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While the politicians in Springfield keep fighting with each other over the impending deterioration of our ability to actually get around our city, Barack Obama was getting down with Oprah Winfrey (and raising big bucks) in California this weekend.
1500 people showed up at Oprah's estate in Montecito, Calif., on Saturday night to dine on mini-hamburgers, chicken tenders, and corn on the cob, to dance to the musical stylings of Stevie Wonder, and to give money to the Obama presidential campaign. "I call my home the Promised Land because I get to live Dr. King's dream," Winfrey said, according to the Tribune. "I haven't been actively engaged before because there hasn't been anything to be actively engaged in. But I am engaged now to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States." The event is expected to raise around $3 million, and just may be the beginning of Oprah's involvement with the Obama campaign, as speculation grows of her involvement in television ads and speaking engagements on his behalf.
A friend of ours once called Oprah the black woman that white women can feel good about. As voters on the Democratic side of the electorate are confronted with the fundamental question - can a white man still be president in the United States? - it seems fitting, then, that she would step to the plate for Obama, the black candidate that has mass appeal in much of mainstream white America. All in all, the phenomenon that is the Big O, and the kinds of "Change Your Life" feel-good types that she brings with her, fit into the Obama candidacy, which has been unfortunately all too much like one big Dr. Phil episode, focusing on getting over the problems of the nation, rather than looking at the root causes.
Image via Skeptical Brotha.
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I was at the party. It rocked. Oprah serves great booze. I was drinking straight Makers all night.
Stevie was awesome. He and Barak did a duet of Ebony and Ivory that brought the house down.
I had like three straight Makers' in celebration. Eventually I had to puke--luckily the shin-dig took place outside so it was easy to blow chunks into one of Oprah's hedges.
That's so nasty, Guest. I bet you wore spiked heels, too, against Oprah's expressed wishes. I'd love to see her meadow today. I bet it looks like Caddyshack after the gopher domolition.
I can't understand why everyone is going Obama crazy.
Where is his plan for getting out of Iraq?
What is his stand on equal rights? (and I include gay rights)
Mortgage loan crisis?
This guy is policy-lite. All he can talk about is change but he doesnt mention what he wants to change. And lets not talk about some of his less than savory campaign supporters and donations...
Well if Oprah says he's the guy, that's good enough for me!
I'm not sure why she's raising all this money for his campaign -- why doesn't she just tell Obama to think that he'll be president and it will be so, ala "The Secret"?
I wish Oprah would get her big, shallow self out of politics. She was all gung-ho about Iraq, too, until she had a viewer backlash. After we were in the war, she said we should "make the best of it." She's such a fraud.
guest 3, i agree. Obama is a whole lot of fluff. Remember when he tried to discuss policy- He said he'd bomb afhganistan right now etc... and then he caused mini riots in afhganistan? He got lampooned by the other candidates here, schockingly the media even gave it to him (so you know it was bad) He hasn't talked policy since.
He does do a lot of smiling though, flashing those pearly whites; makes people feel good.
To even posit in jest about "can a white man still be president in the United States?"
Is typical liberal sophistism of course I’m sure Shawn Hannity and Rush Limbaugh most certainly appreciate ridiculous jargon like this
especially coming from the other side. I’m sure they would love to debate the topic.
But you’re friend is, as they say in Lincoln park, “spot on” about “Oprah (being) the black woman that white women can feel good about”. Its fitting that she should get behind a colored man that white men can get behind and feel good about
I’m just glade progressive folks are starting the smell the coffee. It use to be that when O’Bama’s name graced these cyber pages, liberals tripped all over themselves to praise the patron saint of the liberal whites and black folks working hard to just get along and fit in.
O’Bama’s is mos def policy lite. And has no real Black base and no urban agenda. Heck the only time he spoke on inner city issues was when he spoke at the NACCP, and Hillary came off as felling more comfortable. He also wasn’t fully behind the rights of Gay folks
And his silence on the mortgage crisis probably had a lot to do with his connection to slum lord developer Tony Rescue.
I wouldn’t beef on O’Bama so hard if he didn’t try to portray himself as a new sort of politician. Its one of the biggest shams I've seen in a long time
To posit can :a white man still be president in the United States?
Is typical Liberal sophistism of course I’m sure Shawn Hannity and Rush Limbaugh most certainly appreciate ridiculous jargon like this
Being raised especially from the other side. I’m sure they would love to debate the topic.
But you’re friend is, as they say in Lincoln park, “spot on”
About “Oprah the black woman that white women can feel good about”. And its fitting that she should get behind a colored man that white men can get behind
I’m just glade progressive folks are starting the smell the coffee as it use to be that when O’Bama’s graced these cyber pages liberals tripped all over themselves to praise the patron saint of the liberal whites and black folks working hard to just get along and fit in.
