fak3r » obama

Tea partiers: You get mad now?

fak3r — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:35:22 +0000

another solid argument from a 'tea bagger'

Since the health-care debate brought out the worst in the tea party protesters, we’ve seen a shift from fear mongering, to the disgusting behavior of last weekend that included bigoted, racist name calling, spitting on on elected officials and finally vandalism and death threats. If it weren’t clear before, the ‘movement’ has truly showed us what is behind their manufactured anger, and it ain’t health care. Case in point, how can people be mad now, when they weren’t mad when the previous administration that just walked all over the constitution, sent us into a war with a country that never attacked us and raised the debt to record highs? Well as I tried to figure out how to condense my thoughts, who would have thought Rosie O’Donnell would have covered it so well, with a post on her blog titled We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, Now you get mad!? One of her readers was able to succinctly break down the blatant hypocrisy of this whole affair, providing a perfect platform for a tea party rebuttal, but don’t expect that, instead lets expect more gay bashing from those cowards. I’m reprinting the post here (just like the DailyKos did) because it needs more exposure, so please pass it on. After that, follow-up by reading Frank Rich’s Op-Ed titled The Rage Is Not About Health Care for more rational of what is the true driver for this behavior, it gives us a lot to think about.

We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, Now you get mad!?
You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.
You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.
You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans…oh hell no.

Olbermann’s commentary on Prop 8

fak3r — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:44:45 +0000

The fact that Proposition 8 passed this last week in Califonia is a sad commentary on people’s morays and the discrimination that they still think is ok to pass on to others. Of course the statistic that African Americans (whose strong turnout is being attributed to Obama) voting 2 to 1 *for* the measure is particularly ironic. The best commentary I’ve heard on this issue comes from Keith Olbermann, who says all I’d like to, and more. While it’s small solace, we just have to remember that this kind of racism is dying off.

A rural county pining for a racist past

fak3r — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:14:13 +0000

Ah, good memories

With all the polls it feels like there’s been a sea change in how America sees race, or maybe not. Maybe it’s W’s 22% approval rating skewing the numbers, because there are obvious still some serious misconceptions and racism playing big in the election. Interviews in the ‘bootheal’ region of Missouri (only a few hours South of me here in St. Louis, where Obama drew 100,000 people under the Arch last week) show that indifference, mixed with the old school racism and ignorance, is still alive and well. My favorite part is:

“But Douglas’ cousin Ronnie Johnson is voting for McCain. Or rather, against Obama.
He is reluctant to explain this at first — “You don’t want to know why,” he says.
The others on the porch goad him. And Johnson, a lanky 20-year-old white man who works as a meatcutter at a grocery store, starts to talk about an issue that has persisted throughout the campaign: race.
It is not just that Obama is black, Johnson says. He has heard that Obama is Muslim. (Obama is Christian.) He also has heard rumors that Obama refuses to salute the American flag, and that Obama has promised that black men will have more rights than white men. (Independent fact-checking groups say these rumors are false.)
So Johnson is voting for McCain.
“He’s white,” Johnson says.”

And we wonder why W was elected twice. Someone save us…

Join the McCain G00gle b0mb – spread the truth

fak3r — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:53:06 +0000

Moved by Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver? Yeah, me too. I wanted to find out how I could help highlight the differences in Obama’s vs McCain’s stances. Chris Bowers had some great points about finding factual McCain quotes and the easiest way to get these facts in front of voters is to raise their prominence in search engine results; this is my attempt to help. If you have a site and want to participate, read Chris’ comments here. So, lets get on with it:

If you are anything like me, you are sick and tired of the national image of John McCain as some sort of independent, principled, Republican moderate. Examples of McCain’s departure from the Bush administration’s agenda are truly few and far between. Despite reports to the contrary, he has consistently supported and facilitated the most egregiously radical aspects of that agenda. Further, in an attempt to improve his prospects for the Republican nomination in 2008, he has spent much of the last three years sucking up to the theocon wing of the Republican Party that he once decried. Most famously, this included retracting comments he made about Jerry Falwell and then speaking at Falwell’s Liberty University. Pandering to extremists you once denounced in order to improve your electoral prospects hardly sounds “principled” to me.

