It was all part of a dual-pronged effort by the American Embassy in Beijing to educate Chinese on the U.S. electoral process and to celebrate the election results for what some call the most historic presidential race in decades.
The U.S. Embassy, with assistance from the American Chamber of Commerce and the American Center for Educational Exchange, set up mock voting booths and handed out pamphlets explaining the process.
First ‘vote’ for many Chinese
Crowds of young Chinese read the mock ballots, diligently filled them out, and then stood before cameras in front of the ballot box. It was the first time any of them had cast a vote – real or imaginary.
"It’s exciting," said She Rui, a 24-year-old graduate student in international relations at People’s University. The election, he said, "is very important, because it gives the people a chance to express their needs [and] to choose their leaders."
This may seem like a rather useless quote, but the only reason I do is just to clarify that I do, in fact, not like Blob-of-Evil, because everyone obviously cares about my opinion.
Give him a break. I think it's pretty shitty to be kicked out of an internet forum for being yourself.. he hasn't done anything worth being banned over, so be nice.
Congratulations for your new president. I hope it will be easier to visit the United States from now on.
I can only hope the presidential elections that will happen next year here will be as interesting as the one you just had. Until now it looks really boring...
WASHINGTON—After emerging victorious from one of the most pivotal elections in history, president-elect Barack Obama will assume the role of commander in chief on Jan. 20, shattering a racial barrier the United States is, at long last, shitty enough to overcome.
Although polls going into the final weeks of October showed Sen. Obama in the lead, it remained unclear whether the failing economy, dilapidated housing market, crumbling national infrastructure, health care crisis, energy crisis, and five-year-long disastrous war in Iraq had made the nation crappy enough to rise above 300 years of racial prejudice and make lasting change.
"Today the American people have made their voices heard, and they have said, 'Things are finally as terrible as we're willing to tolerate," said Obama, addressing a crowd of unemployed, uninsured, and debt-ridden supporters. "To elect a black man, in this country, and at this time—these last eight years must have really broken you."
Added Obama, "It's a great day for our nation."
Carrying a majority of the popular vote, Obama did especially well among women and young voters, who polls showed were particularly sensitive to the current climate of everything being fucked. Another contributing factor to Obama's victory, political experts said, may have been the growing number of Americans who, faced with the complete collapse of their country, were at last able to abandon their preconceptions and cast their vote for a progressive African-American.
Citizens with eyes, ears, and the ability to wake up and realize what truly matters in the end are also believed to have played a crucial role in Tuesday's election.
According to a CNN exit poll, 42 percent of voters said that the nation's financial woes had finally become frightening enough to eclipse such concerns as gay marriage, while 30 percent said that the relentless body count in Iraq was at last harrowing enough to outweigh long ideological debates over abortion. In addition, 28 percent of voters were reportedly too busy paying off medial bills, desperately trying not to lose their homes, or watching their futures disappear to dismiss Obama any longer.
"The election of our first African-American president truly shows how far we've come as a nation," said NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. "Just eight years ago, this moment would have been unthinkable. But finally we, as a country, have joined together, realized we've reached rock bottom, and for the first time voted for a candidate based on his policies rather than the color of his skin."
"Today Americans have grudgingly taken a giant leap forward," Williams continued. "And all it took was severe economic downturn, a bloody and unjust war in Iraq, terrorist attacks on lower Manhattan, nearly 2,000 deaths in New Orleans, and more than three centuries of frequently violent racial turmoil."
Said Williams, "The American people should be commended for their long-overdue courage."
Obama's victory is being called the most significant change in politics since the 1992 election, when a full-scale economic recession led voters to momentarily ignore the fact that candidate Bill Clinton had once smoked marijuana. While many believed things had once again reached an all-time low in 2004, the successful reelection of President George W. Bush—despite historically low approval ratings nationwide—proved that things were not quite shitty enough to challenge the already pretty shitty status quo.
"If Obama learned one thing from his predecessors, it's that timing means everything," said Dr. James Pung, a professor of political science at Princeton University. "Less than a decade ago, Al Gore made the crucial mistake of suggesting we should care about preserving the environment before it became unavoidably clear that global warming would kill us all, and in 2004, John Kerry cost himself the presidency by criticizing Bush's disastrous Iraq policy before everyone realized our invasion had become a complete and total quagmire."
