Tag: 2008 elections

What Americans Rejected This Week: The President as Warlord

We’ve heard a lot of speculation about what this year’s presidential election supposedly means. Were Americans simply voting for Barack Obama, a charismatic peacemaker with a worker-friendly tax plan? Or were they also voting against something, and if so, what? Republican incompetence? Neocon arrogance? The Iraq War? The economic meltdown? Negative campaigning?

After reading georgia10’s front-page story “22%” on Daily Kos — specifically, after looking at the New York Times maps she embedded — I think we can figure out what most Americans were voting against in a single glance, by seeing who embraced Obama and, more important, who rejected him.

Does this map look familiar? If you’ve read my Daily Kos diaries on David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed, it should.

Meet “Obama’s Mama’s Uncle”

Just caught this, a Proud Great Uncle of a Nephew to become the 44th President of the United States!

Jon Payne, Barack Obama’s great uncle, watched the election coverage with great anticipation.  He was particularly moved when he heard the acceptance speech.

America is Blue, Baby!

DKOS Version: Debunking RedState America -v.2008.  

cartogram America

Is

Blue,

Baby!!!

(Credit: University of Michigan)

What happened to this map?????  All is answered after the fold!

(Hint: It’s Cool Map thingy time! 😉 )

If we won, why am I crying?

Cross-posted from Burning the Midnight Oil

Seriously.

Hurray, Senator Obama is now President-Elect Obama.

Hurray, John Boccieri is now Congressman-Elect Boccieri.

Hurray, Larry Kissell is now Congressman-Elect Kissell.

Hurray, What’s-is-name in Cincinnati is now Congressman-Elect What’s-is-name (I guess I should look that up again)

California passed … narrowly, but it passed … Proposition 1A for a High Speed Rail system, including $950m for funding non-HSR systems to connect into the HSR system, helping set up the possibility of leap forward into a more sustainable, more Energy Independent future.

And I’m crying.

US elections: Welcome to the “School of the Democrats”

Original article, by John Peterson, via Socialist Appeal (US):

The U.S. has elected a new president. On January 20, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Along with the dramatic turn in the economic situation, this marks a definite turning point in the history of the country and of the world. On the streets across the U.S., you can feel a collective sigh of relief. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people are on the streets of New York, Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco, many of them dancing and even crying with joy. Young people drive by or ride their bikes through the streets yelling “Obama!” at passersby. Some have likened the celebration to New Year’s Eve, and people’s faces – especially young people and African-Americans – are glowing. These scenes have been repeated around the world, as frustration against Bush’s policies is unleashed. The world has not been a very pleasant place for the last 8 years.

Obama’s Victory a Loss for Progressives

Virtually everyone, it seems, is cheering the electoral victory of Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race. The obvious exception is the Republican Party, which is likely to shift even further to the right in the halls of power due to moderate and semi-moderate GOPers losing out to Democratic challengers, but that’s a given.  You can count on them being the most obstructionist minority party in Congress since the Gingrich revolution in 1994, laying the groundwork for a similar event in 2010.

That’s to be expected.  What seems to be going ignored in the victory celebration is that the increased Democratic majority is prepared to waste the next two years accommodating this obstructionism.  Nancy Pelosi, who fended off a challenge from independent Cindy Sheehan, proudly boasted that Democrats would legislate from the right, not the left (though she called it the “middle”).

This should be the first sign that progressives frittered away their chance to shape the political landscape.  Don’t count on Senate capitulation leader Harry Reid to suddenly grow a pair or the Democratic Caucus to cease coddling Joe LIEberman now that the majority has been expanded; electoral fraud is likely responsible for the failure to win the filibuster-proof number of sixty senators, but even if Democrats had gotten it, Reid has bent over backwards to please GOPers and refused to enforce party discipline within his own ranks.  The result, as it was in 2006, is a Senate paralyzed by Republican obstructionism and Democratic appeasement.

We have a president-elect who is prepared to name Rahm Emanuel, a top-ranking Bush Dog, as his chief of staff.  Robert Rubin, a top architect of Clintonian economics and welfare-gutting, is on Obama’s economic advisory team, as are a number of other corporate marketeers.  Don’t expect sound environmental, health care, economic, or energy policy from the White House.  Nor should you expect an end to the occupation of Iraq, the unconditional support of the Israeli apartheid state, the lifting of the embargo on Cuba, or a shift away from imperialism.  There has been nothing in Obama’s campaign or his legislative record to suggest he’ll suddenly do a 180 now that he is prepared to inherit the presidency.

