Lately the blogesphere has been going crazy over President Obama be it Afghanistan or Health Care or the Economy. And now it's getting to the point where people are trying to attribute that criticism to racism. While I do think there is some racism out there (I'm not willing to say that there is non), I do not think it's the driving force behind the criticism.

During the 2008 election, I was really excited. I watched all of his town halls if I wasn't in class. I wrote posts on DailyKos about my fervent support of his candidacy. I watched the debates. I donated. I volunteered. I know what he promised and what he said he would do. So if I feel disappointed in what he's done, or a bit disillusioned because I don't think he's done enough that's my right. Does that mean I'm disappointed in him because of his race? I'm Black, does that mean that I expect White people to save this country? No. It means I'm disappointed. I had really high expectations for President Obama. I believed what he said during the campaign. My biggest issues have been with transparency and GLBT rights. With regard to transparency, I don't think he's been significantly more transparent than the previous administration (they were doing things like refusing to release the visitors log to the WH). Well, actually they've gotten much better lately (they started releasing the logs). During the campaign, President Obama frequently said "I may not always agree with you (or was it "be right", but I will tell you what I'm thinking" more times than I can count. I believed that. Yet, this year has been fire with "leaks" that consistently contradict themselves. Some people called them trial balloons, I don't know what the hell they were. But they made me feel like I was being lied to or deceived. Sure Obama himself never came out and said the stuff, and a lot of it was "anonymous WH aides", but why didn't Pres. Obama himself just release a statement to clear it up?

President Obama said he'd end the political games in Washington. Games I admittedly didn't know much about because this is the first time in my life that I'm REALLY paying attention. Well, it seems to be that the same tired games are being played. Part of that is Republican obstructionism, which is wrong because I do think Obama deals with them in good faith, and part of it is "Conservadems" who have no damn excuse to be the way they are. Everyone is still playing games, and more often than not it looks like Obama is willing to compromise with the center-right and right wing, but isn't willing to compromise with the left/progressives. That can be frustrating for a lot of people. Health Care reform was supposed to be played out on CSPAN, yet there have been a lot of secret backroom meetings where we don't know what the hell is going on. Joe LIEberman is holding the Senate Bill hostage over policies that he's supported before, and reports are coming out that the WH is encouraging Reid to capitulate to his demands. These don't look like change. It doesn't feel like change. No, I didn't expect it all to be fixed and wonderful at the end of a year, but it doesn't even seem like steps are being taken to change the way things are done.

With regard to the economy, I'm frustrated. There's nothing Obama can do to make me less frustrated short of hiring me himself. I'll freely admit that. I don't want to hear about how he thinks about the unemployed every day. I want to SEE what he's doing to fix it. I'm not a laborer, I have two degrees, so when I hear about "green jobs" like insulating a house, that's not something I can do. I'd like to see more reform with regard to student loan repayment because we are getting fleeced out here (but that's another topic for another day).

Like I've said before, this is the first time I'm paying attention, and it's really making me wish I'd stayed uninvolved emotionally and otherwise. Just go to my civic duty and vote, and go home and ignore everything else. Paying attention is getting me nowhere. And now valid policy disagreements are being labeled as "racist" because Obama is a Black man. Well, I happen to think that Obama would be getting the same criticism if he were White. President Obama has a LOT of crap to deal with, it's going to be a long tiring process and he's going to get criticized a lot. I think the problem is that during his campaign he wanted us to "hope" and to expect things of him, and now that he has the job none of it is playing out as he would have hoped. In the beginning I think a lot of it was the Republicans being assholes, then it was the Conservadems being assholes, now I don't know maybe everyone in Washington is an asshole.


Overall, I think I've come out of this entire situation more cynical. I'm not inclined to believe Obama just because he says it. I'm looking to see what he does. Yes, my opinion has shifted over time, but as circumstances and situations change, so do opinions. I don't think all is lost, it's quite possible that Obama will "redeem" himself in my eyes before his first term is over. I like him personally, I just don't care too much for how he's governing right now.

Today I've seen some crazy stuff being said all over the place. Some people really just need to take a break. I support our President 100%. All I want is for him to do the stuff he promised to do.

Sorry if this was a little rambley, I'm just trying to express my thoughts (and I don't even know if I've done a great job of it, but I'm going to have to stop this stream of consciousness at some point ~lol~).

.

That seems to be the only argument for the Stupak amendment and why people support it. "Federal taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used for things people are morally against." Well, a lot of us are morally against war, and yet we're paying for two of them. I'm morally against a lot of things Republicans stand for, and yet we're still paying their salaries. I'm morally against some of the rulings coming out of the Supreme Court, and yet we're paying the salaries of the 5 (or more) on that side until they die. I'm morally against what some of the Blue Dogs do, and yet we're paying for their salaries.

Since when do people get to pick and choose what the federal government does and does not pay for?

I'm in Ohio, my tax dollars help fund executions, and I'm very much morally opposed to that.

If the government didn't pay for everything that someone was morally opposed to, they'd never pay for anything.