Chris Bowers’s diary

What especially irks me about McCain’s pure as the driven snow national image is how the Washington pundit elites have continued to help manufacture it. McCain is the most frequent guest on Sunday morning talk shows, whose hosts clearly have done a terrible job of exposing the truth about him. We simply can’t trust the gatekeepers of our conventional wisdom to treat John McCain with any skepticism whatsoever. I am sure we will see much of the same lapdog treatment from the pundit elite when it comes to the McCain doctrine, otherwise known as escalation in Iraq. Already, pundits are bending over backward to label this idea serious, and the people who support it as principled.
Well, I say enough is enough. The line on McCain’s national image will be drawn here, and drawn now. Today, I am proposing a long-term, anti-McCain googlebomb project similar to the Googlebomb the Elections campaign I founded in 2006. The goal on this project is the search engine optimization of articles from established news sources that tell the truth on John McCain. I want to make certain that when people search for information about John McCain online, that they are presented with the truth on John McCain. I hope you will join me in this campaign. Here is what it entails:

Finding a recent new article from an established news sources that focuses on McCain’s support of George Bush. I have determined that the first such article will be the beautifully titled McCain Defend Bush’s Iraq Strategy from the Associated Press. It is hard to get any better than that. In fact, it was seeing that headline today that gave me the idea to conduct this campaign.
For an extended period of time, several weeks if necessary, having as many people on the internet as possible embed a hyperlink to the chosen article whenever they use the word McCain, John McCain, Senator John McCain, McCain 2008, or any other popular search term on McCain.H
Having as many bloggers as possible place that same embedded hyperlink into the templates of their blog. Instructions on how to do this, and why it is important, can be found here. This will multiply the impact of any Googlebomb on McCain several hundred times. This process is also helped if people on community websites place the appropriate embeded McCain hyperlink in the signature line of their user interface.
Monitoring the progress on the current McCain Googlebomb until it moves into the top five results on McCain in Google. Once this is accomplished, and it should only take a few weeks, we then start the process over again at step one with a different news article that tells the truth on McCain.

It is my goal is that this campaign will allow us to dominate articles on McCain in the top twenty Google searches on McCain. Hopefully, we can have tweleve such articles by Labor Day, 2007. By flooding internet searches on McCain with the truth about McCain, we can go a long way toward defining McCain’s image to the national electorate. And the best part is, we will do it with the truth.
At this time, I do not intend to conduct any other search engine optimization campaigns on potential 2008 Republican hopefuls. Frankly, I do not find any other hopefuls to pose a particularly serious threat to a potential progressive nominee (Giuliani ain’t gonna win the Republican nomination). While I am interested in conducting search engine optimization campaigns against Republicans in key House and Senate races, at this time we don’t know which races those will be. As appealing as starting early on 2008 congressional races may be, let’s give that at least a couple of weeks, in order to build up a useful record, before moving forward on that. I would also prefer if this project was handled by local bloggers who will cover local campaigns.

Let me say a quick word to Republican netroots activists about this campaign: please, join us. I know that the conservative and libertarian netroots does not like John McCain very much, as evidenced by the recent GOP bloggers poll that gave McCain a heavily negative rating on their “acceptability” scale (McCain finished behind only Hagel and Pataki). While I know a lot of you did not like my Googlebomb campaign back in the fall, in this case we can join together in common cause to redefine McCain to the nation. Feel free to use articles that better express why you are upset with McCain.

Let me say a quick word to the established media about this campaign: watch and learn. The coverage of the Googlebomb campaign during the 2006 elections was extremely negative, so much so that I had to pull the plug on media interviews about it during the final two weeks of the campaign. However, while viewed negatively, this campaign is based entirely on directing people to factual reporting from established media outlets. Further, you have had the chance to define McCain in your mediums–now netroots activists will work to define McCain in our medium. If you have a problem with us spreading facts in our realm when you refuse to do the same in yours, then tough.

