American Politics

[QUOTE=Cruiser D]
Secondly, no racism in the Ivy League? Have you guys ever gone to an Ivy League school? Social class rules and then it's racism.

;)[/QUOTE]

well, since you asked:yup yup, cum laude from the 2nd or 3rd most selective ivy college. did two years at an east coast boarding school too.

one of my homie's from prep school is skull and bones and he grew up in the projects with a single mother.

your comments about the ivy league are as removed from reality as gbgb's comments about politics are.

one's college is only important in entry-level type positions. once you are established it's all about performance. but I will say that the people at mckinsey, bain & co, de shaw, goldman, the whiteshoe law firms do come ovewhlemingly from elite schools because that's where they recruit from. if you didn't go to a big time school you need to have a family member at the managing director/sr vp level to enter the recruitment process.

anyway, the smartest guy I ever knew went to ucla, studied phillosphy, and now makes a modest living writing test questions for the sat and lsat.

dj, who cares about intelligence..it's about playing the game of life and winning it to a degree that will allow you to do what you want....for you that means bedding hot women; for others it means traveling to exotic places, having a nice car, and a big crib....what good is it to be smart and broke? no pussy, unless you like hippie girls that neither shave nor shower and live in boulder or humboldt county.

[QUOTE=DirkDingy][QUOTE=CBGBConnisur] Do you think Bush or Cheney lived in adversity?? QUOTE]

that's exactly my point!!! anyway, bush was a fighter pilot. even if he dodged the draft i assume he went through ocs and fighter pilot school...which is more than obama or cheney ever did. cheney was a lineman at yale. I'm not syaing that playing football makes one a good leader, but it certainly makes one a better man.
[/QUOTE]

If that's true, how do you explain the nauseating piece of shit that Five Deferments Dick evolved into in his adult life - spending his entire career helping various scumbag Presidents evade the Constitutional checks on their Presidential powers, and sending braver young Americans than he to die in furtherance of his facist ideology of enriching oil companies, one of which he is and remains a major shareholder.

It's inconceivable that, absent playing football at Yale, Cheney could have somehow been an even lesser human being than he did turn out to be.

And don't make any assumptions about the rigors of Dumbya's preparation. As a legacy son of his famous and well connected father, all sorts of doors were propped open for him that he would never have cleared on the merits of his own character - including the one allowing him to simply not show up to his training duty for nearly six months in Alabama, and yet still receive an honorable discharge rather than a conviction for desertion during his years of deep cocaine and alcohol addiction.

I might also point out that such stellar representations of character as Lawrence Phillips, O.J. Simpson, Pacman Jones, and Michael Vick have played major college football - along with any number of other felons. Better men indeed.

Oh, and the last President with a pre-Presidency resume similar to that of Barack Obama's was another legal scholar from the Illinois Statehouse, by the name of Abraham Lincoln. He turned out to be remarkably well qualified for the job of saving the nation from it's worst crisis ever. Not because of his experience, which was marginal, but because of his wisdom and character and personal resolve, which were all remarkable - and, not in the least, by his ability to inspire and lead through great oratory in support of his personal vision of his mission.
.
.
.
.
.
Oh, and Cruiser D. Jeri Ryan's messy divorce with her husband, including allegations of spousal abuse, allowed Barack to slide into an easy victory in his first run for the Senate seat from Illinois, running against Ryan's ex. But more credit should perhaps go to Iron Mike Ditka, who turned down the Republicans last ditch bid to put him on the ticket instead of Ryan's ex-husband, because he didn't want to give up his lucrative gig endorsing gambling casinos.

Yes I know degrees make the world go around... I just haven't had clue what to do with myself and I am not of the camp that just going to school allows you to "figure things out".

I am more than likely going to stay in the Automotive industry, I just need to make the jump from retail to wholesale or manufacture. You can do that based on experience which I now have as oppose to having a degree.

I'll be fine, I'm not worried actually.

Activist women tend not to be cute, rather plain but are usually good in the bedroom, if they aren't gay that is. They are basically the same as artisty-fartsy types and I have banged a few of those.

I come from the school (of thought) that more money causes more problems socially and you seem to post more about your problems than your successes. You never know the woman's true intentions if she knows your loaded. Since most of the Industrial world is not PC, Russians for example will just be up front and name their price as you have discovered.

But over on the other extreme end of the usual topics around, many Western men have been successful with their EE women and while many like to "shop" they aren't overtly materialistic and more interested in a stable environment.

I dunno dawg, one day a light will go on and you'll be happy I assume.

DD my secondary education was in Geneva and I went to a university in Cambridge. You are right, I probably don't know too much about the Ivy League. :) The Ivy League is all about legacies and minorities with a token middle class person thrown in for laughs and giggles.

