Whew! |
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| By: David Seaton Tuesday November 6, 2012 10:40 pm | |
At least the sinuous Romney isn’t going to be president… At least the first African-American president gets to serve two terms… At least the Tea Party wont get to name any justices of the Supreme Court… and at least a hundred “at leasts” that we might not even imagine till they happened, but which wont happen because Romney and the Tea Party, and the Koch brothers and Shelden Adelson and Rupert Murdoch and a cast of one-percenters have lost…
Please feel free to add to this list:
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38 Comments
We’re still screwed but at least we don’t got the clap.
So, I guess you’d feel the same way if the first AA president was Herman Cain.
We’ve been screwed, but we got kissed first.
LOL! :)
It is hard to imagine Cain as president, but if he had been elected… yes I would find it tragic if the first African-American president didn’t get reelected. This is so historic for a country as racist as the USA is, was and probably (at least in very solid pockets) always will be, that this presidency not being considered a failure is of critical importance.
Well then that just puts your whole stance out in the open. You think racial identity is more important than the right person with the right policies and I think that’s bullshit. I think Obama has been, and will continue to be, a tragedy for America and most Americans irrespective of his racial identity. His presidency is a failure and he deserved to be fired. It was only because he could claim to be just a few degrees less worse than one of the weakest, least qualified candidates for high office in history that he was able to scare people into voting against their better interests and re-elect him.
Remind me again who it was that asked that his children be judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character? That cuts both ways you know.
When I see Obama putting on his comfortable shoes to increase civil rights instead of squashing them with pepperspray and police brutality, working to reform our torturous prison system and unfair drug prosecutions that disproportionately affect men of color, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Until then, I will see his multiple betrayals as worse than if perpetrated by an old white guy.
The elation of Obama supporters who cheer on rule by corporation in a police and surveillance state, when the Arctic ice is history , half of all species will be gone within the century and the oceans face a mass extinction event unseen in human history within a few decades strikes me as particularly depressing this morning.
Can’t wait to hear democrats defend the cutting of medicare ,medicaid and social security in the next few months and selling us on why Obama had to approve the keystone pipeline to save the environment.
Six billion spent on the most expensive election in history. same president with no ideas to solve the problems we face. same gridlocked congress.
What a victory .
Skipping by the fact that OBomba was backed by, and is in thrall to the 1% as well, but this has gotta be my favorite line of the year:
“Barack Obama promised the American people that the ‘the best is yet to come“. Hard to stop laughing over that one. ;o)
We should hold all our elected officials to the same standard regardless of race. This is the most condescending of all the excuses offered about Obama.
Wish I felt more like laughing this morning.
I find myself so totally disgusted at the cheerleaders elation this morning I doubt I’ll ever entirely recover from my present cynicism.
I think now that eighty percent of those I took as allies aren’t and are as much a part of the problem as the tea partiers and right wing wing nuts.
I am not a big fan of Obama, as you would know if you were a regular reader of mine… But I would have voted for Donald Duck running as a Democrat this year to keep the Tea Party from filling the coming vacancies in the SCOTUS.
As to “racial identity”… there have always been a lot of black men in the White House, Duke Ellington’s father was the butler there for example and Teddy Roosevelt nearly got lynched for inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner there once. So having a black man as POTUS is an incredible, wonderful thing in a country with America’s history of racism and throwing him out after only one term (to replace him with a featherweight like Mitt Romney)would be a bad idea.
As freeman says above, I also find the whole thing disgusting.
There are a lot of stupid people in the country, mindless idiots who don’t even believe in Evolution. This fact explains the support for GOP candidates.
The problem is that so many so-called “progressives” also voted for wars, assassinations, and corporate domination.
I’m not having the pro-Obama/anti-Obama argument here. I’m trying to be polite, but the phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations” springs to mind. I’m no fan of Obama’s either, but this argument is unnecessary and condescending. He’s perfectly willing and capable, as he should be, of determining the what the legacy of the first African-American President will be. You don’t need to do it for him.
By the way, remember all the talk the Cons pushed about Angry Black Folks Rioting if the election didn’t go their way?
Can you say projection? I knew you could.
Notice that the folks in the video are Decidedly Not Black.
Ah, go read my Occupy Revolution post for a hit of good cheer and strength. All this shit means is we have more work to do, and yes: some we reckoned should be our allies aren’t necessarily. Yes on reality, no time for too much cynicism. Guess I never cared all that much about the election until Stein and Honkala hit my radar screen, so that helped.
But it’s on us, now. I may have a request for you a bit later on my thread; RL is jammed for me at the moment.
I have “low expectations” of any US president of any color and have had for years. I find it very moving that so many people really expect the US system to reform itself.
The United States is a “regime”, but just like in the Soviet Union some leaders are better than others, Khrushchev was to be preferred to Stalin, if you get my drift.
And in America color is important because we have made it important through centuries of incredible racism, persecution, exploitation… you name it. And believe me most of this business that Obama is a communist or a Muslim or born in Kenya is just a new way of “hollering nigger”, which is something Americans have been doing now for centuries. So, even if he isn’t “magic” it is important, very important no matter how mediocre he may be that Barack Obama, a black man in the White House win reelection… maybe if you were pushing 70 like I am and had known segregation and the Civil Rights struggle,you might understand how important that is.
