Barack Obama Elected President!

[Wales2004]

From a logical perspective, it's more than possible for a non-racist to make racially insensitive remarks. People say insensitive things and then say they didn't mean it that way and they're not racist. It happens. The standard isn't whether or not the person saying the words feel they're insensitive or racist, the standard is whether or not the hearers feel that way.

If someone tells another that his or her words are/were offensive then along with clarifying that the intent was not to be offensive, that individual, if courteous, would apologize. The fact that I didn't mean to step on someone's foot doesn't negate the fact that the person may feel physical pain as a result of it.

It's irrelevant whether or not you or a million other people think someone is being hypersensitvie to anything. You're not the person and you can tell a person how to feel or react but you can't control that person's feelings. Being a better person may seem like a pain but it's the right thing to do.

Part of my response to this is covered in what I said above. The other part is that I disagree with you on the notion that you are being attacked purely on your political ideology. I don't think your poltical beliefs have even entered into the discussion since you've mainly offered up your criticisms of Obama, his supporters, and included personal attacks on him. That picture labeling him a snob is a personal attack plain and simple. It has nothing to do with politics and is racist. Yes, I said. The reason that it is racist is because if he were white, no one would worry about labeling him as President elect a snob to the point that they'd create a poster of it. I could be wrong, but I rather doubt it.

The "joke" you posted was racially tinged. It suggested that three black people should be killed because it would make the 56 million people that voted against one of them happy. Who cares about the 63 million that voted for him? Even if a black person made up the "joke" it is still racially tinged. Their conversation didn't even make sense but why should it since the punchline about making people happy over their deaths is all that matters. Don't even bother accusing me of hypersensitivity.

You may be a great guy.....I have no idea. Based on what you've posted it seems that your animosity towards Obama is strong and it's not all about his policies since he hasn't taken office yet so you really can only speculate. Besides, you've criticized him for people "adoring" him and for being a "snob" and neither is a political policy or ideology.

[SnCCorinthos4ever]

I just keep on thinking that the only reason he got away with shooting that guy in the head was because he was the VP, had it been "Joe the plumber" he would have been spending some time in an orange jump suit.

[Roman]

Please, keep posting crap like this.

I beg you to.

You see, this is apparently what you just fail to see. Your Republican Party go their asses KICKED two years ago, and three weeks ago, for spreading bullshit like this. If you want to continue to push your hatred of this man, by all means, I welcome it with open arms, my friend....

And when your party gets their ass kicked two years from now, you can KEEP posting this garbage and the Democratic Party will just keep winning and winning and winning.....

It's amazing you don't see that Brian. I now await your next persoanl attack on Obama (damn, this is fun).

[Greg's GL]

That pretty much sums it up for me.

[Wales2004]

Does anyone find the idea of an Al Quaeda leader defining what is an honorable black man (one who happened to be a Muslim) and what is not just a tad bit comical? I'm sure whoever gave him his information got the labeling of Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell as house negroes from good old Harry Belafonte.

[Roman]

I'm still laughing at him calling Obama a "House N-word".

Must have read it in this thread.

[Evan]

Great news about Alaska!

I hope Al Franken gets over the line in MN, and Jim Martin wins the Georgia runoff in early December.

Obama has now won over 67 million votes, yes they are still counting absentee votes from some states.

His margin over McCain keeps growing(52.7% - 45.9%)

Republicans, suck it up!

[Ryan]

I do. It's absolutely absurd. Murdering terrorists calling someone honorable. It's an oxymoron...actually it's just moronic.

Speaking of moronic....the CEO's of the Big 3 American Auto Companies took private jets down to Washington to get on their knees for money. Lame....

I'm not sure what to think about these companies begging for money. It would be one thing if they fell on hard times due to the market, but most of this is due to mismanagement from within. I don't have people bailing my ass out of debt. I've got fecking credit card bills and student loans that need repaying. You don't hear anyone offering me a damn bail out (though if anyone wants to...my address is 555 Help-a-bitch Lane, Brigantine NJ )

They could use all that money and give it to the American people (omg, what socialist tendencies I have) to help them get out of debt, prepare for the hard times and stimulate the economy.

Evan! How are ya? I've missed you and your avatar/banner. Glad to see you around

[Greg's GL]

Too funny.

I'm torn between the auto company bailout. Whomever had the bright idea of taking the private jets to DC should be shot cuz it's not helping their cause. My sympathies lie not with the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler. They have had years to turn around their product line and did nothing. They willingly produced Hummers and Excursions as long as their profit margins were growing. It still pisses me off to see someone driving an Excursion with a "Save the Environment" tag. How ironic is that?

Regardless, my sympathies lie with the suppliers. More times than not, these are not behemoth corporations and they employ quite a good bit a hard working Americans. If the auto industry goes, so do they, and that's the conundrum for me.