"Obama had the foresight to run for president at a time when being an African-American was not as important to Americans as, say, the ability to clothe and feed their children," Pung continued. "An election like this only comes once, maybe twice, in a lifetime."
As we enter a new era of equality for all people, the election of Barack Obama will decidedly be a milestone in U.S. history, undeniable proof that Americans, when pushed to the very brink, are willing to look past outward appearances and judge a person by the quality of his character and strength of his record. So as long as that person is not a woman.
That's sorta funny (it is the onion afterall), but it's more of this excessive media attention Obama's had. It's gotta be giving some people unrealistic expectations. Just how much power do they think a President has?
I sometimes wonder if a hyped up hero image of the President can by itself change the mindset of the people inside and outside of the country enough to start fixing problems. Regardless of Obama's actions could he end up being a presidential placebo? It's almost silly enough to work...give people a false sense of confidence and hope and maybe they will change enough make it real. Hmmmm...nah. Things are rarely so simple.
Things will get better. If nothing else, the election year is over. That alone seems to help things a bit usually. Something about not having a bunch of politicians yapping at us, telling us how shitty things are and how they'll make it better. But that might just bring us back to the mindset thing again.
Setting aside the 'Blob Vs Serephel' fight for a sec...
I really didnt follow this election as well as I normally like to, just because I felt like the media really played up Senator (well...president) Obama, and put down Senator McCain. As has been previously stated, Mr.McCain is a good person, and government itself is nothing but a puppeteer playing the candidates. The president is not much more than a figurehead, as his actions are derived from the choices of his cabinet. He honestly doesnt have total control like most people think.
Although, and I hate to sound like the majority of the populace in the 'obama = political jesus' statement, but I do think it's a good call to bring some new blood and fresh ideas into washington. Now, I'm not expecting President Obama's first week to be tax cuts and free gas (the proverbial 'sunshine and rainbows') but I do expect there to be a gradual change for the better.
Okay, I honestly feel like the best thing that's going to come from Obama's presidency is exactly what X'o'Lore talked about, but on a larger scale.
I saw an article on my Yahoo thing today that described the global reaction to Obama being elected. It kept mentioning leaders around the world congratulating Obama and saying how momentous it was that we elected a non-white president.. I think some Latin America nations even said something like, "we'd like to begin fresh negotiations with the USA now." Implying that they only wanted to do so because Bush would be gone.
So I think the greatest effect his presidency will have is that America looks less stupid on the global stage. Maybe now the world will stop hating us so much, and I feel like that's a great step forward.
After all, he is the face of America, and it's a damn sexy face.
Wow.... what a loaded activity.... what do you think of this, Ryan?
DEMOCRACY WILL PREVAIL.
Actually, that seems kinda dangerous to do, because inspiring people with the ability to vote can potentially challenge the status quo of the ruling Communist party. I think we need to stay out of their political affairs, but that's just me.
There already are elections in China, but they are on a very small level, small enough to not really make much of a difference. People can vote to elect representatives for some minor issues, but anybody with authority is elected by some private committee in the government. Again, my earlier post about Chinese not fully understanding how it works.
This may seem like a rather useless quote, but the only reason I do is just to clarify that I do, in fact, not like Blob-of-Evil, because everyone obviously cares about my opinion.
I care about you. Your avatar will eat me if I don't.
Give him a break. I think it's pretty shitty to be kicked out of an internet forum for being yourself.. he hasn't done anything worth being banned over, so be nice.
Well, I did apologize, and I simply explained why I felt the way I did. Apparently my love of our country as a result of the cumulatation of my experiences disgusts him, so whatever.
Everything else...
I voted for President ObamaChrist because I expect him to heal our country and fix everything between Jan. 20 and 21. If January 22nd comes around and stuff's still shitty, well I'm going to feel like the media lied to me these last 21 months.
The computer systems of both the Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown "foreign entity," prompting a federal investigation, NEWSWEEK reports today.
At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of "phishing," a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the campaign's computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved.
Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.) A security firm retained by the Obama campaign took steps to secure its computer system and end the intrusion. White House and FBI officials had no comment earlier this week.
NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.
A Palin aide said: "Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin."
McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.
The disclosures are among many revealed in "How He Did It, 2008," the latest installment in NEWSWEEK's Special Election Project, which was first published in 1984. As in the previous editions, "How He Did It, 2008" is an inside, behind-the-scenes account of the presidential election produced by a special team of reporters working for more than a year on an embargoed basis and detached from the weekly magazine and Newsweek.com. Everything the project team learns is kept confidential until the day after the polls close.
Among the other revelations from the special project:
* The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle asked a top campaign aide.
* On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain's core group of advisers—Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons—met to decide whether to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had "a pulse."
* The Obama campaign's New Media experts created a computer program that would allow a "flusher"—the term for a volunteer who rounds up nonvoters on Election Day—to know exactly who had, and had not, voted in real time. They dubbed it Project Houdini, because of the way names disappear off the list instantly once people are identified as they wait in line at their local polling station.
* Palin launched her attack on Obama's association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain's advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.
* McCain also was reluctant to use Obama's incendiary pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as a campaign issue. The Republican had set firm boundaries: no Jeremiah Wright; no attacking Michelle Obama; no attacking Obama for not serving in the military. McCain balked at an ad using images of children that suggested that Obama might not protect them from terrorism. Schmidt vetoed ads suggesting that Obama was soft on crime (no Willie Hortons). And before word even got to McCain, Schmidt and Salter scuttled a "celebrity" ad of Obama dancing with talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres (the sight of a black man dancing with a lesbian was deemed too provocative).
* Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Sen. Joe Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.
* McCain was dumbfounded when Congressman John Lewis, a civil-rights hero, issued a press release comparing the GOP nominee with former Alabama governor George Wallace, a segregationist infamous for stirring racial fears. McCain had devoted a chapter to Lewis in one of his books, "Why Courage Matters," and had so admired Lewis that he had once taken his children to meet him.
* On the night she officially lost the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain. Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama. Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow.
* At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said.
* The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."
Now I feel sad for McCain. I'd thought that the man from 8 years ago was still in there somewhere and he was just being suppressed by advisers and pandering. Those points just confirm it. It reads like a story of a guy that finally gets to do what he really wants, but they force him to do it their way instead of his and he has no choice but to go along with decisions he disagrees with. It's fairly tragic.
I think some Latin America nations even said something like, "we'd like to begin fresh negotiations with the USA now." Implying that they only wanted to do so because Bush would be gone.
That is surely Venezuela, which could be considered more like a giant feud instead of a country.
As I'm sure you all know, there are MANY people who call Obama a socialist, and now I'm assaulted on Facebook by people whose statuses now read, "I'm not looking forward to socialism", or "You thought you would get change, but you just got a socialist."
I want to be able to argue against this... it seems like the worst kind of stupidity to me. So I'm going to present my argument. Critique it or add to it, I want to test it out here before pushing it out into the real world. Here goes:
Okay, so lots of people call Obama a socialist. But do you even have a full understanding of what the term really means? It doesn't mean "baby-eater" or "coprophiliac", it means someone who supports a socialist system of government. And socialism is a system in which goods and means of production are owned collectively, often by the government, which is made up of people, not machines intent on killing its citizens.
Okay, so, socialism is a set of economic and political structures, right? So you may not agree with having a completely socialist government, that's just fine. Extremes often don't work out very well, which is why we aren't going to adopt a fully socialist government. But at the same time, extreme capitalism doesn't work either. It simply allows for an oligarchy in which a few prosper at the expense of the many. That's not our government. We're not completely socialist, and we're not completely capitalist.
We are a combination of many different structures. We have some capitalism... capitalism can promote efficiency and imagination, leading to better goods and services. We also have some socialism... it's nice to be able to drive down roads, have police and firemen to protect us, and have schools to educate our children. Yes, we pay taxes for these services.. but how much we pay is controlled collectively, instead of by a private individual or business. That way the costs stay low. Also, our government tries to keep companies from getting monopolies, so that we're not at their mercy. That's kinda nice too.
