That's what I'd expect his adversaries to say. Mainly when I hear people saying that Obama is too consdescending or too aggressive, I tend to think that the critic simply objects to the fact that Obama didn't play the passive role many whites still prefer.
The last debate had Obama being criticized for being too condescending. Did you agree with that assessment?
I prefer the Obama I saw in the second and third debates to the passive Obama in the first debate with the downcast eyes.
This is the 21st Century, not the 19th.
-Savant
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oh that's true but never forget W, he will never be forgotten.What about neo-Fascist Ronald Reagan who nearly DESTROYED this country??? Reagan was one of worst presidents in US history!!
After the great Ike, Rep presidents mostly go to the drain and "reaganomics" have been proven to be dangerous in many places, not all i agree.
He may have been a part of the final fall of the USSR but not in the top list.
N*ts G. could make W a genius if elected because going at war against Iran for cuddling AIPAC-GOP is certainly quite a hardship compared to the already disastrous Afghan and Iraqi wars.
Pleasing these crazy lobbies is just a signal for body bags for American and European soldiers, it does not make any in the first place.
May any Rep candidate be sent back home in November.
a whiteboi
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France's crime rate is far lower than ours. Her quality of education is far superior. She has a health care system far superior to ours. And, like most Western European countries, you find nothing like the sprawling slums and mass incarceration of her own citizens as we have here.
Of course, if the FRENCH RIGHT controls France and imposes our Republican/Tea Party style politics and policies in the country, then France will degenerate.....and come to resemble our own beloved land of the free and home of the brave.
Attai is right. Bravo Mazine! Justice for the 99%!
-Savant
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Actually, Obama is intelligent--even intellectual--and civilized. One would like to see him with a stiffer backbone with facing the Right, but that's another matter.
The Republican candidates mainly seem like overgrown twelve year olds--and reactionaries who want to turn back the clock.
I've been to several Occupy gathering. And the Occupy demonstrators do not rape and rob each other. Rather, they protest the corporate reactionaries who are raping and robbing America and the world.
-Savant
http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/T43S6VQBGPEVLF1Q1/p186
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Sir,
that's correct and we can see already the degradation after 5 years of Sarkozy's rightist policy. We have a surge of unemployment and the working classes and middle classes are already struck.
At the same time Sarkozy, as a good valet of CorpEurope and Bushite, is distributing subsidies and tax cuts to the wealthiest. Now with Merkel, he wants to have us all like the Greeks, miserable, exposed to hunger and with the welfate state destroyed, the public utilities salvaged, the quality of life ruined.
Moreover he is now, with infamous s*d Guéant, spreading Far right hatred and xenophobia ; they are also close to Tel Aviv mad warmongers.
It's important to fight the Bushites everywhere.
a whiteboi
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Likewise Presidents Carter and Clinton: right-of-center. Not real far right, but still to the right. We have no viable left here politically, though many on the left do have influence in this society.
-Barros Serrano
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The impression I get from talking to Swedes and some other Europeans is that the social democratic experiment is under fire from neoliberal corporate globalists. That the same political and economic elite forces shreding our social gains (from FDR through the 1960s) are attacking Swedish and other social democratic achievements. That today the immigrants may serve mainly as scapegoats to direct popular anger away from the 1%. If that's true, I wouldn't be surprise if the elites welcomed any crazy action by religious extremists in order to better make their point.
-Savant
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Fascism is totalitarian capitalist police state. Socialists, communists, trade unionists, ethnic minorities, dissident intellectuals and liberals were all suppressed under Fascism--including Nazism which claimed to be a socialism in order to deceive the masses. Not only were they well financed by Big Business (as indicated in a book called FASCISM AND BIG BUSINESS), they noticeably left the plutocrats alone and went after working class organizations.
Fascism isn't that far off from Communism actually...
Contrary to your Liberal claims Fascism is actually Socialism.
Mussolini who invented Fascism?
