With thanks to rollo for the joke
So there is a chance… I mean, not that things will be different, but they can be different…
This morning’s read: Adventures in Wheelville, Piran Cafe, The Good Doctor and my favourite moose as well as some economic insight by Investment postcards from Capetown . Plus the usual.
EDIT: The Onion reports: Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job. Love it! 
EDIT 2: In response to dr. Arf’s comment, here are Obama’s victory speech and McCain’s concession speech. Indeed… Had McCain found it within himself to be himself throughout the campaign, it might have ended differently. Or not…. You might, however, want to watch for the crowd’s reaction to McCain’s mention of Sarah Palin.
Hahaha 😀 Well done, rollo!
he he…I can see it comming now, obama changing pictures of washington, lincoln and others, with pictures of Scarface and a huge, huge LDC….the oval office will be “the movie room”…
hehehe… BTW, you should see his victory speech. It could very well make history.
yes, michael bolton will have to immigrate to mexico, snop dog will be the cultural minister (if they have one), and everyone will have to call their secretaries:”yo bitch”. can’t wait, can’t wait….
You forgor the fact that Axl Rose will now sport an afro 🙂
and air force one will get brand new rims 🙂
and the presidential limo will get pimped
I wonder what the hand sign for the White House is and, oh, would he refer to his administration as ‘my posse’?
All joking aside, I stayed up and watched the whole thing, so if anyone asks me where I was when Senator Barack Obama became President-Elect Obama, I can answer : ‘on the couch’. I can also answer that I was taken aback by how quick it went. At 10:59 EST (04:59 CET), CNN announced he won a state and had 220 votes. Since the west coast polls would be closed at 11:00, I didn’t expect to see full results for at least another half hour, but right on the hour, just seconds after that state was announced, they came in with the polling results for the west coast and Hawaii and he was well over the line. I sat there, thinking ‘Huh?’ for some time, until Mc Couldn’t came out and acknowledged his victory to a very hostile Republican crowd. Very, very bad losers, as opposed to their former candidate, who was gracious and finally himself again. I couldn’t help but think this would have been a closer race had he been like that all along instead of palling around with the old Bush crew and ressorting to their tactics during this past campaign.
Obama’s speech may or may not go down in history, but man, did he push all the right buttons and did he address the issues ahead! Reading it back won’t tell the whole story; find it on Youtube and watch it. Here is a man who could inspire a nation and then some. On the other hand, it will be his policies that will make the difference, so I hope his actions are as inspiring and direct as his speeches. We’ll know in four years time.
One last thing that may not have been important to anyone, but is really close to my heart : whenever Obama talked about the ethnicities in the U.S.A., he always mentioned the Native Americans. As far as I can look back, no other presidential candidate has. And in doing that – speaking for myself, obviously and not for any Native American – I feel he restored some of the dignity of the indigenous people, who have always been non existent when it came to the presidential race. They are not a demographic that may get a presidential candidate a massive vote count, but nonetheless, he mentioned them along with all the other ethnicities.
Well, all we can do now is wait and watch if his actions suit his words, but at least I’m hopeful for the U.S.A. for the first time since long. And you don’t know how weird it makes me feel saying that, after years and years of being critical about that country, starting around Bush Sr.’s administration…
@dr. Arf:
True… Having seen his concession speech, I couldn’t shake the feeling that McCain was intentionally adding insult to injury and provoking the crowd by pointing out how he will work with the Big O.
BTW: there is a new edit to the post with regard to your comment 😉
While we moose are happy, too, cause noone will establish moose-hunting as a favorite American pastime now (byeeeem Sarah, Dahling), there is a question that’s bothering me persistently:
Do you think McCain/Republicans really wanted to win?
Just asking, is all.
Watch party began with about a dozen, with four still around when we popped the cork just a few minutes after 5 am. 🙂
We’re all cynical about politics, and rightfully so. It’s ok, though, to check that Cynicism at the door for just a few days to reflect on what on incredible moment the world witnessed last night.
@P : Perhaps he should have done it more often during the campaign, mhehe. I mean, what can you expect from the crowd he addressed after they made Obama out to be a socialist (still a political scorching hot potato over there), palling around with terrorists and basically tried every attempt at character assassination? In his concession speech it was all reversed and somehow, he had hoped they would concede gladly and rally behind the new president elect, whom several GOP voters STILL believe he’s ‘a terrorist’? While his speech was gracious in defeat, I couldn’t help feeling his words would have sounded rather hollow to this crowd who are traditionally sore losers, but had a very bitter pill to swallow this time around.
I didn’t mention Sarah ‘I kill moose and see Russia from my backyard’ Palin, because I feel that while she’s provided some very welcome entertainment (thank you Tina Fey!), she is quantité négligable and the less said about her, the better. At least for now, because, gosh darnit, she’ll be back in four years, aiming for the presidency and you betcha she’ll be better prepared this time around, I fear. You could see it in her eyes at Mc Cain’s concession speech. So it is essential Obama will have a strong presidency. He’s put a lot of weight on his shoulders, but as said, I’m (cautiously) hopeful about him being able to pull it off…
One last small point I’d like to make : I’ve always abhorred the nationalistic tendencies that the Republicans instilled, exemplified bythe constant yelling of ‘USA!! USA!!’. What the Obama campaign did, was turn this around, into a construction three word slogan : ‘Yes We Can!’. By all means a more positive one and one that resonates with people all over the globe. Well done.
