More Obama Stuff

[robinturner]

I'm having a hard time believing this, but it looks like Obama really is going to be all he's cracked up to be. Right now, the only thing keeping me from going glassy-eyed is the memory that a lot of us felt that way when Tony Blair was elected.

Comments

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

Obama still seems too good to be true. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up.

My impression is that Blair's main problem was his constant pandering to the Bush administration, esp. on Iraq - were there other big issues too?

[solri.livejournal.com]

Yes - he watered down Labour policy to the extent that it completely lost its socialist roots and became a vaguely centrist party.

[ankh156.livejournal.com]

A lot about american ideologies and social attitudes harks straight back to the 19th century (that homey, cutsey 'darn it' common sense that we - or I at least - rather like). Their institutional racism, however is difficult to understand in our days, and if Prez Barry is smart (and I think he is) he'll sneak them into the 21st century with hardly anybody outside of Mississippi, Alabama and the KKK noticing.

Fingers crossed.

I had my doubts about Bleagh! from the outset.

New Labour ? Old bullshit.

[solri.livejournal.com]

I wonder when we're going to get our first non-white Prime Minister.

[ankh156.livejournal.com]

A pakistani muslim would be nice.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Amin to that!

[vret.livejournal.com]

I didn't. I actually decided to join the Labour party about a week before John Smith died (I knew he would do a lot of things I wasn't going to like, but I decided I trusted him to behave in a principled manner). Because Blair was standing I decided to wait, and when he was elected I thought it unlikely that I would want to join while he was leader. I always felt there was a fundamental dishonesty about him.

I think the danger for Obama is the same as it was for Clinton. The rabid press and the extreme right finding some minor, probably completely trumped up, excuse to nobble his presidency from the inside. They have already had a couple of goes at trying to prove, with spectacular dishonesty, that he wasn't an American citizen. I wouldn't be too surprised if some statement gets picked up and presented as a declaration that he is an atheist, and they find there are still one or two overlooked statutes preventing atheists from holding office, swearing oaths, or practising as lawyers.

[solri.livejournal.com]

In practice, of course not. But I think vret was referring to the kind of law that gets forgotten but remains on the stature books because no one has bothered to repeal it. For example, in Britain I think it's still technically illegal to walk more than a mile on a Sunday. More pertinently, the blasphemy law, which almost everyone had forgotten about, was notoriously dragged out in the 1970s to prosecute the newspaper Gay News for publishing an erotic poem about Jesus.