socio-politics

Now cnn.com is once again trying to bring Clinton back from the dead by starting a rumor about a big comeback at the convention.  Apparently, her endorsement of Obama can feasibly be ignored by enough people to potentially get her the nomination.

Keep in mind, this is the same news outlet that tried to suggest that it would not be surprising to see Al Gore get the 2008 nomination if the DNC could not choose between Obama or Clinton.

I do not know how a multi-billion dollar corporation like CNN can comfortably post gossip like this.  They apparently were only looking for a flashy headline, because the content of the article creates a much stronger arguement for why Clinton should not seek the nomination.

This article, along with the post about Al Gore, shows both CNN’s lack of respect for facts and their ignorance towards any sort of journalistic integrity.  This is the kind of trash that anybody on the internet could write, though it should not be coming from a supposedly respected source.

This clip is being widely used as an excuse to attack Obama for his hatred of America, though more than anything else, it is just exposing many voter’s refusal to question their own views and apparent affinity for political pundits. Obama’s response presents several essential questions for Americans to be asking right now: Why does one believe that America is unquestionably as great as it can be right now? How does our economy, international relations situations, war involvement, pollution output, etc not signify that there are drastic improvements that must be made? What can Americans do to help the situation?

But these are not the questions that are being popularly discussed; the only thing being questioned is Obama’s allegiance to America. People are refusing to consider the United State’s present shortcomings, and for the favor of blindly believing that everything is fine and things could not be any better.  A clear sign of a nation is trouble is when the nation’s citizens stop caring about what they can do to help their nation.

In all fairness, the media is helping to facilitate the problem. Once again, Obama is receiving forced negative press for the sake of inciting controversy. I definitely can’t say that the media dislikes Obama, but it is much easier to fabricate interesting controversy about what he says than it is for McCain because McCain does not generate too much excitement. At no point did Obama say that America is not a great country.

It is much too similar to how the media handled his “bitter” comment several months ago. What he said was very much supportive of those that lived in economically-hurting rural communities, and it is very true that in places like central Pennsylvania, there is nothing being done to help the communities to attract businesses or to create jobs. Instead of there being any kind of discussion of the legitimacy of what he said, he was attacked for it.

This situation is more troubling because, unlike the “bitter” comment, this comment is something that the nation as a whole can relate to. Most of the country is very willing to criticize how much the United States pollutes, or how poor the economy is , or how much gas costs and so forth, yet the same people can be unwilling to consider the fact that the country is not living up to its potential.

I was really starting to think that even conservatives were beginning to see through Limbaugh , but apparently, too many are still too tantalized by his uncanny ability to never actually grow up.He sees exactly what he wants in any given situation and ignores all else. I can’t even think of “Operation CHAOS !” without laughing: I give him credit for seeing that Clinton was the weaker candidate, but his decision to tell people to vote for Obama shows that he either believes that Americans are all idiots or that he is truly hidden from reality.

As soon as it became statistically impossible for Obama to not get the nomination, Limbaugh decided that Obama was the weaker candidate, and that people should vote for him - keep in mind that Obama was far ahead, even with the supposed success of operation chaos’ original plan.

Just think about all of that for a few seconds.

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….yet people still believe that he speaks “the truth”

This is just kind of ridiculous.  The Pentagon wants to prosecute anybody that can be viewed as having the slightest connection to terrorism. This makes it seem to the American people, and to the rest of the world, like the United States government is doing more than its part in preventing terrorism. Just think about 9/11/091 - within hours, the government came out with a list of 19 probable suspects in the hijackings, and most immediately called Suddam Hussein the mastermind behind it all. However, Hussein was actually on our side in the fight against terrorists, and at least six of the nineteen accused hijackers have been proved to be alive and have no connection to the attacks.

This is a similar situation, albeit on a much smaller scale. The United States has not found Bin Laden, so they are trying to connect Hamdan to the attacks so that they can at least supply a consolation prize. Anybody that has done anything that directly or indirectly aided Bin Laden risks being in the same position as Hamdan.

This is trial is the first real test of the trial system for Gitmo prisoners.  The same people that did not want to give trials to Gitmo prisoners are the same people that want to convict Hamdan. They have high political incentive to prove that the Gitmo prisoners deserve to be prisoners, and that they don’t deserve the trials.

Anybody else find the sudden designation of anything liberal as Marxist/sociolist funny? All of these people that so confidently deem anything to do with taxes, or anything to do with social welfare programs or anything to do with one person helping a needy person as socialist knows absolutely nothing about the topic and is just following the crowd.

Marx believed that class struggles drive people’s consciousness, and the struggles therefore also drive all of society. He saw socialism as being the first step away from the capitalist system, where people would be paid according to the quality and quantity of work that they did. This distribution of wealth would be controlled by the public. There is much more to him than this, though these are a few of the basic principles.

Wanting graduated taxes and affordable health care does not fit into Marx’s model. Not at all, not even if you try to force it in.

Yet somehow, Obama is a Marxist, and liberals all want socialism. Oh, and all of Europe is already socialist……….as is Canada.

It just does not make any sense to me. The election is three months from today, yet so many people are still believing everything that they are told while they simutaneously criticize others for doing the same. The most hypocritical aspect of it all is that socialism is said to restrict originality and free thought, though by allowing buzz words like “Marxist” to permeate and be used as a poor excuse for unjustified and ignorant attacks, people are beautifully displaying their lack of free will and thought.

