Fuck Obama

[Project Willow]

[elfismiles]

It's been far too long since we had some FUCK So-And-So threads on the front page of GD:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9dB8Al2u4Q

FUCK THE OFFICE OF THE pREDISENCY

[Sounder]

Meuwahahaha, the ploy has worked. Obama says rest so many times that the whole world is now hypnotized and 'resting'.

[Luther Blissett]

8bit's post in the ISIS thread made me think of something: now that the second term is almost over, what of the very widespread conspiracy theories regarding martial law (for middle class whites), dismantling of second amendment rights, forcing everyone onto welfare, establishing the caliphate in america, repossessing farms, imprisoning innocent civilians in FEMA camps, establishing one world currency, Agenda 21, etc.?

Do they say:
fringe elements on the far right worked diligently to thwart these plots?
it is still in the works?
it has already started and we can't tell?

[MacCruiskeen]

I Have Just Three Words For You, Mr. President

by RAZFX Pro @ 2013-11-03 – 04:20:15

http://lookingglass.blog.co.uk/2013/11/ ... -16737258/


It was one of his little jokes. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, noting that his young daughters had crushes on the popular Jonas Brothers, warned the latter to be careful. “I have just two words for you,” he said, “predator drones. You won’t see them coming.”

His audience laughed appreciatively.

By careful count, several independent international organizations have calculated that the United States has killed more than one thousand innocent people through the use of drones, which fire remote controlled missiles at targets identified thousands of miles away. The operators of these killing machines watch monitors in windowless rooms. Recently, Obama suggested that they be eligible for combat medals.

Of course, a thousand dead innocents, more or less, that’s nothing given America’s grand vision. A former Democratic Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, once proclaimed that half a million dead Iraqis was “worth it.”

In the United States, we have a President who orders the killing of people he regards as ‘dangerous.’ Obama has a death list, which he charmingly refers to as a ‘disposition matrix.’ Every Tuesday, he goes over suggested targets and makes his picks of the week, as though he was handicapping basketball games.

But not everyone can make the disposition matrix. Some have to be randomly targeted. This is the task of the anonymous technicians in the windowless rooms. They are fed pieces of information, much of it faulty, and they follow behavior on computer screens. From these things they decide that someone will live or die.

For several years, Obama coyly declined to even acknowledge the drone program. If he said nothing, maybe Americans would refuse to believe it was happening. After all, on the evidence, Americans find it easy to deny all sorts of things.

Now, we get the nod, but still the government won’t talk about casualties, only to claim that with every strike numerous “militants” –– a meaningless term –– were killed. Obama, his press flack, and the ham sandwiches at the State Department, will not answer questions about civilians, let alone the proclivity of the U.S. to employ ‘double tap’ tactics.

In case you don’t know the term, ‘double tap’ refers to the practice of hitting a target twice. The first strike draws people who try to help the victims; that’s when they strike again. ‘Double taps’ are forbidden under international law as among the most egregious of war crimes. The United States does it and it is not accidental. According to studies by both American and English investigators, the U.S. routinely bombs wedding parties and funerals, as well.

Some people probably see the killing of civilians as accidents, unfortunate consequences of war, what Nixon liked to call ‘collateral damage,’ a noxious term he probably learned from Henry Kissinger. I do not. I believe that America kills civilians intentionally.

Why would we do that? We do it because we believe it is in our interest to terrorize civilian populations. Drones, you see, are highly visible by people on the ground. They are noisy, too, making a kind of dark, whirring sound. They do not fly in and kill people and leave, no. They hover. That is their special terror. People hear and see them and don’t know when and if the missile will be fired, or at whom.

This week, there was a briefing held before the House of Representatives. It was called by Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida. At the briefing, a Pakistani schoolteacher, Rafiq ur Rehman and his children, 13-year-old Zubair and 9-year-old Nabila, told of the death of Rafiq’s mother and the children’s grandmother, Momina Bibi who, with the children, had been picking okra when the missiles struck. The children were wounded. They spoke of what it was like to be survivors of Obama’s drones.

Nabila had drawn a picture of what the drone strike looked like to her. She held it up for the representatives in the chamber so that they could see what their policies, what America’s President had done to their family.

