i did not vote for obama because i actually paid attention to his idea of change and didn't see it as believable or doable. i don't think very many had any concept of what he meant because many voted for him for one reason only and never cared about politics before and then there were the young voters who are still ikn thier youthful ideological stage where they have only a slight understanding of life and unreasonable beliefs of life and politics, IMO. i'm not speaking about those that actually take time to research. and then to hear him pushing bailouts with such urgency yet not putting into them any stipulations concerning things for which the money could not be used such as large bonuses when they posted their largest 4th quarter loss in history (61.7B). since when is it the american way to reward failure? i have my motorcycle insurance with AIG and i know their insurance department was legit so i am battling internally whether to follow my values concerning the entire entity or stay with them for my insurance because that department did no wrong. i have until march 30th to decide.

I voted for him because the black people in line with me were happy and unafraid and I've waited my whole life to see that.

I didn't like Obama's campaign and would have gladly voted for Clinton and then because I wanted a competent exec, not a movement.

I was wrong. It doesn't matter that he can or can't change it. I voted for the fact that they wanted it. Consensus. Who am I to tell these people that he can't do it if they believe he can and because they believe that, they believe they can? That's the miracle of faith.

But if a movement it is, we should get to moving things.

Just like OBAMA, for the first time are seeing just how deep the trash is and wondering if Obie is orbiting the Death Star or running it.

If AIG is treating you right, go with it. It's a name. Don't get fooled by names. Organizations are NOT their leaders. Don't invest more until these deadbeats are gone.

Go local. Then find the brothers and sisters.

I don't usually post on political threads but I find it strange that is the only reason you voted for Obama...and I'm confused by your second statement. What didn't you like?

Oh the things we say to strangers. Reasons?

1. This is Alabama, fitzy. I'm native born. It's been a long time coming.

Unless you grew up here, I don't know if I can explain the perspective of being on the wrong side of history because you are born inside it, not because you believe in something that is wrong.

We don't have to accept the prejudice, but we can't change people who don't change themselves. Otherwise, all we can be is a fair witness.

And sing the songs of others who are. So, Arlo. A long time ago when the world was exploding around the culture of my birth, his voice and his songs were touchstones to peace and a better life. Because of people like Arlo and Pete, I didn't have to accept the prejudice. I had better examples. Folkies. Good people on a mission singing simpler songs for longer remembering waiting like medicine for when the time comes for the change.

2. The thugs. The treatment of Senator Clinton. It was sexist and it sucked. Change isn't made better by force and even if faster, it snips the threads of it's own unwinding.

Just one opinion. The people spoke and I'm good with that decision.

I voted for Obama because I found him to be the smartest, most sincere and most real person running. As un-american as that may seem of late, I stand by it.

Sounds like valid reasons, Larry.

Going long here. This is very personal. Apologies in advance. For those of you who know your Doonesbury lore, I was born and raised in the real Fritters, Alabama and yes, I saw Nixon give that famous speech here. Another story for another time...

I found Obama to be into it for Obama and while that is not a disqualification, it didn't help my desire for a trustworthy competent exec. On the other hand, a friend who traveled with him, stayed in the room with him, etc., agreed with you and it was a good recommendation.

I had problems with his pastor. That opens up a can of worms on this list, but where I live, we get to watch a lot of programs from the black churches. Many are intensely homophobic and that was another inconvenient fact for his campaign since the gay community was supporting him. Now they get to see why it is a difficult problem to trust the politicians.

It became a 'win no matter what because losing is too fearful to imagine' and that element of fear is a mindkiller. He mixed a witches brew of different desires and while that is good politics, it is often bad government. You have to do what you can do or otherwise it just stirs up the chickenhouse and all the eggs go bad. I want no part of the Great Get Even or the politics of rage. Rage cycles and movement piled on movement driven by irrational rage is sign of a diseased culture.

Everyone has perspectives and the point of an election is to enable different perspectives to air, then vote. Then we move on. It's the American Way. It's also the way that got us The Bush Dynasty and so by demonstration, is not perfect. An election is a merchandised media frenzy and because I've some background in semiotics, I wasn't fooled by Bush, knew the economic tsunami was coming, and understand how the web as amplifier works. No ego. It is what I do. Parts of the way the Obama campaign was run sucked.

The Big One: I'm uncomfortable with this topic but that's ok. I could say nothing but somehow it seems to me Arlo's forums are a good place to have conversations. If that is wrong, he can tell his moderators to delete me. Understood in advance.

Somehow it will come back to race and no one with my background can discuss that as well with people who lived distant from the events and don't have a 360 degree panorama of what went down back in the day and just how diverse the roles really were. We see a 2D flattened set of stereotypes in most movies and other entertainment. It isn't that simple. It never is.

The election became about race. I understand that but it also became a bludgeon on people who didn't have that objection. We got pounded on the lists and by people who worked for and in his campaign. Means matter. Means tell one how far one will go to achieve an end.

As Pete Seeger observes, it isn't a Solid South. Some who lived through the 60s here had to stand up to our friends, our families, and anyone else who got in the way to fight the good fight. And we were kids. To be told 40 years later we are racist if we don't vote for him but it's ok to put uninal cakes with Senator Clinton's face on them up for sale and that is not sexist defies any semblance of decency. Obama said nothing and in my book, that made him a chicken hawk. Smart but unwilling to take the kind of risk it takes to step in front of a Harlan county thug and take the blow.

