Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Indeed.
Obama: The Policies
- Thread starter soulman
- Start date
Indeed.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Yeah I've seen that in a few places and think it utterly misses the point. It isn't about whether he was elected by black people when we talk about race it's the historic symbol his win is. And how black people across the world will relate to it. Like I said it can provide an intellectual defence against racism, no black person can be made to believe they are not good enough when they can point to the fact that a black man now runs the most powerful nation on earth.
That's a very powerful 'fuck you' to neo nazis everywhere!
Miss Caphat
I want it that way
I see that as the point of this thread, and indeed a very valid one!
However, you, and the excerpt from that article seem to be insinuating that Americans are not examining his policies, forming our opinions, and planning on demanding positive actions, and that we haven't done so already. The notion that we only elected Obama because he's black so we could have some sense of alleviation of guilt because of slavery or racism or whatever, that we elected him without actually pondering what he can do for our incredibly troubled country: I find that insulting and condescending. It's really easy to make accusations like that from afar, isn't it? And that what was the part that was cut and pasted from the article. The reason that part was highlighted was very clear to me, it is no use to go back and say "well, you should have read the whole thing"
Anyway that portion of the article was what I was objecting to in the first place, not the thread in general.
I think you and many others are perhaps not aware of how fearful and desperate most of us are feeling, and how much attention we're paying to politics and policies right now.
Today, the major story in the news was about how the figures are in and unemployment is higher than it's been in 14 years, and how our three biggest car manufacturers are basically going bankrupt. Obama gave a speech about how he's going to go straight to work on these issues, but did not say how he was going to do so specifically. Which is worrying people, but then again, he has a while before he's actually able to do anything.
Americans are hardly going "rah rah rah" hiding our heads in the sand and just expecting the new black messiah is going to magically fix everything while we sit back and play video games.
I don't mean to sound like I'm just being argumentative. I'm trying to perhaps give a better sense of what actually is going on over here. I don't blame anyone for assuming that Americans are going to remain as complacent as they were for at least the first 1/2 of the Bush administration.
But believe me, things really have changed.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Robert Fisk writes about how Obama has to pay for eight years of Bush's delusions. Seems there's around 20,000 desaparecidos to account for ...
Robert Fisk said:
I'd prefer it if you didn't try to put some kind of judgement on what I said. I'd also like a blowjob from Jessica Alba. Guess we'll both have to learn to deal with it....
A politician is breaking the mould by using the internet to get more money and votes? That's not breaking the mould, that's what politicians do - they chase money and votes.
And using social networking etc in this is hardly revolutionary, given the fact that at the last election, myspace and facebook were practically non-existant.
The fact that he is black, despite being symbolically important, isn't really going to change much, is it? Class barriers in the US, still drawn fairly rigidly along racial lines, are still going to be there. Foreign policy is not going shift so radically that the third world will become a distant memory. G8 will still be up and running.
So, Obama, despite being quite cool, really isn't quite the epitome of "change". Come see me in 4 years when its all still the same.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
but it's what we're all here for
on the rest of it, i do so hope you're right inre: the changing expectations and scrutiny of the american people.
eta: and i certainly wasn't suggesting that he was elected only because he's black, but i felt the article made the very pertinent point that much of the hyperbole surrounding his election didn't appear to look beyond that factor. maybe that's just this country's coverage i dunno?
dilute micro
esse quam videri
I wouldn't put too much on that. We have yet to see what his policies are. He ran on change and we don't know what that means.
Believe it or not, there are some incisive articles on Indymedia UK, including one referencing Angeal Davis, former US Black Panther.
Angela Davis and Barack Obama
'But now contrast this with Angela Davis' description of her own activism: she has not spent a lifetime fighting for black liberation so that blacks can be included in the oppressive structure of modern America. No, she has been fighting for a new social structure in which all people, black and white, can play their part. When she was on the run in the 1960's, her dream was not of a black president but of no president and, instead, a society of fairness, and of justice. A neat way to represent this is her affirmation of the term black liberation, which was the term she and her peers used to describe what they were fighting for. It is a term that contrasts sharply with the idea of a struggle for civil rights; this latter suggests a struggle to be included in American society, whilst black liberation suggests a more militant idea, that of being free from American society in its current manifestation.'
BARACK OBAMA: MISSIONARY OR VISIONARY?
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/11/412454.html
Angela Davis and Barack Obama
'But now contrast this with Angela Davis' description of her own activism: she has not spent a lifetime fighting for black liberation so that blacks can be included in the oppressive structure of modern America. No, she has been fighting for a new social structure in which all people, black and white, can play their part. When she was on the run in the 1960's, her dream was not of a black president but of no president and, instead, a society of fairness, and of justice. A neat way to represent this is her affirmation of the term black liberation, which was the term she and her peers used to describe what they were fighting for. It is a term that contrasts sharply with the idea of a struggle for civil rights; this latter suggests a struggle to be included in American society, whilst black liberation suggests a more militant idea, that of being free from American society in its current manifestation.'
BARACK OBAMA: MISSIONARY OR VISIONARY?
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/11/412454.html
dilute micro
esse quam videri
Except that we don't really know what Obama's policies are at the moment and we elect every president because of what they can do for us. With a solid democrat congress we'll find out what's what.
I'd prefer it if you didn't try to put some kind of judgement on what I said. I'd also like a blowjob from Jessica Alba. Guess we'll both have to learn to deal with it....
A politician is breaking the mould by using the internet to get more money and votes? That's not breaking the mould, that's what politicians do - they chase money and votes.
And using social networking etc in this is hardly revolutionary, given the fact that at the last election, myspace and facebook were practically non-existant.
The fact that he is black, despite being symbolically important, isn't really going to change much, is it? Class barriers in the US, still drawn fairly rigidly along racial lines, are still going to be there. Foreign policy is not going shift so radically that the third world will become a distant memory. G8 will still be up and running.
So, Obama, despite being quite cool, really isn't quite the epitome of "change". Come see me in 4 years when its all still the same.
Not all of us have your amazing powers of foresight. So I'll settle for saying I've no idea how things will be in four years time. They could be better, or they could be worse.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
guardian reckons he's going to turn around all of bush's policies without bothering with congress. democracy jim, but not as we know it.
well, they're referring to executive orders, which bush passed without bothering with congress, either. since an executive order is exclusively part of the executive branch, as i understand it, it does not need to go through congress, which is the legislative branch. something like that. so it is democracy, just how the american system works.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
that'll be the ones. president decides, this is the law, everyone else has to do it. still pretty strange version of democracy to me...
gorski
customised free radical
Every "developed democracy" has those: as "exec acts", "sub-law acts", "pod-zakonski akti" etc. - when Parliaments are circumvented and the Govs of the developed world play power-games with their people's... All manner of shite goes "to the books" like that, frequently unnoticed and with serious implications for all of us!!!
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
not as i understand it, no. but then bush appears to be intent on leaving a load of stupidly stupid policies in place, in some lame attempt to leave a legacy.
it's all bullshit at the end of the day tbf.
it's all bullshit at the end of the day tbf.
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