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President Obama
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Never Ceased To Be Amazed



Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 3500
Location: Shhh...don't talk to me...I'm playin' dead...

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:48 pm    Post subject: President Obama Reply with quote

I NCTBA at the American electorate! I NEVER thought my country great enough in MY lifetime to elect an African-American president! God Bless America! We've no direction to go but up from this moment on...internationally speaking... Very Happy

NCTBA
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Arab Strap



Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 246
Location: under your bed

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You really think so?

Well I hope you're right and not just speaking through and/or from the rings beyond Uranus
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007



Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 2684
Location: UK/Veteran of the Magic Kingdom

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, Uncle Obama once said, "There's only one president who can speak for America at a time. And that president now is George Bush".

I say to Uncle Obama, there is only one president who can speak for America. And that president now is Barack Obama.

I think history will repeat itself with Uncle Obama!
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Never Ceased To Be Amazed



Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 3500
Location: Shhh...don't talk to me...I'm playin' dead...

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Politicians are just that...politicians. Let's hope that this is a renewed Camelot. I believe that it is so and that it will be, but yes, secret agent man, only time will tell. But don't you agree, that we should rejoice on the possibilities?

NCTBA
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Mia Xanthi



Joined: 13 Mar 2008
Posts: 955
Location: why is my heart still in the Middle East while the rest of me isn't?

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I, for one, have chosen to rejoice in the possibilities, NCTBA. There is precious little else to feel optimistic about in the current situation, so let's enjoy this while we can.
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trapezius



Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 1670
Location: Land of Culture of Death & Destruction

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Half African-American.

If here fully African-American, I have a feeling he wouldn't have won. Heck, he wouldn't have won the primaries.

I think it will take a few more decades before a fully black man would be elected POTUS.

But yes, I agree, it is a great day. Let's just hope that it is not just a shell of frosting, but that there is a lot of nice cake inside. Very Happy
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Sheikh N Bake



Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Posts: 1307
Location: Dis ting of ours

PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, come on. If Colin Powell, who is fully African at least from his parents, had run and been elected, you'd say he wouldn't have been elected if his skin had been a little darker.
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2012



Joined: 12 Jan 2009
Posts: 24
Location: Shandong

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 8:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Listen to the WHO...

"We won't get fooled again..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM0WIP7eMYs&feature=related

(Lyrics at BOTTOM)

Obama's post-election emphasis upon a "seamless transition"
is somewhat at odds with his campaign rhetoric about...
...CHANGE...

In the spirit of pardon/immunitygranted by Ford to Nixon,
Obama says "hands off" to charges of Torture/War Crimes etc.
against Bush team.

Obama's appointments...Conservative/Corporate-friendly...a
re in the spirit of the "seamless transition..." from the Bush Team
Old Boss..New Boss

The folks at www.wsws.org have optimism for the coming Obama years ...but from a different perspective. They expect that as US laubaixin see that the Hopes and Changes promised by Obama...are not real-ized, then...there'll be social struggle.

We'll see.

Whatever happens, it'll be a valuable lesson for China's policy makers.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/pers-j21.shtml

Quote:
The policies that are only hinted at in what was a banal and dishonest inauguration speech are completely at odds with the social interests and aspirations of the vast majority of the American people. Sooner rather than later, they will produce a political confrontation and a new eruption of class struggle that will challenge the foundations of US capitalism.


Which is in the spirit of the WHO...all those years ago...

Quote:
We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song


ChinaWall has been blocking wsws.org...so here's more of the article...

Quote:
In some of Obama's rhetoric there were indications that he and his speechwriters had attempted to mine the first inaugural address given by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression. Clearly there are historical parallels, made ever more apparent as the stock market plunged below the 8,000 mark Tuesday, its broadest index losing over 5 percent of its value even as Obama was being sworn in.

Yet what was most notable was Obama's inability to speak in the frank manner of Roosevelt 76 years ago. What characterized the new president's inaugural address above all was an appalling lack of concreteness about anything.

When Roosevelt addressed the nation, he vowed to "speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly." While he certainly did not do that, and his aim was to save capitalism from social revolution, he did speak in fairly explicit terms about what had created the crisis and what he intended to do about it.

The crisis of the 1930s, Roosevelt declared, had arisen not because of any lack of nature's "bounty" or "human efforts" to multiply it, but because "the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence." He continued: "Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men."

Obama appeared to have drawn part of his speech from the first part of this conception, declaring, "Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year." Left unstated, however, was why, if this is the case, the economy is spiraling downward into depression with nearly 3 million jobs wiped out in the US over the last year alone.

Involved in this evasion is a stunning level of contempt and condescension towards those who support him. He obviously feels he owes them no such explanation, and the less said the better.

Obama is unable to even mention the role of today's "money changers," who paid a large share of the money for his campaign and bankrolled the inauguration itself. All of the vague rhetoric about "equality" notwithstanding, it is their interests he intends to defend at the expense of the broad mass of American working people.

