Is Obama an "Affirmative Action President?"

Cliffy6745

I am looking forward to the day when people don't give a shit whether he's black and look back on his presidency and see that he helped avoid a second great depression, provided millions of Americans with healthcare they previously didn't have access to, ended the war in Iraq, ended the war in Afghan while concentrating military efforts on the terrorists while killing Osama and other high ranking terrorist leaders, and ended the bigot policy that is Don't Ask, Don't Tell. All while having to deal with a party that is more concerned with kicking him out of office than actually helping the American people.

Godfather.

Cliffy6745 wrote:

I am looking forward to the day when people don't give a shit whether he's black and look back on his presidency and see that he helped avoid a second great depression, provided millions of Americans with healthcare they previously didn't have access to, ended the war in Iraq, ended the war in Afghan while concentrating military efforts on the terrorists while killing Osama and other high ranking terrorist leaders, and ended the bigot policy that is Don't Ask, Don't Tell. All while having to deal with a party that is more concerned with kicking him out of office than actually helping the American people.

color is not a issue (for me) but I also don't think he killed usama b. or even directed the assult on him in fact Bush had as much to do with that more so than Obama in my opinion.
I also think that a huge part of his election was a direct result of the color of his skin and nothing to do with his ability to do the job.

Godfather.

Cliffy6745

Godfather. wrote:

Cliffy6745 wrote:

I am looking forward to the day when people don't give a shit whether he's black and look back on his presidency and see that he helped avoid a second great depression, provided millions of Americans with healthcare they previously didn't have access to, ended the war in Iraq, ended the war in Afghan while concentrating military efforts on the terrorists while killing Osama and other high ranking terrorist leaders, and ended the bigot policy that is Don't Ask, Don't Tell. All while having to deal with a party that is more concerned with kicking him out of office than actually helping the American people.

color is not a issue (for me) but I also don't think he killed usama b. or even directed the assult on him in fact Bush had as much to do with that more so than Obama in my opinion.
I also think that a huge part of his election was a direct result of the color of his skin and nothing to do with his ability to do the job.

Godfather.

Ha, is that right?

Perhaps another huge part of his election is that McCain couldn't even run a campaign and picked a running mate with an IQ of 12. That or Obama is black.

maj4e

Very classy hating on teachers... Great youtube response by the way.

Go Beavers

Godfather. wrote:

Cliffy6745 wrote:

I am looking forward to the day when people don't give a shit whether he's black and look back on his presidency and see that he helped avoid a second great depression, provided millions of Americans with healthcare they previously didn't have access to, ended the war in Iraq, ended the war in Afghan while concentrating military efforts on the terrorists while killing Osama and other high ranking terrorist leaders, and ended the bigot policy that is Don't Ask, Don't Tell. All while having to deal with a party that is more concerned with kicking him out of office than actually helping the American people.

color is not a issue (for me) but I also don't think he killed usama b. or even directed the assult on him in fact Bush had as much to do with that more so than Obama in my opinion.
I also think that a huge part of his election was a direct result of the color of his skin and nothing to do with his ability to do the job.

Godfather.

A huge part of the election had to do with the economy. Prior to October, 2008, McCain and Obama were pretty much neck and neck, much like G.W. and the previous two elections. Obama's numbers jumped when the economy went down the serious pooper about 4 weeks before the election. This wasn't about race, but about Obama coming across as more effective and confident with how to deal with the economy and McCain's poor brain functioning being exposed.

MayDay Malone

maj4e wrote:

Very classy hating on teachers... Great youtube response by the way.

"Hey! Teachers!! Leave those kids alone!"

gimmesometruth27

MayDay Malone wrote:

Actually, W earned a MBA from Harvard. Flew fighter jets for the Air Force. Won the Presidency of the United States, then won it again.

If he wanted to be as big of a loser as you say, he could have just been a teacher... they don't do shit.

not to derail the thread any more, but didn't bush fail to report to air force duty because he could not pass a physical due to his drug use? also, he was given the presidency by the us supreme court in 2000 while losing the popular vote.

and why you have to denigrate teachers in this thread is beyond me. but hey, whatever floats your boat...

MayDay Malone

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

MayDay Malone wrote:

Actually, W earned a MBA from Harvard. Flew fighter jets for the Air Force. Won the Presidency of the United States, then won it again.

