Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Switchboard >

The Race for the White House 2008

Page: 1 ... 2 3 4 5 6(7)8

03:29 / 05.11.08

He was alluding to the "I've been to the mountaintop" speech there in the second quarter, wasn't he? "I can see it in the distance" or whatever.

Odd thing to cite.

That "Yes, We Can" thing really works, though. Especially on the heels of the bipartisanship quoting Lincoln extolling the virtues of Republican American ideals bit.

Jake, Colossus of Clout

03:34 / 05.11.08

Yeah, it was just excellent. I finally teared up a little. This is just too awesome to process right now. I'm just going to keep the Champagne flowing and hope this shit-eating grin I've got never goes away. Bush has been President for my entire adult life, and I've been watching the country go in a direction that's utterly repulsive to me for that entire time. It feels so amazing to see all that shit repudiated like this. This is just wonderful.

03:41 / 05.11.08

Apparently, a crowd spontaneously gathered in front of the White House. People just left their houses and started walking, and that's where they wound up.

----

Another internet graphic.

06:22 / 05.11.08

Oh dear god, some of those non-topline numbers are nasty. It looks like gay marriage in California is going down, and with it probably any hope of progress within the next couple of decades (bans also in for Arizona and Florida). Colorado has voted by a 3-1 margin to define human life in its state constitution as being a fertilised bloody egg - wtf? Oh wait, I'm reading that one wrong; it failed by that margin. Still, they're probably banning affirmative action, and SD are definitely. And little love though I have for the Democrats, it's still a bit irksome that their senate figures are looking a bit uncertain (Oregon should've been more or less guaranteed by now)...

Anna de Logardiere

07:04 / 05.11.08

I can now sing the theme to Team America: World Police in a more serious way.

07:17 / 05.11.08

Does anyone know where I can get a transcript of the speeches? Also, congratulations America, a step in the right direction.

08:40 / 05.11.08

Yay! Obama! The US finally has a centre-right corporatist President in the White House! Wait...

Oh, ok, I'm as excited as the next terrorist appeasing liberal scum but I'm also aware that despite all the mud slinging from the right, Obama just isn't that radical. Having a Black president is a big deal, for sure, but its not clear to me that that really translates into policy. We'll see.

09:25 / 05.11.08

Well, yeah; frankly, I think there's a case for Obama along with most of the rest of the senate to be tried for war crimes under international law. However, there's a pretty big difference on a number of issues between Obama's centre-right and the utterly-insane-far-right Republican standard which has loomed over the world for the past eight years. So a reserved yay, I guess.

In other news, I just noted Stevens, who is on the batshit insane wing of the batshit insane party seems to be leading his senate race in Alaska with 99% reporting. What on earth's going on with that? He was behind in the polls and *then* convicted of several serious corruption charges; surely he should be completely out of it?

09:28 / 05.11.08

Wow... according to CNN, Obama won NC by about twelve thousand votes. So we went from State red to like a lilac-y color, but for electoral college purposes, I do believe that that makes us blue.

Love it.

09:49 / 05.11.08

Speech is here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1105/breaking24.html?via=mr

They can't try Bush for war crimes (at least not in the US), he already pardoned himself...

10:46 / 05.11.08

bans also in for Arizona and Florida

shit shit shit.

In FL, at least, that was a *constitutional amendment.*

We're doing strange things to our state constitution.

10:55 / 05.11.08

TPM: 4:21 AM ... Now that Alaska seems on its way of reelecting its convicted felon senator and its (little doubt) soon to be indicted member of the House, I realize that perhaps I judged Sarah Palin too harshly. In the context of Alaska politics, I guess she really is a reformer.

Also, it looks like Al Franken lost the senate seat by less than 800 votes.

A hard election for satirists.

Anna de Logardiere

12:02 / 05.11.08

Lurid, it's not so much about Obama being excellent and the idea that he's going to fix all ills, I think we're allowed to be crazy excited because the US actually elected him at all, they didn't opt for the more dangerous choice. It's not so much a good step as a huge relief!

