On Vox: Obama

[gothic_rebecca]

Ahead of the debates, I want to ask you all a question.

Should the association that Obama has with others matter?  Rev. Wright's opinions/delivery bother the heck out of me.  The fact that Obama seems to have closely associated with this terrorist also irks me.  Not enough to NOT consider voting for him, but should it?  Is it an important issue to

Comments

[mistressindi]

Well, one thing at a time...

The ACORN stuff I think is a non-issue, as far as Obama goes. It gets mentioned every election year. The issue is this: for each voter registered, the person doing the registering gets some sort of bonus. The people doing the registering will thus fill out fake slips in order to get more bonuses. This hurts ACORN but not anyone else, because ACORN is paying the money to register these nonexistent people.

Say that some guy registers Mickey Mouse as a voter. That's going to cost ACORN in fees and postage, and also in the bonus given to the guy who did the fake registering. It doesn't mean there's an extra vote in the system. Mickey Mouse is never going to cast a ballot, because there's nobody with photo ID of that name to hand to the nice old people at the polls. I'm more concerned about Diebold dumping votes right and left - as a Floridian, registered Democrat, it's entirely possible my vote in 2004 got thrown out - but the GOP won't speak up about that, because it's always dumped in their favor.

As for Ayers - the Weather Underground was active when Obama was *eight* years old. Since the Weathermen disbanded, Ayers hasn't been sitting in his basement building pipe bombs. He's put his energy into education and anti-poverty work... working inside the system to change it, you could say, instead of attacking it. Sounds like he's not the same guy he was 40 years ago.

What Wright says doesn't worry me. He sounds like a black guy who's dealt with a lot of nasty race-related stuff, and has grown tired and angry. Angry Black Dudes scare white people, in general, because the white people don't think they personally have done anything to incur the ABD's wrath, and being white, they haven't experienced the things the ABD has so they don't know why he's angry. But it does happen. Racism is still very much a part of this country. Have a look at this and you'll see what I mean.

Again, comparatively - Palin was part of an organization that called for Alaska to secede. Wright's just pissed off because after the Civil Rights movement, everyone was all "OKAY GUYS IT'S ALL GOOD NOW" and it's really not all good now.

For what it's worth, I'd be considered a radical these days - but that's because the US centerpoint has trended further and further right and I've stayed put. 10 years ago I was just an ordinary Democrat. These days, if you say "Some stuff is still fucked up, and we should do something about it, because we're Americans and we should be better than this," that brands you anti-American. Not a view I agree with, but it's how some people think. Your average PETA member would say I'm a status-quo centrist. Sarah Palin would say I'm the threat to America. It all depends.

[magenta69]

Thank you Indi, that was a wonderful explanation. To me, I just ignore most of this type of stuff in the media, because I can understand becoming associated with people who don't share your same thoughts and views. I don't believe that Obama thinks exactly like those he is associated with.

I am totally voting Obama this year. I have opened my eyes so much these last 4 years and am ashamed of how I voted 4 years ago. I wasn't being true to myself and allowed others to influence me. Not anymore. I am even very close to changing my party from "No party affiliation" to "Democrate" because if I really think about it, I have always been more of a democrate than a republican all my life.

[mistressindi]

Happy I could help. I think it's important that, if allegations like this get raised, people actually take the time to find out what's really going on. Because otherwise, we wind up with a bunch of creeps shouting racial epithets, like at those Palin rallies.

And you know, I'm seeing SO MANY PEOPLE saying the same thing as you - that they're voting Dem this year, that they can't believe the party they'd allied with has turned into this. It looks like America is going to shift leftwards again, due to the evangelical rabid-right contingent in the GOP. Stranger things have happened, yeah, but this I didn't expect.

[gothic_rebecca]

I'll be voting for Obama too. I think that I was making the mistake of getting my opinion shaped by the networks, and failed to consider the other side of the stories that are being spun on the air.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[gothic_rebecca]

What great points! Max and I have owned a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook for years. We must also be considered Domestic Terrorists to some just because of that. ;)

As I mentioned in on of my other responses, I think the spin has finally addled my brain. With the kids, I have very little time to dig for the truth, so I take the Network news at face value cause that's all the time I got. Sadly, because of this, I think I'm confused on some facts. And I'm loosing the bigger picture in terms of Policy, and not this superficial mumbo jumbo. So thanks for your wonderful opinions, as usual, and thanks for pointing me in a more conducive line of thinking! :)

[squeezystan]

I have some Canadian friends who visited for 2 weeks last summer, and they were APPALLED at how biased the news networks were.

I'm voting Obama because McCain-Palin scares me. They're too religious for my taste. Religion has no place in government.

I find the Republican point of view is still stuck in 1958. This is 2008. We need to move forward, and I think Obama will be the young point of view we need to set this country to rights. I know I'm ready for the change.