The Obama-Hate

Which End Is The Rough End Of A Pineapple?

I'm not a socialist in any real sense. I'm actually a free market capitalist. An ideal economic outcome for me is that over a million people click on those links to the right on this page and go purchase my recordings, thank-you-very-much. (and I might add, you really must!)
I'm really not all that Bolshy in the sense that I don't really care what the rich own - the means of production or even a Ferrari for show. I do care about what they do to people who aren't rich, but I'm really not into more taxation or dirty big strikes to bring down industry.

So back in my Uni days when people used to shout socialist slogans, or God-forbid Trotskist theory, I'd shrug and say, "that world doesn't include the possibility that I own a Fender Stratocaster."
The answer I got was " no, we believe it should be a world where everybody has a Fender Stratocaster."
Well, not everybody wants one. Some people want Gibsons. :)

There are US articles are popping up now about the rallies held by the McCain-Palin camp which are pandering to a lot of anger. CNN had this article.

"When you have an Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run this country, we have got to have our head examined. It's time that you two are representing us, and we are mad. So, go get them," one man told Sen. John McCain at a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

It's almost a cry for help, with the GOP party faithful amazed McCain could possibly be losing.

"And we're all wondering why that Obama is where he's at, how he got here. I mean, everybody in this room is stunned that we're in this position," another man said at a rally.

"I'm mad. I'm really mad. And what's going to surprise you, it's not the economy. It's the socialists taking over our country," another man said.

That's pretty scary. The point of my preamble about my non-Bolshy-ness is this: There's hardly a single candidate in my lifetime that has run for POTUS that I could classify as anywhere near socialist. The only exception I would make is Hillary Clinton's role as First Lady in the first Clinton administration where she tried to introduce universal healthcare - much like our own Medicare - and failed. That's it. The rest of the bastards from Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dole, Dukakis, Mondale, Bush I and Bush II, Reagan, Carter, and Ford did not have anything resembling what might be called a 'social conscience' necesary to be labled a socialist.

Neither has Barrak Obama said anything that makes me think that he is anything like those people I've encountered who are real socialists. He is passionate about politics, but there's nothing that makes me think he's a committed socialist. He has nothing in common with the people I used to see peddling the socialist rags on the corner of George and Park streets in the city. Nothing wrong with that, but he just ain't no socialist.

The other thing is this: if it should so happen that the United States went full-on-Socialist for 4 years, they might actually be surprised at how some things improve in that country - namely their abysmal healthcare. Instead there are fat white idiots angry at the possibility that Obama is riding into the Whitehouse with ex-terrorist friends and a socialist agenda. Give me a break.

What's truly pathetic is that the poor whites want to vote Republican because the candidate in their corner is coloured, in spite of the fact that the Republicans have diligently created the conditions of their enduring poverty in the last 8 years. They trust McCain more because he's white? That's it? What do you do with such people who want to cut off their dicks to spite their balls? And McCain and Palin are pitching their sad little 'anti-socialist' rhetoric at these people as if America really was under some threat from the brigade of nuts who sing 'Internationale'.

I'm not saying Obama is the best candidate out there, or that his candidacy is significantly better than that of McCain. It's just that the election is being fought on nothing to do with real issues and a whole lot of paranoia about socialist ghosts that are simply not there.
It's pathetic.

UPDATE:
Here's something from Saturday Night Live. Watch out for Bill Murray's profound question. :)