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s8loud · February 19th, 2008, 02:43 PM

I can understand the fervor around Obama's candidacy, but I think we have to approach this with some realism. The bottom line is that Obama is just another corporate candidate who happens to be Black. Sure, he's charismatic and knows how to woo a crowd, but his interests don't lie with those of mainstream america:

1. he doesn't favor single-payer healthcare (not the same as the "universal healthcare" he keeps talking about), and that's a bad thing: the only reason a healthcare crisis exists in this nation is because of insurance companies, and the most Obama can say about that is that we need "affordable" healthcare. heck, why not free? that's the way the rest of the industrialized world does it, and each has remarkably better care than america offers.

2. he wants to expand the military. simply put, that means more wars, which means more death, continued misappropration and misprioritization of our tax dollars, etc. so, he's not as "anti-war" as he likes to present himself.

3. he won't come out against NAFTA which has devastated the lives of millions in Latin America (and, thus, the immigration issue) to the benefit of american corporations. the most he'll say is that NAFTA needs to be "renegotiated."

4. a significant portion of his campaign contributions come from firms (including Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase) who want to privatize social security. is anyone in favor of this? i know i'm not.

5. Obama still champions nuclear energy and coal as the answers to the energy crisis when, as it's been documented time and again, that those two approaches will do little (and at least continue to worsen in the latter case) to combat global warming.

6. He supports Israeli apartheid against Palestinians.

The list goes on, but I'm sure you get the point.

I don't write all this to bash Obama and his candidacy; however, I think it's important to do some basic fact-checking around the issues that are important to us. For instance, where does he stand on the sentencing inequities in federal sentencing on crack and cocaine cases? What about inner city poverty? What about social and environmental racism? As far as I've read, he hasn't taken an unequivocal stand for or against any of these issues, and I think we should pause when we hear his lofty sloganeering that amounts to little or nothing in the context of effecting the "change" he wants us to believe he represents. Personally, I think he's more an agent of the status quo more than anything else.

Let us not be so naive as to think that his past is an exact indicatator of what he'll do as (vice) prez. Politics has always been an exception to that rule.

February 19th, 2008, 02:43 PM	#249 (permalink)
s8loud Afro Resident Resident s8loud is offline Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 161 Thanks: 0 Thanked 43 Times in 30 Posts Rep Power: 8 Credits: 1,044	I can understand the fervor around Obama's candidacy, but I think we have to approach this with some realism. The bottom line is that Obama is just another corporate candidate who happens to be Black. Sure, he's charismatic and knows how to woo a crowd, but his interests don't lie with those of mainstream america: 1. he doesn't favor single-payer healthcare (not the same as the "universal healthcare" he keeps talking about), and that's a bad thing: the only reason a healthcare crisis exists in this nation is because of insurance companies, and the most Obama can say about that is that we need "affordable" healthcare. heck, why not free? that's the way the rest of the industrialized world does it, and each has remarkably better care than america offers. 2. he wants to expand the military. simply put, that means more wars, which means more death, continued misappropration and misprioritization of *our* tax dollars, etc. so, he's not as "anti-war" as he likes to present himself. 3. he won't come out against NAFTA which has devastated the lives of millions in Latin America (and, thus, the immigration issue) to the benefit of american corporations. the most he'll say is that NAFTA needs to be "renegotiated." 4. a significant portion of his campaign contributions come from firms (including Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase) who want to privatize social security. is anyone in favor of this? i know i'm not. 5. Obama still champions nuclear energy and coal as the answers to the energy crisis when, as it's been documented time and again, that those two approaches will do little (and at least continue to worsen in the latter case) to combat global warming. 6. He supports Israeli apartheid against Palestinians. The list goes on, but I'm sure you get the point. I don't write all this to bash Obama and his candidacy; however, I think it's important to do some basic fact-checking around the issues that are important to us. For instance, where does he stand on the sentencing inequities in federal sentencing on crack and cocaine cases? What about inner city poverty? What about social and environmental racism? As far as I've read, he hasn't taken an unequivocal stand for or against any of these issues, and I think we should pause when we hear his lofty sloganeering that amounts to little or nothing in the context of effecting the "change" he wants us to believe he represents. Personally, I think he's more an agent of the status quo more than anything else. Let us not be so naive as to think that his past is an exact indicatator of what he'll do as (vice) prez. Politics has always been an exception to that rule.