Yes, We Can: Barack Obama Video

(As I wrote to a friend who sent this to me...)

Look that guy from the Black Eyed Peas (or is it Wyclef?) wants me to vote for Obama!!!

That's all I need.

(But I'm still waiting for Bob the Builder to sue Obama for vickin' his tagline.)

"Will the candidate with the coolest video win...?"

Could be. The "air" is enough for some.

But again, I remain impressed that Obama can get his entire platform out in such a concise way.

Just watched it again.

It made me feel so good.

Really, I teared up.

But then again, THIS made me cry too.

(But I'm not voting for DeBeers.)

OK ROC, you've convinced me. I'll abandon optimism as a political approach. "Morning in America" was bullshit! After all, Reagan's key to success was not from appealing to the other side of ideological divides, but from focusing only on the negative. I fondly recall his constant downbeat message.

Prof, you are clearly not the target audience for that video. I believe they are trying to get "yonger" people - who may feel somewhat disenfranchised from the political process - to become involved and vote. Can you say "duh"?

sorry. yonger = younger. still need new glasses.

Right, the youth...

Remember, for every "youth" they can pry away from their cellphones, there are 10 senior citizens in walkers who actually vote.

But, alas, you're right. And I feel great knowing it takes more than a celeb in a slick video to get my vote.

Although your idea that young people feel "disenfranchised from the political process" is what youth is all about.

Isn't it?

"morning in America" had some substance appletony. It was a lot more than "yes we can".

Regan ran an ideological and divisive campaign which excoriated Democratic and Liberal values. It also happened to resonate with the population.

How could you possibly compare the two? Remember how hated Reagan was? No one hates Obama, there's nothing to hate.

Obama is running an non-ideological campaign full of a lot of hot "optimistic" air...

But, alas, you're right. And I feel great knowing it takes more than a celeb in a slick video to get my vote.

Indeed! By what you have been posting, it seems like the key to unlock your vote is to be found in specious chain emails.

How could you possibly compare the two?

Because, actually, Reagan did not "excoriate" liberals, he persuaded and exuded optimism. He pointed out the toxic atmosphere that had grown amongst the polity. He spoke in grand and idealistic terms about how the country had strayed from its principles. Both are things that I see Obama doing.

Your untrue repetition of Obama having no substance just comes across as shrill and desperate. I will not vote out of fear and I will not vote based upon what Mark Levin is barking on any given day.

I will not vote out of fear.

Amen.

We'll you'll be happy to know I am now more educated about Obama, I don't think he lacks substance anymore. I think he avoids talking about his positions.

I really should concentrate my criticism on Hillary because in my view she actually has a chance of beating McCain. I don't think Obama does.

But should the most liberal candidate since McGovern reach office, and have his immediate (as promised) summit (of appeasement) with Muslim world leaders, and when he raises taxes, and when he appoints 3 Stevenesque Supreme Court Justices, and all the rest he can accomplish with a sure to be Democratic majority, I hope smelling the sweet perfumed "air" will have been worth it.

and, by the way, do I fear all that stuff? You bet.

oh and by, by the way, I have never in my life watched Mark Levin.

(you've been hanging with cro too much I suspect)

I listen to Mark Levin sometimes on the drive home if I get to leave early. I didn't know he had a TV show. He's more of a yelling blowhard than the hate-filled Air America people, who seem to have toned down the rhetoric a teensy bit.

i don't even listen to Rush or watch o'rielly.

I don't care much for talking head "analysis".

I listen to NPR mostly. (strange, I know)

I would be honored to "hang out" with appletony, ROC.
If you can set that up, you will at last have performed some useful service, beyond comic relief, here.

as would we all, he's a good guy.

I'm a Michael Savage listener. Don't agree with him on EVERY point but he pulls no punches and although h'es a conservative, he doen't take sides but blasts both sides of the political spectrum, left and right.

Oh,yeah, Savage is a real prize. Real intellectual, really parses the finer points of every issue...

From the January 29 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: Kojo is calling from Los Angeles; he disagrees with me. Kojo, go ahead, you're on The Savage Nation. Tell us why we in America should send $45 billion to Africa for AIDS.

KOJO: I don't care if they send the money or they don't send the money. You don't know anything about Africa. So you can't talk anything about --

SAVAGE: What do you mean I don't know anything about Africa? Well, what do you know about America?

KOJO: Let me finish --

SAVAGE: Well, no, I'm not gonna let you finish. You made a stupid statement. That's like saying I know nothing about Egypt because I don't live there. What kind of stupidity is that? We live in a global world. What do you mean I don't know anything about Africa? What's there to know that I don't know about the AIDS epidemic? Tell me what I don't know about the AIDS epidemic that you know.