So what's my point? Real life is FAR more complicated than the black and white terms people seem to be touting these days. It's not a struggle of good versus evil, black versus white, socialism versus capitalism, and on and on ad nauseum. Almost everything in our lives is a mixture of a whole bunch of different things, but when you insist upon looking at everything in such dichotomous terms as these, progress is halted. You refuse to move an inch because you feel that if you move at all, you'll automatically be on the other side.
To be sure, negotiating the middle ground is tricky. It requires a careful consideration of actions and outcomes, and you constantly have to check yourself to make sure you're not fucking things up royally. But the best solutions are the middle ground, because you can mix and match what works and what doesn't to make the best system possible.
It's okay to say that you don't agree with the direction Obama wants to take this country. It's okay to say that you prefer smaller central government. What REALLY irks me is when people say, "Obama got elected, guess we're going to be a socialist nation now." No, we're not. Calling Obama a socialist is an insult to real socialists. Obama is a capitalist. He may lean more left than McCain, but the world is bigger than Republican vs. Democrat. It's actually quite sad how similar our choices are... we don't get a lot of leeway in our elections. On a global scale, when you consider all the possible stances politicians can have, we have a choice between a right-leaning capitalist... and a slightly-less-right-leaning capitalist. There's so many more systems out there than our two-party system allows for. Real socialism is much different from anything we will have any time soon in this country. The actual socialist party is a third party here, and we all know how likely it is that they'll be elected into power.
So please, consider your comments carefully. Socialism is the new buzzword, the term that has sprung up that is synonymous with villainy and oppression. And that's not what it means. It's just how people are (incorrectly) using it.
Even if Obama was a Stalin caliber socialist, there's no way he'd have enough power to make the extreme changes he'd need to make to make us anything close to a socialist nation.
But let's let the Rush Limbaughs of the world have their fun for now. A lot of us did this same kind of thing while Bush was president.
I'm considering putting it on Facebook.... but Tak has a point. Just let them sling their names?
I think the only reason that it's irking me now is that these people are my FAMILY. I don't really care if some random person calls him a socialist... but I feel that I have a duty to help eliminate harmful dichotomous viewpoints in my own gene pool.
The idea of Palin in the White House really was a scary thought. I was pretty relieved when Obama won. I still have mixed feelings about it, though. Mostly it has to do with people voting for an image rather than a candidate. Interviews with people after the election pissed me off for the pure hypocrisy of it all. I'm gonna rephrase some of the more common quotes, you tell me if they sound racist: "I'm so glad we got a white president", "I'm really excited to have been a part of putting a white man into the presidency", "Now that a white man is president, it just shows that America really is the best country in the world". etc.
Honestly, I do like Obama, I still agree more with McCain, but with Palin in there, it really seemed like a shitty choice. I'm just really pissed off at how nobody said, "I voted for Obama because he has the know-how to get this nation back on it's feet." It just seems like such a shitty double-standard. Listening to other nations, it seems more like they didn't see Obama vs McCain, but evil white guy vs black Jesus. Obviously, there were a fair number of white people voting for McCain just because he wasn't the black guy, but none of them would ever be allowed to say that, and that's why it's a double-standard that pisses me off. I know it's a huge mile-stone, and it is really exciting. but people are looking at it as if it is a single act that is changing the way race is viewed in America, when it should be seen as an indication of how America is. I just think it cheapens his victory when people just look at him as representing a point in history first and as a qualified candidate second. If everyone really was as enlightened as they see themselves, t would never have even been a consideration. It would have been a choice between two people, not a black person and a white person.
Well, that would be nice in an ideal world, but unfortunately that's not how America is. And it's going to be much different for white people than it is for black people.
There are going to be white people who voted for him just because Obama was black, yes. They did it out of reverse guilt, so they could say they're progressive and open by supporting the black candidate, and that is racist, yes. But some people voted for him because he was Democrat, and others voted for him simply because he wasn't Bush. I voted for him because after carefully analyzing them I decided he was best suited to run the country. I embraced the fact that he was black, and I am very happy that our country did elect a black man. He'll be a roll model for young black children. It's perfectly okay to see things like this, but I see it as an added bonus. I would have still voted for him even if he was white (which is an ironic statement I know, considering he's half white too, but you know what I mean).
