Positive Obama thread

Amy-I don't really have firm feelings one way or the other about Caroline. I have always felt she is very bright, calm, excellent public speaker and a real authentic human being. Personally, I think she would make an excellent Senator; but my opinion won't matter much as I'm in CA and have not been in the thick of politics and the people it gathers together. I believe she would do as fine a job as Hillary has; guess it just depends on whether or not she wants to spend a few years as a Senator. She has an elegance and grace about her that is so much like her mother. And considering the choice made for repub vp candidate; this country would be very very fortunate to have someone of the stature of Caroline Kennedy in Congress! Intelligence, kindness and real caring count for a whole lotta in my book!

As far as GITMO and the "alleged terrorists" held without any charges being filed, and tortured in the process, and in violation of Geneva Convention; we would be lucky to skate with just sending them back to their native countries! If their countries had done this to US citizens we would have had them on trial in Nuremberg by now. I think the way the pres and vp have comported themselves for the past 8 years is despicable and utterly without character. These two yahoos should have been brought to trial under international law and charged with war crimes. They have committed so many, I won't even bother wasting the work of my fingers to list them. I am disgusted with the way Bush ran this country for the past 8 years and wish he and his cronies could be tried and put in prison. I can't even think of the words to describe what they did without swearing a blue streak! Too bad our economy is so bad--doesn't seem to be any money even for our own citizens who were taken to the cleaners by low life loan companies with subprime mortgages. The corruption just echoes what comes down from the top. Total lack of sensibility, morality, ethics, or a really true faith based philosophy. I think Bush and his ilk should be writing letters of apology to all those that have been subjected to his evil brand of behavior! Perhaps we could just send Bush and ilk to the GITMO's detainees' native countries where these nasty political creatures could wait on these people hand and foot. Oh, yes, my idea of justice is they suffer their just deserts!! Send them to the desert in Africa to help feed the homeless. I'm sure we could come up with some other sentences that would fit their crimes. Isolation in prison would be too good for them!

And I don't believe that all these detainees are necessarily terrorists. Most of these detainees seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, look like al queda, or pronounciation of the name sounds like al queda. It's another issue with racial undertones! Like racial profiling.

I am hoping Obama will be able to repair the damage Bush and ilk have done to our reputation abroad. Other countries who cheered when he was elected seem to be hoping that will happen also. If we are going to keep the planet alive for our childrens' children and so forth, we must unite with all other countries as we are all here on the same planet, drinking the same water, eating the same food made from the earth, and breathing the same air. We need to be mindful that there are only so many resources on this planet. I like the latest commercial showing clean coal environment--a dead desert--with the reality that there is no clean coal!  And, love the wind and solar commercial that is against drilling and coal. The car companies have their work cut out for them if they are able to convince Congress to loan them money. Interesting that Honda has their assembly lines set up so that they can switch production from one type of vehicle to another without losing any time or employees. And the American car companies can't do that because, what?

Amy, I know that LEGALLY there is no difference ... but I don't believe they got to GITMO by accident even if they didn't have enough evidence to convict.  Since you have read about it, why don't the countries they came from want them back and why are they subject to death??? 

The Real Bill Ayers By WILLIAM AYERS


December 5, 2008

IN the recently concluded presidential race, I was unwillingly thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a profoundly dishonest drama. I refused, and here's why.

Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama's campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: "What do we really know about this man?"

Secondary characters in the narrative included an African-American preacher with a fiery style, a Palestinian scholar and an "unrepentant domestic terrorist." Linking the candidate with these supposedly shadowy characters, and ferreting out every imagined secret tie and dark affiliation, became big news.

I was cast in the "unrepentant terrorist" role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the "Two Minutes Hate" scene from George Orwell's "1984," when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.

With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.

Now that the election is over, I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn't me, not even close. Here are the facts:

I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices - the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious - as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation.

The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be - and still is being - debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.

Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.

I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I've been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education.

I have regrets, of course - including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else. No one can reach my age with their eyes even partly open and not have hundreds of regrets. The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long.

The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.

We - the broad "we" - wrote letters, marched, talked to young men at induction centers, surrounded the Pentagon and lay down in front of troop trains. Yet we were inadequate to end the killing of three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans during a 10-year war.

The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other's behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we've been unable to rise above it.

President-elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the same diverse and yet close-knit community; we sometimes passed in the bookstore. We didn't pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.

Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let's hope they never will again. And let's hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue.

William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of "Fugitive Days" and a co-author of the forthcoming "Race Course."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06ayers.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

<The reason I called Obama Messiah is that everyone ( including you) expects such great things of him that it will take a miracle for him to fulfill at least half of expectations. BTW, who mam I disrespecting here Messaiah or Obama,?>

Referring to Obama as The Messiah was an attack used by neocon supporters of the McCain campaign. 

