Obamatrons, you have your own forum. You also dominate GDP. Please don't bring your crusade in here

[chimpymustgo]

We have made our feelings clear. You are not going to change our minds. You're just pissing us off. And your continued harassment says something very disturbing about you - and the campaign you support.

Stop ringing the doorbell. Keep your silly pamphlets.

WE DON'T WANT ANY.

Got that?

[MissDeeds]

1. I second that

They are really doing more harm than good to their candidate. The kind of people who support BO seem obsessive, rude, and obnoxious. Now why would we want to join their ranks? :shrug:

[chimpymustgo]

2. Funny, after I wrote the post, I re-read Saracat's post about attacks on Edwards supporters

HERE IN OUR OWN FORUM. Cleric John Preston made the same points earlier today in that thread.

I just can't fathom the bullying - even here - in our little safe place.

[Two Americas]

17. why are they so motivated?

I don't think Obama is any worse than most of the other candidates we have had over the decades, and I find no fault with AA voters rallying around Obama. I don't even have any complaints about pastor Wright's comments. You can't blame Obama for trying to be all things to all people, since he has a higher "comfort" burden - he has to work harder as a Black man to reassure white voters. (Clinton as a woman has a higher burden as well to reassure people, and she is also burdened by needing to seem tough, without seeming bitchy.)

However, the fanaticism of the hordes of Obama supporters is a problem. I think it is motivated by the tokenism dynamic - the "good Negro" idea. They can prove how liberal they are, how tolerant they are, how progressive they are merely by supporting Obama. The more fanatical they are, the more they prove how good they are.

We have a Black candidate with whom whites are comfortable. This is people's big chance to prove how un-racist they are - it is easy, it costs nothing, it requires no sacrifice or no thought. The problem with this is that it can actually promote racism. One Black person is promoted and advanced and millions are left behind. The token is then used as an excuse to continue denying the systematic and institutional racism.

Racism is not about liking people as individuals. It is about people being harmed - not just people of color, but millions of people - poor people, unemployed or under-employed people, elderly people, abused and persecuted people, homeless and hungry people, people who are sick and lonely. People of color are more likely to fall victim to those forms of oppression, solely by virtue of being arbitrarily placed into a category through an accident of birth. But a person who is downtrodden and suffering is downtrodden and suffering, regardless of how they got there. Promoting one Black person, while millions are left in poverty, including many whites, is not progressive. Promoting one Black person in lieu of attacking the causes of poverty and oppression is reactionary - it is tokenism.

Why this is so important to discuss, is because this is the same pattern we see all through modern upscale liberalism. We get rid of plastic bags, at the expense of the homeless. We praise Google for giving out voice mail, at the expense of being able to justify silencing and abusing actual human beings who are homeless. We do some little "good" thing as an excuse to ignore the larger problems. This perpetuates the larger problems, and frees the liberal of any responsibility or even guilty conscience.

See the pattern? By doing little "good" things that "help" liberals can differentiate themselves from those bad evil greedy Republicans, while at the same time sharing their views on "success" and "personal responsibility" and individualism. They can be racist reactionary right wingers without being called on it. That is why the public rejects liberalism and the Democratic party - to them liberalism looks to be essentially the same program as the Republican program, but hypocritical and dishonest.

Now, why do liberals get so angry when you challenge this? Wouldn't it be nice if they got as angry about the actual problems, about the suffering people? About racism, about homelessness, about persecution and oppression as they do about being challenged about their own hypocrisy?

"I don't care whether or not a person likes me, so long as they do not have the power to harm me."

The unspoken position of many of the Obama supporters is this: "See how good I am? I like Obama, even though he is Black." That is a racist position disguised as the opposite. The people claiming that support for Obama proves they are not racist - we know this because they accuse those who do not support Obama of being racist - are never there when discussions about racism are happening at DU. In fact, I recognize many of them because when racism is discussed here they take the opposite side from me on this issue - they vehemently deny the existence of racism in every case except when it comes to supporting or not supporting Obama.