Let me say a word to Democratic candidates: don’t let this happen to you. I know quite a few of the high level internet consultants for Democratic presidential contenders, and I am confident that those people I know are already aware of the importance of this strategy to any online campaign. However, those campaigns, both Presidential and otherwise, who are not aware of this strategy, make certain that you protect your candidate’s image within search engines. This sort of campaign is not difficult to execute, and you can end up on the wrong side of a Googlebomb campaign if you do not protect your search engine flank.

*******

Anyway, if you are reading this, I hope you are with me. Add “the truth about McCain “to your signature. Add John McCain to the template of your blog. Whenever you write about John McCain in a post, diary or comment, make sure to use the appropriate embedded hyperlink. Let’s draw the line on John McCain’s image, and let’s draw it now. Let the “internets” ring loud and clear with the truth.

Free Obama – Biden bumper sticker

fak3r — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:17:41 +0000

UPDATE: check it – now MoveOn has, free buttons available too.

It’s old news now, but earlier today Obama chose Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate. What a great pick, I’ve always been a fan of Biden, especially his appearances on The Daily Show. He has generally voted with Obama, and along party lines but has been outspoken on many issues. He’s a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and national security issues which should help blunt Republican attacks on Obama’s lack of experience in these areas. You can get a Free Obama/Biden bumper sticker over at MoveOn. Man, November can’t come fast enough! Obama and Biden FTW in 08!

Robert De Niro on Obama’s inexperience

fak3r — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:26:57 +0000

http://www.fak3r.com

Today one of the greats gave Obama the nod at a rally in New Jersey. He surprised people by seeming attacking the Senator though, “Barack Obama does not have the experience to be president of the United States. He wasn’t experienced enough to authorize the invasion of Iraq. And that’s not all, it’s clear Barack Obama does not have the experience to let the special interests run the government. That’s the kind of inexperience I can get used to. I’ve never made a speech like this at a political event before, so, what am I doing here? Finally, one person has inspired me“

It’s time to lose the faith talk in politics

fak3r — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:47:13 +0000

We’ve got to find a way to take the conservative symbolic message of faith talk out of American politics. First let me state what I believe in as far as religion; I believe religion is a very personal thing, and I feel it should be that way for everyone. This goes a long way in understanding my disdain for so called ‘faith-based politics’, examples of which have been in abundance this campaign season. Now, before you jump on me, I am talking about ‘both’ (anyone find a viable 3rd party candidate that can raise 100 bazillion dollars to go the dance? I wish we could…but that’s another post ) parties, Democrats and Republicans. When you hear any of them kowtowing to the evangelicals (who have been the sweet target these past few months), you know they’re deliberately targeting those people, and those people only. The fact that so many have been called out to ‘prove’ their conviction is the true one, and in line with the vote heavy evangelicals, is a sad commentary on how people vote.

Now politicians trying to relate to their audience is the oldest and most used tactic in history. Everyone is the ‘Washington outsider’ without lobbyist ties, that are going to get the job done for Barry Bluecollar; anytime you see them don a construction helmet and protective goggles at a plant is a great example (makes me think of Ducacus in that tank…), but the fact that they are forced to spell out their religious stances always leads to the same thing; they have the same ones as the majority of the voters do. We know they’re not being honest, remember John Kerry running? He started going to church all the time, causing church leaders to say they wouldn’t serve him the Eucharist since he wasn’t going all the time and being a ‘good Catholic’ because of his abortion stance. Which leads me to the other point, it’s not just that I think religion should have no basis in how someone votes, but when politicians spell out that they’re one of the flock, it is disingenuous and condescending. That this works is testimony to, again, people not voting for the candidate they think will do the best job for the country, but just the best for their niche (however large). Remember united we stand? Anyone? So Alternet covered this with a great article titled, What Religion’s Blind Stranglehold on America Is Doing to Our Democracy. They talk about a candidate stating religious ideas and assuming that from then on the candidate will hold those ideals as objective truths one which by definition couldn’t be changed or questioned.