I don't think those of us who favor Obama have ever called him a Messiah.

There are a number of reasons why, but this is the big one:

Why is it only successful black politicians are referred to as "Messiah?" 

<The reason I called Obama Messiah is that everyone ( including you) expects such great things of him that it will take a miracle for him to fulfill at least half of expectations.>

Poor choice of words, at the very least. The terms; Miracle Worker, Magician might possibly convey your reason better and be more politically correct. 

<BTW, who mam I disrespecting here Messaiah or Obama,?>

Neither or both. the two have nothing to do with each other.

Wow..I was only away from the boards about a day and look at all that's going on!!  There's alot of incorrect info on here as far as the housing market and loans.  I'm a Realtor and have been for 12 years now.  I am seeing the entire thing from that end.  The housing market is usually the first to go under and the first to recover in the circle.  This time is no different.  If the feds drop the rate to the talked about 4.5% fixed, I think it might get a few more buyers into the pool.  However, the banks have to loosen up on that money they were given to supposedly jump start the loans.  That hasn't happened.  To fix this thing, they do need to look at the housing market.  It's been down for a couple of years now.  So..as a Realtor, I think we're very close to the bottom, if not already there.  But for the rest of the circle, it's not hit there yet.  I agree we will not start seeing prices jump up any time soon, but I do think we will see things start to sell again and the prices stabilize to the current market.  We are in a recession, but I don't think panic is the answer.  We need to get a collective thought together of some optimism and how to resolve this. It sucks, but there is a way out.  We need to work together.

Madalyn,

 America's been my "new country " as you put it for 2/3 of my life now.  I left Soviet Union because I was discriminated against as I was Jewish. I could not even get to college even though I was a straight A student. here I was able to get to UC Berkley engineering where noone cared about my religious prefernce, So please don't lecture me about the freedom as you did not have to go through what I went through and spend your life as a second rate citizen and you have no idea what it is.

As far as Ayers having a small  harmless bomb in a bathroom , ti's a good thing no one was there but what if someone happened to get there for some reason , they could get hurt or have a heart attack. Have you thought of it ?

Little g ... I wish, pray and hope you would be right but the news reports are grim here in Cali.. and I have a hard time believing them ... they say that they are going to continue to drop here for the next 2 years.  The news reporters can cause an idea to take root and they can cause a frenzy or panic.

I just find it impossible to think that when I bought my house OVER 6 years ago ... that the value would come down to that or lower.  If they stay where they are right now, it would begin to help us recover.  One encouraging thing is that 2 houses sold on my street one even bank owned and the value was over $100.000 more than I purchased my home for 6 years ago ... so x'ing my fingers.,.

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Regarding the banks ... in my industry they are tighter than ever ... when you could get a term of 180 months is now cut down to 144 and sometimes 120 ... although this will eventually HELP our industry down the road when people want to trade, people aren't used to quoting such high payments.

Years ago payment terms were short ... and we were used to it... I remember laughing when they said they's go 240 months for a 25,000 loan!!!!!!  But our sales managers did it .. and 5 years later when a customer wants to trade he is mad ... why?  Because he is "upside down" ... he hasn't paid the loan down enough.  So what did we do?

Well, we financed the negative equity on to the new loan .. and sometimes the banks would go 300 months if the loan was over $100,000 ... who in their right mind would finance a motorhome for that long??  We finance people would shake our heads but sales drove us to get it approved and the banks did it. 

Like I said, eventually, this will help .. but they can't see that now.

Amy and Laura, it's nice to be missed :-)  RM..I agree with you about media.  They are capable of creating frenzy.  But only if we all follow that train of thought.  That's the hard part.  Moving beyond it.  CA prices have been booming in most areas for many years now.  The leveling off, or "market correction" is always bound to happen.  Prices can not continue to go up while the average salary is not climbing at that same rate.  It is good news that 2 homes on your street closed, and for more than what you purchased at.  I think most of us that do own homes are in the same situation, seeing our market value go down.  But it was really getting over inflated.  Madalyn..the word from the fed is that they are considering dropping to that rate.  Which would be a good start, but again...the bank needs to actually let go of all the money we lent them, so we can borrow it back, and pay interest on it.  Really crazy when you think about it. 

Amy, I certainly believe in redemption ... after repentance ... see, he has not said he was wrong or sorry.  Or did I miss it? I have read unrepentant ... correct me if i am wrong.  People can change . 

Sometimes, it seems to me, that he excuses his behavior ... saying it was ok since the war was illegal.  I don't want to debate the war but since our country was fighting it ... it wasn't considered illegal here by authorities.   To me, abortion is illegal but I would never even block a doorway.  I won't block their way even with my vote ... it's not up to me about someone else's body. My point is I consider it illegal and I won't resort to voting against it much less bombing!