I just wonder about him being a black person, african american and all.
I mean his mother is white, his father left them when he was 2 years old, his step father is white, his sister is white,
OK, his wife is not white, so that puts him a little nearer to the afro american community, but before that, I just wonder if he had much contact with the afro americans how much he could identify himself with them, growing up in a white family.
@dr. Arf: Please bear in mind that Sarah Palin has a realistic chance of becoming a senator, if Ted Stevens wins the Alaska race despite his recent conviction and is expelled from the Senate for it. That would make Sarah Palin a force to be reckoned with.
@Aja: He worked as a community organiser in Chicago’s poorer areas, among other things. I mean, if African Americans could adopt Bill Clinton as “the first black president”, then the Big O. should not be facing any identity problems whatsoever, no? 🙂
Besides, his multi-racial, multi-ethnical and multi-national immediate familly can only help him deal better with prejudice of any kind.
“Besides, his multi-racial, multi-ethnical and multi-national immediate familly can only help him deal better with prejudice of any kind.”
I agree.
I was just thinking about this old, never solved dilemma of the genes versus environment, among other things, also about ppl (possibly) projecting things into him that aren’t there at all.
But that’s happening all the time anyway, that’s what we do in life.
@Dr. Arf: I agree with you on the nationalistic tendencies, it’s one thing that really irritates me. Then again, personally I don’t think I could ever get that excited (like people at the rallies) about any candidate regardless of their affiliation. Especially when you know they’re just going to end up disappointing you. Honestly though the last few republican election campaigns really leave me shaking my head, how horribly they were run.
Hmm one thing though Dr. Arf? In your other post you said “this crowd who are traditionally sore losers”. Did you mean republicans in general or just that particular crowd? If it was the latter, what particularly made them sore losers? Just wondering, since I didn’t watch it. If it’s the former, what? and that makes the dems not sore losers? That’s laughable imo! 🙂 Hmm, whatever your opinion is of the elections from 2000, if the Democrats had their way, we’d still be recounting ballots today, or until it was an outcome to their liking. Same goes for the Iraq war, and how we came that point. Honestly, Democrats are still talking about that stuff over the last 2 years. Please, it’s done, the genie is out of the bottle so to say. Drop it, and get over it. I see so many democratic leaders in Congress still pissing & moaning over this, how about we take care of issues that are relevant atm, not 5-8 year old issues. And just to clarify, I’m not talking about the Iraq war as a whole, just why we went there…(ie. terrorist, oil, WMD’s, or some other reason). So, that’s just some of my counterpoints to show eh, Dems aren’t any worse sore losers then Republicans, if that’s what you meant.
@Aja: Disappointment will surely come. He is not a superman. He is a president-elect, who inherits two wars, the worst financial crisis in almost 80 years, a deficit of galactic proportions. He’s got his work cut out for him just keeping country afloat.
Oops typo above, those 2 should be reversed ^. But you get the point, i’m trying to make.
@pengovsky: Well, the disappointment was not specifically aimed at this election, just a general statement regarding politicians.
I think politicians lost their way long before I was ever born. 🙁
@Michael N: Point
Altough -and I’m speaking stricly for myself here – an unlawful invasion of a sovereign country (which for better or for worse Iraq was) based on a lie and fabricated facts is something to remember. The WMD-hide-and-seek we’ve witnesed prior to war in Iraq is a fuck-up to remember and should never happen again. One more episode like this and the world can spiral well back into 19th century politics, when war was a legitimate extension of a nation’s foreign policy.
Re: disappointment: Agreed. It’s just that Big O. is facing a very steep uphill battle. But I don’t think he should be given any special breaks. He got the job because he promised to do it better than “the other guy”. Let’s see what he’s made of.
@pengovsky: Point. 🙂 Although, I don’t think I’ll be ever sure that Bush knew it was a lie when he told the nation. I can believe that his handlers/CIA told him BS and he believed it…but that’s beside the point. Had I been President I would have never used some BS WMD excuse as a basis for going there. But I am for cleaning up messes that you create. Frankly, the USA as well as a few European nations have had a hand in f’ing up the Middle East region over the last century. It’s all in the history books so..I won’t blabber on about it.
I honestly blame Bush Sr., for the mess that is Iraq. Had we done things right back in 91′ and removed Saddam at the time, I’m sure we wouldn’t have the mess we have now. But we listened to the all mighty UN at the time. The guys that have become so good at “sitting by while genocide occurs”, time after time after time. Sad. 🙁
@Dr.ARF- good point about him mentioning indigenous Americans. I hope he will pay more than lip service to their very real issues.
@aya – Blackness is a LIVED experience. When he walked down the street he was seen and dealt with as a black man. There is no “authentic” black experience handed down by parents or bestowed to him upon his wedding day. If you heard Obama’s “race speech”, during his upbringing there were more than a few incidences where his white grandmother made his blackness (and the way some people felt about it) painfully clear with her own racist comments. Oh ALSO, Obama’s sister is NOT white. See this story –>
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/politics/main3831108.shtml
@pengovsky –
you said:
“Besides, his multi-racial, multi-ethnical and multi-national immediate familly can only help him deal better with prejudice of any kind.”
I have NO idea what this means. Do you mean some sort of racism support group? Never heard of ’em. Where can I sign up?
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