Nothing is more indicative of this than the popular vote.  Obama received a pitiful 51% to Republican John McCain’s 48%, a mere three percent difference.  The new president is smart; he knows just as much as the Republicans do that this election was not a huge repudiation of Bush policies.  Obama did not win so much as McCain lost, and he knows it.  He’ll govern from the right to appease his corporate backers.

We had what was probably our last, best chance this year to force Democrats back to the left.  We blew it.  Neither Obama or the Democrats have any incentive now to even listen to us, to say nothing of governing from the left.  What, then, is our recourse?

We can still walk away from the Democratic Party, and we must do so if we are to have any hope of salvaging the progressive movement.  We must build locally, work our way up to state-level, and finally, organize at the national level.  At this point it’s all we’ve got left.  Enjoy your celebration, for the hangover we’re about to suffer is going to be a long one.

Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Writer Slavoj Zizek described “the desert of the real” as the place where there are no illusions, no alibis, and no more comforting emotions. For all Americans – but especially for those of us who gave our hearts and our time to getting Barack Obama elected – it is time to move from the warmth of election night jubilation and step into the desert of the real.

In the desert of the real, we must end a pointless war in Iraq while winning a just war in Afghanistan.

In the desert of the real, we must take the lead in repairing a global economic meltdown that is the direct result of America’s irresponsibility.

In the desert of the real, we must protect, defend, and repair a Constitution that has been treated as “just a piece of paper” for far too long.

In the desert of the real, there are still far too many Americans who need our best efforts to help them gain the basic human rights that most of us take for granted.

To those who might accuse me of being a wet blanket,  to those who just want to kick back and enjoy the glow for a little while, I can only say this: there is no time.

There is hard work ahead, and some of it is dirty work, and some of it is the work of generations that many of us will not live to see completed. But it is work that needs doing, work that we should have been doing all along.

It is cold in the desert of the real; the light is bleak and hurts the eyes. But it is where we have to go, because on the other side of that desert is our shared American future. So let’s go, everyone. Wake up, get a shower, and roll up your sleeves.

Welcome to the desert of the real.

A beautiful Day!

Hello my friends!

I just wanted to share with you my joy over Barack Obama’s victory.  It is the first time in years that I feel hopeful about the future – for my sons and for all of us on this planet.  We have elected someone who is a real diplomat and genuinely cares about people, and I believe that America will help solve our global crises instead of driving them.

I was slow to get behind Obama because he is very much a centrist and to a progressive his policies on the war, climate change, healthcare, etc did not hit hard enough.  But that is probably why we have him as our President today, so I am very glad.  I am glad he will improve education and think this will be the key to a brighter future for our country.  I pray for his long life and success.

This morning at about 4:30 am my eldest ran into my room and asked whether Obama was President, so I checked and found it was confirmed!  Coincidentally it is his day for show and share at school and he is taking in a pin that he wore to a few war protests that shows children holding hands around a photograph of the earth from space.  He said he wants all the children in the world to be happy.  Cynical as I am, right now I can believe that his wish just might come true.

Love

Bikemom  

A Illuminati Watcher’s Take

So what we have known is now official and “change” starts.  Mind you the veils or more widely interpreted levels people are at figures into the future heavily.

http://www.proliberty.com/obse…

Adding to that I think our “democracy” here in the US has gone on for such a long time that the disruptive forces of marketing efforts and the info-tainment influence in our society has made the concept of governing ourselves by voting in responsible representatives impossible.  Having lived in Germany, whose government was interrupted by WWII and as such has really only been functional since 1945 has had less time to corrupt itself.  Their political landscape is more real and includes multiple diverse parties.

But what of the US.  What directions do we go in now.

I Witnessed History, Video

Haven’t been able to sleep, certainly last tonight. Been functionally unable to talk about this election for the last week to ten days. I could not look at those I know who voted for hope today without tearing up.  I have witnessed a lot of history in 64 years, written about our shared history, written about our candidate and yet this time I can not find the words. It’s not hero worship or some kind of weird transference caused by a decided lack of religion on my part, but none the less to be so deeply moved it is almost impossible to express. I believe this is true for many of us, perhaps all of us. Follow me below the fold and I will try to share some of those feelings with you.

Election Night Live Blog 2

Time for a new thread…

yes, because it’s over- ek

Election Night Live Blog

Poll Closing Times (according to CNN)

7:00 EST

Vermont, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky

7:30 EST

Ohio, North Carolina, West Virginia

8:00 EST

Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington DC

8:30 EST

Arkansas

9:00 EST

Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming

10:00 EST

Iowa, Montana, Nevada, Utah

11:00 EST

California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Washington

1:00 EST

Alaska

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