This is just a short diary with my thoughts on that amendment and the arguments I've been hearing FOR it. If you don't want federal money to go towards paying for abortions, than use the part of the money that the woman is STILL paying for (as I understand it, none of the plans would be FREE) to pay for "that" part of the plan. I don't get what's so difficult about that.

What else is the Federal Government doing that I'm morally opposed to, I wonder?

.

27% of Republicans believe President Obama loves America.

That's it.

48% of them don't believe he loves America.

25% aren't sure.

I don't know about you, but if I seriously doubt that President Obama would BE President Obama if he didn't love this country. Remember when he was the first candidate (that wasn't a previous First Lady) to get Secret Service Detail during the election? That was when he was still a LONG SHOT, he could have said "you know what, it's not worth it" and walk away, but he didn't.

With all of the bullshit this President is dealing with on TOP of the regular BS Presidents have to deal with, I wonder how anyone could question his love for this country. I could see if he just up and QUIT in the middle of his term. . .

Or if he was taking vacations, MONTH LONG vacations, in his first term.

Not to mention the fact that his EVERY MOVE is recorded and blogged about on the Internet. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a site out there monitoring how often he went to the bathroom. Seriously, you'd think those Republicans would admire him for giving up so much personal privacy. Then again, maybe not.

Literally, EVERYTHING the man does is criticized. This may as well be his theme song. Remember when Chicago lost the Olympics and conservatives CELEBRATED?

People are all over the country comparing him to Hitler, saying he wants to kill their grandmothers, and even choosing to support the TALIBAN's views over him winning a prize for PEACE.

He's getting 400% more death threats than any other President. Pastors are preaching about how he deserves to be killed. Hell, some people are even calling for a military coup against him, even in a time of war.

And yet he's still there, he's still fighting, he's not giving up. He continues to work so even those who hate him can have a better life, and only 27% of Republicans believe he loves America?

No wonder only 20% of the country identifies themselves as Republicans.

.

I ran into this interesting article on the Huffington Post about how the recession is affecting my generation. According to the article:

Only 46% of people aged 16-24 had jobs in September, the lowest since the government began counting in 1948. The crisis is even hitting recent college graduates. "I've applied for a whole lot of restaurant jobs, but even those, nobody calls me back," says Dan Schmitz, 25, a University of Wisconsin graduate with a bachelor's degree in English who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Every morning I wake up thinking today's going to be the day I get a job. I've not had a job for months, and it's getting really frustrating."

* * *

Most analyses of youth employment focus on people aged 16 to 24, which includes everyone from high school dropouts to wet-behind-the-ears college grads. But in this era of rising educational requirements, some people don't start their careers until their mid or late 20s—and these young college grads are taking it on the chin as well.

According to a BusinessWeek analysis, college graduates aged 22 to 27 have fared worse than their older educated peers during the downturn. Two years ago, 84.4% of young grads had jobs, only somewhat lower than the 86.8% figure for college graduates aged 28 to 50. Since then, the employment gap between the two groups has almost doubled.

As a recent law school graduate, I can understand where Dan Schmitz is coming from. I'm applying for jobs that I would have thought I'd never have to apply for again because of how hard the legal community has been hit by the recession. I don't mind applying for these jobs because I need some form of income. I do have monthly bills that are dangerously close to no longer getting paid. Even applying for these "lesser" (for lack of a better word) jobs, I am still sitting here unemployed for the third month since I've seriously started looking.

I found the article to be an interesting read, but I didn't understand how lowering the minimum wage will be helpful. Personally, I'd do fine on a sub-minimum wage as far as paying the couple of bills that I have, but that means I'll have to continue living with my parents (something I REALLY don't want to do), and I'll have to continue putting off paying my student loans meaning more and more interest will accrue. That wouldn't be a problem if I was just working with the $8,000 I had after undergrad, but those law school loans. . . I don't even want to talk about it.

The article points out that there needs to be more job training opportunities while we wait for the recession to end and recovery to truly begin. I think there's some merit there, if there are job training programs then people in my generation can get the experience needed for these jobs and then when the Baby Boomers leave, the companies will have people ready and trained in their policies ready to move up. I wouldn't mind working for sub-minimum wage if I knew I was pretty much guaranteed to move up to a higher salary within a couple of years.

It doesn't really seem like anyone in the government is paying much attention to the problems my generation is having. It seems like most of the focus is on the generation coming up behind us. We've gone and gotten the education we were told would enable us to get good paying jobs, and yet we are sitting here without jobs. We are either over-qualified or under-qualified. I know some people really hate that term, but it's the truth. I remember feeling the same way when all I had was a BA when I graduated in 2005 (before the shit really hit the fan), going to law school was supposed to OPEN more doors for me, and yet I find myself in the same situation. It is and can be very de-motivating to feel like you've done everything right, and you're actually WORSE off (because I could have totally avoided a LOT of debt by going to work somewhere straight out of H.S. instead of going to college/grad school).

The man in the video called it a crisis, I'm inclined to agree. What do you think?

.

Oh, and it's not just the "right wingers" seems like it's the GOP "leadership" as well.

.