KOJO: How AIDS got there -- do you know how the AIDS got there? You know how it got there?

SAVAGE [mocking Kojo's accent]: Yeah, I know how it got there, I know how it got there. It got there because it was spread from eating green monkey meat, my friend. If you study the science -- but I don't think you have the capacity to understand science, my dear friend Kojo.

KOJO: You have a big old mouth. You don't listen to nobody. You are criticizing African people, you are criticizing --

SAVAGE: Why don't you just shut up for a minute. You're telling me that you know more about my country than I do but I know nothing about your country. Who has the big mouth here, Kojo?

KOJO: You criticize the president, the candidate, everybody. Why don't you be a president of the United States, you stupid man --

SAVAGE: See, we don't live in Africa where people settle arguments with machetes. We live in a country where we settle it with arguments. Something you apparently don't know anything about.

[silence]

What's the matter, cat got your tongue, my friend, Kojo?

[sound of dial tone]

See, there you go. Couldn't use the machete so his mind went blank. There, that's what we got. There's multiculturalism for you. There's immigration for you. There's the new America for you. Bring them in by the millions. Bring in 10 million more from Africa. Bring them in with AIDS. Show how multicultural you are. They can't reason, but bring them in with a machete in their head. Go ahead. Bring them in with machetes in their mind.

We're not supposed to criticize the president because he wants to send $45 billion to that corrupt continent -- for AIDS, which is a behavioral disease. It can be controlled only by behavior, not by money. Oh, education has really worked for the AIDS epidemic in America. It's really stopped the homosexual community from interacting in their well-known manners.

Cookie: Savage studied medical botany and medical anthropology and earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in Epidemiology and Nutritional Science. Hardly a slouch in the intelligence department.

His Ph.D. is in "ethnomedicine".
He might properly be addressed as "(witch)Dr. Savage."

Cor: I respect ANYONE who has the intelligence, discipline and fortitude to study for and earn a Ph.D. in ANY subject.

Cro: I respect ANYONE who has the intelligence, discipline and fortitude to study for and earn a Ph.D. in ANY subject.

Don't believe what you read on the back cover, dearie, besides being a racist, misogynistic homophobe, he's also a liar and probably borderline psychopathic:

"His 1978 dissertation, on file in the U.C. Berkeley library, shows his degree was in nutritional ethnomedicine. However, the bio in the back of Savage's book and on his Web site says it was in epidemiology and nutrition science."

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/03/05/savage/index1.html

Read the whole article, it's quite an eye opener.

(Mazie was a much better alias)

Actually, MM, those who earn them in actual disciplines do not look favorably upon those who earn them in pseudo-disciplines, or from "Walden" or other matchbook universities.

medical anthropology is a "pseudo-discipline" or is Berkeley a "matchbook" university?

I think it's wise to always add a "heard tell" in one's mind at the end of all of cro's posts.

U of C at Berkeley can hardly be called a matchbook university. Geez, you folks drive a hard bargain. I would hate to be your kid and come home with an A on my report card and have you say, "Those who earn A plusses look down on those who earn mere A's."

Miss Martta, I'd be a bit more cautious about reverence towards Ph.D's. Montclair State hands them out in undemanding clumps, it seems to me, to all manner of half-wits who wind up in (public school) education.

What's covered by "nutritional ethnomedicine," by the way? How to select edible roots and berries when next in the rain forest? How to wean Czechs and Poles away from starchy foods?

(apple, re: 12:06)

Please tell me the "specious chain emails" you referred to...

Medical anthropology sounds much better, ROC, than ethnomedicine". That is what the degree is "in", you see. Try to pay attention, OK.
As For Berkeley, no, it is not a matchbook university. My comment was designed to caution MM against an automatic reverance for degrees, since they are often from less than legit sources and in less than legit disciplines.
The more I read your posts, however, the more I understand why this might be a touchy subject for you.

Is Cookie really Mazie...geesh, it's been a couple of years since I've been insulted by Mazie. I missed her special brand of spewed hatred. Guess what Mazie, I haven't changed.

Republicans still rock!

I was going by what was actually written in the book jacket in question you see croiagusanam and not something perhaps imagined "between the lines".

I looked unsuccessfully for the dissertation. So I decided to use the term "in-evidence" as it were.

But, then that's the difference between you and I, no?

Of course I realize that his not using the term will prove conclusively it's accuracy for you.

Wow, to be in the presence of Her Maziness herself. I don't know if my heart can take it! ARGGGHHHHH!

