“I also think Obama played the “race card” and used his skin colour at least in part to be elected as POTUS. ”

I’m wondering what you think a black candidate *not* using the “race card” would look like to you exactly, since there didn’t seem to be a whiff of that during the campaign from the administration, and indeed any hints about race seemed to come from the right’s labeling Obama as an outsider, or from the birthers, etc. Can you show some examples of his campaign playing the race card, or is it all just this vague nebulous notion of “white guilt” that likes to be thrown around when any person of a minority ethnic group gets ahead?

The Pledge should read more like:

I pedge allegiance the Party
And to the platform for which it stands,
Two nations,under God, divided, irecconciable,
Stripping liberty and justice from all.

The only real solution is to dismantle the two party system, and replace it with a multi-party system, thus ensuring congress could work together, because they would need to build colalitions, and really do their jobs, rather thatn parrot ideology every two years.
OR
As George Washington once promoted, do away with parties all together. You run on your priciples and integrity, with no party backers, not soft money, just your own integrity.
Given the current crop, three people would survive out of our current leadership, one democrat, one independent and one Republican, all the others would be seen as the liars and propagandisits they are.

For the record, since the 1988 I have gone either with the Libertarians or the Green Party, i have not met I Republican or Democrat that I think can do the job, minus the three honest policy makers I mention above.

You had me until this:

It is undoubtedly true that any system of government CAN’T work to its fullest potential unless every citizen is woman or man enough (that is, educated ADULT enough) to declare wholehearted allegiance to what the majority vote has decided. It is a matter of maturity.

Look up the expression, “Loyal Opposition.”

Then step into the WayBack machine to the previous administration. (Not way back enough, unfortunately.) Yeah. Pledge allegiance to that.

Perhaps you should try reading & comprehending what folks are actually saying before you launch your standard offensive ad hominem rants against them for once?

Also I never claimed Obama was titled anything other than President & am utterly baffled how you could’ve concluded – so wrongly – otherwise. Sure Obama is POTUS – until 2012 or perhaps impeachment, resignation or something else.

It is a pity that Hillary Clinton didn’t win in 2008 instead. She probably wouldn’t have been great but I doubt she’d have been as bad.

BTW. For future reference ‘despicable’ is spelt with an ‘e’ not ‘i’ after the initial letter.

@51. Anchor again :

..go vote for the person you least detest.

What if they’re all equally bad & you can’t stand any of them?

I’ve had a gutful of politics and politicians. We’ve had a year of elections in Oz and overseas (now midterms in US which is inescapable in the blogosphere) and frankly, there’s nobody running who I’d wish to see in charge.

@46. kuhnigget :

Some of us mutts find the whole concept of race identification rather silly, but there you go.

I agree with you that race identification is silly.

I also think Obama played the “race card” and used his skin colour at least in part to be elected as POTUS.

I think that was a silly choice and Obama’s use of emotion, inexperience and “Blackness” and non-G.W. Bushness was an illogical and it turns out flawed reason to elect a flawed President.

As I’ve said, in my view the Democrats would have done better to have nominated Hillary Clinton and had her win the Presidency in 2008.

The Republicans would’ve done better with nominating anybody other than McCain-Palin in 2008 and Rudy Giuliani would most likely been their best option.

In My Humble Opinion Naturally.

Either way it goes, it will CONTINUE to demonstrate exactly how incompetent these people are. Any setbacks are impermanent…but if anyone REALLY wants big jump improvements, you might wish for bozos like the Republicans to get in to perform their wild dance of damage..but ONLY if you think we can afford to survive any more of their nonsense. However, time does have a tendency to run out leaving the risk-taking voter gamblers thoroughly skunked…but no worse than the sorry sob who decides not to sit at the table and play at least one more hand. Even that kind of loser would discover that his relunctance to play helped bring about his loss.

MARK: to those who throw in the proverbial towel and think it somehow noble to refrain from voting? Why NOT engage in the joke? Go ahead and vote for whom you really think is representing the lesser evil. WHY NOT FOLLOW THROUGH ON YOUR CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS A MERE LAUGH???