This one kept me up last night. I don't want to rehash the election or perpetuate a stereotype. I don't want people to believe that I don't support the President. I do. But when from my perspective, there were things to be understood, finally I decided based on what was closest to me, I decided local. Because I grew up buttermilk (white kid raised in black neighborhood), I made a decision of the heart to vote for black people's chance to have an inspiration, for hope, for everything we've fought for since the 60s when I was just a kid torn between a culture that was dieing but was mine and culture needing to be born and was Arlo's and Pete's.

So I voted race. There it is.

I waited a long time for the hate to fade from the faces of my neighbors only to see it back in the faces of my family. And that rips a new hole but it is the price of freedom and sometimes the cost of change. Will it be justice? If we make it so, it will be.

At exactly the point I rediscovered the inner Arlo, I posted this:

http://lamammals.blogspot.com/2008/03/m ... ooker.html

Maybe it says it as well as I can. Peace.

I understand that many people voted either for or against Obama owing to race.I find that to be a sad but true fact. (I'm not one of them. )Obama had me half way through his second book.
The media frenzy and "sound bites" account for way too much influence for the average voter in my view, but I have to accept that as a reality.
I'm sure it's takes an ego to want the job, but for the first time in decades I saw a candidate in Obama as in it to DO the job, not just GET the job, and I saw him as more in it for "us" rather than "him".
Time will tell. Intellect and pragmatism seem to be qualities this man has in abundance which I find refreshing and needed.

Good summary, Larry. No quarrel with any of that.

Maybe the medicine is that with his election we get past race as we had to get past religion and in the bargain we also get a good president and that is as good as it gets. Whether or not he will be completely effective is what we wait to see. A lot of other players affect that and it can't all go on his shoulders. The economy and the war(s) are the big tests. Getting the MIC under control is augean. On the other hand, if he plays the economic crisis well, he will also be holding up a mirror to the culture of consumption and we need that.

Me, I want to see Arlo on TV at the White House playing "In Times Like These" and I'm going to work on that. It's a long shot but not an expensive bet. A simple message and a good song can do quite a lot to lift us up around the world.

I wish I had an AIG bonus just once in my life. I would be set!

Should I feel "Sorry and Ashamed" I feel that way?

freedom freedom, kindly, loving,
you'll be absolutely free
only if you want to be

(I think Frank Zappa said that)

I wish I owned my life!

(I said that)

i'll say what i said throughout the campaign - obama is only half black and his white half is the american half...lol i probably would have voted for hillary if she had made it (and not because she's female) but i just couldn't see the change that was promised. i vote for ralph nader anyway so my vote never matters but i might have changed this year.
as for my motorcycle insurance with aig, i will probably stay with them since that is one part of the conglomerate that stayed "honest".

PS sez:

Nope. OTOH, the people at AIG are afraid to come to work this week and are getting death threats. I'll take a simpler life with less stuff and die at my desk. Then they can haul me off with the other equipment that's out of warranty or toner.

Disposable shoes ain't the same as disposable souls. I think the AIG guys chose unwisely.

I think Bill Maher had it right when talking about the bankers that got us into this mess when he said(paraphrasing) " If you take just two of them out and shoot them, the rest will get the message".

I would add "and politicians and lying media radicals."

I don't really advocate shooting them (I doubt Larry or Bill do either), but I do advocate some really awful, horrible public humiliation followed by seizing ALL of their assets. Let them live under bridges.

Edited to correct typo.

first, i want to say i was born in new orleana and raised in baton rouge so i am no stranger to corrupt politics but i just couldn't get past obama's spritual mentor for over 20 years. i watched the entire national press conference so he couldn't snidely remark to anyone "did you see the whole thing?" implying he was taken out of context AGAIN. i had a real problem when obama didn't denounce wright strongly after the first sermon, if you can actually consider it a relgious sermon. and the statements alluding to that's just how black churches are was so ignorant to me not only because i have been to black churches
but also because i lived near atlanta for 15 years and twice a year, on mlk's birth and death days, the ebenezer baptist church was on tv most of the day and many of the leaders of the civil rights movement were in the atlanta area and many served as mayor, congressmen etc. - andrew young, julian bond, john lewis etc - and they never spoke in the way wright spoke. they were/are all positive speakers and role models. i also knew most of the "change" obama was promising was change that was not predictable as happening and after he was elected, he announced he knew it wasn't going to happen probably in his "first term" and i know many black people who actually thought, because they didn't bother to listen to him, that they were going to receive checks in the mail soon after he was elected. i wonder how the average wage earner is liking that extra $13 in their paychecks each week. now, after many bailouts being given, no one in the congress or administration has yet to begin to stipulate how bailout money can or cannot be spent. did anyone notice rev. al and jesse jackson didn't have much to say during the campaign? they are more in line with wright and i believe they were saying amongst themselves that obama was too white but didn't want to come down on him as they did on bill cosby who spoke about personal responsibility. i truly believe that the most racist people in america are african-americans and i just do not think obama was ready to be president.

Hey Dave, we need to add a head scratching emoticon.

Nah, I don't advocate shooting them.
However I would consider putting them in stocks in the town square, the ducking stool, the iron maiden or perhaps stoning.