Obama/Mccain. Discuss.
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 7:51 pm
here we can list pros and cons about each candidate or interesting quips that may play into the upcoming elections.
i'll start by providing a good article a friend wrote for the new issue of the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement newspaper about Mccain, and end with a good analysis of the precedent of race regarding Obama's candidacy.
posts don't need to reflect a particular view of course--i just like discussions about this.
MCCAIN
source: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?st ... aam-mccain
By the Way, McCain is a Bonehead Too
by Adrienne
Augist 23, 2008
Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement newsletter
Here at the BAAM newsletter, after roasting Obama’s stances in two consecutive issues, we felt it would be prudent to explain the obvious; we oppose his “opposition” as well. This incredibly easy task of explaining why McCain is pure evil fell to me.
McCain supports gender-based pay discrimination, tells rape jokes, called his wife a cunt in front of reporters, repeatedly votes against fund-ing for measures that would prevent unintended pregnancy and publicly announces his support for overturning the Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right to an abortion. He has vocally opposed first amendment rights and has expressed more than once his ignorance on economic issues. Other goodies from his voting record: he loves oil, AIDS, corporate fraud, and government corruption. He hates Katrina victims, affirmative action, education, the environment and children with disabilities.
He is on record, and on camera, saying to 60 Minutes, “I disagree with what the majority of the American people want.“ He loves Bush, often expresses admiration for Bush policies and is on record, and on camera, saying the War On Iraq should continue for another 10,000 years. He is similarly on the record and on camera singing, “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,“ to the tune of “Barbara Ann.“ McCain once demanded that Representative LeBoutillier drop his pants to prove that he wasn’t wearing a wire.
Maverick McCain, that pragmatic centrist, is ideologically opposed to contraception (yes, that includes condoms) and medically accurate sex education, despite his life-long open enthusiasm for sleaze and smut.
But doesn’t that reinforce our need to support Obama, the structural optimist will ask. Obama’s views on abortion are extremely patronizing, he joked around with Bernie Mac about how women are hoes, he routinely addresses and dismisses reporters and random women as “sweetie.“ Despite Obama’s lip service to gender pay equity, the men in his staff outrank and outnumber their female counterparts, who also receive less pay. In 2001 he expressed willingness to compromise racial and reproductive justice to confirm Supreme Court nominees who were anti-affirmative action and pro-coerced pregnancy. His voting record is alarming by how many important, contentious issues he declined to vote on. As has already been covered in previous editions of the BAAM newsletter, Obama hates immigrants while hearting NAFTA and Zionist occupations. Like every other politician on the planet, Obama is bought and paid for by powerful lobbies, but unlike other candidates, Obama accepts their donations through third parties like the Democratic National Committee and law offices so it doesn’t actually look like he’s accepting lobby money. The presumptive Democratic nominee is generally a right wing tool masquerading as a means whereby meaningful change can occur.
Which all brings us back to why we are anarchists to begin with. These bloodthirsty imperialists are the two viable candidates for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world. These politicians are both terrifying and we should be running and fighting for our lives rather than trying to decide which of the two is less evil and more fit for the office. While these dangerous lunatics are off drinking the blood of workers out of champagne glasses, I’m thinking we should be organizing decentralized models of anti-oppressive sustainability and autonomous, horizontal decision-making structures and cooperative uses of resources. You know, anarchy.
OBAMA
source: "False Hope vs. Real Change" paper(http://hackasheville.com/nornc/uaftp/do ... preads.pdf)
THE PRECEDENT OF RACE & THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
While this summary suggests that this election is just another page in the long book of tyrannical government and a cutthroat economy, at the same time it undeniably touches on important issues, in particular the racial implications of Obama's campaign. For the first time, our next president might not be another white man. But how can a Black man emerge as a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination & the presidency, at the same time that the majority of all Black men in the US, at some point, serve time in prisons & jails? With a nation-wide spread of nooses at high schools, colleges, and workplaces--the symbol of mass white complicity in racist terror though lynching--how is it possible that a Black candidate for president can garner compelling majorities in predominantly white states?
These paradoxes reveal how Obama's candidacy actually reinforces the foundation of white supremacy on which our country is based. His success reinforces the myth that poverty, particularly Black poverty, is the fault of the poor. It is an alluring possibility that our country's legacy of racism might not prevent its targets from attaining political power, supposedly
demonstrating the fulfillment of the democratic promise of America. But racism and white supremacy are deeply ingrained institutions, not offices to be held, & thus cannot be voted out. Obama's chance at the presidency says less about how far we have come in overcoming the racist foundations of our society, and more about the flexibility of the system to allow a person
of color to lead its imperialist, ecocidal agenda. So long as Black people are being incarcerated at alarming rates, communities of color are held hostage by the threat of state violence, and the US military continues to occupy nations & kill people of color across the world (continuing the 500-year-
old system of European colonization) the color of its President does not matter.
extra interesting quip: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?st ... 3160256899
i'll start by providing a good article a friend wrote for the new issue of the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement newspaper about Mccain, and end with a good analysis of the precedent of race regarding Obama's candidacy.
posts don't need to reflect a particular view of course--i just like discussions about this.