“…faith talk often has little to do with candidates’ stands on the issues [,,,] Randall Balmer, a leading scholar of evangelical Christianity, points out that it’s offered not so much “issues” to mobilize around as “an unambiguous morality in an age of moral and ethical uncertainty.“

So first it’s a false hope, the emperor has no clothes, or ‘pay no attention to that man behind the curtain’ type of deception, but then combined with the ‘truth’ that we all believe in ‘God’ – how will anyone with that mindset be able to bring our country together?

“Mitt Romney was courting the evangelical-swinging-toward-Huckabee vote when he, too, went out of his way to link religion with moral absolutes in his big Iowa speech on faith. Our “…common creed of moral convictions? the firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet” turned out, utterly unsurprisingly, to be none other than religious soil: “We believe that every single human being is a child of God, [that] liberty is a gift of God.”

Ok, so no doubts allowed here! So that they’re being disingenuous is bad, the fact that these truths are presented as something that cannot be argued about gets to the heart of the matter.

“So, when it comes to religion and politics, here’s the most critical question: Should we turn the political arena into a stage to dramatize our quest for moral certainty? The simple answer is no — for lots of reasons. For starters, it’s a direct threat to democracy. The essence of our system is that we, the people, get to choose our values. We don’t discover them inscribed in the cosmos. So everything must be open to question, to debate, and therefore to change. In a democracy, there should be no fixed truth except that everyone has the right to offer a new view — and to change his or her mind. It’s a process whose outcome should never be predictable, a process without end. A claim to absolute truth — any absolute truth — stops that process.”

And Bingo! This is the crux of why I think, na, BELIEVE, that religion has no place in politics. A few months ago I got some comments from a relative who learned from a forwarded email that Barack Obama was a ‘radical Muslim‘, who ‘will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance‘ and that he ‘took his oath on a Koran instead of the Bible‘. Of course there’s plenty of facts to respond to this kind of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in many ">Snopes articles debunking Obama mis-information, but notice it all focuses on religion, and how Obama’s ideals would attack their religion. Maybe it’s this reverse psychology that tells us why the candidates must come out and present themselves as the ‘most holy’. In the beginning, and even now, Mitt Romney’s faith as a Mormon has been a hot topic. The point is, it shouldn’t matter, we need to vote for the person we think will do the best not only for our country, but for the world. Anything short of that is self serving that will only further divide our country, and further alienate us from the rest of the world.

The premature crowning of Hillary

fak3r — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:31:25 +0000

Hillary is being crowned the ‘come from behind kid’ after ‘winning’ the New Hampshire primary; but this appears to be nothing but spin. First of all the results, Hillary took 39% of the popular vote to Barack ‘s 37%, so Hillary wins, right? Not exactly, if you look at the delegate count you’ll see a different picture. Remember, people can win the popular vote and loose the election (Gore). From the article/discussion on CNN’s Political Ticker you’ll see the results:

In the New Hampshire Democratic primary
CNN estimates:
* Hillary Clinton has won 9 New Hampshire delegates (3 statewide, 6 district-level)
* Barack Obama has won 9 New Hampshire delegates (3 statewide, 6 district-level)
* John Edwards has won 4 New Hampshire delegates (2 statewide, 2 district-level)
* 22 Democratic delegates were at stake in the New Hampshire primary

Ok, so it was a tie in regards to the delegates, but Hillary won the popular vote, but wait, what about the ‘superdelegates’ in New Hampshire? Back to the article:

* There are also 8 Democratic “superdelegates” in New Hampshire. Of those, 2 support Clinton and 3 support Obama, according to a CNN survey.

So now it looks like Obama was actually the winner, making the ‘win’ for Hillary seems like an old fashioned PR/spinfest. Even though they’re first, Iowa and New Hampshire are small states, and in the end, 2,025 delegates are needed to secure the nomination. The fact that people seem to be winning and losing at this stage is irresponsible. Ok, so now Obama has won 2 states, but wait, what about the super delegates in Iowa? Oh, I see.