Five members of the House had troubled themselves to attend. Representatives Rick Nolan of Minnesota, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, John Conyers of Michigan, and Grayson, all Democrats. Four hundred thirty elected members of the House, whose support for the policies, for the budgets which fund them, had bought the drones and the missiles which are fired from them, had other things to do on Tuesday, the 29th of October.

The media, too, was generally absent. Not a big enough story, I guess. Not sexy enough. No Hollywood celebrities. The corporate empire which owns America’s television networks was not going to let anyone cover it, not really, so what was the point? I wonder whether the target officer at a computer who ordered the strike will get one of the President's combat medals.

“I no longer love blue skies,” said Zubair. “Now I prefer grey skies. Drones don’t fly when the sky is grey. My grandmother was nobody’s enemy.”

“Nobody ever told me why my mother was targeted that day,” Rafiq wrote to President Obama last week. “The media reported that the attack was on a car, but there is no road alongside my mother’s house. Several reported the attack was on a house. But the missiles hit a nearby field, not a house. All reported that five militants were killed. Only one person was killed, a 65-year-old grandmother of nine.

“But the United States and its citizens probably do not know this. No one ever asked us who was killed or injured that day. Not the United States or my own government. Nobody has come to investigate nor has anyone been held accountable. Quite simply, nobody seems to care.”

Nobody seems to care. Wonder why he might feel that way. Perhaps the missing 430 members of the House, including Jared Huffman, my own congressman, who likes to pose as a ‘progressive,’ had important conflicts in their busy schedules. Next time, the Rehmans should phone ahead of time.

It’s a Saturday night in the land of the free. There’s an article in my local paper today saying that the Novato school district, which is strapped for cash when it comes to teachers’ salaries, is going to be installing thousands of dollars worth of surveillance equipment in the elementary and middle schools, to “keep the kids safe” by spying on everything they do.

In the South Bay, at a retirement home which state authorities had ordered closed, management and staff left 19 residents unattended and even visits by a state official did no good. The 19 survived because two men, a cook and a janitor, unpaid and with no training, wouldn’t abandon them. The janitor, Miguel Alvarez, had hoped to make some money to brighten Christmas for his family, but the closing of Valley Springs Manor dashed that. He remained, anyway. His food stamps have been cut this week along with those of tens off millions of Americans, a budgetary decision made by the House Democratic majority in 2010. Alvarez has trouble feeding his family. On the internet, I see comments by creeps who think the poor are taking advantage of them.

I’d better get some dinner now. I’m one of the fortunate Americans who doesn’t need food stamps. I shopped at my local market earlier today unconcerned about the prices of things. I’ll turn on the heat. Winter’s coming but I’m not worried about the heating bill.

This earth is still a rich environment, easily habitable by all who live on it. I do get it that human beings are a work in progress, that we’re not very evolved, that we hurt ourselves and one another out of ignorance. But it is the viciousness, the mean spirit I can’t take. It is the state dinners of the wealthy, the bankers dining at the White House, the President making jokes about the murders he orders with a casual flick of the wrist.

I have just three words for you, Mr. President. Go fuck yourself.

http://lookingglass.blog.co.uk/2013/11/ ... -16737258/

[8bitagent]

8bit's post in the ISIS thread made me think of something: now that the second term is almost over, what of the very widespread conspiracy theories regarding martial law (for middle class whites), dismantling of second amendment rights, forcing everyone onto welfare, establishing the caliphate in america, repossessing farms, imprisoning innocent civilians in FEMA camps, establishing one world currency, Agenda 21, etc.?

Do they say:
fringe elements on the far right worked diligently to thwart these plots?
it is still in the works?
it has already started and we can't tell?

Its exactly one month since you posted this...Obama has virtually stopped the drones, balked on the anti Boko Haram/Al Shabaab campaigns the joint chiefs went along with recently and now it wasnt until even the damn leftist anti war side was all "dude...you soooo gotta go after ISIS man!" that he's reluctantly decided to go into Iraq/Syria. But it is part of a very specific role he is playing of "appearing weak"

[MacCruiskeen]

Obama had choices - if even to get shot for making them.

He never had any intentions to challenge power or make real change.

That is obvious. Even to the Obama cheerleaders.

