to mean. So they matter. And, for those who've been carping about "only words" and "empty words" and "words without work," the about-face is stunning, indeed.

Words have always mattered. The mighty pen and the sword thing, you know? Michelle Obama's words inadvertantly touched a raw American nerve and everything old is new again.

"Adult life," for those of her generation, came to full flower in the mid-eighties. The nation had suffered through the long, bloody quagmire that was Vietnam, an ill-advised war begun without understanding the culture of the country or the enemy we faced. The United States was bitterly divided for years--the dirty, anti-war, sex-and-drug-crazed, protesting hippies squared off against the mainstream, morally superior, my-country-right-or-wrong establishment. The words du jour? Bumper stickers everywhere, shouting "America--Love It or Leave It!" The first Golden Era of "Either you're with us or you're with the enemy" politics was upon us and there was precious little middle ground.

The combination of an endless bad war, bad leadership and bad public policy was lethal to optimism and activism. Politics turned deadly dishonest. Watergate exploded, the Nixon administration imploded and the American public lost faith in good government, turned off and dropped out.

The aftermath of war and Watergate set the stage for the self-absorbed "Me Generation" seventies and the callous "Greed is good--poor folks wouldn't be poor folks if they were willing to work hard like I do" eighties. The nineties brought the man from Hope. A new, more idealisitc generation took the reins of power only to falter. All that promise wasted through vicious partisan politics and self-inflicted scandals.

Apathy, anger and disillusionment have characterized much of the last half-century, peaking under the Bush II administration. We're back to the bad war, bad leadership, bad public policy quagmire, laced with arrogance, scandal and criminal behavior on the part of leaders who promised us the restoration of honor and dignity and a "faith-based" renaissance of relief for America's poor.

Now is no time for a new "America--Love It or Shove It!" mentality to take root again. Ms. Obama spoke to her pride in the American peoples' willingness to re-engage, to rise above fear, prejudice, disillusionment and apathy. She referred to her pride in their willingness to rise to the challenge for fundamental positive change in governance, and rightfully so. It's been a long time coming. The American voter is finally about the business of overturning the tyranny of ideas which effectively censored critical thinking, muzzled the voices of those who would say "Whoa! I love my country, but this is wrong..."

She's not alone in feeling proud of--and a little awed by-- this groundswell of public political re-engagement. Who knew we still had it in us? We're surprising ourselves.

MICHELLE OBAMA RESTRICT ACCESS TO THESIS

Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis is restricted until November 5, 2008. Why? It depends when the restriction was instituted. The answer to the why is simpler. Michelle's jaundiced view of the US may have at least in part originated in her Princeton experience. She has admitted that her grades did not earn her the right to attend the top colleges she did. Affirmative action did but it did not make her grateful merely resentful. Unfortunately instead of blaming her inadeqacy, she blamed her pigmentation and the institution which made her feel inadequate. I have taught long enough to know that students know when they are graded fairly and fairly includes too lenietely. Michelle seems to have been unhappy about the low expectation liberal Princeton had for her and her fellow affrimative action students. Indeed, she wrote a thesis on the subject which includes the following:

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before," she wrote in the introduction to her sociology thesis, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really didn't belong."

The rest must be worse. Barak may be on his way to becoming our first affirmative action president. Imagine how they are going to fill in the White House?!


http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/47605.html

Oh for goodness sakes, finn. Go live in another country for a few years and discover that the rest of the world gets on just fine without kissing their flag every hour. Or, go out on a campaign where you are speaking daily and get every sentence parsed so precisely that you avoid pushing anyone's buttons.

Be offended if you choose. Have company in your offense. But if you grant that your personal response has rational grounds be prepared to have others tell you that you are quite batty on the matter.

I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels

You've never been to a European soccer match?

dys, You should be lynched for quoting that neanderthal.

You've never been to a European soccer match?

If we get to vote for President and Vice President, do we also get to vote on First Spouse? My choice would be Ms Edwards, but I haven't yet researched Rudi's ex-wives.

This is a country who thinks Brittany Spears is more important than over 90 percent of newsworthy reports.

And people are parsing words about the wife of a presidential candidate as if it's life or death.

Get a life.

Oh for goodness sakes, finn. Go live in another country for a few years and discover that the rest of the world gets on just fine without kissing their flag every hour. Or, go out on a campaign where you are speaking daily and get every sentence parsed so precisely that you avoid pushing anyone's buttons.

Be offended if you choose. Have company in your offense. But if you grant that your personal response has rational grounds be prepared to have others tell you that you are quite batty on the matter.