//barack obama

President

Hey, so maybe the whole “Bradley Effect” was kinda bullshit.

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Finally

A presumptive nominee. What a great idea!

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“Yes, It Is Conceivable That We Could” - Opus Moreschi

Please go to Moveon.org and vote for this 30 second Obama spot that my friend Opus had barely anything to do with. I don’t know what you get if you win but he desperately needs some joy in his life. Plus he always wears a suit and tie for no reason and it’s fucking adorable.

Vote here.

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Barack

Understand that I loved Bill Clinton. He had a lot of serious flaws, though I could give two shits about his sex life, but he was extremely intelligent and had a solid grasp of domestic and foreign policies and issues, unlike the fucking pig-headed imbecile in office now.
Hillary has become embittered by the decades-long attacks by the conservatives . It has made her too defensive and reactive, with an “Us or Them” mentality. I’m really sick to death of Us or Them. It’s a false dichotomy and it is hurting our country. What we need is rational, intelligent discourse and a pooling of ideas and opinions. We do not need shouting matches or pissing contests.

That’s why I really love Barack. I know he was attacked for saying he would be willing to meet with anti-American heads of state. You know, this whole Cold War mentality of building impenetrable political fortresses doesn’t apply anymore. The world doesn’t operate like that and the Silent Treatment doesn’t work. Look at Cuba. How long has the embargo been in effect? Have the people revolted and overthrown Castro? NO. Snubbing our enemies is ineffective and childish, it undermines our interests. We, as a country, need to learn how to disagree like adults. We need to remember how to reason and persuade, not convolute or coerce.

Right now, we’re like a socially awkward misanthrope who tries to make people like him at gunpoint. We are unable to support our irrational, poorly considered decisions with coherent arguments so we make a lot of noise to cloud the issues and attack people’s characters or histories instead of their policies or ideas.

Granted, we all need shortcuts, code words and summaries or we wouldn’t be able to get through our days, but we cannot live by shortcuts alone. We have to remember that beneath the sound bytes and slick designs and synopses is the real, complex, meaty and difficult world. There are complicated and messy issues at hand. We need to let go of political absolutes and polarities. Nothing is entirely good or bad. We are not fighting EVIL. We have to acknowledge that sometimes opposing things can be equally true and yet we have to try to make informed decisions anyway.

We need to be rational and to listen. Empathy is a powerful tool, it means you understand another’s perspective enough to effectively negotiate and accurately convey your own needs and desires. Barack has been criticized for his inexperience, has been accused of making pretty but hollow speeches. I believe he can thoughtfully and intelligently effect real change. Not by himself, but by beginning the process and the dialogue.

I’d love to see this country shake off its apathy and complacency, to change the status quo, the ingrained ruts in which we go around and around, and to help mitigate the income disparities (and lack of necessities like health care) that are dividing our country far worse than race. Worrying about policies or ideologies is a middle-class luxury, just like philosophy and political science. We can’t move forward until we figure out how to better care for the citizens of this country.

Lastly, I was just so impressed with how he responded to the Jeremiah Wright controversy. At long last, someone in politics is talking about what has historically been swept under the rug. At long last someone refuses to talk down to us, but rather, expects us all to rise to the occasion.

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Endorsement Time

Because we know you’ve been waiting…we know you’ve been dying to know, it’s time we announced the official painkiller.org presidential endorsement: That’s right, throw your hands in the air and wave them vigorously as if you pretty much don’t care and join us in helping to elect Barack Obama to the presidency.

Certainly anyone who reads our site with any regularity has probably figured out that we have a sickening liberal agenda here. But even still, what we probably don’t spend enough time repeating is just how generally disappointing we find the democratic party as a whole. The central failing of the democratic party is that, time and time again, they have proven themselves loathe to take firm positions on almost any issue, opting rather to define themselves by what they don’t stand for, ie. what the Republicans do stand for. It doesn’t take a logician to understand that a contrarian stance is not an actual political position, so no one should be surprised that Democrats have a wishy-washy reputation. Their platform is a shambles. It doesn’t move, it doesn’t inspire, it doesn’t capture the hearts and minds of a cynical and apathetic nation.

Barack Obama has an astoundingly fresh perspective. He seems to be genuinely moved by his point of view, and he has no qualms in conveying those views with the utmost clarity. He’s also not saddled by the baby-boomer hippy guilt that seems to drive so many of our modern democratic leaders. That guilt that made John Kerry introduce himself in 2004 with “I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty!” It’s the guilt that made all of Hillary Clinton’s tough talk about Iraq even four years ago seem like she was already hedging to beat a superior Republican candidate. It’s tough talk jock talk from the mouths of intellectuals and it doesn’t ring true.

So it’s time to gear up. It’s time to engage. Start reading. Start listening to the candidates. Use the cerebrum a little bit. If nothing else, even if none of the candidates are quite your cup of tea, you have to admit that it would be pretty amazing to see a truly engaged electorate this year. That would make Democracy a little prettier if only for a day. And if you take our advice, imagine one more thing: Imagine how our Democracy will look to angry young Muslim men throughout the Middle East if they wake up one morning to see the face of Barack Hussein Obama as he is sworn into the highest office on the planet.

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