<p>You pay for it by cutting funding in areas that are bloated. I think educational system was doing quite fine before the Dept. of Education was created. It expended 88 billion dollars in '07. I’m sure there was a quite a lot (NCLB - 12 billion) that could be trimmed.</p>
<p>Dept. of Health and Human Services budget in '07 - 670.5 billion dollars. Almost $6,000 per tax payer. </p>
<p>I’m not defending the war but it’s not like we’ve even attempted to cut spending in other areas to keep from raising taxes. </p>
<p>Go through and look at the sheer number of dollars the gov’t spends in each area…our money. They have enough of our tax dollars (well, except mine…after the handy stimulus package I got about $600 of some rich persons money- Thanks!)</p>
<p>I agree that Obama clearly loved his grandmother. I don’t think he is bigoted or a racist. </p>
<p>I feel pressured to be more brief in my postings.</p>
<p>It was not OK to use the phrase “typical white person”, and it’s particularly unbecoming in a man running for president. No matter how eloquent the spin is, use of the phrase was out of line, and it is concerning. </p>
<p>I also think it lacks judgement to in any way slight his beloved grandmother in order to make a point (especially when the goal was self-serving, as he was trying to get out of political hot water).</p>
<p>Not an Obama supporter but last I checked he did vote against the invasion which gives him some moral-high ground. It’s unfair to rip him for voting for funding. Now that we’re there we have to pay for the war.</p>
<p>My late father was a “redneck” from Ohio, and your grandmother sounds pretty much like he was. He didn’t THINK he was bigoted in any way, no not at all. But he really was the product of a time and place that he was never entirely able to leave behind. Although in his final years, devout Catholic that he was, he hosted a joyous Jewish wedding/reception for me, in honor of my husband and his family.</p>
[quote]
I agree that Obama clearly loved his grandmother. I don’t think he is bigoted or a racist. … It was not OK to use the phrase "typical white person. …
I also think it lacks judgement to in any way slight his beloved grandmother in order to make a point (especially when the goal was self-serving, as he was trying to get out of political hot water).[/quite]</p>
<p>As much as I support Obama, I have to agree with you on this, Spidey. I cringed when I heard the words “typical white person” come out of his mouth. They were not well chosen at all, and his grandmother should never have been brought into the discussion. Just MHO.</p>
<p>My g-mother was a wonderful person. Just very gruff and cranky. She was a product of her times and environment. There are still many, many people out there like her today. My dad is less bigoted than she was, I am less than he and with any luck my children will be more tolerant than I. </p>
<p>The only exception I make to that is I hope my kids deplore stupidity as much as I do…that is my true achilles heal. I abhor stupid people (not talking about intelligence…I’m talking about people who do stupid things).</p>
<p>“Not an Obama supporter but last I checked he did vote against the invasion which gives him some moral-high ground.”</p>
<p>Oh good grief. Obama DID NOT vote against the invasion. He was in the Illinois state senate at the time. He gave a speech at some rally in Chicago where he said he didn’t think it was a good idea. It was so insignificant that the Chicago Tribune didn’t even mention he was there when they wrote up the rally the next day. Big deal.</p>
<p>Damn! Hate it when that happens. I don’t know where I got that then…I guess I assumed him being against the war meant he voted for it. Wasn’t paying attention to time frames…assumed, ya know how that goes! Obviously confused and wrong, sorry! Please refer to post #369 to see what I think about post #365 then! lol</p>
<p>No, Obama did not “vote” against the invasion, but he “spoke” rather articulately against it. A misspeak on the part of pmrlcomm. See, we all do it! … My father was also a wonderful guy. He seemed to love everybody, and if I ever called him on a racially questionable statement he made, he would invariably act offended. “How can you say that? Some of my best friends are ____s!” (Fill in the blank with the politically incorrect name of your choice.)</p>
<p>Re-reading earlier statements of yours should clarify my post #351.</p>
<p>Hunt:
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I can’t speak as to why it would be “obvious” to anyone that "typical white people’ are “made nervous by Black people” on the street, or that “white people are afraid of Black people”. In another place and time (in the south, decades ago), you could argue that “the majority are most likely…”. Today? No way.</p>
<p>But you didn’t just talk about why it is obvious to some and not others (which I answered, BTW). You have stated that it is in fact true, and that not everyone sees that truth. I know you are wrong, and I don’t think you should think it, feel it, or say it (although I do think that debating this subject here, as we are, is a valuable and interesting thing).</p>
<p>There is no partisanship. After reading your post, I think it is perhaps the case that I share the same perspective on the term “typical white person” as Obama, and as a result neither of us scarcely could have bristled against it until now. I explain this more fully below.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The similarity here is only superficial. We are all creatures of the past. Many of us do not sense this as much as others do, but in a very real sense it is true for all. Where American blacks are concerned, we are quite significantly creatures of repression, born here as a people because of it, and born into it by various means. Of course we are not only creatures of repression, yet repression lies at the base of everything else that we are in America. Obama’s presidential run, for example, laying aside his Nigerian roots, is defined by it. It simply would not be historic without it.</p>
