Im Your Man Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 There were tons of threads about Obama after he won the elections but now that he's really president and that Bush has left the White House for good, I don't see many reactions, perhaps you guys are a bit nervous and still wait to see what will happen...? Anyway I'm really glad Obama is president now, Bush is probably the worst thing that happened to United States and to the world since Hitler. Even if I'm not in the U.S., I'm in Canada, Obama is on all newspapers here, on tv all day, etc. I'm happy to see he's keeping his promises and since the 1st day he's making radical changes towards Gantanamo Bay prison (where a young Canadian Omar Khader is imprisoned and tortured since 7 years), and freezing the salaries of people at the white house so that it won't go higher as it already is, +100,000$ /year. So what are your reactions/hopes so far since Obama is the new president ? Eventhough about 45% (I think) of U.S. citizens didn't vote for him, I guess most people will be happy that Bush is gone and that Obama can't be worst. I think he will make a fantastic president ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fallen_Horse Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 God I hope he pulls through... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vegan Joe Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Hold on to your hat, because the ride is gonna get alot more bumpy, before it the road smooths out ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xjohanx Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 I don't believe much is going to happen but I certainly hope so. I'm hoping Dennis Kucinich will win someday because he is freaking smart, cool and he married a girl that was 40 years younger than himself so he def got game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phillipeb Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 I am not a big fan of the Obamas pro war stances nor his less than explanatory plans for homeland security. He plans to increase military spending by something like 20 percent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsorlando Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 The whole world was watching the enauguration on Tuesday. I saw footage from many different countries. I know that Barackk Obama is just one person, but he is a person that seems to bring hope to a lot of people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xveganjoshx Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 I don't believe much is going to happen but I certainly hope so. I'm hoping Dennis Kucinich will win someday because he is freaking smart, cool and he married a girl that was 40 years younger than himself so he def got game.I LOLed. Little red-headed deluxe. Awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veginator Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 There were tons of threads about Obama after he won the elections but now that he's really president and that Bush has left the White House for good, I don't see many reactions, perhaps you guys are a bit nervous and still wait to see what will happen...? Anyway I'm really glad Obama is president now, Bush is probably the worst thing that happened to United States and to the world since Hitler. Even if I'm not in the U.S., I'm in Canada, Obama is on all newspapers here, on tv all day, etc. I'm happy to see he's keeping his promises and since the 1st day he's making radical changes towards Gantanamo Bay prison (where a young Canadian Omar Khader is imprisoned and tortured since 7 years), and freezing the salaries of people at the white house so that it won't go higher as it already is, +100,000$ /year. So what are your reactions/hopes so far since Obama is the new president ? Eventhough about 45% (I think) of U.S. citizens didn't vote for him, I guess most people will be happy that Bush is gone and that Obama can't be worst. I think he will make a fantastic president ! Occasionally I see bumper stickers that say: "If you aren't completely appalled you haven't been paying attention." It fits in this case, because a lot of people haven't been paying much attention to Obama's policy stands and actions, whether as a senator, as a candidate, or now as President. He has shown since the day he came to the Senate four years ago that he's a faithful servant of the interests of the rich and big corporations (i.e., not regular people who can't afford to give thousands of dollars to his campaigns), just like all Republicans and most Democrats are. Will he be better than Bush? Sure. He is closing Guantanamo (although where those prisoners will go or whether people will get tortured somewhere else, who knows?), he will certainly be better than Bush on abortion, and probably better on environmental issues. Neither Bush nor his predecessor, Clinton, did anything at all about global warming during their combined 16 years in office, and it looks like Obama takes the issue seriously. But he has gone on from his career as a Senator who supported (despite rhetoric to the contrary) the war in Iraq and militarism and war generally and supported numerous bills favorable to various large corporations (most egregiously the $700 billion handout to the banking industry last fall) to doing much the same as President. He's going to escalate the war in Afghanistan. He's completely uncritical of Israel's actions in Gaza, if anything supporting them, despite the striking similarities between Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and South African apartheid (or, for that matter, the Jim Crow South). He's appointed almost exclusively conservative to center-right people (including Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert Gates) to his Cabinet and other Administration posts. The economic "stimulus" bills supported by himself and his fellow Democrats contain more in tax breaks that benefit the rich and corporations at least as much as poor and middle-class people than they do actual money for creating jobs. (And note that tax breaks don't do a damn thing for the growing number of unemployed people.) Not only that, but he and most of his fellow Democrats are largely capitulating to Republican demands for more tax breaks for the rich and less money for the poor and for cash-strapped state governments. Meanwhile, they're planning on soon enacting an even bigger giveaway to the banking industry than the one last fall. In short, don't count on Obama being some sort of Rooseveltian savior during these times, where the US and the world are in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (which it looks like will wind up being similarly severe in many parts of the world, and probably here). For that matter, Roosevelt was by no means the defender of the poor that everyone makes him out to be. He did what he did (which wasn't nearly enough by itself to bring the US out of the Depression--it took the massive government job creation project known as US entry into World War II to do that) because of enormous pressure from working people all over the country, not because he came into office with visions of the New Deal in his head. He actually campaigned in 1932 on a pretty moderate platform. Seventy-six years later, it will take the same kind of pressure "in the streets" to make Obama and Congress do what we need them to do to save us from the mess that the filthy rich people who run this world have created. They won't lift a finger to help us of their own free will, because we're not the main ones funding their campaigns. Here's a recent article that discusses the upcoming bank bailout that Obama and Congress have in store for US taxpayers, and contrasts that with the paltry aid the rest of us are getting: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/feb2009/pers-f09.shtml. Just be glad you don't have to pay taxes here, I'm Your Man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeganEssentials Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm not expecting any miracles. He's just a man, after all, and not the 2nd Coming, so while there's always potential for massive positive change, we can expect to only see part of what has been promised ever come to be. That's just the way it is - no matter how much talk of change a candidate throws out, you can be sure the bulk of it will remain only as talk and never come to action. I'm just a skeptic at heart, but I can assure you, I'd love to be proven wrong and see a lot of good come out of this changing of the guard. I just don't have high hopes because I honestly don't believe that Obama is willing to buck the system and make enough waves to implement as many positive changes as he speaks of. But, again, I'd love to to eat my words on this a few years from now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veginator Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm not expecting any miracles. He's just a man, after all, and not the 2nd Coming, so while there's always potential for massive positive change, we can expect to only see part of what has been promised ever come to be. That's just the way it is - no matter how much talk of change a candidate throws out, you can be sure the bulk of it will remain only as talk and never come to action. I'm just a skeptic at heart, but I can assure you, I'd love to be proven wrong and see a lot of good come out of this changing of the guard. I just don't have high hopes because I honestly don't believe that Obama is willing to buck the system and make enough waves to implement as many positive changes as he speaks of. But, again, I'd love to to eat my words on this a few years from now. I think your skepticism is well-founded. Mainstream politicians in high office never are willing to buck the system, because they're part of the system and that's how they got where they are. Change comes from regular folks like us, not the powerful, who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo for the most part. The politicians may be the ones who pass and sign bills making big changes, but they do so because they're pressured to, not on their own. The history of the civil rights movement, to take one example, is one where Kennedy, Johnson, and other big-time politicians were continually dragging their feet and telling civil rights leaders that they wanted to move too fast (toward treating people of color like human beings!). They enacted civil rights legislation only after it was politically impossible for them to do otherwise. The same thing is happening now with the gay marriage issue. Obama and most other Democrats are way behind where supporters of the Democrats are on this issue, and they're likely not going to come out (so to speak) in support of gay marriage until it's crystal-clear that a sizable majority of the general public wants it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veginator Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm not expecting any miracles. He's just a man, after all, and not the 2nd Coming, so while there's always potential for massive positive change, we can expect to only see part of what has been promised ever come to be. That's just the way it is - no matter how much talk of change a candidate throws out, you can be sure the bulk of it will remain only as talk and never come to action. I'm just a skeptic at heart, but I can assure you, I'd love to be proven wrong and see a lot of good come out of this changing of the guard. I just don't have high hopes because I honestly don't believe that Obama is willing to buck the system and make enough waves to implement as many positive changes as he speaks of. But, again, I'd love to to eat my words on this a few years from now. I think your skepticism is well-founded. Mainstream politicians in high office never are willing to buck the system, because they're part of the system and that's how they got where they are. Change comes from regular folks like us, not the powerful, who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo for the most part. The politicians may be the ones who implement government policies making big changes (assuming, of course, that their government isn't overthrown in a revolution), but they do so because they're pressured to, not on their own. The history of the civil rights movement, to take one example, is one where Kennedy, Johnson, and other big-time politicians were continually dragging their feet and telling civil rights leaders that they wanted to move too fast (toward treating people of color like human beings!). They enacted civil rights legislation only after it was politically impossible for them to do otherwise. The same thing is happening now with the gay marriage issue. Obama and most other Democrats are way behind where supporters of the Democrats are on this issue, and they're likely not going to come out (so to speak) in support of gay marriage until it's crystal-clear that a sizable majority of the general public wants it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vegan Joe Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Every payday I go to Cosco and buy cases of canned beans and things for stockpiling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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