Look at it this way: you can then actually SAY you voted for the person in office whom you figured would not accomplish anything you hoped, and jump up and down like an idiot telling everyone that you were right if that person fails. Otherwise you have absolutely nothing whatsoever to say one way or another about it.

In other words? Put up or STFU.

Because, man, that’s all you’ve got left, and that’s just about zilch as it is. Prove me wrong: go vote for the person you least detest. Everybody who votes does that. Why can’t you? Do you have any real problem with that?

PRESIDENT OBAMA (let’s be clear of the title) was elected PRESIDENT of the these United States of America (yep, that’s right: I live here and you do not) and he was elected by a majority of this nation’s voting citizens. Evidently, Barack Obama and his running mate Joe Biden were elected (over the opposition Republican ticket of McCain and Palin) because most voters either:

1. Favorably resonated with the message that the Obama-Biden ticket offered voters a chance of restoring accountability and the necessary competence required of the executive branch of our government to remedy the wreckage inflicted by their predessesors, who had managed in eight short years to cave in one of this government’s greatest economic surpluses, while setting the stage for the greatest global economic downturn since 1929, turned our standing in the world of democratic nations into a laughing stock with (among other things) assinine promises to bring the responsible terrorists for 9-11 to justice, started TWO monumentally expensive wars that ostensibly pretended to get the culprits and did not, while killing literally tens of thousands of innocent people in the process, sanctioned unspeakable acts of torture, used its executive power to twist or otherwise obfuscate scientific findings funded by the federal government, and with the help of their party stold two elections…

2. Couldn’t stand the prospect (let alone the sight) of a ticket composed of a guy who waffles so regularly he shames a windvane in a hurricane, and his running-mate who couldn’t tell the difference between color commentary and what shade of lipstick she ought to wear.

The choice for reasonable Americans who still understand that they do not have to be persuaded by any external agency, however wealthy and powerful, in order to arrive at a personal opinion was then, and thankfully still is, intact.

There’s a GIGANTIC difference between the two selections that Americans were offered: It was between one who had worked hard from the ground up, educated himself, refined his ideals, learned integrity, and established himself as a real player in the most daunting forum in the world: politics.

Ahhh…the American Dream, where everyone, despite race, color, creed, or sexual orientation may be FREE to pursue their ambitions, not only for themselves, but for everybody…

WOW. What a joltingly heretical idea. Positively ridiculous, right?

As ridiculous as expecting the Chief Executive to be able to reverse the horrible state of affairs that the previous administration placed the nation and the world in? Ask yourself. Honestly. For a change.

Mark this, bub: the OTHER choice – which was quite pridefully campaigned, designed and fully controlled by the GOP who brought us the hammer-blow of the Bush administration – presented us with the spectacle of an elderly snakeoil salesman in combo with a borderline idiot. Even McCain complained that he had no choice in the selection and vetting of his running mate.

What kind of a president can such a dupe have made? What the heck can you possibly imagine is better about that ticket than the alternative? What makes you think the United States and the economic environment of the world would have been better off with the ticket so brilliantly dreamed up by the GOP, an organization that would clearly have placed us all on their mercy?

Yet that’s not all. It is a demonstrable FACT that not a single week passed following President Obama’s inauguration before the machinery of the opposition party, the GOP and it’s considerable financial underwriters, had already revved up its massive engine to cast an ignominiously endless series of whoppers specifically designed to exercise the passions of weak and bigot-minded sore losers who evidently cannot abide the idea that they all belong to a system of government that is determined by the majority vote. All of it specifically designed by wealthy interests to tear down anything that represents a seed of hope that is judged contrary to those special interests.

Moreover, since then, every single move by this duly elected President, and the elected majority in both houses of Congress, have been constantly attacked and thwarted by a secretive behind-the-scenes campaign bankrolled by wealthy interests, who also happen to own news agencies, in order to prevent the derailng of their gravy train – even resorting to casting blame on the President for the horrendous damage BP meted out on the Gulf of Mexico.