Considering that you have no idea how old I am or what I know or don’t know about segregation and the Civil Rights struggle, I guess you’re an equal opportunity condescender. I would still suggest that you take some quiet time and rethink what you hope to accomplish with this particular argument, including how it relates to the arguents made by the communist-Kenyan hollering.
marym in IL @18
I see landslide Stein got 0.3% of the vote.
Speaking of taking some quiet time to reflect as to what you hope to accomplish.
Yup, I saw it and I’m disappointed. The road to real change is difficult, and I had hoped this would be the start of a small but important step along the way. I’ll be interested to see what happens next among third party advocates (including myself!)of what comes next.Definitely a time for reflection and evaluating lessons learned.
Of course I’m equally disappointed in the 60 million or so people who voted to endorse the “D” version of of war, drilling/mining/fracking, austerity and the dismantling of the safety net, a security/surveillance state, ”free” trade agreements, privatization of public services, and the relentless upward transfer and concentration of wealth. As you can guess that strikes me as being as foolish as voting third party seems to you. I hope these voters will also be doing some soul-searching as to what they (we) can do to reverse course. This massive vote in favor of these policies doesn’t seem to be a good strategy for change or likely to produce good results for the majority of people.
Everything you say is valid, I’m just amazed that you expect the great mass of people and the system to back you up. This is going to be a long journey.
Don’t expect “the great mass of people and the system” to back “me” up.
I expect the people who consider themselves leader or people with knowledge, skills, and experience to add something to the equation besides just wanting things to be different.
This includes third party advocates, or activists of any kind, who need to account for their strategy, tactics, plans, objectives, allies, outreach, etc., and make course corrections where things aren’t working.
But it also includes those who stuck with the Dems. Yesterday there was a diary that basically asked whether people who call themselves liberals would hold a Democratic President accountable in the same way they would a Republican President for a whole list of decidedly unliberal policies. The diarist got called a lot of names, but I don’t recall any real answers to the question. It will be interesting, after the celebrations of the “win” last night to see whether D’s go back to excuse-making mode, or on to something more effective.
That is a good question. In a revolutionary party the answer would be an unqualified “yes”. But, certainly nobody in their right mind would call the Democrats “revolutionary”.
David Seaton et al. Congratulations on your empty, meaningless, symbolic, status quo preserving, fantasy political victory.
Following Obama’s more wars anti-environmental pro-NAFTA policies will be a failure and the republicans will be the eventual winners. Republicans or democrats, however, we are on the same course.
Concur…what a victory…
for the…
>>>10%
>>> war criminals — G.W.Bush,R.B.Cheney,B.H.Obama etc.
>>> warmongers
>>> Wall St. crooks and criminals
>>> pre/post 2008 Meltdown gangster bankers
>>> American Empire imperialists
>>> M-I-C
>>> AHIP/PhARMA/healthcare done for/about being done for profit
>>> deficit/pro knee-cap effective public sector austerians
>>> Bowles-Simpson Harm/Cripple/Gut SS seekers
>>> pro Big Petro,Big Coal and Anti-Earth and Environment
>>> lets ignore the Earth and climate change — no talk/no walk
>>> Americans who think/believe ignorance/arrogance is a win/win
Over the past year or more it has not been difficult to see or be aware of at sites such as FDL or other pro D politics sites those who wanted to be or were Obama apologists and supporters.
So now Obama has won again in 2012. What was Obama allowed to win in 2012? What did not win or has now lost in 2012? This is not a 1932 or 1936 or 1960 D Party WH win. It is more of a 2004 styled WH election win that largely ignored/ignores 2008 WH election whats and whys that put Barack Obama in the WH on Jan,20,2009,
Little actual political accountability took place despite the billions of $$ spent on this 2012 WH contest and election. The waste in all this — the mockery — the failure of it — is numbing.
…X 2
Yeah, I read the stuff you publish here, as painful an exercise as that is, and I know that you claim to be disgusted with the Dems and Obama but you can never find a reason to not shill for them – right? That’s a chickenshit stance.
Let me ask you a question. If (by some miracle) a Jill Stein happened to nominated by the Dems in 2008 and Herman Cain was the Republican candidate. You’d vote for Cain right?
Thank you for an article that also speaks to my sense
of emotional relief and moral ambiguity as someone who
voted for Jill Stein but is happy that Obama rather
than Romney prevailed. This dialogue is an opportunity
to explain why some us felt that voting our
consciences, as distinct from either our hopes or
fears, was inconsistent with voting for Obama,
although we respect him personally and recognize that
his flaws are those of a “bipartisan” system
generally.