The scary thing is that it is not obvious to the Obama cheerleaders. You rattle off the names of all the creeps he has hired to run his Administration, the money he as taken and from whom, the ways in which his actions have paralleled those of George W., and they look at you incredulously and blame the Republicans. Obama, they imagine, is hopelessly caught in a web not of his making. He is "forced" to nominate these people because the Republicans won't confirm anyone else; he is "forced" to have this foreign policy or the Establishment will howl; he is "forced" not to fight for "what he really believes" because that would be "divisive" and hurt the country. So why elect him in the first place? He is a "symbol" of our American commitment to a multiracial, color-blind future of inclusion!!! Thus politics becomes semiotics. Don't expect decency or policies that actually help people--just feast on the symbolic power of a black man being President. Who could ask for anything more?

http://new.chris-floyd.com/component/co ... /2429.html

[Spiro C. Thiery]

Obama had choices - if even to get shot for making them.

He never had any intentions to challenge power or make real change.

That is obvious. Even to the Obama cheerleaders.

The scary thing is that it is not obvious to the Obama cheerleaders. You rattle off the names of all the creeps he has hired to run his Administration, the money he as taken and from whom, the ways in which his actions have paralleled those of George W., and they look at you incredulously and blame the Republicans. Obama, they imagine, is hopelessly caught in a web not of his making. He is "forced" to nominate these people because the Republicans won't confirm anyone else; he is "forced" to have this foreign policy or the Establishment will howl; he is "forced" not to fight for "what he really believes" because that would be "divisive" and hurt the country. So why elect him in the first place? He is a "symbol" of our American commitment to a multiracial, color-blind future of inclusion!!! Thus politics becomes semiotics. Don't expect decency or policies that actually help people--just feast on the symbolic power of a black man being President. Who could ask for anything more?

http://new.chris-floyd.com/component/co ... /2429.html

Emphasis mine. I bolded the last bit because it rings literally true regarding a conversation I had with a sweet and wonderful, dear friend of mine who was embarking on her career as a high school teacher at the time. It was during the summer of 2008, we had met for dinner and this soon-to-be inner city heroine lamented her mother's code-pink-like behavior -- something she had theretofore been proud of. Why the turn? Obama.

I rattled off the list -- Senator and State Senator version -- to which she replied that some things just cannot be changed and that it was more important to her that young Black men have him to look up to. I know, the cognitive dissonance was killing me, but there you have it.

If I may: I have given this thought for some time now and I think that the problem is just as you say; the less-evilism is what you will often get in response during the election cycle, but more problematic is the steadfast holding on to human figures as heroes or similar. We see it in how people react to criticism of the president, various congresspeople, entrepreneurs, certain journalists and alleged whistle-blowers. People cannot judge the events, what people say or the actions of the individual because they are clouded by that semiotics you refer to. But in short, it's hero-worship.

[MacCruiskeen]

If I may: I have given this thought for some time now and I think that the problem is just as you say; the less-evilism is what you will often get in response during the election cycle, but more problematic is the steadfast holding on to human figures as heroes or similar. We see it in how people react to criticism of the president, various congresspeople, entrepreneurs, certain journalists and alleged whistle-blowers. People cannot judge the events, what people say or the actions of the individual because they are clouded by that semiotics you refer to. But in short, it's hero-worship.

Yup. Team Obama. Go team! Brand Obama. He's a Mac, not a PC. Ergo, he's cool. To criticise him even slightly is to harsh someone's buzz. Drones? Wars? Fracking? Highest income disparity since 1900? What are you, a hater or something? Hey, the guy's doing his best! Leave Britney Obama alone!

It's a kind of infantilism. The whole language is infantile. No politics is possible in that language, because no thought is possible. Brains are damaged, literally. It's taken decades of hard work to achieve that goal, mainly through movies and TV.

Anyway, Mission Accomplished. US "politics" now consists entirely in image-manipulation.

This is Brand Liberalism, in 2014:

Gwyneth Paltrow to Obama: ‘You’re so handsome that I can’t speak properly’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pos ... -properly/

By Katie Zezima and Juliet Eilperin October 10

LOS ANGELES -- President Obama arrived in Los Angeles Thursday and, as he so often does when he is here, attended a fundraiser. This one was at the home of actress and founder of the "eminent lifestyle publication" GOOP, Gwyneth Paltrow.