For example, any casual perusal of Yahoo News commentary on any story (political or not, interestingly enough) will immediately demonstrate the decriptude to which people will descend, given the constant pressure, in the full hog and swinishness they are so agreeably accustomed, into the dispicable depths that political influence greased by wealth outside the proper machinery of government as outlined by the Constitution of our United States of America have taken them.

And these idiots dare raise their stink about who belongs to their country.

Dispicable.

What kind of ‘patriotism’ can this circumstance possibly suggest to you? How lurid and low can a claim of ‘patriotism’ descend, according to your estimation?

It is undoubtedly true that any system of government CAN’T work to its fullest potential unless every citizen is woman or man enough (that is, educated ADULT enough) to declare wholehearted allegiance to what the majority vote has decided. It is a matter of maturity. Evidently not all of us have grown up enough to acquire so cosmopolitan an understanding, let alone recognize the arena outside of our puny little and backwards-looking heads, as to accept even the slightest possibility that we might find ways of working together, let alone that we may be sorely mistaken.

Alas, some relatively influential people arrive at the suggestion that it is uncouth to speak out strongly against the preposterous challenges of inanity…because it might make you feel bad for being a “dick”…because one needs to respect other people’s supposed opinions and beliefs because they have a right to hold them.

And therein resides our weakness.

Fortunately, not everyone agrees that it is acceptable to see people being swallowed whole by a propaganda machine heavily fortified by wealthy interests that CANNOT be democratically voted on or mediated by ANY of the people such wealth specifically targets.

That’s right: Our country IS under seige. But the very worst and most dangerous terrorists are home-grown.

Some of us still cherish the original principles outlined by the Constitution of the United States which have given us liberty, certain unalienable rights, and freedoms far beyond any previous methods employed by millennia of experiment. To be sure, the full extent of those freedoms have not always been tendered to all: people have been ostracized for their race, color and creed DESPITE what the Constitution stipulated. But that any justice has transpired comes about from the principles outlined by the Constitution: the literally evil forces of intolerance, bigotry and hatred amongst groups of PEOPLE as all too often inflamed by religious tradition is precisely the target of what the Constitution was designed by the founding fathers to aim at.

On the basic problem of controlling large populations of people, it is without question that wealthy interests continually apply pressure. The founding fathers understood that tendency. Alas, too many of us have forgotten it. Yet we are still allowed to speak out against those who espouse what we consider to be injurious to our way of government. Naturally, another side thinks precisely the opposite, and wishes to avail itself of those very same freedoms in order to cut down any dissent.

It’s a battle.

Oh, but don’t forget to avoid rocking the boat. But the boat has been rocking about so badly for decades now that it has long since been foundering on the point of sinking. One should not APPEAR to be too dickish, at least. It would be bad form to attempt to prevent the sinking of the boat when so many others have a right to help sink it. Speaking out might hurt the feelings of those who wish to sink it. It might even hurt sales.

I’m not convinced ridding ourselves of our dependency on oil is as easy as throwing large amounts of money at it.

I apologize if I gave that impression.
True it’s not just a matter of money but also time (that another reason I mentioned Desert Storm) and intellectual resources. Regardless the fact remains though the R&D to make the USA energy independent, is far down the federal government’s list of priorities. Unfortunately it seems to have been a much higher priority, for a long time, to research new way to blow people up than it has been to research ways to eliminate the need to blow them up in the first place.

There is nothing about getting the USA mostly off of oil that is insurmountable but it will take time,money, and intellectual resources that the USA (and many other countries) doesn’t seem to be willing to spend since there isn’t an immediate political payoff for the effort.

My point is ultimately how short sighted to spend absurd amounts of resources on wars to keep a diminishing resource temporarily cheaper (especially with what we know about AGW) instead of spending the resources to get the USA off of it’s dependency. If the USA can spend itself into bankruptcy fighting wars for oil, there’s no good reason not to instead have “Space Race” or a “Manhattan Project” R&D push to end dependency on oil, especially when it would probably be at a fraction of the cost of the last couple of wars.

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AJ in CA @ #43:

I don’t understand why Republicans are so upset over the health care bill

Simple….because the Democrats want it. If then Democrats opposed it, the Republicans would probably be in favor of it as an “improvement in efficiency”.