On another note, did anyone catch Mike Huckabee on The View yesterday? This man did not impress me one iota during the primaries, but he did on the show. Granted, he's a social conservative, meaning he would more than likely discriminate against me and my ilk. However, although he said he didn't vote for Obama, that he (Obama) is now HIS president and will everything he can to support him. That's an attitude more Republicans should have, IMHO, and not deride him before he takes office.

One last thought. I hope that the election of Obama will start to heal long-held racial issues between whites and blacks in this country. A fear that I have though, is that it may to more to widen the disparity between the races as to how far we've come since the Civil Rights movement. Whites may think things are just peachy keen now that a black man sits in the Oval Office, but I don't know that it should be the end of the discussion. Undoubtedly, blacks may feel more progress has been made, but we all have a lot more work to do, don't we? Does anyone else feel this way?

[Roman]

I just want him to be treated fairly.

If he and his admin. do well, then give him credit. If he [!@#$%^&*] up, jump in his [!@#$%^&*] with both feet.

But the same people who wanted Bush to be OUR president are the same people who are calling this man out of his name. And it's not being based on his policies....it's him, personally.

I would love to meet anyone halfway. But I'm also not going to do all the work either.

[Ryan]

I feel the same way. The workers are paid to work. They would make cars that ran on water if they could. They just do what their bosses tell them. I'm just mad that my tax money, your tax money is going/may go to save these companies that were ran terribly for years. They've been losing money for years but NOW they feel like they'll go out of business. When they started losing money they should have begun changing their business plan. I think these companies filing for Chapter 11 would be a good thing. Yes people will be bound to be laid off and that will trickle down, but these companies have to be held accountable for their poor business practices, fiscal mismanagement and god damn it I'm tired of these billion dollar companies getting checks.

Huckabee is quite entertaining to watch. I wish more people would handle things the way he is when it comes to Obama. However I disagree with The Huck on the gay marriage issue. No surprise there.

And yeah agree with what you said about the racial issues in this country. Just because Obama is president doesn't mean that racial inequality is over. It doesn't mean that everything is all honky dory. I spoke with a co-worker of mine who feels that affirmative action should be over now. I said to her, "You oversee a department with 300 employees. You went to a great school, was the top of your class. Do you know that without affirmative action you probably wouldn't be the head of your department? Affirmative action made it possible for you to even be considered to have your position. You didn't automatically get it, but it forced TPTB to look at your resume."

She kinda thought about it and was like yeah, I guess you're right.

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done.

[UCLAN]

Finally, a topic I can discuss. the previous vitriole was more than I could bear.

Big 3 bailout--I think only of the workers who will suffer if jobs are lost---can we really handle more displaced workers?

Mike Huckabee-any member of any rock and roll band is cool with me.

On a serious note; the dialogue on race relations in this country will ,in my opinion, always be a constant. I feel and know that we have come along way in this area. Obama won this election because people saw the character not the color. I think many people find it difficult to accept, thus the personal attacks on Obama, you know "I don't like his views", "he's too left for me" kind of thing. I believe these are excuses to validate feelings about being uncomfortable with a person of color as President. It's a big change for this country and change is often very difficult to accept. I believe that is why we see all the posts regarding fear for the future of our country. Based on the nature of those posts I think the discussion needs to continue.

[Wales2004]

At first I was thinking that they should be helped because it will put maybe 2.5 million people out of work. With help they would be getting money from the government and still producing but now I'm leaning more towards letting the companies go bankrupt. When you have management flying in on private jets to ask for financial help and oh so generously offer to take a $1 a year salary to show they're serious and you're like me, you ask why aren't they already taking the $1 salary and why are they not flying business class already? They'll get the money, pay themselves bonuses and come back for more because they get to hold line workers up as bait.

Unless the government is going to lay out some strict guidelines and make them pay all the money back with interest, then they should not get anything.

I didn't see the show but I saw a clip this morning. I thought Mike Huckabee was okay all along so my opinion of him hasn't changed at all. The one thing he's recently done with which I strongly disagree is he took jabs at some of his fellow Republican opponents. He should be above that.

I really have to mull this over to give a fairly decent response. Off the top of my head though, I would say that overall it's a step in the right direction. There are going to be people with racist tendencies that are below the surface.....to the level where they don't even realize they have them.....that will have a hard time dealing with this and will probably take their resentment out on their "friends."

Discrimination isn't going to end with this one thing. Basic rights can be legislated but no one can legislate what is in the heart and mind of an individual. Some people may start dealing with feelings they never knew were there but it's also important that people communicate openly and honestly as well. Oh and let me stress sensibly because that's really important. It's complex in many ways but kind of simple in others.

[Wales2004]

Really Roman.....you don't want to do all the work.....I mean who do you think you are? You do remember you're uhm..... supposed to right?

[Roman]

The CEOs of the Big 3 auto makers got blasted for coming to the Senate hearings in their private jets.

One Senator said "This is like showing up at a soup kitchen in a high hat and tuxedo."