[MissDeeds]

18. I am almost hesitant to post this, but

Obama is just as much white as he is black. I am so tired of all the hype about the first black front runner for president. Is it discriminatory that his white lineage is overlooked? Do we dare even ask the question?

Obama is a very intelligent, charismatic politician. He has the ability to whip a crowd into a frenzy by his style and mantra of high impact words: change, believe, hope, fired-up. His cadence, punctuated by clapping, and tent revival delivery are all intoxicating. But the substance, the true essence of a political platform, is lacking. "This is what I am going to do, this is how I am going to do it, and this is when I am going to do it" is absent from his speeches. He's a visionary without a plan.

[Two Americas]

22. my thoughts

No, Obama is not as much white as he is Black. In this country, and this is an important thing to understand about racism, a person can be 3/4 white or more and still be seen as Black. The only thing that "Black" or race means is that white people "see" a person as "Black" is they have a "drop of Negro blood" - that is to say, if they have any superficial physical characteristics that whites associate with "not pure white." One must be pure white - "untainted" by any hint of non-white appearance - in order to be "seen" as white by whites. One does not need to be 100% Black to be seen as Black. Obama looks "Black" in the eyes of whites and that is sufficient in this country to condemn a person to being seen as a second class citizen.

That is the essence of racism - non-white heritage is treated as though it were a contamination, an impurity, by whites.

Also, the blandness of Obama's campaign is partly the result of the requirement for any Black striving to succeed in white society that they not appear threatening to whites. Obama cannot be blamed for this. Whites reject Black men very quickly if they are made uncomfortable in any way. Obama's white supporters themselves have led the charge in attacking Obama's pastor - a Black man who does not make them comfortable, who does speak out strongly and take strong positions, and who does not need to spend time and effort reassuring whites.

No, my complaints are with the white Obama supporters, for their hypocrisy and their cult-like behavior. My complaint is not with Obama nor with the AA voters who are supporting him.

[balantz]

3. If you haven't yet noticed

your Kool-aid stand will get no business here.

[saracat]

4. I don't mind their being here. I just don't want to be "converted" or

patronized because I don't like him. As I have said repeatedly, some of us like Clinton, some like Obama and some like nobody. And that should be okay. I do understand those that think Obama is being trashed but if that is the way some feel, they should let it be.If some want to post anti Clinton stuff, I don't think we should be in a wad anymore that about those that support no one. But no one should proselytize here.
And our loyalty to Edwards shouldn't be questioned because we don't care for Obama.Nor should our party loyalty be an issue tied to any candidate.Our Party loyalty or lack of it has nothing to do with our feelings about JRE.

[troubleinwinter]

6. Obamavangelists exhaust me. I come here for RESPITE from that crap. I can go to GDP for that BS.

[Two Americas]

10. exactly

And what does "support" mean anyway? I don't ever remember in the past being harassed and harangued for failing to speak or act a certain way toward some politician. Hell I have voted for bad candidates for 40 years. Isn't that punishment enough? I noticed that in 2004 for the first time. No matter how many times I said "I will vote for the damned nominee" that was not demonstrating sufficient loyalty. I couldn't even express any constructive criticism of methods or tactics - and the Kerry campaign was awful - without being accused of being a Republican or of disloyalty. I was just shouted down, on and off line - "We have to get rid of Bush!! We have to get rid of Bush!!!"

Shouldn't supporting a candidate actually help the candidate? When did supporting a candidate become a matter of expressing what a nutcase you are, losing yourself in a sort of religious fervor or fanatical worship and loyalty? Now, if you DON'T act like a 12 year old with a crush on Paul McCartney you get attacked as a traitor.

Now with the Obama campaign, this cult-like nuttiness has been taken to an entirely new level. People need to get out more. Do they have any idea what the Democratic party activist community looks like from the outside? Like an Amway convention where everyone has been taking stimulants for the last three days.

Canvassing in rural neighborhoods the last 6 years, the biggest challenge is to overcome the horrible image the activists are giving the party. During the midterms, when they called and asked how they could help, we said "stay away!"

This Obama mania is a complete non-starter among sane everyday working people. Look at how we feel here. We have a much higher tolerance level that people in the general public do for this stuff.

