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Scottish Dubliner Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 10:48 AM |
I'd like to hear thoughts on this...
Is Obama out on his arse ? Has he failed to deliver ? Is the Global Recession to blame ? Is there a leaning back to the "right" ?
FWIW, I think he's doing all he can, and is probably the best man to do so at the moment (who would you get instead Palin??). I also know that I said a while back that I didn't believe all that "whiter than white" & "poor man done well" shit and I still don't, he's a politician for feck's sake, but that is a different arguement. I also heard that both Regan and Clinton performed terribly in the mid-terms but romped it to regain a second term. I hope Obama manages the same feat. His reform of the health system seems to have caused a fair bit of upset but surely at the end of the day it has to be a good thing?
Dubz |
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weirdmom Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 12:29 PM |
I think while he has accomplished a lot not a lot of it has been "sexy" so all of that is the lost in the mess of our soundbyte culture.
I can also understand that hearing that the recession is improving means nothing to you if you still don't have a job. I wouldn't care that under Obama unemployment is 8% but under McCain it would have been 12% if I can't feed my children. (note: I made us those numbers as an example so don't quote me on that)
I also think certain unhappy factions have been very successful at stirring up fear and paranoia and it makes me a bit sick. There is a lot of talk that to me is either veiled or blatantly racist and/or hateful.
Certain members of my husband's family are not fans and you wouldn't believe some of the emails that are forwarded to us. If it was anyone else I would completely tell them off but it's a more complex situation so we just delete them. They also often feature a lot of downright false statements like Congress voted to do this and that. 18 seconds of research shows, no they didn't. But they just read it, are foolish enough to believe anything, and send it on, all the while feeling angrier and angrier at Obama.
He was handed a big ol' mess and while he's not perfect I do think he is doing a good job and I am glad he is President and not McCain.
I have a feeling he is going to bounce back and seems to be putting together a more effective communications team. |
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ricv64 Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 12:40 PM |
| 29 million people who voted last election didn't bother this time |
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Scottish Dubliner Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 1:52 PM |
weirdmom wrote: I think while he has accomplished a lot not a lot of it has been "sexy" so all of that is the lost in the mess of our soundbyte culture.
I can also understand that hearing that the recession is improving means nothing to you if you still don't have a job. I wouldn't care that under Obama unemployment is 8% but under McCain it would have been 12% if I can't feed my children. (note: I made us those numbers as an example so don't quote me on that)
I also think certain unhappy factions have been very successful at stirring up fear and paranoia and it makes me a bit sick. There is a lot of talk that to me is either veiled or blatantly racist and/or hateful.
Certain members of my husband's family are not fans and you wouldn't believe some of the emails that are forwarded to us. If it was anyone else I would completely tell them off but it's a more complex situation so we just delete them. They also often feature a lot of downright false statements like Congress voted to do this and that. 18 seconds of research shows, no they didn't. But they just read it, are foolish enough to believe anything, and send it on, all the while feeling angrier and angrier at Obama.
He was handed a big ol' mess and while he's not perfect I do think he is doing a good job and I am glad he is President and not McCain.
I have a feeling he is going to bounce back and seems to be putting together a more effective communications team.
Yeah, that's kinda what I thought was happening.
The "Yes We Can" slogan may have come back to haunt him, but then again "Yes We Might" or "Yes We Can, Eventually" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
I don't know how it is your side but the recession will not be going away any time soon, we may have turned the corner but we still have to climb back up and I don't think it will ever return to the heights it reached before the crash. Any unemployment is bad no matter what the figures but you can never have zero unemployment.
I think you are correct about the racism, and while I thought he played the racism card to get himself where he is some of the attacks on him at the moment are sickening.
The same thing happens constantly over here, especially when it comes to asylum seekers etc. The media and people perpetuate the myth that they are all scroungers and work shy. Under European Law asylum seekers are not allowed to work while they're being processed. You get the same thing in the UK where they also play on the xenophobic (IMO thinly vieled racism) by telling the populus that the EU are demanding that sausages are renamed processed offal packages, fishermen will need to wear hairnets because they work with foodstuffs, etc. etc. It's basically Bullshit but people are more than ready to believe it.
I agree he was handed a mess. There's a good story I heard recently that when Brezhnev or someone was handing over power he left two letters with the instructions when you get into trouble open the first letter, when you get into more trouble open the second. Soon enough the new man was up to his neck in it so he opened the first letter it read simply "Blame everything on me" he did and it worked a treat the people were happy, then soon enough again more trouble so he opened the second this time it read "Sit yourself down and write two letters".