O’Bama’s is policy lite. And no real Black base and he has no urban agenda/ Heck the only time he spoke on inner city issues was when he spoke at the NACCP, and Hillary felt more comfortable. He also wasn’t fully behind the rights of Gay folks
And his silence on the mortgage crisis probably had a lot to do with his connection to slum lord developer Tony Rescue.
I wouldn’t beef on O’Bama so hard if he didn’t try to portray himself as a new sort of politician its one of the biggest shams I have seen in a long time
www.huffingtonpost.com/marilyn-ferdinand/obamas-green-screen_b_61385.html
Progressive thinking in this country - Dennis Kucinich. Enough said.
I'm gald I went to the trouble of checking the name before I got more than a sentence into spook's post ... saved me a lot of time and trouble.
As for guest #3, tell me which candidate isn't all fluff? All we get from Hilary is the experience card and her constant statement that she can be "tough." Her plan to get out of Iraq is to ... um ... stay there, I guess. We've already had one "tough" president. Do we need another?
Edwards gives us populist fluff. Kucinich gives us anti-populist fluff. Biden gives us his fluffy foot in his mouth, with an Iraq plan similar to Hilary's. Dodd gives us fluffy hair. Gravel gives us nutcase fluff. Richardson gives us fluff designed to get him a Sec of State job in the cabinet of whichever real candidate wins.
Obama's benefit is that he changes the tone. He's not all "Us-against-them" like we've had constantly since 1992. He holds the promise of bringing back statesmanship and compromise instead of cynical polarization, which only gives us one side for 8 years, then the other side for 8 years.
Guest 10
I’m not about to check the spelling of right wing nut cases like Hannnity and Limbaugh and perhaps my continued spelling of O'Bama is really a Freudian slip, he he :-)
Personally I’m so tired of moderate democrats search for "statesmanship and compromise" This is why we keep getting killed. The only democrat who came out swinging, got elected President and his name was Clinton
This is the way the world big guy or girl.
Edwards is real because he is the only candidate to address the increased disparity between rich and poor in this country, which is what got Martin King, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy killed and maybe Paul Wellstone. Very few politicians talk about this.
Kucinich is even more of a bold truth teller. What is cynical are folks like you who write off the few politicians that tell the honest truth, while falling into the same old patterns, instead of galvanizing those outside the right wing to come out swinging!
You can continue drinking the liberal Kool-Aid of Dukakis, Gore, Kerry.etc, but I’m gonna stand and fight because too much is at stake now. We need radical change to get out of this whole.
guest 10; If Obama is not about 'us against them'; tell me one candidate in the last 10 years who hasn't said "we will be bi-partisan" and "we will work together"...?? It's called campaign promises and politics- everyone will be a saviour if you listen to them. Obama is one of the most liberal members of Washington, how is he NOT going to be another us v. them mentality??
Okay, spook, I'll bite.
No, moderation is not why we get killed. Democrats who come out swinging are why we get killed ... in this case quite literally. Just take a look at what all those fighting Nader supporters from 2000 got for us.
Consider: Clinton came out swinging and won, and we got 8 generally okay years. Fine. But this galvanized the other side, who came out swinging, and gave us 8 really horrible, destructive years. That's the danger of polarization, as liberals learned in 2000 and Rove is learning now. You can only hold on to a 51 percent majority for so long in America, and then the other side will inevitably take hold. Better to moderate, compromise, so that even when you don't get what you want, you don't get something you hate.
As you say, "This is the way the world big guy or girl."
I guarantee, Hillary wins in 2008, you'll have a strong resurgeance by the radical right with a possible victory in 2012 and a definite win in 2016 ... and you won't even get out of the war.
As for Kucinich, he's not even worth the bother. He's telling no more truth than any of them, just saying what his favored percentage of the population wants to hear.
To follow up on 13's excellent post:
Spook, if you don't think President Clinton represented "moderation", then you just weren't paying attention between 1992 and 2000. The simple reality is that he was quite a centrist, and I think he'd agree that this foggy notion of "coming out swinging" (whatever that means) would likely hurt things more than help.
13's post was b.s. Clinton didn't come out "swinging" at the right. He was very much in the pocket of big business. The radical right movement was galvanized enough to win big in 1994 and come out swinging at Clinton. Their agenda is a permanent one-party government--at their heart, they're dangerous fascists who will use any means necessary to achieve their aims.
Nader is not to blame for 2000. Florida and the Republicans who stole the election are.