But what about the black voters who have known oppression? Shit, Jesse Jackson was actually crying, and any other time it would've been funny, but this time it was just... moving. You can also find stories of centurion blacks who voted, people who went back as far as one generation after slavery was abolished. America has come a long ass way in the last hundred years. This was significant for them, and after all the hate they've experienced in their lives, I won't even pretend to understand how they're feeling now.
The rest of the world does see this as incredbily significant, where race is much more openly discussed. From an expat point of view, this is incredible for all of us, because we are much more attuned to how the rest of the world sees us. Sometimes we're forced to become apologetic for Washington, and we have to constantly convince everyone that most of the country hates Bush too.
It's different already. People are approaching me and congratulating me and my country. They're asking me questions about America, about Obama, and about everything related to my home. In Europe, where anti-American sentiment is much stronger, I've heard one story of an expat who was once afraid to wear red white and blue outside received a kiss on the cheek from a total stranger on the bus who overheard his American accent.
Now I'm just kind of rambling without a point, but black or no, he's a welcome face of change to both the US and the rest of the world.
I understand all that. And I was definitely looking forward to the improved foreign relations as soon as he won the primary. But I still hate the rest of the world for thinking that America is somehow different today than it was 2 days ago. What the fuck? We were all a bunch of ignorant assholes and now we're supposed to be the progressive leaders of the world? The thing that pisses me off is just people in general. We're all the same as we were. This election isn't going to cause any more change than a standard party change would have caused. But people act like this somehow makes us better than we were. The thing that pisses me off about it is the thought that if McCain won it would have had the exact opposite effect. Like somehow NOT voting for Obama would mean that our country hated all minorities and was deserving of the worlds eternal disdain.
Well, it's important to note that most of the world strongly disapproved of Palin. They saw her religious views as quite radical, and they didn't understand what the big debate over her was. To them it was pretty obvious.
To vote McCain would've made us look racist, yeah. That is sad. But it also would've made us look stupidly fundamentalist and incapable of learning from our past mistakes of how religion and government don't mix.
Edit: As a note, I just read in the Economist that Obama did lose the white vote, 43-55%. But it almost exactly the same share as the last three (white) Democratic candidates, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry.
What ticks me off about the people in my area, in regard to politics, is that they made a big deal over Obama’s middle name. I don't get it. Since when dose a middle name have anything to do with how a man will run the country?
Exactly! It's those type of people that piss me off. His name showed his Muslim roots. But that shouldn't be a bad thing. These assholes can't see past their own notion about the category they're forcing someone into. It just doesn't make any sense to me. How can you make generalizations about a single person after you've already learned the details?
Comments
Okay, also check out this interesting article on how young Chinese see the General Election.
Obama gets young China's vote
This may seem like a rather useless quote, but the only reason I do is just to clarify that I do, in fact, not like Blob-of-Evil, because everyone obviously cares about my opinion.
I can only hope the presidential elections that will happen next year here will be as interesting as the one you just had. Until now it looks really boring...
Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress
I sometimes wonder if a hyped up hero image of the President can by itself change the mindset of the people inside and outside of the country enough to start fixing problems. Regardless of Obama's actions could he end up being a presidential placebo? It's almost silly enough to work...give people a false sense of confidence and hope and maybe they will change enough make it real. Hmmmm...nah. Things are rarely so simple.
Things will get better. If nothing else, the election year is over. That alone seems to help things a bit usually. Something about not having a bunch of politicians yapping at us, telling us how shitty things are and how they'll make it better. But that might just bring us back to the mindset thing again.
I really didnt follow this election as well as I normally like to, just because I felt like the media really played up Senator (well...president) Obama, and put down Senator McCain. As has been previously stated, Mr.McCain is a good person, and government itself is nothing but a puppeteer playing the candidates. The president is not much more than a figurehead, as his actions are derived from the choices of his cabinet. He honestly doesnt have total control like most people think.
Although, and I hate to sound like the majority of the populace in the 'obama = political jesus' statement, but I do think it's a good call to bring some new blood and fresh ideas into washington. Now, I'm not expecting President Obama's first week to be tax cuts and free gas (the proverbial 'sunshine and rainbows') but I do expect there to be a gradual change for the better.