I really do hope he gets the second term, while he may not be changing things as fast as some people want, he is trying to make a difference. Which incidentally is something I though he would/could not do, and as he has proven me wrong I'm big enough to admit I was wrong about him and wish him the best in his endeavours.
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Scottish Dubliner Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 1:55 PM |
ricv64 wrote: 29 million people who voted last election didn't bother this time
29 mil is a lot, but what is the electoral population of the USA and what percentage is 29,000,000 of the overall electorate ?? Do the mid-terms actually have any meaning ??
Dubz |
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weirdmom Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 2:08 PM |
Someone sent this to me a few days ago.
A Modern US President |
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Turtleneck Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 2:52 PM |
I don't even like the party system. It's like having to choose a religion. I don't like the platforms of either party all that much. Sometimes Democrats are too liberal for me, and Republicans are too conservative. The party system is now like a tug of war and neither party wants to do anything that might possibly look like cooperation.
If one party succeeds, it's "Look what we did!" and if they fail it's, "We're trying to clean up the mess that was left for us."
Unemployment numbers came out today for the month of October. It is 9.6%. Here in Michigan, it is more like 13%, last I heard. A lot of automotive jobs have left and are not coming back. A lot of older workers who got laid off and have been out of work for two or more years, some of them are looking at retirement age and don't have a job to retire from and who knows what kind of benefits they will or won't receive.
Mid-term elections were important for many states because we had to elect new state governors. Some people just voted as a knee jerk reaction to having a Democratic president and still not having a job or an improved economy and blindly voted Republican. My state had a Democrat for governor for the last 2 terms and now a Republican was voted in.
One more thing about the health care issue. A lot of companies are now waiting to hire new workers until they figure out what the Obama health care plan will mean for them. They feel like they may not be able to afford to hire new workers now. It's a catch 22 situation. |
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hennypenny Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 8:29 PM |
I seriously don't expect much change from the results of the elections. Now that the Republicans have majority in the House, their main goal is to reverse most of what Obama has done. So basically we'll be in the same position as before.
I'll try and stay optimistic about the next couple of years. I did vote for Obama and have always been a Democrat/liberal. I'm thankful that I live in a "blue state" with a Democratic Governor and Senator. Not sure if that makes a difference or not now though. If Sarah Palin ever gets elected I will a) throw-up and b) makes plans to move out of the country. Just kidding. Sort of. :P |
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weirdmom Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 9:22 PM |
Oh and by the way I did vote. I just wasn't very excited about it
Why couldn't this have been out there a few weeks ago? |
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hennypenny Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 9:34 PM |
This is pretty awesome. I knew about a couple of those things but I didn't know he did all that. If someone says he hasn't done anything, I would show them this. |
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Scottish Dubliner Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 9:39 PM |
...But where did the money/resources etc. come from to do these things ??
also for example as already stated by someone on here the reform of the Health Service may have led to less jobs surely everyone of the decisions on that website also have an adverse reaction, I'm not saying they are not worth it but to paraphrase another president "you can't please all of the people all of the time".
Dubz |
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Scottish Dubliner Posted Fri 05 Nov, 2010 9:42 PM |
... and did he intialise all these things or is he, as president, just passing them into "law" as it were.
by the way I'm not getting at him I'm just saying that it may not be as Black and White as everyone (on either side) seems to believe. Possibly !?!?
Dubz |
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weirdmom Posted Sat 06 Nov, 2010 3:22 AM |
I'm sure it's not as black and white as this site makes it seem and if you click the links on the bottom of the screen it takes you to the same article. Meaning, some of these things were part of the same bill but they are segmenting it to make a stronger case. And it does show that at least some of these things that he helped put into place as opposed to it was going to happen anyway.
And I do think it's nice to show people who say he hasn't done anything.
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Scottish Dubliner Posted Sat 06 Nov, 2010 2:01 PM |
weirdmom wrote: I'm sure it's not as black and white as this site makes it seem and if you click the links on the bottom of the screen it takes you to the same article. Meaning, some of these things were part of the same bill but they are segmenting it to make a stronger case. And it does show that at least some of these things that he helped put into place as opposed to it was going to happen anyway.
And I do think it's nice to show people who say he hasn't done anything.
I agree, his supporters have to "spin" the facts because his detracters will "spin" it the other way. Unfortunately that's how politics works.
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