[bobbolink]

13. Is here something wrong with having a crush on Paul McCartney?

50 years later?

:rofl:

"This Obama mania is a complete non-starter among sane everyday working people."

Not to mention poor folk. How many millions of voters in those two groups? YET... we are ignored, trashed and vilified.

Some smart campaigning there...

:crazy:

[saltpoint]

12. saracat, you let me now who is questioning your respect and loyalty to

John Edwards and I will stand with you to defend you and defend JRE.

Seriously. You just signal me.

[troubleinwinter]

5. This is to be a place of respite for Edwards supporters. Not a place for evangelizing by Obamites.

ALERT on the predatory leeches who invade in order to disrupt and evangelize in this small space carved out for us to have a safe place.

[Catchawave]

7. Yes !

Thanks chimpymustgo :hug:

[Catchawave]

8. 10,000 Obama supporters without a clue

are going to NOLA and need John Edwards' Poverty Number?

And...they post here to ask for it.

:rofl:

[Yael]

16. As I said about 5 times on that thread -- the request was because of a WORK convention

you know, as in having a JOB and going to a MEETING once a year and looking to do some work in the lower 9th ward once we are down there?

Where in the name of all that is holy did you extrapolate that to having anything to do with Obama or the election?

Dear God -- I can't even fathom the mental gymnastics it would take to make that leap.

[ClericJohnPreston]

9. Maybe our resident troll

will finally get the hint. Then again, once they drink the Kool-Aid, they become Jehova's Witness batshit crazy and don't get the hint.

Lets see if our resident pod person comes back. I'm betting on Y-E-S. I did say batshit crazy, right?

[chimpymustgo]

11. Cleric, this is not a hint. LOL.

You had some wonderful arguments in Saracat's thread.

[Bjornsdotter]

14. They need us

....and they don't want to admit it. I too wish that they would go away. I used to be on DU for hours, now I post my list of Friday movies and lurk in this forum and 2 others. I can't take the hatred that is all over the "Latest Page."

This is one of the few places I can come....:hug:

[Lugnut]

20. I rarely come here anymore

I've spent more time than I care to admit at DU since 2001 until John backed out. I don't recognize the place anymore. I'm stunned at what is allowed to stand as posted these days.

[mac56]

15. AAAAAAA-men.

Honest to god, we need to have a place where we're free from the ruthless evangelists.

And I'm willing to believe they're not all Obamaites, though in my experience the more annoying ones seem to be.

Remember, the "ignore" list is your friend. Just last week I put one of the bigger douchebags on it. And believe it or not my blood pressure is much better now, thank you very much.

[bpeale]

19. and i probably have 250 on my ignore list. the noise gets ever so much more manageable

[Seabiscuit]

21. My list actually has over 600 Obamanoids on it.

And my screen is still cluttered with crap from the ones that keep coming out of the woodwork.

[chimpymustgo]

23. I love your moniker: Obamanoids. It captures the cult and their annoying tendencies.

It brings a smile every time I read it.

I had become partial to Obamatologists. But I think Obamanoids may strike just the right note.

[Seabiscuit]

24. LOL! Thanks!

I've seen so many variants on the "Obamabot" theme, I crack up every time I see a different one. :)

How about the adjective form of Obamanoids: "Obamannoying"?

[chimpymustgo]

25. OMG LOL!!!! Obamannoying...

I guess it wouldn't be cool to start a whole thread on various Obamamonikers, but it sure would be fun.

[Seabiscuit]

28. I suspect it might not go down well

with Nance Greggs.

And before long it would get locked.

[bpeale]

26. actually, if you want to draw them out...

and add them to your ignore list, post something negative about obama. we all know they have no powers of reason, so they'll reveal themselves by their vitriol, then you can put them on ignore post-haste!

what surprises me, is the number of JRE supporters who have drunk the kool aid & have become fanatics. i have even had to put 2 or 3 former JRE supporters on ignore. it just blows my mind.

[ClericJohnPreston]

27. I still like

OBAMINATIONS, best. :)

[Seabiscuit]

29. I've always liked that one, CJP.