Ditka was a last gasp of the Republican's hoping for a Ventura. Obama had been a local player on the state level for years. Jeri Ryan hooked up with Brandon Braga during her time on ST, when she was still married. The major allegation that she made was that Jack Ryan wanted her to be a group sex toy at a sex club in NYC and then Paris. If you read about it you'll find he got 'Swift Boated' by the Obama campaign, Obama supporters waged a private campaign to get Ryan’s 1999 divorce records unsealed while Obama publicly said the records should be kept sealed.

Obama went to Punahou, which is the same high school as AOL founder Steve
Case. Its one of the most elite prep schools in the US. He then went to Columbia as a transfer and then to Harvard. Obama largely spent most of his formative years living with his mother and grandparents in Hawaii, his experience was a sharp contrast from most African American males. He even said he never really thought about his race for a long time.

Obama being compared to Lincoln??? LOL. I also heard people comparing to him to JFK(JFK's own daughter commenting on this), also FDR. Honestly, if he was a white male with the same social background, no one would be paying so much attention. The reality is that America has run out of leaders to that caliber. One thing that has stuck to me is Joe Biden's comments that Obama will be tested within the first 6 months of his administration, assuming he wins. Anyone who thinks the world is not becoming more multipolar and that US power in the world is now declining is in a dreamland like $20 a barrel oil. ROFLMAO.

As far as big companies like Goldman and Merrill are concerned, they generally hire people from the best universities. I went to a very good non Ivy League school and still did alright. Wall Street firms actually hire a lot of people from outside the Ivy League, schools like UChicago, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, Berkeley, UVA, and Stanford are probably as good as any of the ancient eight and just as difficult to gain admission. Anyway those companies are now permanently tarred and feathered. Its amazing to see white shoe firms like Morgan Stanley go cap in hand to foreign companies and governments. Didn't you know China bailed out MS earlier this year?

[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur]Obama went to Punahou, which is the same high school as AOL founder Steve
Case. Its one of the most elite prep schools in the US. He then went to Columbia as a transfer and then to Harvard. Obama largely spent most of his formative years living with his mother and grandparents in Hawaii, his experience was a sharp contrast from most African American males. He even said he never really thought about his race for a long time.

Obama being compared to Lincoln??? LOL. I also heard people comparing to him to JFK(JFK's own daughter commenting on this), also FDR. Honestly, if he was a white male with the same social background, no one would be paying so much attention. The reality is that America has run out of leaders to that caliber. One thing that has stuck to me is Joe Biden's comments that Obama will be tested within the first 6 months of his administration, assuming he wins. Anyone who thinks the world is not becoming more multipolar and that US power in the world is now declining is in a dreamland like $20 a barrel oil. ROFLMAO.

As far as big companies like Goldman and Merrill are concerned, they generally hire people from the best universities. I went to a very good non Ivy League school and still did alright. Wall Street firms actually hire a lot of people from outside the Ivy League, schools like UChicago, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, Berkeley, UVA, and Stanford are probably as good as any of the ancient eight and just as difficult to gain admission. Anyway those companies are now permanently tarred and feathered. Its amazing to see white shoe firms like Morgan Stanley go cap in hand to foreign companies and governments. Didn't you know China bailed out MS earlier this year?[/QUOTE]

I notice that, other than laughing dismissively, you didn't actually present a single argument as to why the Lincoln comparison (PRIOR to Lincoln becoming President) is not entirely valid. I will grant you that Obama's educational background is substantially stronger than Lincoln's was. And incidentally, Obama attended Punahou on an academic scholarship - which, admittedly, is not something that most African American males can claim concerning their high school.

Of course Obama will be tested, as Biden stated. Just as surely, McCain would be as well. ALL Presidents get tested. McCain is full of crap when he claims that he has already passed those type of tests. In fact, during the current stock market crash, he failed wildly with his oscillating, panicked response, which is why he's trailing so badly in the polls right now.

Well first of all the United States is not in the position that it was when the Lincoln was President. There are no States seceding from the Union, there a lot of issues dogging America but nothing as severe as what existed in the mid 19th Century, America is not exactly going to implode but its certainly going to enter an era where international powers are going to test the nation for the first time since the first half of the 20th Century. Obama's youth was nothing like African Americans in most urban areas. He lived a relatively sheltered existence with a white mother and grandparents on the island of Hawaii. I myself grew up in a cold Northeastern city in a blue collar neighborhood. I actually met a few people who went to Obama's high school when I went to college, they were nose in air, from what I know Obama went to that school on a scholarship, so he was probably not like the other alumni of that school that I met in real life. That is besides the point, I think Obama will be a better leader than McCain for a number of reasons, the first being that he represents a change from the last eight years which have not been exactly good, although one thing I give Bush credit for is that no major terrorist attack has happened on American soil since 9-11, there were several major attacks against Westerners in Asia and in Europe since that day. The second is that he is level headed, he does not seem to get upset easy, which is a great characteristic in this time. The other is his age, he is going to be one of the youngest Presidents elected, only JFK and TR were younger, I think he will
be able to tune himself better with young people than McCain or Palin, which is important because many younger Americans need to become more involved in politics.