If he wanted to be as big of a loser as you say, he could have just been a teacher... they don't do shit.

not to derail the thread any more, but didn't bush fail to report to air force duty because he could not pass a physical due to his drug use? also, he was given the presidency by the us supreme court in 2000 while losing the popular vote.

and why you have to denigrate teachers in this thread is beyond me. but hey, whatever floats your boat...

The answer to your W question is NO. Dan Rather had that one wrong. And got canned.

RW81233

MayDay Malone wrote:

How does one's Dad pay for them to fly fighter jets for the AF?

Sounds like a bitter "professor" to me.

No i wrote that his daddy paid for the MBA you suggested he "earned". I suppose it's semantics, but earned is a loaded term in my mind. I prefer worked hard and received help instead, although in W's case don't believe the former is all that true. Maybe he flew the fighter jets, although I'm not sure how he didn't crash. Definitely did not win the first election (Democrats have cheated too see: Kennedy, 1960 and Chicago River).

Further, you certainly did not address any of my points like how he paid 100k (yes 100k) for his stake in the Rangers and turned it into a Presidency. How he fleeced the City of Arlington and simultaneously got people to love him. How his ineptitude as a President was so plainly obvious that even 9/11 couldn't help him in the end. How he and his predecessors reduction in state funding directly led to the death of thousands in New Orleans. We don't even have to get into the illegal war mongering and no-contract sales to his friend's companies do we? At this point it is hard to process how anyone could still like him and claim that Obama was an "affirmative action" President and be taken seriously.

On top of that each one of your responses to my posts seems more like an attempt to start an argument based on right vs. left-wing talking points ("bitter professor", "affirmative action", and so on), rather than a reasoned discussion about the article presented, the poor points it made, and a connection to the posts made about it. So let me try again. You could find and replace every Obama in this article with George W., and replace black with white and that's what makes this article stupid. It's lazy, uniformed, garbage. There's plenty to pick on Obama about (selling out to corporations, lobbyists, etc.) without breaking it down into something so crass and ignorant.

usamamasan1

RW81233 wrote:

How he and his predecessors reduction in state funding directly led to the death of thousands in New Orleans.

Um, no. Living below sea level and a very large hurricane directly led to the death of thousands in New Orleans.

RW81233

You are correct that people had long understood that a big Hurricane coupled with New Orleans being below see level was dangerous. What you are missing is that the city had also long requested funding to fix its levees, even stating that a Category 4 hurricane would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, for the city and its people the government and some of the American population looked at that as a "free handout" to the city and gambled that a hurricane wouldn't hit. Thousands of people died when the gamble did not pay off. As I stated, it wasn't only W's fault (although his slow movement in helping definitely is another nick on his presidency), but rather further evidence that the corporate takeover of our government is not a feasible solution to our problems.

mikepegg44

RW81233 wrote:

You are correct that people had long understood that a big Hurricane coupled with New Orleans being below see level was dangerous. What you are missing is that the city had also long requested funding to fix its levees, even stating that a Category 4 hurricane would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, for the city and its people the government and some of the American population looked at that as a "free handout" to the city and gambled that a hurricane wouldn't hit. Thousands of people died when the gamble did not pay off. As I stated, it wasn't only W's fault (although his slow movement in helping definitely is another nick on his presidency), but rather further evidence that the corporate takeover of our government is not a feasible solution to our problems.

shouldn't the state of Louisiana have made this a priority through their own funding? why does that money need to come from anywhere but the city of New Orleans, local government, and the state government?

Nothing about Katrina is really worth dissecting as it was all very sad, but if you want to bring it up let's talk about all of it.
what did corporate influence have to do with Katrina decisions? I am confused by the last comment

I guess that sort of derails the thread a bit so feel free to not respond.

RW81233

mikepegg44 wrote:

RW81233 wrote:

You are correct that people had long understood that a big Hurricane coupled with New Orleans being below see level was dangerous. What you are missing is that the city had also long requested funding to fix its levees, even stating that a Category 4 hurricane would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, for the city and its people the government and some of the American population looked at that as a "free handout" to the city and gambled that a hurricane wouldn't hit. Thousands of people died when the gamble did not pay off. As I stated, it wasn't only W's fault (although his slow movement in helping definitely is another nick on his presidency), but rather further evidence that the corporate takeover of our government is not a feasible solution to our problems.

shouldn't the state of Louisiana have made this a priority through their own funding? why does that money need to come from anywhere but the city of New Orleans, local government, and the state government?