There were at least two states in addition to Florida in 2000 in which, if you erase Nader and give even half the votes to Gore, you would have swung the entire state and therefore the election the other way. Either Oregon or West Virginia would have done it.
But I guess it's more comfortable for hipsters to blame some vague conspiracy not backed by fact than it is for them to look at the consequences of their contrarian actions.
Actually, there is a lot of evidence of vote tampering in Florida. I guess it's hipsters like you who choose to ignore it and blame people who vote their conscience, not traitors who subvert the Constitution and the electoral process to get what they want.
Nobody I've voted for subverted the Constitution. My candidate in 2000 actually was a strong supporter of the sustainable lifestyle and evironmentally-friendly platform supposedly endorsed by the Green Party. In fact, my candidate had a far better track record of environmental responsibility than the Green party candidate himself, who ran on a platform of thumbing his nose at the two major parties simply because they were the two major parties.
So I guess if voting your conscience means voting against people who support your beliefs simply to make a point, thus helping to elect someone who supports the exact opposite of what you claim to believe, then fine, you voted your conscience. But don't blame unsubstantiated conspiracy theories to justify the end result of your actions.
Show me some credible evidence of voter fraud in Florida ... and then find something to explain away Oregon and West Virginia.
Guest 13
How novel that you totally gloss over moderates Gore, Kerry and Dukakis.
And go strait to Nader, who gave Gore problems because Gore was such a moderate, except for being a big fat wimpy loser. And then he choose Lieberman which added insult to injury.
Voting for Nader was on of the proudest votes I ever cast.
And I didn’t mean to paint Clinton as a fire brand, but he did speak some what boldly and candidly to white workers as to why they had better wake up and vote for him as opposed to Bush again. As opposed to the rest of the past democratic candidates who went to the south to pose with hunters, clean rifles, put on those stupid winter hats with the ear flaps ala Elmer Fudd, drive tanks, etc and saying how great it is to be a racist hick in America. Well not all the knuckle draggers voted for Clinton, but a good number of their wives did.
But equally important what Ferdy seems to suggest is that the Clinton's had a history of progressive politics, especially Hillary. The elect me and you will get “two for one” was a signal to progressive activist that it was time for the voices in the wilderness to be heard
Of course in office Clinton moderated away from these voices which was sad. But I blame liberals for sleeping away in the nest of their own prosperity as opposed to
organizing even harder on friendly political turf, which is what the religious right did under Bush, so the poor got poorer
And to say "Rove is learning is ridiculous". I’m sure that Rove will continue to be a republican star just like Lee Atwater. Rove put a monkey in the white house, twice, not counting winning the Governorship of Texas. He knows that Americans need passion and a clear distinction between right and wrong. If good people don’t give them this, the republican’s sure will and will keep on winning.
The reality is that the American Empire is falling, the rubber band is about to break, unless we have drastic truth telling and reform, we aint getting out of this
p.s Bush might have stole votes, but the blame lies with us all. That election should not have even been close!
Lincoln said "the people get the type of government they deserve" America got just who it deserves. Hopefully we will wake the F&ck UP!
Take a look at this:
www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Thompson_Diebold-2000-Fraud.htm
Nader was the Green Party candidate, so I guess green voters could feel pretty confident in him if that was their issue. Gore is all for nuclear power, which isn't green in my book.
I abhor this tactical politics that has taken over our election process. Do what's expedient, do what makes you electable. The entire process has been corrupted so much that it is nearly impossible to know what you're getting until you've got it. I still believe this is a free country where people can vote for whom they will. I don't think anyone voted against Gore. They voted for the man they wanted to see as president. Sorry you see it only in your own, expedient way. When people have to vote for one thing or another, then we all are lost. I'd rather have had 8 years of fascism than completely lose the right to choose.
Consider: Clinton came out swinging and won, and we got 8 generally okay years. Fine. But this galvanized the other side, who came out swinging, and gave us 8 really horrible, destructive years.
I seem to remember Bush running as a "Uniter" and a "Compassionate Conservative" of course that I'll changed after the first victory.
Ferdy, the link you mention isn't credible evidence of fraud. It's a description of an unusual event with many possible explanations, none of which are pointed to as cause. To say the cause was fraud is mere supposition. It is not credible evidence.
As far as Nader being the Green party candidate, you're right. He was ... though I'm not familiar with how he was selected. Was there a primary? A convention? Either way, he did not have a particularly strong history as an advocate of "green" policies, and he didn't campaign as a supporter of sustainable lifestyles. He campaigned solely as a spoiler, and he was thrilled when he pulled it off, thanks to people like you .. who did, in fact, vote against Gore. That was Nader's whole argument ... vote against the major parties.
