Natural History

Posted in Politics | Tagged Barack Obama, Joe Biden | 28 Comments

28 Responses

1. on November 6, 2012 at 8:17 am Cynthia Geremia

   Amen, Scotty! The alternative is truly terrifying.

   
   
2. on November 6, 2012 at 8:52 am msalliance

   And don’t forget: Romney’s the best the Republicans could find.

   
   
   • on November 6, 2012 at 10:47 am Jessica

     Baloney. Romney’s the most neocon of the candidates the Republicans could find. Hunstman or Paul were both intelligent, measured, reasonable people – thus TOTALLY unacceptable to the GOP.

     
     
     • on November 6, 2012 at 4:14 pm massugu

       I agree J, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the GOP split into two parties, the real GOP and the Tea Party. My main concern is that the political pendulum has swung so far to the right this time that ‘moderate’ may be permanently skewed to the right.

       
       
       • on November 6, 2012 at 4:15 pm massugu

         FYI: I would have voted for Huntsman.

         
         
         • on November 6, 2012 at 5:02 pm Jessica

           I just didn’t vote – in Oklahoma the only two candidates were Romney and Obama, and there are no write-ins. As a libertarian I’ve been disenfranchised in my state, and I won’t be herded into voting for another candidate.

           
           
           • on November 6, 2012 at 9:37 pm Dave

             So your neighbours get to determine who your government is?

             
             
             • on November 7, 2012 at 6:37 pm Jessica

               My neighbors determined who my government was way before I ever got a chance to get to a ballot

               
               
           • on November 6, 2012 at 10:05 pm massugu

             I won’t not vote, but its painful sometimes. I could comfortably vote Green in 2008, but felt compelled to vote for Obama (actually against Romney/Ryan) this time–I really didn’t want R/R in the Whitehouse. Ryan is yet another who thinks he’s been anointed by God to lead our country–really spooky!. Also, the most invidious political manipulator since Rasputin is the primary mover and shaker behind R/R (I’m talking about Carl Rove of course). IMO, w/ him working behind the curtains and the Koch Bros. providing funding and direction, the Dubya/Cheney debacle would look good by comparison.

             
             
     • on November 7, 2012 at 9:11 am msalliance

       LOL!

       
       
3. on November 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm kittenz

   There is no Republican party anymore. It’s been overtaken by the Tea party and other extremists.

   
   
   • on November 6, 2012 at 10:11 pm Pai

     ^ This. It’s sad.

     
     
4. on November 7, 2012 at 12:33 am kittenz

   The talking heads keep saying “there’s no mandate”. But I disagree. There IS a mandate, but it has to do with Americans being fed up with gridlock and wanting to see more cooperation among the leaders that we elect. IMO, the powerful image of President Obama and Chris Christie working together in a crisis moved the ordinary people in this country in ways they may not even realize.
   That, and people are fed up with right-wing craziness like voter suppression & intimidation and wanted to prove that they would NOT be intimidated.

   
   
   • on November 7, 2012 at 4:32 am Kathy K

     Amen. I think you’ve nailed it.

     
     
   • on November 7, 2012 at 8:50 am massugu

     Ya gotta respect Christie–even if you disagree w/ him–he’s not a bullshitter. He walks the talk and pulls no punches.

     
     
5. on November 7, 2012 at 12:35 am kittenz

   Oh, and maybe now Mitt can grow a new business. One based on an old hooby of his.
   Drive-Thru Dog Grooming.
   Weimaraners dry a lot quicker than Irish Setters ;-p

   
   
6. on November 7, 2012 at 1:07 am kittenz

   *that should say “hobby”, not “hooby”

   
   
7. on November 7, 2012 at 5:03 am Kathy K

   What I can’t figure out is how Romney got 40+% of the popular vote. I think the threats to social security and Medicare alone should have ensured him no more than about 1%. It appears from the left that people on the right vote against their own best interests. Does anyone understand this phenomenon?

   
   
   • on November 7, 2012 at 8:47 am massugu

     Kathy; I suspect that the popular vote for R/R was the result in no small part of the huge Carl Rove/Koch Bros. engendered media blitz over the past few weeks. The ads kept parroting many of the most egregious lies that R/R had spouted during the campaign. (Don’t get me wrong, the Obama campaign did its sharing of lying too but the R/R campaign led in that department by a clear 33%.) This kind of last-minute BS blitz is a Carl Rove specialty (it usually works btw) and earned him the sobriquet of ‘Turdblossom’ from none other than Dubya.