Nothing about Katrina is really worth dissecting as it was all very sad, but if you want to bring it up let's talk about all of it.
what did corporate influence have to do with Katrina decisions? I am confused by the last comment

I guess that sort of derails the thread a bit so feel free to not respond.

Yeah I'll keep it short, but really it's a result of the drastic reduction in state tax dollars that is a byproduct of the tax reductions corporations have been able to take advantage of in this country. You are right that Louisiana should have been able to fix their problems, but they don't have the money to do so. Basically we are watching things like Katrina, bridges collapsing in Minnesota, super dangerous situations on our national highways, and so on getting worse because there is an increasingly smaller pool of money being allocated to the state because of corporate welfare. The shit of it all is that the same people who benefit from tax reductions are the one's trumpeting personal and state responsibility. So the very thing that would allow people and states to be "responsible", funding to fix problems, is continually being reduced by the people blaming them for their problems. Of course using a catchphrase like "personal responsibility" in America works because it's part of our national mythology, but doesn't really get to the intricacies leading to failures in "personal responsibility".

usamamasan1

Tax the rich (more than already) Storms will stop storming, floods will stop flooding, workers will stop working and entrepreneurs will stop.....

Entrepreneuring. :?

RW81233

I can play mad libs all day with this one:
Years from now, historians may regard the 2000 “election” of George W. Bush as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?
Imagine a future historian examining Bush's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy life as a rich man’s son; a brief career as a governor where he fleeced the state so hard it hurt, so often did he attend ball games as a fan/owner; and finally an abhorrent record of killing people on death row, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia.
And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the poor black-hating, puppeteer who for decades served as Bush's "string puller"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Bush's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?
Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal:
To be sure, no black candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Karl Rove and an unrepentant terrorist like Donald Rumsfield would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Bush was white, and therefore entitled in the eyes of conservativedumb to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.
Let that sink in: Bush was given a pass -- held to a lower standard -- because of the color of his skin. Podhoretz continues:
And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the 42nd white president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?
Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Bush phenomenon -- affirmative action for rich people. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make black people, and especially black liberals, feel bad about themselves.
Unfortunately, blacks often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Conservatives routinely help whites into schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Conservatives don't care if these rich students fail; Conservatives aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action for rich people. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin -- that's affirmative action for rich people in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is. And that is what America did to Bush.
True, Bush himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Bush was told he was good enough for Harvard despite undistinguished grades at Yale; he was told he was good enough to own the Texas Rangers and be Governer of Texas despite a mediocre record; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Bush was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Bush speaks?
In 2000, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Bush's oratory skills, intellect, and aww shucks character. Those people -- liberals included -- ought now to be deeply embarrassed. The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of clichés, and that's when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth -- it's all warmed-over Neoliberal Capitalism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 50 years.
And what about his character? Bush is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Clinton did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?
In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.
But hey, at least we got to feel good about ourselves for a little while. And really, isn't that all that matters these days?

RW81233

usamamasan1 wrote:

Tax the rich (more than already) Storms will stop storming, floods will stop flooding, workers will stop working and entrepreneurs will stop.....

Entrepreneuring. :?

1 cent is more than 0 General Electric. Billion Dollar bailouts, outsourcing of labor, and so on. Is it this hard to see? I guess so.

usamamasan1

I pay taxes FOR owning GE stock
GE is OWNED by shareholders
What do you mean 1 is better than zero?

Thanks for derailing thread btw

RW81233

if you equate derailing a racist thread with a little bit of reason I apologize, but here you go http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general- ... d=13224558

gimmesometruth27

RW81233 wrote:

if you equate derailing a racist thread with a little bit of reason I apologize, but here you go http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general- ... d=13224558

OH SNAP!!!!!

usamamasan1

Snap?
Here you go?
Like I said, I paid FEDERAL taxes in 2010 for owning my company GE

You guys don't get it do you.

I won't explain bc you won't understand

This thread is not racist either. Stop trolling