The reality is that the world is becoming a more multipolar place, the unipolar moment that started after the Soviet Union collapsed is now over. Obama has more of an international view than McCain which should help. Considering all the troubles brewing, especially the global economic crisis being blamed on America and its inability to control malfeasance on Wall Street, other nations are not going to give the US another chance to screw it up all over again. America will definitely survive this but it won't be pressing its economic agenda on other nations like it did in the past.

Still when it comes to McCain vs. Obama, McCain has clearly seen more adversity. C'mon, the man spent three years in POW camp in Southeast Asia.

[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur] Still when it comes to McCain vs. Obama, McCain has clearly seen more adversity. C'mon, the man spent three years in POW camp in Southeast Asia.[/QUOTE]
What, exactly, does this have to do with McCain's judgment, with his understanding of economic issues, or his ability to govern? The fact is, McCain has shown, first with the choice of Palin, and second, with his wildly inconsistent and rash handling of the financial crisis, that he lacks the ability to deal with these issues. He also has demonstrated a similar stubbornness as George W. Bush has shown, which has gotten our nation into it's current situations. McCain has, along with Bush/Cheney, consistently misjudged the relative importance of Iraq vs. Afghanistan, and as a result, we still have not caught Bin Laden. And as a result, Al Qaida has been found in their encrypted websites, to be hoping for a McCain victory in order to further their goals vs. the U.S.

If the President's job involved having his arms broken and being locked in a cell, I would agree that McCain was much more qualified than Obama. It doesn't. It involves the ability to make a reasoned analysis of any number of complex problems, come up with creative, flexible solutions, and sell those solutions to the American Public. McCain does not have anywhere NEAR the skills on that set of criteria, compared to Obama. McCain has a GREAT temperament to survive POW treatment, but LOUSY temperament to be President. And god help us all if Palin, the single least qualified person in history to run for VP, were to become President, which, if McCain were to be elected, there is between a 25 and 30% actuarial chance of him not surviving his first term.

And the fact is, The U.S. IS in deep shit, courtesy of the Bush/Cheney policies which McCain agreed with 92% of the time. We need someone who will UN DO virtually everything that Bush and Cheney have done to this nation. NOT someone who thinks that 92% of those things were the correct policies. Colin Powell explained it all better than I could. McCain demonstrated questionable judgment, and he represents a continuation of the policies which have been a total fiasco for our country. Obama has the possibility of being a transformative figure in history - something McCain could not possibly be, because he fails to recognize the need for it.

[QUOTE=Member #2041]I...a single argument as to why the Lincoln comparison (PRIOR to Lincoln becoming President) is not entirely valid.[/QUOTE]

Lincoln was elected because he stood for a specific set of controversial ideas. Lincoln's ideas were galvanized in American history during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The ideas suggested such direction that the country was pulled apart by the fact of Lincoln's election. It's not likely half of the United States are going to split away from the Union after an Obama election. Lincoln is a tough act to follow.

If Joe Biden were heading the Democratic ticket right now - using the same (Obama's, not Lincoln's) ideas - it would be damn boring and unattractive to most Americans.

I would not completely dismiss a comparison between Obama and Lincoln, but as far as it goes, what's the difference between Obama and Franklin Pierce? It's a bit more valid a comparison. So, I'm not ready to erect a massive Greek temple to Obama on the Mall just yet (although I think we should spring for marble columns, if it comes to that).

If he wins, The Big O is going to be important in American history, people will love him even if he screws up a bit. The sentimental will want him to do well. He will have huge political capital going in to the Whitehouse.

I guess the main question for me here tonight is - will this result in Americans being able to freely travel and spend money in Cuba? It strikes me that this one of the things Obama could do that would improve life for the typical ISGer.

[QUOTE=Jelly Donut] I would not completely dismiss a comparison between Obama and Lincoln, but as far as it goes, what's the difference between Obama and Franklin Pierce? It's a bit more valid a comparison. So, I'm not ready to erect a massive Greek temple to Obama on the Mall just yet. .[/QUOTE]

Was Franklin Pierce known as a brilliant orator? Was he known as an inspirational leader who was capable of mobilizing unheard-of turn-out? I think not. What Pierce WAS, was a guy who was viewed as innoccuous, and inoffensive, but he was also a life-long alcoholic, known for poor judgment, who died of cirrhosis of the liver. The comparison with Franklin Pierce is MUCH more relevant with Dubya than with anyone else.