<p>Now this repression did not come from a distinctly Jewish or Arab majority, but from a white American one. When I therefore see Americans, I do not and cannot see whites, blacks, Jews, Arabs, and others as having the same relevance to the historical influences that make me what I am. Jews, Arabs, Hispanics, Asians, and all other non-white groups have themselves had issues of repression from the white majority, albeit not as severe as those experienced by blacks. When it comes right down to it, I can see only two most relevant groups, one that has been preferred by America, and one that hasn’t. We are making progress, but I doubt there is a black or white person anywhere in America who can escape this definition. When I therefore hear the term “typical white person”, this is what I have in mind, and I suspect it is what Obama sensed when he used the term. He was referring to the traditional relationship between the groups and saying that his grandmother fit in that relationship in the traditional way. You claim it unfortunate, and it truly is, but not because Obama used the term. What is unfortunate is that he so took the relationship for granted that he apparently assumed everyone else understood it and was therefore unable to be sensitive to it. I understand it perfectly because I too sense it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Come now. You really are going too far. Obama truly was not ‘making a bigot out of his grandmother’. He took great pains to underscore how she loves him so that people like you could not easily assume that bigotry is what he was claiming in her. She is as much a victim as anyone else (but apparently she has worked on the issue, and very well). He was saying that she, like all whites, is in the system that influences her existence in the same way it broadly influences everyone, depending on their race. And that influence means it creates certain dissonances between the groups. It is that dissonance that he claims we need to eliminate and that is actually being eliminated gradually (which I disagree with, but that is beside his point). When Obama spoke, I heard exactly what he was saying, whether he reached you or not. I actually thought more of his grandmother, not less. She has been influenced, and unlike most whites I have encountered, she knows it. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am sorry you came to a stop here. I do not apologize for the comment because I think it justified. Those who are so insensitive to the dilemma facing America that they run uncritically into essentially the same failed behaviors that got us here in the first place, deserve to get exactly what they get. Of course I don’t think Obama is the solution either. He is a better solution than McCain, but he by no means provokes in me anything that comes near to what I might call a great expectation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well I can imagine it being used toward McCain because it is not like such a thing is out of character. I at one point leaned toward McCain and against Obama, thinking that McCain had experience, and that at a minimum he would do no worse than Bush. I now am convinced using the term in connection with McCain is quite justified.</p>
<p>December 1985, Atlantic Monthly – we see Joe Barton (R-TX) and McCain screaming and cursing one another, then brawling on the House floor.</p>
<p>August 6, 1993, Boston Globe –we see McCain screaming and mocking Ted Kennedy, and shouting for him to shut up. Kennedy tells him to shut up and act like a Senator.</p>
<p>February 1997, Washingtonian - McCain is giving a statement when he is interrupted by 92-year-old Senator Strom Thurmond, committee chairman. McCain later gets into a fight with the old guy.</p>
<p>February 21, 2000 , Newsweek – McCain and Pete Domenici. McCain screams “Only an [rectum (Is that how I might refer to the curse here)?] would put together a budget like that.” Domenici replies calmly, McCain continues to shout, calling him a [rectum].</p>
<p>February 21, 2000 , Newsweek – McCain calls Grassley a ‘[f’ing Jerk] in the senate.</p>
<p>May 18, 2007, The Washington Post – Screams "[F’] you!” to in the Senate to John Cronyn.</p>
<p>Now journalist Cliff Schecter claims three other journalists confirmed with him the validity of the claim that McCain called his wife the c-word. It is so much within character that I find it easier to believe them than to not believe them.
</p>
<p>This is true, and it was a mistake on my part, not some partisan “twisting” of the comment. I heard McCain’s original statement when it was first made, and also heard his defense of the statement made afterward. I apparently joined the beginnings of two as one defense. Even so, the differences between Japan/Germany, nations we helped rebuild after our participation in a legitimate war, and Iraq, a nation we had no business destroying in the first place, are so great they belie the alleged trustworthiness of McCain’s abilities over anyone else’s that I see running in this presidential race.</p>
<p>
Of course you are supporting my point. Here you are using a generalization of all women, white or black, and describing how they will act in the circumstances I described. In my description I made sure to point out that the situation exists for any guy, white or black, but that I think it especially exists for blacks.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Please. I think you are just being uncharitable. Obama clearly loves the woman, and knows she loves him. He is trying to show you how race operates even within his own family, how the established and uncomfortable conflict between whites and blacks, handed to us by history, exists within his own friends and family, making him and everyone else uncomfortable, and yet leaving them still bound together irrevocably. Essentially, he was saying history has given blacks and whites a real nasty pickle, but it is not so nasty that it would break up relationships that are unbreakable. He was not harming his grandmother. He was placing her in context of American history and telling us the simple and surprisingly unvarnished truth.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There is another way to put it, and it is the truth, indeed it was an education to all of us on how to deal with racism. The man was just facing it, after explaining how culpable everyone is for it, including blacks. He explained that there are established definitions and patterns of behavior in America regarding race that exist in his own family, in his own grandmother, and that it is not that big a deal (it isn’t). We can have the issues that everyone knows we really do have anyway, be honest about them, and still love each oher more than anything in the world. The most cynical thing he could have done as a presidential candidate was to tell lies about how his white grandmother ‘never saw color’, how “everybody was always the same” and how “his best friends are white,” and on, and on, and on, ad nauseum with all the completely cynical and total ridiculousness that we always hatch and sling around whenever it comes to race. We all say these silly things when we all know they are just lies. That, my friend, is cynicism.</p>