Your nuclear argument is knee-jerk environmentalism without logical support. Nuclear energy is far cleaner than any option. It produces no greenhouse gases, and the nuclear waste isn't nearly as severe as propagandists believe. In the 50-year history of nuclear energy, the entire world has produced only enough waste to fill a single warehouse. And yet Americans have clung to this sci-fi belief that nuclear power will detroy the world, I guess causing us all to be eaten by giant ants or something. It's a boogyman argument, much like Bush's terrorist justification for everything.
As for the topic at hand, you simply support my point with your last line, "I'd rather have had 8 years of fascism than completely lose the right to choose." Well, 8 years of fascism is what you chose and exactly what you got. I personally would have preferred 8 years of reasonable, moderate government.
Nader was selected by a national convention; the delegates to that convention were elected at state conventions among people that showed up at the Green Party meeting and voted.
I understand why people are upset with Ralph Nader - they feel like he cost the Democrats the White House. I really believe that Democrats have cost themselves the White House, though. None of them have stood for anything, so people don't really want to come out and vote for them.
Besides, think about the shape the party, and the US would be in today if Joe Lieberman was running for president after 8 years as VP. Just the thought of that makes me a little sick.
I did not vote for Nader. I voted for Gore. I believe in supporting the right to vote. Period.
If you believe so much in the cleanliness of nuclear energy, go live next to a nuclear power plant. The amount of waste is not the issue, it's the fact that it never goes away and kills when people are exposed to it. A nuclear meltdown - yes, my friend, we've had two in recent years, and Illinois nuclear reactors have leaked - doesn't go away. Nuclear is not clean. Never was, never will be.
Fine. You choose what's credible. I can't make up your mind for you about what you'll accept. Just seems pretty weird to ME.
I would rather live next to a nuclear power plant than a coal burning one. While you're digging around your "facts" you may want to look at how many coal pollution related deaths there are as opposed to nuclear. Look at how many coal workers are injured, killed or develop serious illness compared to nuclear workers. We need a consistent, sustainable fuel source, of which nuclear is currently the most viable and safe option.
And your straw man argument about meltdowns does the opposite of your intent -- we have a major accident occur in this country at Three Mile Island and there is NOT ONE VERIFIABLE INJURY OR DEATH as a result. That's a success story in my book.
(wow, what a tangent this thread has lurched onto, can we get back to how lame Obama is?)
No one will ever be able to live at Three Mile Island again. Animals will never be able to live there either without getting sick and dying. Chernobyl has had fatalities. Don't say it can't happen here. It can. People who witnessed bomb tests are dying of cancer. Tell me how wonderfully safe our country is when we can't even seem to import toys that aren't a danger to our children.
Your straw is radioactive, bud.
Oh, and by the way, to bring it back to Obama, he takes money from Exelon, a major supply of nuclear power and the owner of ComEd. To the tune of $191,000. And he's on the Senate Energy Committee. I love this new, ethical world he's bringing to us.
whelp I guess that explains his silence about the rate increase on the poorest people in Illinois. I never thought I would be impressed with Durbin untill O'Bama arrived
Don't say it can't happen here. It can.
Yes, so can a lot of industrial accidents that would be harmful to the areas around it. Be careful driving next to that tanker truck full of ammonia on the Kennedy.
I guess I missed the big former subdivision on Three Mile Island on the map, and Middleton, PA isn't exactly a ghost town. The whole animal thing seems pulled in whole out of your ass. Sorry, when even a former Greenpeace leader jumps on the nuclear bandwagon I take a little more stock in that than your opinion, Ferdy, nothing personal. Care to share with us your brilliant energy alternative? You completely glossed over how much more devastating coal plants are to the environment around them than nuclear.
By the way, I should point out that I'm a different "guest" than #22 and above so there's more than one person here that disagrees with your assertions.
#25
obamas wife got a nice big raise at her cushy hospital job right after he got elected and he has been taking care of hospitals ever since. I still like nader better than any democrat. obama has not given details of any of his ideas just very broad outlines wars bad pollution bad immigration no idea foriegn policy ???. To say obama is feel good fluff is being kind. I still dont believe the whole Rezko was a friend and nieghbor but I didnt know about or participate in anything illeagal
You're right about Three Mile Island. They got lucky. Chernobyl wasn't. (www.lonelyplanet.com/journeys/feature/chernobyl06.cfm)
I never said anything about wanting coal back. It should go away, too. Why don't we stop worrying about retrograde fuels (which Obama supports, btw), and start putting money into research on solar, wind, and hydrogen power? Nuclear power is simply too dangerous. That's a fact that my two anonymous guests (why don't you just sign in?) don't seem to want to acknowledge either.