This is the real significance of his claims to have transcended the "stale political arguments of the past" about the role of government and the capitalist market, and his vow that the time for "putting off unpleasant decisions has ended."




Quote:
It was noteworthy, given the inauguration of the first African-American president, that what went completely unmentioned was the civil rights struggle�or, for that matter, any form of social struggle.

There are two reasons for such an omission. Obama has no intention of encouraging such mass social struggles today, and he is anxious not to offend the forces of social reaction upon which he rests and which now surround him.

Whatever his intentions, however, the immense economic and social crisis that is now unfolding in America and across the globe will produce such struggles and on an even greater scale. The policies that are only hinted at in what was a banal and dishonest inauguration speech are completely at odds with the social interests and aspirations of the vast majority of the American people. Sooner rather than later, they will produce a political confrontation and a new eruption of class struggle that will challenge the foundations of US capitalism.

Bill Van Auken

================================================

Quote:
Who We Don't Get Fooled Again Lyrics

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
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redeyes



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 254

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 8:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's a gang of white hooligan thugs racketeers and extortionists in the area -- Cynical old amoral hacks, they've run every scam and trick into the ground, and, after all, everything is sleight of hand and appearance when they are working out new ways to sell scams to people. They notice there's a smart black guy on the block, new to the scammers game, but hey, he looks smart enough. But these old hoods, some of whom have their roots in prejudice and racism think twice -- he's a black guy after all, but hey, they relent in the end. They think "Oh, let the black guy play our scam huckster games, why not? It's a new circus , we can dress up old tricks in a new guise after all, and get people to believe in the tawdry old show, all over again. Damn, I see some people are even bleary eyed and crying about the whole thing! "


And all the burlesque bling hip hop and carnival showmen and TV media black men and women came out to celebrate a black man in the white house, wiping away a tear and raising a black power clenched fist -- Why? Because -- Hey , a black brother gets to play the hoodlum bully boy gangster amoral thug, just like the white man!

That's progress!

That's progress -- let's dance and sing in the streets,and shed a tear, like it's a new dawn -- a righteous black man gets to have a go at the master's bully boy game too!

Hallelujah!
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007



Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 2684
Location: UK/Veteran of the Magic Kingdom

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wonder if Obama will grant Bush the immunity for violating War Crimes Act?
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Never Ceased To Be Amazed



Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 3500
Location: Shhh...don't talk to me...I'm playin' dead...

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I gotta admit, a lotta cynacism out there! I'm imagining that a lot of the cynics were too young or too uninvolved in politics to remember when US politics actually did work. After the past eight years, the shenanigans of Clinton in the Oval office, "Bush 41's" willingness to go back on his "No New Taxes" promise, Reagan's "trickle-down economy" (trickle-down upon whom, one may have had to ask), Carter's "Days of Malaise", etc, etc.

Hope would be nice, donch think rather than dismiss the guy out of hand? Criticism will come in due time. At least, this guy has a model to start against.

Those who have an axe to grind against American won't give the guy a chance, those who don't, hopefully, will.

NCTBA
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Cleopatra



Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd like to think that Obama offers change we can believe in, but cynics like me recall that old saw: "If voting changed anything, they'd ban it."
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 3:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah, the temptations of cynicism - the main one, perhaps, being to show how vastly experienced and worldly-wise you are.
And, let's face it - given the way the world is, the way human nature is, the way politicians, especially, have pulled (or tired to pull) the wool over our eyes since politics first came into being, who can blame anyone for being cynical?
Those great philosophers - The Who - put it well:

"Ill tip my hat to the new constitution
Ill tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Just like yesterday
Then Ill get on my knees and pray
Then Ill get on my knees and pray
We dont get fooled again
We dont get fooled again
The change, it had to come
The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, thats all
We were liberated from the fold, thats all
And the world looks just the same
And the world looks just the same
And history aint changed
And history aint changed
cause the banners, they are flown in the next war
cause the banners, they are flown in the next war
Meet the new boss
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
Same as the old boss"

But cynicism, like atheism, requires to much certainty for me. In matters of faith, I prefer the middle ground: agnosticism, And in more worldly matters, rather than the extremes of cynicism and naivete, I feel most comfortable with skepticism. So, I'll wait and see whether or not the "new boss" is truly the same as the "old boss."
Regards,
John
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Cleopatra



Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 3:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

Ah, the temptations of cynicism - the main one, perhaps, being to show how vastly experienced and worldly-wise you are


Or perhaps it simply shows that one is aware that Obama's first move as President-Elect was to appoint such fresh, anti-establishment figures as Rahm Israel Emanuel and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Continuity we can believe in.
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 3:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Cleopatra,

I am actually envious of your certainty.

Regards,
John
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