Inside Out
Today I feel like I have been turned inside out. Maybe it has something to do with the warmer weather. Yesterday my wife and I took our dog and went hiking out on the ice on Moosehead Lake. It was a beautiful sunny day, a bit hazy or smoggy from the still chilled westerly wind, and still below freezing anywhere out of the sun. There wasn't a lot of melting going on. But it was pleasant in the sunshine anywhere out of the wind. So maybe it's just getting outside after the long winter hibernation.
Maybe not.
Yesterday I was doing my usual news blog reading and I came across a post at TPMDC concerning a Republican lawmaker's proposal for a bill that would require presidential candidates to present a valid birth certificate. The question of Obama's place of birth has been ongoing for several years now but is generally considered inconsequential by Obama supporters. When I began reading the comments posted to this TPM article, I quickly realized that the comments didn't represent rational debate. The comments were ad homonym in nature, setting exactly the same tone that conservatives set whenever George W. Bush's authority was challenged.
Well this concerned me enough to actually register to comment at TPM and post a comment about how odd the comments were and about how simple the issue seems to be. I proudly voted for Obama. Showing his birth certificate to prove his qualifications for the Presidency is no big deal. I had to show mine to renew my drivers license this year after holding the license for the past 45 years! So like sheesh!
Well they lit into me for that. I am a bad bad person to question anything about Obama, I guess. How George W. Bush can you get! Where's the change Obama promised? Where's the openness?
Well in my run down that rabbit trail I stumbled on a website that really set the ball rolling for me, really tossed my warm Obama heart out in the cold Maine snow. I've been holding it back for quite awhile now but the Obama era hasn't exactly been going the way I expected it would go. I went to the Obama rally in Bangor last year, heard his pitch to us, understood what a lot of others that day understood, the message about the need to change how things are done in Washington, the need to put what is best for the people back in control, not what is best for the special interests.
The first thing Obama did was to appoint as his chief of staff someone whose father reportedly was a Zionist terrorist, or so it is claimed. What bigger special interest group is there in the US if not AIPAC, the Israel lobby?
Then he started giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the bankers.
Then he started bombing people in Pakistan.
Then he signed into law a bogus stimulus bill that was more of a wish list for socialist reform than anything else.
Then he signed a budget bill full of earmarks because they were just the leftovers from last year. Say what? I mean...... say what?????????
Then Obama retains the right to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely, same as Bush but without the catch phrase "enemy combatant." Orwell anyone?
Trillion plus dollar deficit...
The whole world wondering what America is up to...
China threatening to cash in its US holdings...
Obama's arch political foe Hillary Clinton running the State Department...
War first, diplomacy as a last resort...
A Wall Street guru running the Treasury...
And then there's a rumor that some news article is reporting that Wikipedia's Obama biography has been scrubbed squeeky clean?
What change? I'm waiting. What is the change? How can the pandering to special interests be ongoing if we voted in change? And I'm not asking this as some conservative naysayer. I'm saying it as a concerned progressive.
OK so everyone says wait and see. The change is coming. I know, that's what I've been saying too for the past two months. Change takes time. I know that. But change has to start somewhere and as far as I can see, it hasn't begun yet. What we all heard at that rally in Bangor would never have led us to believe what we have seen since the November election.
And now this idea that we can treat any doubters the same way that George W. Bush supporters treated Bush doubters, with ad homonym attacks against the doubter's character and worthiness as a human being?
Well anyway, back to that rabbit trail, I stumbled on this nearly two hour-long online video that I absolutely was not prepared to see. So I didn't. But if you watch it and can stomach watching it all the way through, could you please let me know how it ends?
Maybe not.
Yesterday I was doing my usual news blog reading and I came across a post at TPMDC concerning a Republican lawmaker's proposal for a bill that would require presidential candidates to present a valid birth certificate. The question of Obama's place of birth has been ongoing for several years now but is generally considered inconsequential by Obama supporters. When I began reading the comments posted to this TPM article, I quickly realized that the comments didn't represent rational debate. The comments were ad homonym in nature, setting exactly the same tone that conservatives set whenever George W. Bush's authority was challenged.
Well this concerned me enough to actually register to comment at TPM and post a comment about how odd the comments were and about how simple the issue seems to be. I proudly voted for Obama. Showing his birth certificate to prove his qualifications for the Presidency is no big deal. I had to show mine to renew my drivers license this year after holding the license for the past 45 years! So like sheesh!
Well they lit into me for that. I am a bad bad person to question anything about Obama, I guess. How George W. Bush can you get! Where's the change Obama promised? Where's the openness?
Well in my run down that rabbit trail I stumbled on a website that really set the ball rolling for me, really tossed my warm Obama heart out in the cold Maine snow. I've been holding it back for quite awhile now but the Obama era hasn't exactly been going the way I expected it would go. I went to the Obama rally in Bangor last year, heard his pitch to us, understood what a lot of others that day understood, the message about the need to change how things are done in Washington, the need to put what is best for the people back in control, not what is best for the special interests.
The first thing Obama did was to appoint as his chief of staff someone whose father reportedly was a Zionist terrorist, or so it is claimed. What bigger special interest group is there in the US if not AIPAC, the Israel lobby?
Then he started giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the bankers.
Then he started bombing people in Pakistan.
Then he signed into law a bogus stimulus bill that was more of a wish list for socialist reform than anything else.
Then he signed a budget bill full of earmarks because they were just the leftovers from last year. Say what? I mean...... say what?????????
Then Obama retains the right to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely, same as Bush but without the catch phrase "enemy combatant." Orwell anyone?
Trillion plus dollar deficit...
The whole world wondering what America is up to...
China threatening to cash in its US holdings...
Obama's arch political foe Hillary Clinton running the State Department...
War first, diplomacy as a last resort...
A Wall Street guru running the Treasury...
And then there's a rumor that some news article is reporting that Wikipedia's Obama biography has been scrubbed squeeky clean?
What change? I'm waiting. What is the change? How can the pandering to special interests be ongoing if we voted in change? And I'm not asking this as some conservative naysayer. I'm saying it as a concerned progressive.
OK so everyone says wait and see. The change is coming. I know, that's what I've been saying too for the past two months. Change takes time. I know that. But change has to start somewhere and as far as I can see, it hasn't begun yet. What we all heard at that rally in Bangor would never have led us to believe what we have seen since the November election.
And now this idea that we can treat any doubters the same way that George W. Bush supporters treated Bush doubters, with ad homonym attacks against the doubter's character and worthiness as a human being?
Well anyway, back to that rabbit trail, I stumbled on this nearly two hour-long online video that I absolutely was not prepared to see. So I didn't. But if you watch it and can stomach watching it all the way through, could you please let me know how it ends?
posted by Bill | 10:49 AM
1 Comments:
I did not vote for GW in 2000. But I did give him a year before I became sure my vote against him was the right thing to do. I will admit to having some trouble with where Obama may be heading, but I am going to withold my judgement at least for the first year, just like I did with W.
Candidate Obama made promises. I did not vote for him because of his promises. I voted for him because of his demeanor and steady manner. And the alternative just seemed like it would have been four more years of Bush. The realities of the office will often make an elected official go back on his word.
I watched a good charge of the video. It is interesting and made some points worth taking note of. And since I have felt for years the two party system was a sham orchestrated for public consumption anyway, much of what it pointed to I already believed. But I hope they are wrong about Obama. At this point, that's all I have. Talk to me in a year.
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