"You're so handsome that I can't speak properly," said Paltrow, who "consciously uncoupled" from her husband, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, earlier this year.

Paltrow's children, Apple and Moses, attended the fundraiser at her house in Brentwood. Paltrow hosted the fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, which said that 200 people came to a reception at Paltrow's home and 50 for a dinner.

Tickets for the reception started at $1,000 each, and the dinner was predictably pricey, starting at $15,000 a head. Julia Roberts and Bradley Whitford were spotted. Paltrow told Obama she is "one of your biggest fans, if not the biggest.”

Both Paltrow and Obama recalled how she hosted an expat fundraiser for Obama’s reelection campaign in London.

“And, Gwyneth, thank you for not just what you did this time, but what you did last time, because it did make a huge difference to us,” Obama said. “Even though I couldn’t go, I wanted to go, but they said there are no voters that I can knock on doors in London.”

“I’m trying to remember who drew the tough job of attending that event. I think it was Messina, wasn’t it?” the president added, referring to his campaign manager Jim Messina, who now works as a campaign adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, “What a scam.”

For her part, Paltrow said of Obama, "It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass."


President Obama boards Air Force One upon his departure from Joint Base Andrews in Washington en-route to California. Obama arrived in Los Angeles Thursday and will also visit San Francisco during his 3-day trip. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Paltrow spoke about Obama's efforts on the environment and equal pay for women, telling the crowd that they are "very important to me as a working mother.”

Obama, meanwhile, touched on subjects ranging from the Islamic State to equal pay for women, the environment and Ebola.

While the likelihood of an Ebola epidemic in the United States is very small, "there’s a humanitarian crisis that’s happening in West Africa right now where children not much older, and in some cases younger, than Apple and Moses, are dying on the streets alone," Obama said.

The president said people are still anxious about the economy, in large part because while it has improved, wages have not risen. "Most of the gains in our economy go to the folks who are in this lovely yard," Obama said to the audience, who were seated on white holding chairs in Paltrow's backyard.

And in one more reference to the idyllic setting, Obama thanked Paltrow and her two children for "letting us crash at your house." "I promised that I would put everything back," he said.


Katie Zezima covers the White House for Post Politics and The Fix.


Juliet Eilperin is a White House correspondent for The Washington Post, covering domestic and foreign policy as well as the culture of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She is the author of two books—one on sharks, and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other—and has worked for the Post since 1998.

"Very important to me as a working mother.” She really said that. No one laughed. No one puked. Here as elsewhere, every day, you have to keep reminding yourself that this is not an Onion spoof but an actual Washington Post news item.

A liberal is an adult baby. Is it any wonder the Right hates liberals? How could they not? Hating liberals is not what makes the Right detestable. As the late lamented Joe Bageant understood:

Understanding America's Class System
Honk if you love caviar

By Joe Bageant

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/08/u ... erica.html

[MacCruiskeen]

PscaryPal
frankly at this point i don't trust anyone who isn't openly insulting to the minions and mouthpieces

Red Fanged Kahina
fawning, courtesy, presumption of candor after multiple proofs of their ill-will and deceit, re/produces their power/impunity

https://mobile.twitter.com/RedKahina/st ... 774464?p=v

[Sounder]

Brains are damaged, literally.

Yes, layers of cognitive dissonance are being imposed on the general population.

So, a useful project then would be to help find ways, (a new set of criteria for understanding), that can help folk recognize and maybe even resolve some of the dissonance.

It's taken decades of hard work to achieve that goal, mainly through movies and TV.

Movies and TV are central to maintaining the dominant narrative, yet are nothing more than new tools, made useful for the continuation of a centuries old deception.

[Nordic]

I just realized:

Obama will be remembered as the Bill Cosby of politics.

[elfismiles]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlK6UEDH890

I just realized:

Obama will be remembered as the Bill Cosby of politics.

[Nordic]

Yeah, and when you wake up from the Donkey Dream, you realize he fucked you.

[MayDay]

Tell me I'm dreaming. This mother fucker has the balls to pretend he's a populist- now that he can't do jack shit.