If the Democratic nominee were Mario Cuomo, say, I
likely would have voted for him — or likewise for
Barbara Lee. In 1988, I did support Michael Dukakis,
in good part because of his courageous opposition to
the death penalty — a point of conscience which sadly
has been an absolute bar to my supporting a Democratic
candidate for the presidency since then. Likewise,
Obama’s support for the policy of assassination by
midnight raids and drones is to me a more radical
violation of our Constitution and of natural law and
the law of nations than the misconduct of the Nixon
Administration summed up by the name of Watergate.
Such evils involving the violation of human life, I
feel an absolute duty not to aid and abet directly
with my vote for the presidency, regardless of the
consequences — not a stance of absolute moral purity,
of course, because emigration would be both
objectively and symbolically a much stronger
statement.
However, I take this position knowing that there is no
escape from moral ambiguity. In my view, Obama is an
alternative quite distinguishable from Romney, and I
am glad that he prevailed — although I would have far
preferred that Stein or Roseanne Barr prevail.
If the Barack Obama of 1996 were running — whose
position on a questionnaire was against the death
penalty, and presumably would have been in favor of
the ban on assassinations then in place as one high
point of the positive legacy of Watergate and the
Senator Frank Church’s Committee on the CIA — then I
would have gladly supported him against Romney. And I
would have voted for that Barack Obama even despite
his compromises over the last four years with the 1%:
the Affordable Care Act, and the failure to stop
foreclosures for homeowners who purchased their homes
with at least as much good faith as the bankers who
likewise erred in their financial judgment and
received more than generous bailouts.
As to the Affordable Care Act itself, as a Member of
Congress, I would likely have abstained, wishing
neither to promote healthcare for profit in the guise
of “reform,” nor to stand in the way of whatever
modest relief might be available through the
provisions on preexisting conditions, etc.
Above all, I would urge that rhetoric either
demonizing Obama himself, or minimizing the serious
conscientious reasons that lead some of us to support
third parties, may interfere with a mutual
understanding of the different ethical judgments as
well as political evaluations of circumstances
involved.
When we approach these questions with mutual
understanding — and today I spent time with close
friends who found great delight in Obama’s re-election
from a vibrantly progressive perspective — then we
can share the insight that there is moral ambiguity
all around, with each of us responding in our own
way.
Well, my “mutual understanding” of why people who claim to be liberal or progressive yet support and vote for Obama without reservations does not preclude me from thinking that they are full of shit.
David, although I don’t think you intended it, a lot of fair-minded folks could easily be offended. Start with Jane, Scarecrow, Tarheel Dem and all the other FDLers who’ve been arrested. Add to that the many more who have demonstrated against POTUS’ policies. Add to that folks who keep this place going with intelligent diaries, ………
I voted for Stein in a swing state, because I was reasonably sure Obama would win it. My fears were about voter suppression and civil disobedience. Those are the two issues that most influenced me to vote for POTUS. Assuming Romney would have been worse, “whew,” is an understandable and essentially reasonable response.
My hope is that this community can look forward to the 2014 mid terms as a way to harness all the anger at POTUS and to hold Dems in heavy D+ districts accountable. Ad rates and turnout are lower in midterms, meaning we can make our voice better heard in primaries. If a national green party emerges, it will be from those heavy D+ districts.
Mason voted for Jill Stein in, stay with me here…in Kentucky.
No, I would vote for Stein if she were running as the Democratic candidate.
Obama’s victory has spared us the Tea Party packing SCOTUS, but the negotiations of the “fiscal cliff” are where we are going to find out if Barack Obama has any spine at all… and I’d like to see Nate Silver handicap that one.
On a very close vote in the House, Dems in heavy D+ districts may have enormous influence. They know that they all come up for re-election in two-years when turnout and ad rates are much lower and we can have a much greater impact. Would love to see all the tax brackets get a tax increase from the lapse of the Bush tax cuts, so we could blame the wing nuts. Not sure how realistic or helpful that is.
What’s fascinating to see is that, once again, the progressive (aka Real) Dems did better at the ballot box than the DINOs. I believe that pretty much every DINO Steve Israel’s D-Trip backed went down in defeat.
We shouldn’t expect citizens who consider themselves liberals and vote for Democrats to hold the Democrats they elect to any liberal standards because the Democratic Party isn’t revolutionary? Thought I’d heard all the excuses for the D’s by now, but that one’s new to me.
I voted for the other black guy on the Ohio ballot, but I am glad Obama won for the following reasons:
1. The whining from the Democratic bloggers would have been simply too much to bear. I would have had to stay away from the computer for months.
2. In 4 years maybe, just maybe, a few million more Democrats will see Obama as the Fascist bastard that he really is, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Still, there is a chance for some more to see that the emperor has no clothes.
3. For purely aesthetic reasons, I’d rather see and hear Obama on the TV from time to time than Governor Goodhair and his self-satisfied smirk. Consider it a matter of taste.
4. I did predict a few months ago that Obama would be re-elected with at least 300 electoral college votes. The fact that he had 303 when the networks finally called it makes me feel good, though he may end up with more when Florida finally comes in. My prediction was not guesswork, it was based on my paying attention to which polls in which state tend to be the most accurate. At least my Political Science degree had SOME use.
Anyway, how’s Spain treating you these days, Comrade Seaton? :)