Wrong, the US is in deep shit because of the stupidity of American voters who elected Bush/Cheney twice, not to mention some of the ridiculously bad habits so many Americans have, we spend more than we earn, use too much credit and get ourselves in debt, as much as 85 percent of Americans live with debt. Even in 2000, America was in a very precarious position, China began its rise to global prominence, the Euro was only a couple of years away, etc.
You were arguing on the merits of adversity building character, from any angle McCain faced far more hardship than Obama. Being tortured in a third world prison for three years and surviving is a big feat if you ask me. Did you even read Obama's books? He did not even consider himself black until he was 12 years old. Obama lived a fairly comfortable existence for someone of his background. Saw the photo of young Obama on his grandfather's back?? I actually grew up in the outer boroughs of NYC and few people I knew would not have that kind of memory of a middle aged white male. I knew a few kids in elementary school who were called poo face when they were 6, it might sound silly but these kids faced racism early on. Obama had a white mommy who sheltered him, and I consider Obama biracial.
Obama is going to be an important landmark figure in American history. He is going to lead a very different American than that of the last century. From what I know, he has lived a very blessed life.

[QUOTE=Member #2041]Was Franklin Pierce known as a brilliant orator? Was he known as an inspirational leader who was capable of mobilizing unheard-of turn-out? I think not. What Pierce WAS, was a guy who was viewed as innoccuous, and inoffensive, but he was also a life-long alcoholic, known for poor judgment, who died of cirrhosis of the liver. The comparison with Franklin Pierce is MUCH more relevant with Dubya than with anyone else.[/QUOTE]

Bush is like Polk.

I did not say Pierce was a great comparison, I'm suggesting he's better than Lincoln. Obama is the most deliberately inoffensive and measured candidate since that series pre-Lincoln forgetables. You are very defensive. Why is it so important to you that Obama be like Lincoln?

Drinking doesn't have anything to do with it, although I would suggest to you that much like the many brillant American lawyers who have made the transition into Democratic politics - Clinton, Spitzer, Edwards - the list is quite long. They all have something going on. If you know anything about law school, lawyers and the type of people who have been running for office since daddy left home - they all have some demon keeping the engine going. Obama's run on heavy fuel for a long time. Nothing may come of that or he could be the next Caligula. If you respect history, you respect the possibilities.

Anyway. Cuba?

[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur]You were arguing on the merits of adversity building character, from any angle McCain faced far more hardship than Obama. Being tortured in a third world prison for three years and surviving is a big feat if you ask me. [/QUOTE]
No, I wasn't arguing that at all. One of the other posters was arguing that playing football built Dick Cheney's character - I merely argued that was a silly claim. The fact is, there are plenty of people of admirable, strong character who lack the temperament and wisdom to be good Presidents. McCain is one of them. The fact that he's been a courageous American Hero is very admirable. It does not, however, imbue him with the particular skills that the next President will need in our current national situation. It may well have made him a far better war President than Bush has been (a very low hurdle, to be sure) - although, his obviously poor judgment has not been too heartening on this score. But, in any case, his courage in a POW camp has nothing whatsoever to do with managing the financial and economic turmoil that is the main issue facing the next President - and his performance on this score has been frightening at best over the past month.

And BTW, Polk was a FAR better President than Bush. Polk was one of the better Presidents of the 1820-1860 period. Bush is one of the worst ever.

It's actually not important at all that Obama be compared to Lincoln. I merely point out that Lincoln had very little specific experience - less in fact than Obama. Obama HAS shown to be of FAR above average intellect, and extremely measured temperament. Unlike Pierce, Obama has shown very savvy judgment on critical issues, And Obama has managed a highly competent campaign - far more competent, in fact, than McCain's. The fact is, McCain HAS shown himself to be rash, impulsive, erratic, and with abysmal judgment in his VP choice and in his dealing with the financial meltdown. Obama, on the other hand, has shown himself to be measured, in control, reasoned, and highly disciplined.

Admittedly, McCain demonstrated great personal courage 40 years ago in a POW camp in Vietnam. It's unclear just how that will enable him to govern in a financial crisis, when he himself has professed a lack of knowledge of economics, and his key economic advisors, Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan, are two of the folks MOST responsible for causing/exacerbating the present crisis. And his selection of Palin as his VP choice was nothing short of irresponsible.

Well you have to add to the mix that the next coming Superpowers are not Democratic countries, and will have economic clout as big or greater than the US. The winds of change are blowing. In my part of the world, everyone is obsesses with Asia, the Asian century is becoming more and more a reality.

[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur]Well you have to add to the mix that the next coming Superpowers are not Democratic countries, and will have economic clout as big or greater than the US. The winds of change are blowing. In my part of the world, everyone is obsesses with Asia, the Asian century is becoming more and more a reality.[/QUOTE]

Which is exactly why the next President needs to have the ability to understand Asian ways of thinking, and how to reach out to them in our dealings with them - not in confrontation, but in collaboration. Obama brings that to the table.