MCCAIN
source: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?st ... aam-mccain
By the Way, McCain is a Bonehead Too
by Adrienne
Augist 23, 2008
Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement newsletter
Here at the BAAM newsletter, after roasting Obama’s stances in two consecutive issues, we felt it would be prudent to explain the obvious; we oppose his “opposition” as well. This incredibly easy task of explaining why McCain is pure evil fell to me.
McCain supports gender-based pay discrimination, tells rape jokes, called his wife a cunt in front of reporters, repeatedly votes against fund-ing for measures that would prevent unintended pregnancy and publicly announces his support for overturning the Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right to an abortion. He has vocally opposed first amendment rights and has expressed more than once his ignorance on economic issues. Other goodies from his voting record: he loves oil, AIDS, corporate fraud, and government corruption. He hates Katrina victims, affirmative action, education, the environment and children with disabilities.
He is on record, and on camera, saying to 60 Minutes, “I disagree with what the majority of the American people want.“ He loves Bush, often expresses admiration for Bush policies and is on record, and on camera, saying the War On Iraq should continue for another 10,000 years. He is similarly on the record and on camera singing, “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,“ to the tune of “Barbara Ann.“ McCain once demanded that Representative LeBoutillier drop his pants to prove that he wasn’t wearing a wire.
Maverick McCain, that pragmatic centrist, is ideologically opposed to contraception (yes, that includes condoms) and medically accurate sex education, despite his life-long open enthusiasm for sleaze and smut.
But doesn’t that reinforce our need to support Obama, the structural optimist will ask. Obama’s views on abortion are extremely patronizing, he joked around with Bernie Mac about how women are hoes, he routinely addresses and dismisses reporters and random women as “sweetie.“ Despite Obama’s lip service to gender pay equity, the men in his staff outrank and outnumber their female counterparts, who also receive less pay. In 2001 he expressed willingness to compromise racial and reproductive justice to confirm Supreme Court nominees who were anti-affirmative action and pro-coerced pregnancy. His voting record is alarming by how many important, contentious issues he declined to vote on. As has already been covered in previous editions of the BAAM newsletter, Obama hates immigrants while hearting NAFTA and Zionist occupations. Like every other politician on the planet, Obama is bought and paid for by powerful lobbies, but unlike other candidates, Obama accepts their donations through third parties like the Democratic National Committee and law offices so it doesn’t actually look like he’s accepting lobby money. The presumptive Democratic nominee is generally a right wing tool masquerading as a means whereby meaningful change can occur.
Which all brings us back to why we are anarchists to begin with. These bloodthirsty imperialists are the two viable candidates for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world. These politicians are both terrifying and we should be running and fighting for our lives rather than trying to decide which of the two is less evil and more fit for the office. While these dangerous lunatics are off drinking the blood of workers out of champagne glasses, I’m thinking we should be organizing decentralized models of anti-oppressive sustainability and autonomous, horizontal decision-making structures and cooperative uses of resources. You know, anarchy.
OBAMA
source: "False Hope vs. Real Change" paper(http://hackasheville.com/nornc/uaftp/do ... preads.pdf)
THE PRECEDENT OF RACE & THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
While this summary suggests that this election is just another page in the long book of tyrannical government and a cutthroat economy, at the same time it undeniably touches on important issues, in particular the racial implications of Obama's campaign. For the first time, our next president might not be another white man. But how can a Black man emerge as a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination & the presidency, at the same time that the majority of all Black men in the US, at some point, serve time in prisons & jails? With a nation-wide spread of nooses at high schools, colleges, and workplaces--the symbol of mass white complicity in racist terror though lynching--how is it possible that a Black candidate for president can garner compelling majorities in predominantly white states?
These paradoxes reveal how Obama's candidacy actually reinforces the foundation of white supremacy on which our country is based. His success reinforces the myth that poverty, particularly Black poverty, is the fault of the poor. It is an alluring possibility that our country's legacy of racism might not prevent its targets from attaining political power, supposedly
demonstrating the fulfillment of the democratic promise of America. But racism and white supremacy are deeply ingrained institutions, not offices to be held, & thus cannot be voted out. Obama's chance at the presidency says less about how far we have come in overcoming the racist foundations of our society, and more about the flexibility of the system to allow a person
of color to lead its imperialist, ecocidal agenda. So long as Black people are being incarcerated at alarming rates, communities of color are held hostage by the threat of state violence, and the US military continues to occupy nations & kill people of color across the world (continuing the 500-year-
old system of European colonization) the color of its President does not matter.
extra interesting quip: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?st ... 3160256899