Hopefully that all made sense, rant's over.
I saw an article on my Yahoo thing today that described the global reaction to Obama being elected. It kept mentioning leaders around the world congratulating Obama and saying how momentous it was that we elected a non-white president.. I think some Latin America nations even said something like, "we'd like to begin fresh negotiations with the USA now." Implying that they only wanted to do so because Bush would be gone.
So I think the greatest effect his presidency will have is that America looks less stupid on the global stage. Maybe now the world will stop hating us so much, and I feel like that's a great step forward.
After all, he is the face of America, and it's a damn sexy face.
DEMOCRACY WILL PREVAIL.
Actually, that seems kinda dangerous to do, because inspiring people with the ability to vote can potentially challenge the status quo of the ruling Communist party. I think we need to stay out of their political affairs, but that's just me.
There already are elections in China, but they are on a very small level, small enough to not really make much of a difference. People can vote to elect representatives for some minor issues, but anybody with authority is elected by some private committee in the government. Again, my earlier post about Chinese not fully understanding how it works.
I care about you. Your avatar will eat me if I don't.
Well, I did apologize, and I simply explained why I felt the way I did. Apparently my love of our country as a result of the cumulatation of my experiences disgusts him, so whatever.
Everything else...
I voted for President ObamaChrist because I expect him to heal our country and fix everything between Jan. 20 and 21. If January 22nd comes around and stuff's still shitty, well I'm going to feel like the media lied to me these last 21 months.
That is surely Venezuela, which could be considered more like a giant feud instead of a country.
It really puts how little power the president actually has into perspective.
As I'm sure you all know, there are MANY people who call Obama a socialist, and now I'm assaulted on Facebook by people whose statuses now read, "I'm not looking forward to socialism", or "You thought you would get change, but you just got a socialist."
I want to be able to argue against this... it seems like the worst kind of stupidity to me. So I'm going to present my argument. Critique it or add to it, I want to test it out here before pushing it out into the real world. Here goes:
Okay, so lots of people call Obama a socialist. But do you even have a full understanding of what the term really means? It doesn't mean "baby-eater" or "coprophiliac", it means someone who supports a socialist system of government. And socialism is a system in which goods and means of production are owned collectively, often by the government, which is made up of people, not machines intent on killing its citizens.
Okay, so, socialism is a set of economic and political structures, right? So you may not agree with having a completely socialist government, that's just fine. Extremes often don't work out very well, which is why we aren't going to adopt a fully socialist government. But at the same time, extreme capitalism doesn't work either. It simply allows for an oligarchy in which a few prosper at the expense of the many. That's not our government. We're not completely socialist, and we're not completely capitalist.
We are a combination of many different structures. We have some capitalism... capitalism can promote efficiency and imagination, leading to better goods and services. We also have some socialism... it's nice to be able to drive down roads, have police and firemen to protect us, and have schools to educate our children. Yes, we pay taxes for these services.. but how much we pay is controlled collectively, instead of by a private individual or business. That way the costs stay low. Also, our government tries to keep companies from getting monopolies, so that we're not at their mercy. That's kinda nice too.
So what's my point? Real life is FAR more complicated than the black and white terms people seem to be touting these days. It's not a struggle of good versus evil, black versus white, socialism versus capitalism, and on and on ad nauseum. Almost everything in our lives is a mixture of a whole bunch of different things, but when you insist upon looking at everything in such dichotomous terms as these, progress is halted. You refuse to move an inch because you feel that if you move at all, you'll automatically be on the other side.
To be sure, negotiating the middle ground is tricky. It requires a careful consideration of actions and outcomes, and you constantly have to check yourself to make sure you're not fucking things up royally. But the best solutions are the middle ground, because you can mix and match what works and what doesn't to make the best system possible.