Mussolini was originally a Marxist (Communist)
Mussolini's Fascist Italy had huge regulation & government control over Corporations.
Mussolini's Fascist Italy had huge amounts of public works programs & a huge welfare state.
Mussolini's Fascist Italy was a Socialist planned economy.
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So was Nazi Germany!
Nationalist Socialists were indeed Socialists!
Interestingly, enough Fascists in Italy, Germany and Spain all hated the same people whom American conservativs hate: foreigners, minorities, unions, gays, intellectuals, women who were not subservient, etc.
No mere coincidence. Capitalists thrived under fascism, and the Krupp company and Ford were among their biggest financial supporters.
Fascism is the rule of the 1% when they're no longer confident they can rule while allowing civil liberties.
-Savant
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Absolutely! My girlfriend and I both LOVED the biting jab he threw at Romney about how (paraphrasing) "we also have a lot fewer horses and bayonets" as well.
LOL! That was a very effective
and
smoothly delivered slam. -Harrisson
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By the way, though you have a point about the emphasis on rugged individualism in America, about the Yankee worship of (in D.H. Lawrence's words) "the b___ goodess of success", even in the USA that's not the only game in town.
Sir,
nasty white nationalists are also having a bigger presence in Scandinavia re Denmark and Breivik in Norway.
"progressive" welfare states they were but here too the IMF-Tea party guys are pushing for less state, less regulations.
For the answer, the reasons for these welfare states - 3 monarchies and one republic - are probably connected to their relatively small size, the harshness of climate that pushed for a greater solidarity. These Lutheran countries have developed early a form of Social Gospel; also the sense of "community" is very high.
In the Middle ages, they had sort of elected kings and Viking expeditions - ruthless and murderous by the way - were like a cooperative : they were sharing the loot and the risks. Maybe there is a legacy of this within this high concern for community when in the USA the individual choice is favored like by the Reps in Obamacare.
The idea you could pursue individual success detrimental to the community and prosper when your neighbour is in distress is largely foreign to Scandinavian mentality but pivotal in the American "dream".
Just some suggestions because i'm not a Scandinavian myself.
a whiteboi
As one of my comrades and colleagues like to point out, even in contemporary America there are millions of Americans committed to cooperatives and cooperative living, to intentional communities.
And one os reminded of Dr. King's words that "true wealth comes from the COMMONWEALTH."
Not surprising that many Americans are actually admirers of the Scandinavian experiment. Many more would be if they were better informed,(In Black America, not only King but even Malcolm X expressed posiive evaluations of Sweden).
Urban gardening and cooperatives (some multiracial) are springing up in Bmore. Some involve members of Occupy Baltimore.
As capitalism disintegrates, we may find more of those cooperative experiments---possible beginnings of a new society.
FREEDOM RISING!!!
-Savant
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I keep hearing this. That while enthusiams for Obama has evaporated in Europe, Mitt Romney is considered as far worse and wouldn't have a chance over there.
It is more entertaining than our one (UK) I give you that, but people like Romney would never get to such a position to begin with in UK politics. Here he has been described as worse than Sarah Palin.
In the UK we vote for the party in the USA you vote for the President. So your elections are more personal in regards to the leader.
Yet over here it's going to be tight and decided by a thin margin.
I guess the USA is peculiar in that way. We may be the only industrialized nation in which religious fundametnalism actually has legitimacy among many. Probably only in the Islamic Middle East has religious fundamentalism as much popular appeal.
So, our crazy politics is hardly surprising.
A very important point you make has to do with America's "rugged individualism." Not only do many Americans think that they can pursue individual success "detrimental to community and prosper" while neighbors are in distress, but sme Americans see that as the essence of freedom. That would sharply contrast many Yanks with Scandinavians and other Europeans.
It is because Scandinavia attempts to harmoize individual freedom with solicarity---thereby often achieving a HIGHER level of both personal freedom and social justice than in the USA--that many progressive Americans find Sweden and Denmark so appealing.