12:04 / 05.11.08

Yay! Obama! The US finally has a centre-right corporatist President in the White House! Wait...

Baby steps baby steps, and not having a fucking freak of a fundamentalist warmonger team at the helm. Maybe in our lifetimes we'll see a true multiple party system in the US.

But it is going to take a shit load of work to correct the evil of the last 8 years plus and get us on the right course for the {{{FUTURE}}}. If Obama has to be more mellow about change in order to drag the entire country into the 21st century I'm willing to have it happen than see a reverse freak out in 4 years. Just having a President who is sane enough to develop sound foreign policies by saying he'll have 'em is refreshing.

Plus I cannot adequately express how proud I am that my country elected a person of color. It's not an end to racism but it feels like one hell of a victory to lay at the feet of Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and countless others.

I dunno if the rest of the World feels this way but I definitely feel like my country is a little less 2D cartoon villain right now.

BrianFitzgerald

12:18 / 05.11.08

Well done, my fellow Americans.

Also, well done my fellow Chicagoans. There was a lot of fear in the Chicagoland area that the Grant Park rally was going to turn into a nightmare of violence and property damage, but it went off beautifully. To see hundreds of thousands of people peacefully soaking it all in and celebrating, not just in Grant Park but in streets all over the downtown area, was wonderful.

It's nice to have hope again.

12:49 / 05.11.08

While it is hard to speak for the world, I do think that there are many, many people who are impressed with the election of Barak Obama and what it says about the US. There is a feeling of hope that is hard to exaggerate and for many a feeling of triumph in the aftermath of the horrible Bush years.

If I sound like I'm not on board, it isn't out of cynicism. Rather, it is because of the possibility of change that Obama should be held to *higher* standards. I want to be impressed and I want this to mark some kind of turning point. But I don't want those hopes to blind me to the reality of an Obama presidency, however that turns out.

Meanwhile I read the hysteria of Mad Mel just to remind me that this wasn't inevitable and something significant really has happened. (To those who don't know her, Melanie Philips is a rather extreme right wing UK columnist - bad for the blood pressure.)

13:03 / 05.11.08

Ooowee she is crazypants! Kind of a relief to know you have 'em too. Well I guess I tend to ignore the BNP by default just to be polite.

Yes higher standards, more accountability, integrity, intellect, and with fingers out of the ears & hands off of eyes.

Yeah the honeymoon will last until Obama takes office and then it will be hard because he'll want to be moderate enough to get shit passed through which will never be progressive enough for most of us. I'm going to give myself until January to be excited that we don't have the third term of Bushness to look forward to.

As an aside I think this election has proven to an entire chunk of America that if you work your ass off you can get results and so I think so many of those who were motivated will keep being motivated to keep pushing. Hopefully.

13:05 / 05.11.08

The woman who sits across from me at work remembers Grant Park as the scene of the 1968 Democratic Convention.

There was symbolism there that I hadn't gotten.

If you're unfamiliar with Chicago '68, the short version is it was the bloodbath that ensured the hippies weren't going to hold their noses and vote Democratic. War protestors, National Guard, billy clubs, tear gas, machine guns. Dan Rather and Mike Wallace (TV journalists) were beaten by police *inside the convention*. It's where the Chicago 7 came from.

More details here.

13:07 / 05.11.08

Most of the people I know feel like this right now. Except my neocon dad. I should probably send him some comfort booze.

13:16 / 05.11.08

There's the pinch on the arm, we still exclude some people from happiness. Reading the results from the gay marriage props is sickening. Still. So. Much. To. Fix.

I'm sorry my friends.

13:26 / 05.11.08

At least the stabbing has stopped.

I'm seizing that from Quantum and making it my new motto.

14:41 / 05.11.08

Yay! Obama! The US finally has a centre-right corporatist President in the White House! Wait...

