Scott's Brain Meat: Barack Obama

Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts

Friday, November 2, 2012

11/2/12: Are You Better Off Now?: An Election Response

It's a question that Romney supporters are fond of throwing around smugly, one of those supposedly undeniable truth statements that are supposed to stop you in your tracks because there is no way to answer it without admitting that the person asking is correct in their assumptions. In this case, the assumption is that Obama hasn't made anything better in America. It's a weird about-face, as it is usually the incumbent asking the question as way of underlining how good they've been at their job.

Since we are only days away from the 2012 Presidential Elections, I'm feeling rather motivated to actually answer this question. The last four years haven't been especially easy for anybody not in the top 10% (you know, the people who own the country, it seems), but I think it's fair to answer the question on an individual bases, considering that the question is meant to motivate my individual vote.

Anyway, comparing November 2008 with November 2012, am I better off now than I was four years ago?

Four years ago, I was:

*Laid off after fifteen years with the same company, because the sudden economic downturn crippled the entire industry in a matter of months.

*Subsequently laid up with the Swine Flu for a month (Happy Holidays!) with no medical insurance.

*Suddenly stuck with not being able to afford classes after having started attending college night classes again the previous year.

*Living in a house suddenly worth $30,000 less than it was two years ago.

Today, I am:

*Working for a new small business owner that isn't squeamish about hiring new employees during an Obama presidency, despite all Right Wing claims to the contrary.

*Still in possession of my house, thanks in part to extended federal unemployment benefits that helped me to stay afloat for the year and a half I was unemployed, and helped me stay financially intact enough so that I was prepared to survive the year and a half I was forced to work for an exploitative business owner who denied his employees federally-protected overtime pay and made Labor Day a non-payed holiday.

*One class away from obtaining my degree, thanks to Obama's improvements to the Pell Grant system, including allowing Unemployment benefits to be disregarded when calculating Pell Grant eligibility.

*Living in a state that was ravaged by a hurricane (ironically sharing the name of the employer that laid me off four years ago), and seeing my state survive and recover from the disaster with the help of immediately received support from FEMA, the organization that Romney has gleefully contemplated defunding in past interviews.

Is everything 100% better or back to normal four years later? Of course not. I'm still without medical insurance, and the medical insurance I will be eligible for soon will undoubtedly cost me more than it did when I last had it. Also, I love my new job, but I'm still not close to restoring my financial situation to what it once was, and real estate values still haven't recovered enough for my mortgage lose its underwater status.

But am I better off than I was four years ago, unemployed at the beginning of the worst recession since the Great Depression, licked to the curb by my career occupation at a time in which College Graduates and Six-Figure-Salary professionals were already begging for entry-level positions, sick with an as-of-yet undiagnosed pig disease as I watched Obama being sworn into office?

You bet your ass I am.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

3/28/12 - Trayvon Martin and Obamacare

Trayvon Martin Protest - Sanford (Photo credit: werthmedia)

All of a sudden I'm entering 2011 as the current date instead of 2012. Something deep within my subconscious is suddenly attempting to turn back the clock. This can't be a good sign.

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The Trayvon Martin tragedy has becoming the newest thing to get pissed about, and rightfully so. However, as usual, passionate indignation mixed with media exploitation has created an echo chamber that threatens to drown out what the real issue is here.

The politicians and talking heads aren't making anything easier, either (As if they ever do). In the latest little back and forth, you've got Obama coming out and empathizing with Trayvon Martin's family and remarking how close to home this kind of thing strikes when you're a black father. This turned out to be a bad move, as Imaginary Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich and John "I'm more religiously alien than the Mormon I'm running against" Santorum immediately jumped to the defense of the increasingly marginalized and persecuted White America by claiming that Obama was trying to divide the nation by injecting race into the situation. Of course, these guys are probably too busy running presidential campaigns (or in Gingrich's case, book signing tours disguised as presidential campaigns) to notice that the country is already divided by the Trayvon Martin tragedy: on one side are all of the people outraged at the lack of justice (once again) involving and innocent black teenager being gunned down, and on the other side are all of the white people attempting to defend the man who shot a kid armed with a bag of Skittles without sounding racist.

The joke, of course, is that race is a major issue in the Trayvon Martin case, but it isn't what we should all be focusing on. Sending Skittles to police stations and wearing hoodies in solidarity is the kind of feel-good media-friendly activism that Michael Moore built his career on, but all that does is distract from the more long-reaching tragedy that took place. We can spend all of our time digging into Zimmerman's past and replaying 911 calls to figure out whether he said "Coon" or "Goon", but rallying against one idiot as an effigy of racial prejudice does little more than stoke the flames of outrage and give everyone a chance to shout, but all of the Hoodie Activism in the world is going to decrease the amount of racism in the world. Racists actually tend to dig their heels in on incidents like this, in case you haven't noticed.