Drilling in the “1002 section” of ANWR is too often viewed as a debate concerning the preservation of wilderness - Republicans want to drill to ease our dependence on foreign oil, while Democrats have ecological concerns. This view is highly accessible for the public, and it is thus the view the media chooses to emphasize.

However, listening to politicians’ full view on the topic exposes the true issue of energy efficiency vs. immediate demand.

Thanks to new technology that minimizes the drilling area and further research that shows the “1002 section” to be all but completely baron, most politicians now believe there to be minimal environmental impact for offshore drilling. Animal life will be safe, and there would be no fear of causing any species to go extinct.

But there is fear that drilling is a convenient, short-term solution that would not lead to the changing of habits or an increase in urgency over finding alternate fuel solutions. Obama has stated this view as the sole reason for refusing to approve of drilling, though suddenly, he is being attacked for changing his mind on the subject. However, if anybody that is criticizing him for this would care enough to further research both his stance and the stance of many other Democrats, they would find that the views have remained consistent.

Oil is a non-renewable resource. If we are to put in the immense amount of time, energy and money that is necessary for drilling, it only makes sense for us to make the oil that is there last as long as it possibly can. At the present time, the nation is not equipped to do this, though minor changes in regulation and in individual’s mindsets can quickly prepare us to add years to the length of time that the north coast oil can sustain us. The right wants to appeal to their base by supplying an immediate solution to oil concerns that would not necessitate people to change their actions, while the left wants to appeal to their base by doing what is sustainable and most environmentally-conscious.

I really do not support Obama to any great extent. He is a drastically better candidate than we have seen for the past eight years, and to say that he is a stronger candidate than McCain is an understatement, though the fact that I have yet to see a politician with the publics interest at heart prevents me from getting excited about any candidate.

That being said, the anti-Obama press is out of hand. People comfortably claim that the media is in love with him, yet that is just one of the many baseless fabrications that the anti-Obama sheeple spread amongst each other. The fact of the matter is that people will believe what they are told, regardless of the outcome of any studies done on the topics or of how obvious it is that ludicrously short clips are being unfairly recognized as epitomizing his stances.

When I first went online today, I noticed the expected attacks on Obama that people so excitedly write, but today, the topics seemed centralized on his economic “retarded”-ness. I looked at a few of these pieces and noticed that apparently there is a 22-second clip of Obama that is quickly spreading around of him giving a speech where he mentions properly-inflated tires and tune-ups as having the potential to save a great deal of oil.

I then did a google search of “obama, enery, tires,” which showed page after page of articles, blogs, forums, etc that are citing the clip as an example of Obama’s ineptitude. Even worse is that almost all of the pages from individuals with personal sites simply copied and pasted some or all of their argument from other sites.

I am not saying that Obama’s arguement was especially intelligent are well thought out, though at the same time, I could only find the single 22-second clip, which begins and ends at the same exact point everywhere that I have seen it. I’ve tried searching for a longer clip, or a written summary of what else he said, but I have not been able to find anything. Everybody that is criticizing Obama for his statement has no concern for what the full context of the statement is and is so ready to base their viewpoint off of a carefully edited clip. There is no concern for what his full energy plan is, or for the reasoning behind what he said.

This blind hatred and conscious ignorance towards a candidate and what their plan is accentuates a disturbing problem in society: people have no inclination towards thinking, understanding and ultimately, doing what it takes to actually change the things they dislike about the country.  People are not considering why so many are excited about Obama -  they are using this as a way of criticizing him/making crappy jokes that make the way that he is treated being akin to the coming of the messiah.  He should be attacked on his policy, and not his celebrity because attacking his appeal takes no knowledge whatsoever.  There is no reason to sum Obama’s energy policy up by this short clip, just as there is no reason to explain McCain as simply being Bush’s third term. Genuine interest in politics and in bettering one’s situation is not simply listening to what your are told by heavily biased sources; it is thinking for oneself.

What I really do not understand is that there are so many clips of what John McCain says on a regular basis that make him out to be a fool and insinuate that his policy on many issues is irrational, though when Obama, says one odd thing, he is torn apart for it. Yet everybody says that the media loves Obama…..

One of the biggest arguments that I hear from the right when criticizing leftist thought is that democrats are for social programs that give people something for nothing, and that democrats do not expect these people to work for what they want. By so readily criticizing Obama for this one clip, people are exposing that their own thought is parallel to those that expect something for nothing. Rather than consider anything that they can personally do to help the gas situation, they expect the government to provide for them by drilling.

Again, inflated tires and tuneups obviously will not give us as much oil as drilling in ANWR would. But the refusal to entertain thoughts that could both save money and help the fuel situation shows that there is absolutely not consideration for actions’ consequences or personal responsibility.

I do not know if the 22 seconds can be taken for what it is or not, though I can say for certain that his energy plan involves much more than what the clip says, and that he is a firm believer in people working for what they want, opposed to just childishly demanding their wants without considering how it will happen, or any repercussions. I also believe that the 1002 area of ANWR should be drilled, though only if people are willing to do what it takes to make the oil drawn from it last as long as possible.