It's okay to say that you don't agree with the direction Obama wants to take this country. It's okay to say that you prefer smaller central government. What REALLY irks me is when people say, "Obama got elected, guess we're going to be a socialist nation now." No, we're not. Calling Obama a socialist is an insult to real socialists. Obama is a capitalist. He may lean more left than McCain, but the world is bigger than Republican vs. Democrat. It's actually quite sad how similar our choices are... we don't get a lot of leeway in our elections. On a global scale, when you consider all the possible stances politicians can have, we have a choice between a right-leaning capitalist... and a slightly-less-right-leaning capitalist. There's so many more systems out there than our two-party system allows for. Real socialism is much different from anything we will have any time soon in this country. The actual socialist party is a third party here, and we all know how likely it is that they'll be elected into power.
So please, consider your comments carefully. Socialism is the new buzzword, the term that has sprung up that is synonymous with villainy and oppression. And that's not what it means. It's just how people are (incorrectly) using it.
But let's let the Rush Limbaughs of the world have their fun for now. A lot of us did this same kind of thing while Bush was president.
You should also put that up on Facebook as a response to everyone else. Then more people can see it.
I think the only reason that it's irking me now is that these people are my FAMILY. I don't really care if some random person calls him a socialist... but I feel that I have a duty to help eliminate harmful dichotomous viewpoints in my own gene pool.
Honestly, I do like Obama, I still agree more with McCain, but with Palin in there, it really seemed like a shitty choice. I'm just really pissed off at how nobody said, "I voted for Obama because he has the know-how to get this nation back on it's feet." It just seems like such a shitty double-standard. Listening to other nations, it seems more like they didn't see Obama vs McCain, but evil white guy vs black Jesus. Obviously, there were a fair number of white people voting for McCain just because he wasn't the black guy, but none of them would ever be allowed to say that, and that's why it's a double-standard that pisses me off. I know it's a huge mile-stone, and it is really exciting. but people are looking at it as if it is a single act that is changing the way race is viewed in America, when it should be seen as an indication of how America is. I just think it cheapens his victory when people just look at him as representing a point in history first and as a qualified candidate second. If everyone really was as enlightened as they see themselves, t would never have even been a consideration. It would have been a choice between two people, not a black person and a white person.
There are going to be white people who voted for him just because Obama was black, yes. They did it out of reverse guilt, so they could say they're progressive and open by supporting the black candidate, and that is racist, yes. But some people voted for him because he was Democrat, and others voted for him simply because he wasn't Bush. I voted for him because after carefully analyzing them I decided he was best suited to run the country. I embraced the fact that he was black, and I am very happy that our country did elect a black man. He'll be a roll model for young black children. It's perfectly okay to see things like this, but I see it as an added bonus. I would have still voted for him even if he was white (which is an ironic statement I know, considering he's half white too, but you know what I mean).
But what about the black voters who have known oppression? Shit, Jesse Jackson was actually crying, and any other time it would've been funny, but this time it was just... moving. You can also find stories of centurion blacks who voted, people who went back as far as one generation after slavery was abolished. America has come a long ass way in the last hundred years. This was significant for them, and after all the hate they've experienced in their lives, I won't even pretend to understand how they're feeling now.
The rest of the world does see this as incredbily significant, where race is much more openly discussed. From an expat point of view, this is incredible for all of us, because we are much more attuned to how the rest of the world sees us. Sometimes we're forced to become apologetic for Washington, and we have to constantly convince everyone that most of the country hates Bush too.
It's different already. People are approaching me and congratulating me and my country. They're asking me questions about America, about Obama, and about everything related to my home. In Europe, where anti-American sentiment is much stronger, I've heard one story of an expat who was once afraid to wear red white and blue outside received a kiss on the cheek from a total stranger on the bus who overheard his American accent.
Now I'm just kind of rambling without a point, but black or no, he's a welcome face of change to both the US and the rest of the world.
Edit: Jesse James? I'm retarded. Jesse Jackson.
To vote McCain would've made us look racist, yeah. That is sad. But it also would've made us look stupidly fundamentalist and incapable of learning from our past mistakes of how religion and government don't mix.
Edit: As a note, I just read in the Economist that Obama did lose the white vote, 43-55%. But it almost exactly the same share as the last three (white) Democratic candidates, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry.
Seems like one of the areas that would be deeply religious and have a fear of Islam, however misplaced, hypocritical, and retarded it may be.