-Savant
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Yes, Stephane Hessell speaks of these rapacious corporate forces and voices seeking to undermine society in Europe.
yes Sir, there is no doubt that this is a major mental rift.
However the plague of Yankee individualism - Mormon Mitt and Tea-party like - is also present in Europe ; this is supported by powerful lobbies in Bruxelles to dismantle "welfare state" and regulations. Sarkozy, Cameron, Merkel, Rajoy, Monti are examples.
Moreover the financial tycoons are too pushing forward this : states are asked to cut social investments in order to save the money of the bankers, the same bankers that are the cause of the economic crisis.
As we say in French, the snake is biting on its own tail.
a whiteboi
No one can forsee how this struggle will end up between those fighting for social justice and democratic community, and those standing for corporate greet, piracy and exploitation.
Europe is at least fortunatel to have other traditions, traditions of solidarity with which to resist the globalist onslaught.
YOur country has more than once stopped rightist corpoate attacks by mass popular opposition.
It will be a bit harder for us in the USA, though we may eventually prevail. Capitalism has more influence in the popular culture here than in Europe, or in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
-Savant
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Sir,I wonder what you Europeans think of our crazy elections.
In fact, I wondeer what the world thinks of this election.
Basically in the E.U., people are in favor of Obama except among our more rightists, especially those who are supporting the financial lobbies, these guys are naturally pro-Romney. Probably also the pro-Zionists are also favoring Romney like in Tel Aviv.
In spite the disappointment generated by the Obama first mandate, Romney in Europe would be crushed easily. Certainly not 50/50.
From what is said in the media, it's difficult to see clearly what is dramatically opposing Mormon Mitt to Obama : it seems to be just a "nuance". Mormon Mitt seems to be :
- even more pro Israeli bellicism than Obama who is seen as pro Israeli too
- even more pro financial lobbies and tycoons than Obama who is seen as the Wall Street spokesman
- even more social injustice than Obama who is seen as the man who did nearly nothing in favor of the poors and minorities
- even more death penalty seeker than Obama who has not done anything to favor the abolition.
-even more irresponsibility on the financial markets than Obama who has done little if anything to regulate the financial madness.
In short the voters are offered the "choice" between a centre-right candidate and a rightist candidate. Many Europeans are center-left, left and far left ; many are increasingly furious against the recession policies pushed by Bruxelles and the big banking network.
This is seen from the French media and opinion, maybe the Brits or the merky Germs can have another idea.
a whiteboi (attai)
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I don't know what it would mean to say that Western nations "deserve" a large Muslim minority immgrant population. But I'm reasonably sure that a radical reduction of poverty and (hopefully) political repression would greatly reduce the crisis which leads to massive influx of immigrants, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
And the kind of people who would immigrate would probably be different since they're no longer prompted by poverty.
If African and Asian nations were as wealthy as Western nations are now, and Western natiions were a poor as African and Asian nations are now, there would be an influx of mainly white Chrisian immigrants to places like Mali, Congo, India or Thailand,
And if conditions were that bad in the West, we'd probably see the kind of religious fanaticism that was once common in Christendom.
Frantz Fanon was right. Humanity must either redress the radical economic inequalities or be shaken to pieces by them.
I can't help wondering how differen things might be of the developed countres had formed a partnership with the poorer countries to eradicate poverty instead of undermining people like Mosadegh, Lumumba and Allende.
And with the growing inequalities even within the wealthier countries (which Stephane Hessel eloquently reminds us), I wonder how different things might be if Dr. King had lived to lead that Poor Peoples Campaign, and if that movement had succeeded.
-Savant
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Actually, much of what is called "left" or "liberal" here might seem "rightist" in Europe. In America, Obama is largely seen as at least centrist if not center-left; and our rightwingers think he's a socialist or even a Communist.
I doubt that he'd be seen that way in most of Western Europe. There's he'd most likely be center-right.
-Savant
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