     As I’ve made clear before, I’m not an Obama fan, but I think that there was a major victory here. That victory was at least bipartite, firstly over the effects of the Citizen’s United decision; and secondly over the concerted neo-con/Teaparty assault on Suffrage and women’s rights. In re this last, I note from my e-mails that a great number of women were elected this time around.

     Now that Obama is in for another 4 years, it behooves us to push him to promulgate progressive policies on climate change and the environment, as well as to back off on policies such as NDAA, the drone program and TPP, which seriously degrade our civil rights.

     
     
     • on November 7, 2012 at 11:12 am kittenz

       I agree, m. Now that the election is over and President Obama has won a second term, fair and square and by a resounding margin, both electoral and popular, the Republicans in Congress will have to espouse a new “number one priority”. Let’s hope that their new number one priority to work together for the good of the country.

       If only to save their own skins in 2014.

       
       
     • on November 8, 2012 at 1:27 am Kathy K

       Thanks. Guess that means I should rephrase my question: why are people open to right-wing messages? Myself, I hear the right-wing idealogical slant and just shut down.
       BTW, here’s a little tip from my nephew: tax the rich. Why? Because not taxing them does not produce jobs. Why should it? But if you tax them, they begin hiring people because that is one activity that can be written off their taxes. They get lucrative deductions for expenses incurred for hiring and maintaining employees. Just a little food for thought.

       
       
       • on November 8, 2012 at 10:05 am massugu

         My opinion? To be overly simplistic, its because these pols tend to provide binary (simple) answers to Boolean (complex) problems.

         In a reality that is composed of shades of gray, black and white solutions are very comforting. They lay the burden of thinking on somebody else–after all, thinking is hard work! Most folks much prefer to follow the feel-good emotional surges engendered by slogans, mottos, name-calling and trigger phrases rather than analyzing what’s actually being said and promised. These same pols also often allow us to lay the blame for the results of our own intransigence on “those others”, (i.e., “the Jews”, “the Blacks”, the Gays”, the Communists”, “the Tree Huggers”, etc., etc., ad nauseam–think pre-WWII Germany.)

         On the whole folks don’t really like change, they want to stay in their comfort zones and feel that their leaders have all the answers. They want straight-forward recipes for success and happiness. They also want to be protected, even from their own stupidity. When some slick snake-oil salesman comes along purporting to have all the answers they fall right into line. This is analogous to the syndrome that led to travesty’s like those of Heavens Gate, the Branch Davidians, People’s Temple, Aum Shinryku, et al.

         One other aspect is the promise of belonging to an exclusive group, thus allowing for the opportunity to look down on others as inferior beings–its a big ego boost as well as being a warm-‘n-fuzzy.

         
         
         • on November 8, 2012 at 1:10 pm Kathy K

           I’d like to know what happens if you give such a person Communist Manifesto to read. Do you think that would change then in any way?

           
           
           • on November 8, 2012 at 4:37 pm massugu

             Nah, if they were willing to read something that wasn’t composed in the form of a sound byte, they’d still stop at “Communist”.

             
             
             • on November 8, 2012 at 9:46 pm Kathy K

               Incommensurable minds? I don’t like that idea, although experience tells me that’s how it is.

               
               
               • on November 8, 2012 at 10:49 pm massugu

                 Lazy minds.

                 
                 
8. on November 7, 2012 at 6:18 am Cynthia Geremia

   @kittenz, your comments about Obama and Christie are so true. They immediately put aside the pettiness and got to work – those are the kinds of leaders I want. I’m tired of politicians only worrying about being elected for their own personal glory.

   By the way, I was watching the news this morning, and they were getting worldwide reactions to Obama’s win. I only saw the reporter in the UK, but she reported that the collective response was “Phew!” We tend to forget that the whole world is watching the antics of our candidates – and the rest of the world was just a worried as many of us were!

   
   
   • on November 7, 2012 at 6:19 am Cynthia Geremia

     Whoops… “just AS worried…”

     
     

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