There are, thankfully, MANY differences between us, ROC. One of them is that it occasionally occurs to me that a person might inflate, or even misrepresent, their educational background, and THAT THEY MIGHT DO THIS ON THE FLAP OF THE BOOK THEY WROTE!!!
If you need a reference, you might look at Severin in Boston (make-believe M.A. from B.U.), or any number of other charlatans on the scene.
Or you could just look at book jackets. That's probably good enough.

and the converse I am sure would not occur to you. That his enemies might seek to denigrate his achievements by "softening" the name of his degree.

Either way, (and I don't know which is true, or particularly care), a PhD from Berkeley is nothing at which to sneer.

May I note that, as of yet, "Cookie G." has not confirmed himself as Mazie P.?

As best I recall, whoever is/was Mazie P. admitted to being male, but also to choosing a female posting handle in hopes of being taken seriously. Which is curiously apt to the contretemps going on above tixt ROC & croiagusanam.

But really, guys, there are more important things to quibble about than the veracity of book jacket info. (How many angels really can dance on the head of a pin, for example? (No one else saw or read Robert Harris's "Enigma," and recalls the importance of "angels dance upwards" to the course of WWII?)

" a Ph.D. from Berkeley is nothing at which to sneer."
I couldn't agree more, ROC. I really could not agree more!

Republicans really need a rock star-type who will inspire them. Conservatives are very diverse. There are the religious concervatives, and the conservatives how rally around liberal hatred and suspicion, ant the "original conservatives" who just want fiscal discipline and financial restraint. McCain is a very traditional Republican, but he is not radical enough for most conservatives these days. They get angry when you call McCain a conservative because he was for fiscal conservatism, which the Republicans don't admire any more. They have become so nuts they are calling McCain a liberal! I'm glad he has resisted his party on issues, but the party is far to the right and he does not really fit in. Many of the fiscal Republicans will be voting for Obama in the fall. They are calling them Obamakins.

I seem to remember that Mazie outed herself on the Baristanet Food Forum as a local caterer. So the handle "Cookie G." actually makes a lot of sense. {{{not that anyone cares.}}}

I just read that Huckabee won West Virginia. No surprise there.

So odd, Brinew2 then that he maybe the nominee if most republicans don't like him. How would you explain that?

I think your picture is distorted. Moderate Republicans (or Democrats) don't make good headlines, the radical fringes do.

A rock star and a preacher man...

Ah, optimism is in the air....

Cookie being Mazie is just a guess on my part. Really owing to my perception of the "voice". There's a particular viciousness to it.

Given that the polls must have around 4 hours left in which to remain open, calling Huckabee the "winner" there strikes me as TV news prognostication at its craziest.

Republicans have a "rock star" in Huckabee. As much of one as bill Clinton ever was, anyway.

I really did try to write in "walleroo" today. Twice! For some odd reason, the electronic machine wouldn't accept it. My apologies to the brave, eminently electable marsupial. And who was the unpledged-to-any-candidate-at-all character on the Dem side of the ballot? No one had a sinilar listing on their Essex County ballot?

West Virginia has a Caucus at a state convention process, the state delegates vote I believe and then it's over. They voted, he won.

I have some renewed respect for the Republicans for electing McCain. He has a sterling character, and is not afraid to buck the crowd and do what he thinks is right. I am for Obama, but am very conservative in some ways. I think McCain would restore the integrity of the White House. if it is McCain vs. Obama, I will feel great. McCain can deradicalize the Republican party. He was one of the first people to speak against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth when the went after Kerry. he would bring back reason and civility to the party.

My theory about McCain is that he's deliberately trying to come off as more moderate so that he can woo the moderate Republicans as well as Democrats or Undecideds who don't like either Clinton or Obama. A rather brilliant strategy, if it's true.

No he's more moderate. He's got a long track record of "moderation".

I really did try to write in "walleroo" today. Twice! For some odd reason, the electronic machine wouldn't accept it.

Having already braved the electronic write-in process last November, my guess is that the primaries simply do not allow write-ins.

I really did try to write in "walleroo" today. Twice! For some odd reason, the electronic machine wouldn't accept it.

Sounds like an organized campaign of marsupial disenfranchisement to me.

I think Obama would make a good president, but I would be worried about anyone who could be swayed by what could just as easily be a Gap ad. I like the video because it reminds me of one of the many reasons why I'm supporting the candidate.

According to the instructions on the machine at my Clifton polling place, appletony, it is supposed to accept a write-in. It didn't. So our favorite rational marsupial goes unvoted for in this important primary.

And far better a vote for him than for such tired party occasions for snoring bouts than Frank Lautenberg and Nia Gill.