<p>Obama is almost certainly telling us the truth about this. And he was not being cynical in the least. His grandmother certainly did say those things. Let’s face it. Vast numbers of you have said and felt the same things at some point in your lives. She certainly felt those things about black guys, and yet she is so madly in love with a black guy that she sacrificed for him again and again. Basically, we see that though racism is a tough thing that has been handed to us by history, it is not invincible.</p>
<p>It wasn’t exactly an altruistic speech. He had a very pressing interest in its success. But I tell you the truth, there was a lot of good stuff there. Obama was trying to show how issues of race threaten us, but how they need not destroy us. He was doing this so that he might hold onto Wright despite his race issues, by demonstrating how he holds onto his grandmother despite hers.</p>
<p>Hindoo, this wasn’t a misspeak on Pmrlcomm’s part. He clearly stated in the post directly before yours (his 371, yours 372) that he thought if Obama was against the war it meant Obama voted against it. There is a big big difference between making a speech at some rally that doesn’t even make it into the local newspaper and sticking your neck out in a vote in the US Senate. Somehow this has morphed in a lot of people’s minds that Obama did the latter and not the former and it irks me every time I see it. (no offense pmrlcomm) If you take the time to read the Ryan Lizza article in the New Yorker issue that started this thread, which is a spectacular piece of journalism I might add, there is a pretty detailed description of how that speech came about, including the allusion to the idea InterestedDad once made that Obama made the speech to keep one of his Chicago donors happy, and that his heart was not in it.</p>
<p>No offense to you either Hindoo; still like your posts. And Dross, your posts are still illuminating but I just don’t have time to read them all. They are educational and mind changing. fwiw - for whoever wondered if the granny ever did anything to justify Obama’s opinion, there is a scene in the first book where she tries to get gramps to drive her to work so she doesn’t have to take the bus cause the day before a black guy was hanging around the bus stop. The two of them get in a fight about it; gramps won’t drive her and Obama winds up doing it. Gramps called her a racist, but Obama felt sorry for her so he drove her.</p>
<p>So sorry. Because we read and think in my home, and have many ideas that we wish to declare and explore with others, I have failed to accommodate you here.</p>
<p>This was all quite a bit; and quite thoughtful.</p>
<p>I will say this though:</p>
<p>I have to reject the “patterns of behavior” argument you have made against Senator McCain (your list on why using an epithet against Sen. McCain is appropriate); as I have rejected the “patterns of behavior” argument Shawn Hanity has made against Senator Obama (Ayers, Wright, Resko, ect). Compassion, common sense and redemption require at least that much.</p>
<p>For that reason, I regret your inclination to continue to use such a derogatory epithet when naming Senator McCain publicly (even if any of those “3 other [anonymous] reporters” ever decide to come forward to verify to the public what they seem to have verified to the journalist Cliff Schecter). </p>
<p>Still, I would never be so presumptuous as to argue with you over what you feel about racism in America and what you have felt of racism in America. Or even to dispute your certainty over what other Afro-Americans feel and have felt…even what you suggest many Euro-Americans must feel. I can, however, equally well say how I feel, if not with the same eloquence – it is difficult to favor another’s feelings over ones own sincerely held.</p>
<p>My marriage is bi-racial. I would never argue these things with my wife so I see no reason to think I would be any better off arguing them with anyone else.</p>
<p>We will have to disagree over any immaculate theories that make it alright to call out your own grandmother in public as long as it is for a worthy cause. It is one thing for Jesus to lecture his mother saying to Mary, </p>
<p>*“'Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.’” He was the Messiah.<a href=“Joke…sort%20of”>/i</a></p>
<p>And of course, I agree with all who say that there is no reason to doubt Senator Obama’s love for his grandmother. Who does not love their grandmother? </p>
<p>That in it self would not be much of an insight into anyone’s character; but as with Senator McCain and his wife above, I suspect that how you refer to them in public does give an insight into the character of your devotion to them. (another joke…sort of)</p>
<p>And whereas you say you feel no sympathy in saying that people deserve a bad president, I believe you also said you were once leaning toward Senator McCain yourself. Bringing to mind another religious truism: there but for the grace of god go I. Literally, in this case.</p>
<p>I hope you keep posting all your wonderful insights. Though I seem to disagree on this rather minor point, I always appreciate the thought you put into your commentaries. </p>
<p>Or standing up as a lone voice saying, “Hey, if you’re gonna wage this war, at least go about it the right way, which you are not doing and here’s what you should do… And by the way, The Secretary of Defense is incompetent and should be fired!”. (Paraphrasing of course).</p>
<p>There are numerous occasions where McCain has put his neck on the line politically (& even literally!).</p>
<p>Have I gotten any of you Obama supporters to rethink your position yet?? :)</p>