I support the Democratic presidential candidate. I have supported (whoever would be) the Democratic candidate before and during the time that some Obamaniacs and Hillaryites were threatening to VOTE FOR MCCAIN!! or NOT VOTE if their favorite wasn't the candidate.
Obama is a player. That's not an insult. That's an observation. He's a politician, he's smooth, he's very good at what he does. Hillary is a player. She's a politician, she's smooth, she's very good at what she does. While people fought over "Black" and "Woman," I saw two Players. (See article linked at end).
So, it wasn't a big shock recently when people got played.
There's a danger for DU/Democrats in unexamined, unexpressed, unacceptable topics of discussion. For example with Obamania, those who don't have it, and still WILL vote for him, have relevant concerns and contributions to make. If they're "disappeared" by Democrats, it fuels the insanity of talking pointsmongers like Big Brother Limbaugh. If Democrats are walking in lockstep, muzzling each other, treating a candidate like a "Messiah," it's a readymade set up for some sick punch line and future swiftboating.
Sadly, homogenous hero worship makes Obama look even more like the Democrat's Reagan -- a faithbased persona kept alive because everyone believes everyone's supposed to believe it. Let's not do that.
I've been open to feeling the Obama magic. It's just not there for me. For those who remember the originals he is compared too, he's a bit too self-conscious, imitative, slick. Like most everything else these days, have ya noticed?
In 2004, Obama made a speech. He reminded a "Greed Is Good," conspicuous consumption, Generation Me nation (created by the worship of the fake hero Reagan) that We're. All. In. This. Together. That's it.
If you lived during the era -- and knew personally -- the giants that Barack Obama is compared to and 40 years later had to appear on "Politainment Tonight," you might want to cut someone's nuts off. Jesse Jackson has a right to speak his mind. We DON'T have a right to hear what he said (wired but privately) but the GOTCHA game tabloidizes the news. What else is said in studios "off" camera that DOESN'T get publicized? Why is Jackson being grilled by grinning news ninnies demanding blood?
IMHO, some of Rev. Wright's defiance was due to the same effed up time warp: NOT that long ago, the nation would not have been whipped into QUITE such a manipulated frenzy so intentionally, so constantly. That's where we live now. Who's gonna change that?
Who's gonna cut the nuts off the corporations that rule the media and turn culture and politics into a schizophrenic, tacky farce?
Obama may seem to "talk down" to all of us, not just black people. He's a player and some of it -- sorry, Obama lovers -- comes off contrived. I don't pretend to know his motivations or sincerity. No one really does. But when he drops letters off his words, says words like "humilitah" or "sinceritah" with a little too much preacher-speak flourish, it sounds like an act, not an accent.
Meanwhile, let's not cut off each other's nuts.
The Audacity of Listening
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10collins.htmlJuly 10, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Audacity of Listening
By GAIL COLLINS
We have to have a talk about Barack Obama.
I know, I know. You’re upset. You think the guy you fell in love with last spring is spending the summer flip-flopping his way to the right. Drifting to the center. Going all moderate on you. So you’re withholding the love. Also possibly the money.
I feel your pain. I just don’t know what candidate you’re talking about.
Think back. Why, exactly, did you prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton in the first place? Their policies were almost identical — except his health care proposal was more conservative. You liked Barack because you thought he could get us past the old brain-dead politics, right? He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats.
Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?
When an extremely intelligent politician tells you over and over and over that he is tired of the take-no-prisoners politics of the last several decades, that he is going to get things done and build a “new consensus,” he is trying to explain that he is all about compromise. Even if he says it in that great Baracky way.
more
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10collins.html