Oh, ok, I'm as excited as the next terrorist appeasing liberal scum but I'm also aware that despite all the mud slinging from the right, Obama just isn't that radical. Having a Black president is a big deal, for sure, but its not clear to me that that really translates into policy. We'll see.

i kind of know what you mean lurid archive, i know barack is not as as radical as you or i maybe and i do find myself wondering whether it is that big a deal that he is black, after all personally i see no color myself and it makes no difference to me but i think maybe it is more of a big deal for others?

15:00 / 05.11.08

Transcript of Obama's acceptance speech.

15:02 / 05.11.08

DO NOT RAIN ON MY PARADE

15:34 / 05.11.08

It is a big deal if he's Black. Maybe not for you, maybe not for me, but certainly for millions of disenfranchised people of colour across the entire world.
Finally, the States, the so-called "Free-est" nation on the planet has finally loosened it's sphincher enough to allow a person of African descent to become President.
That's fucking huge.
For me this election has been, "Not McCain, Not Palin, Not another Republican pro-corporate-pro-gun-pro-life-pro-IntelligentDesign(tm)-Pro-war extension of the Bush Empire.
Being a white Canadian that's all the election was about for me: This morning on the news showed me how big a deal the colour of Barack's skin really is and should be. He's become a symbol. He represents the potential for real change manifest. Being a socially conscious moderate allowed him to get this far.
Like XK said: Baby-Steps. I'd love to see him Nationalize banks and natural resourses, etc... But he first needs to fight a whole lot of rich... I'd love to see him pull everyone out of Iraq on Jan 21st, but he first needs to fight Haliburton, Blackwater, CACI, etc...
He was elected as president, not emperor, and rightly so. He needs to take small steps into the water to show everyone opposed to him how much nicer his way can be...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:21 / 05.11.08

Not sure which is the more awesome- Obama winning or Mazarine posting again!

That was good. I've got the awful hangover I was expecting, but it was celebratory drink and drugs, rather than drowning our sorrows.

16:34 / 05.11.08

Mazarine, definitely.

Meanwhile: RALPH NADER I WILL FIND YOU AND SHAKE YOU LIKE A DOLL MADE OF RAGS!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:51 / 05.11.08

Nader, you fucking penis.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:59 / 05.11.08

I want to find a bar in London where American racists hang out. I want to see their fucking faces.

...I'm still drunk.

17:18 / 05.11.08

Stoatie...
I understand your anger, but you say penis like it's a bad thing...

Janean Patience

17:35 / 05.11.08

I've been looking for right-wingers struggling to take this in all day, and Melanie Phillipstan is taking it as I predict many on the right-wing will; by lurching right. "If we'd nominated a real conservative, we'd have won..." Thinking which led the Tories away from power for years. I hope that happens, as much as rationally there needs to be a strong opposition. But I'd just feel safer knowing they were all off in some nasty bigoted corner, repeating their vapid and cruel truths to each other, fucking themselves.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:41 / 05.11.08

Just read that Melanie Phillips piece. It's good to know that my hatred for that woman burns as brightly as ever.

For anyone outside the UK- the only thing that makes Melanie Phillips any better than Ann fucking Coulter is the fact that she doesn't have any guns.

17:43 / 05.11.08

Newsweek has published a great behind-the-scenes article.

Not only were both campaigns attacked by hackers (possibly Chinese or Russian), but the Palin thing was even worse than we on the outside imagined:

Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: "Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin."

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:01 / 05.11.08

Haha- even 4chan's changed the /b/ banner to "O/b/ama- your new supreme overlord".

Man, /b/'s gonna be a LOT of fun tonight. Should bring out both the racists and their natural enemies, the intelligent.

I don't foresee a great deal of sleep.

18:55 / 05.11.08

Had Palin ever lost an election before?

She may have been genuinely unprepared for God letting her down last night.

Page: 1 ... 2 3 4 5 6(7)8