The real issue, and the problem that should be dominating our dialogue instead of Zimmerman's student status, is the institutionalized bias that resulted in a man found standing over a dead teenager with a smoking gun essentially being taken at his word by police to such an extent that witnesses who contradicted his story were told they were wrong, and not even being taken into custody despite having a previous criminal record. Whether this bias was due to the fact that Zimmerman was white and Martin was black, or that Zimmerman's father is a former judge, is a minor point over the greater issue that the actions of the police department in this case have obviously been guided by some internal ideology, and not a concern for protecting public safety or serving justice.

Add to this the existence of pro-gun lobby laws like macho-sounding "Stand Your Ground" law, which begs to ask whether public safety legislation that sounds like an NRA slogan or a 70's Vigilante Film Title should ever be passed into law, and you have government and law enforcement creating an environment in which violence is not only tolerated, but actively encouraged. I'm not what you would call a pacifist. I'm a long-standing fan of Dirty Harry and Death wish. But I also know how to separate testosterone-fueled fantasy from reality. Unlike Zimmerman, apparently, whose paranoid world view sees a black teen in a hoodie with his hand in his pocket as an outlaw that needs to be chased down and brought to "Final Justice." There will always be people like Zimmerman, but if law enforcement officials respond to this kind of overreaction with a pat on the back and a knowing wink, a lot more of them might feel justified in acting out. That, oh outraged citizens, is the real issue at hand.

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So, "Obamacare" finally gets it's day in court, and the crazies crawl out of the woodwork to dance in front of the cameras and put on a paranoid schizoid show for the media. I'm not talking about the "Borthers" or "Teabaggers" either; these are elected officials showing off their crazy as they suck up the free attention by spouting crackpot ideology that would sound just as authentic being muttered by a derelict wrapped in tin foil rubbing against you in a crowded subway car.

Take Michele "I have more kids than you!" Bachmann (R-Minn.), for example. Standing among the media circus, happy yet again to be the center of attention (and much like a child, completely unaware of the difference between Good Attention and Bad Attention), Bachmann warned the gathering crowd of anti-health care fanatics that “In the future, you see, we will not be electing a president. We will be electing a health care dictator!"

That's right, people! We'll be electing Health Care Dictators before you know it! Of course, most dictators aren't really elected, at least not fairly, nor do they often bother to defend their policies through a lengthy legal process. Also, most dictators have secret police forces that run around slipping radioactive pellets into the breakfast oatmeal of people who stand around calling them names in front of their palaces while on television.

Even better, however, is the insanely myopic and unflinchingly disconnected question asked by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.): “If government can tell you what to buy in terms of health insurance, what’s next?"

I have to agree with the senator from the great state of Wisconsin (and how proud they must be). If we allow our government to demand that everyone have affordable health care, what could possibly be next? I mean, before you know it, they could start trying to exert control over who we can or can't marry, whether or not we can use contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies, force us to have unnecessary medical procedures, or even try to dictate which of us should be allowed to raise children. Senator Johnson is right, any party espousing this kind of madness needs to be stopped in its tracks.

You've got thousands of protesters assembling to warn about Obama's "Death Panels" and "Health Care Rationing" if Obama's plan is put into effect because they are afraid of the government getting between them and their doctors, and they are being led by politicians openly and actively attempting to pass legislation that would allow employers and religious organizations to do the exact thing they fear.

You see? This is what happens when you have a political party run by people with no sense of irony.

*

Response to my question about what kind of nails a particular nail gun uses: "It should have a fat head, a thick shaft, and be roughly three and a half inches long."

I'm probably getting to old to be giggling, but it sure ain't stopping me.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Texas Education Board Approves Conservative Curriculum Changes By Far-Right

So, Republican revisionism finally makes the leap from Journalists to Historians as they successfully force their own far-right political views into text books. Other changes soon to come to an American History Textbook near you:

Supplemental Chapter: Tea Parties: Then and Now
Section listing requirement of US President's to be born on American soil includes the addition "Until recently..."
Economic history involving the dropping of the gold standard includes a half-page ad for Goldline featuring Glenn Beck.
America acquired from Indians legally at fair market values, a perfect example of unregulated capitalism.
All references to "Democratic Party" changed to "Democrat Party"
Racism no longer exists; successfully defeated by Republican in the late sixties.
Kennedy Presidency briefly mentioned as a "transitional period," remaining space dedicated to Ronald Reagan.
God mentioned at least once every two pages, listed among founding fathers.
Ayn Rand listed as Economic Expert in section on capitalism, Atlas Shrugged added to "Suggested Reading" list.
All references to "President Obama" changed to "President (?) "Barry" Barack Hussein Obama"

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Super Barack Obama!

I think that this JibJab video of President Barack Obama donning tights and performing super heroic feats, like bringing peace to the Middle East and wrestling bears, is funny no matter which section of the political spectrum you currently reside in. Hell, I like it. Watch it.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

CBS News: Iranian Protesters Don't Care What John McCain Thinks

On ABC News, Iranian filmmaker/journalist Kouross Esmaeli commented on the Republican

Image via Wikipedia

criticisms of President Obama's handling of the Iranian Protests in the wake of the blatantly rigged Elections.

Kouross not only emphasized that most Iranians couldn't really care less about the opinions of Senator John McCain, a man who gleefully sang about bombing Iran during the presidential election primaries of 2008, he even went as far as to recognize that the news media as a whole has been implicitly helpful in spreading and disseminating the Republican Party's illogical and politically motivated arguments against President Obama's well calibrated statements on the Iranian uprising.

Iranian protesters as a whole, it seems, have more important things to worry about than the political aspirations of rapidly aging right-wing politicians. Go figure.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Bernard Goldberg Inspires Mass Murder

Right-wing author Bernard Goldberg got some great press coverage today.

James Adkisson, the gunman who walked into a Unitarian Universalist Church with a shotgun and opened fire on the congregation (who were watching children perform their rendition of Annie), was sentenced to life in prison today. As part of his final statement, Adkisson released a four-page manifesto, which he had originally intended to be his suicide note if he was killed by police during his rampage.

A Vietnam-era veteran with alcohol abuse problems, Adkisson had been struggling to find gainful employment. He eventually came to blame Liberals for his problems, and when arrested claimed that his intention had been to kill as many Liberals as possible to send a message to the nation. The four-page manifesto he released to the press goes into great detail about his hatred of all things left-wing, and serves up one especially noticeable paragraph (emphasis added):

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

The book that Adkisson is referring to is Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37). In the book, Goldberg rants on how people like Tim Robbins, Norman Mailer, Howard Stern and Gloria Steinem are destroying America from the inside out (Spoiler Alert: Michael Moore is #1). He actually followed it up in 2006 with 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America, because you never want a list of such magnitude to become outdated.

After the shooting, once Adkisson proclaimed his motives and intentions, a lot of people started screaming that this was proof that the hate-speech being spewed by the hard-right was actually inciting hatred and violence in its audience. Those claims have now been somewhat validated.

Granted, this was definitely not the name that many people were hoping would pop up. Those who are disgusted by the right-wing-talking-head-propaganda machine were really holding out for something bigger; a last minute shout-out to Sean Hannity, a Rush Is My Spirit Guide bumper sticker, or even a complete collection of Anne Coulter's books, signed by Coulter with the inscription "Go get'em, Tiger!"

Hannity, O'Reilly or Limbaugh would have been major Conservative Icons worth raking across the coals for their incendiary and inciting diatribes. Goldberg, for the most part, is just a big-mouthed stooge who pisses and moans that every negative thing said about Republicans in the media or the entertainment industry is proof of a vast left-wing conspiracy to drown out the true voice of America. His latest book, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media, is 184 pages of him complaining that the News Media gave Obama a free pass to the White House. For anyone who actually paid attention during the elections, this assessment is complete crap. But, hey, whatever makes you feel better.

But the point of this, the importance of Goldberg's name actually appearing in Adkisson's Manifesto, is that most of the right-wing ranting and posturing is designed to make people worse. People like Adkisson, down on their luck and easily influenced, turn to these people not because they offer hope or answers, but because they offer them someone to hate.

Adkisson was told that the Liberals are to blame for the shape of the economy. He was told that the Liberals are letting foreigners into the country to live off welfare and take the jobs away from Americans like him. He was told that the Liberals hate God and Christianity, and are trying to destroy (Christian) religion by stopping prayer in schools, letting Gays get married, and taking the Christ out of Christmas. He was told that the Liberals wanted to destroy the American way of life and turn it into a Communist/Socialist/Marxist One World Order. Oh, and Liberals hate the troops and want America to lose the war.

Adkisson believed them. He believed that the country he fought for and loved was under attack. So he loaded a shotgun, marched into a non-Christian church known to perform outreach programs for Gays, and started shooting.

Congratulations, Bernie. Your sales should go up with this news. All that fear mongering and alarm-sounding have finally paid off. One of your biggest fans took your book and turned it into a hit list. Of course, I'm not implying that you intending anyone to go out and harm others when you wrote any of your books. Then again, you and your cronies have been screaming at that top of your lungs for years that the American Way as we know it is under constant attack by the evil Liberals. What else did you expect a God-fearing Patriot to do?