Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Don't Know Much About Feminism


I voted enthusiastically for President Obama twice. The second time was because I thought maybe he needed a second term to achieve his promises. However, I keep feeling more and more like the Obama I voted for and the Obama that is the President is not the same person.

I just finished watching Morning Joe on MS-NBC where they shared criticism of how President Obama continued with his speech about the economy in the wake of the Navy Yard shooting. Later, Joe Scarborough discussed how President Obama and the White House seem out of touch and detached. Scarborough described Obama as being a "passive observer." He discussed how President Obama has been seriously dysfunctional in communication with the public as well as Democratic Senators. I tried to find a clip of this but it seems MS-NBC has conveniently left this segment out of their available clips.

Scarborough didn't come out and say it this morning, but I got the impression that he thinks what many of us are thinking. President Obama is incompetent. How he has handled Syria is the most recent and extreme example of that incompetence.

Not all people believe that the President "made things up as he went along" in his handling of Syria. I've spoken to a number of people that describe Obama as being "a master chess player" and having "an incredible poker face." They seem to be under the impression that Obama used the threat of bombing Syria to get the diplomatic deal that emerged and that he was in cahoots with Putin the entire time.

However, there is evidence to the contrary.

The Bloomberg View says, "The White House says that what matters is the outcome, not the process."

Commentary Magazine says, "This latest volte-face by the president is evidence of a man who is completely overmatched by events, weak and confused, and deeply ambivalent about using force."

The Washington Post says, "The administration claims (preposterously, but no matter) that Obama has been working on this idea with Putin at previous meetings. Moreover, the idea was first publicly enunciated by Kerry, even though his own State Department immediately walked it back as a slip of the tongue."

Like I said this is only the most recent example.

Time Magazine accused Obama of being incompetent regarding Obamacare back in April. Why? It seems they delayed a huge part of Obamacare. According to The New York Times, "Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation."

I don't remember hearing about this in the news. Perhaps it's because back in April I was still putting Obama on a pedestal. Since then his pedestal has gotten smaller and smaller. In the last few weeks it's came crashing down. When he announced that he wanted to bomb Syria, I disagreed with him, but I could certainly understand his reasoning.

It was when he addressed the nation about Syria, that he completely lost me as a supporter. He said, "And several people wrote to me, we should not be the world's policeman. I agree." Then completely contradicted himself when he said, "My fellow Americans, for nearly seven decades the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements. It has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world's a better place because we have borne them." (Emphasis is mine.)

WTF Mr. President?

To make matters worse, he repeats the previous idea. "Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used. America is not the world's policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong." (Emphasis is mine.)

I decided to do a Google search for the words "Obama is not the man I voted for." I wrote the words "Obama is not the man..." and Google conveniently finished the phrase for me. The phrase Google gave was "Obama is not the man America voted for." Unfortunately most of these links were from around the time of his reelection. Not quite what I was looking for.

So I tried again. I had no more typed "Democrats dis..." when Google suggested not one but four interesting search topics.

1. democrats disappointed in Obama
2. democrats distancing from Obama
3. democrats distancing themselves from Obamacare
4. democrats distancing themselves from Obama

It's really more than just my disappointment in Obama. I'm disappointed with the entire Democratic party. Lately I'm disgusted by MS-NBC. I used to drink the MS-NBC Kool-aid but I've watched the news station push more and more GOP propaganda everyday. I remember agreeing with the joke about "Faux News" but now I respond to the joke by saying MS-NBC is just as bad. Was I really surprised when I saw Joe Scarborough's negative comments about Obama weren't available in the online clips?

If I made this blog a year ago, it would have been a lefty, progressive, liberal, Democratic schmoozefest for Obama. Anyone in these categories could do no wrong in my eyes, especially Obama. But at this point in my life, I don't know who I am or what I believe in anymore.

If Obama isn't all the things I believe in, then who is? Six months ago I would have answered that question with this: Hillary 2016.

I know better now. I used to think the saying "A politician is a politician is a politician" was just a joke, but if Obama has taught me anything, it's that there's some truth to that saying.

It goes so much deeper than that though. I was friends with and dated a conspiracy theorist some years ago. He had a lot of theories (which he claimed where not theories because he had facts to back them up). To say I gave him a hard time for these conspiracy theories would be an understatement. I thought most of them were silly and crazy. Most of all, I thought all his theories were wrong and aggressively told him so. We parted ways on bad terms and haven't spoken in a few years.

Then things started happening that shattered my paradigm of the world and politics. Things he had said were coming true!

D's Theory #1: The government is trying to poison you.

I thought this theory was a load of crap. That is until Mosanto started making the news. Not alternative news, mind you. Headline news in the "lamestream media." At first, I honestly thought GMO's can't possibly be that bad. Sure something banned in over two dozen other countries can't be that bad. Then came the refusal to label foods. Next was the reports of organic farmers and even gardeners being told to cease and desist. The facts just got scarier and scarier.

D's Theory #2: The government is trying to control the internet.

This one I outright laughed at. Then came SOPA in 2012 and then CISPA this year. I do admit whether or not these would be used to censor the internet was only speculation but it did seem like slippery slope to online censorship.

D's Theory #3: Big Brother is watching.

This past year is was revealed that the NSA has been spying on us for years using our phone records. At first the White House outright denied it. Then Obama tried to claim the NSA surveillance programs are "transparent." He claims that he learned the truth about the NSA from the media.

D's Theory #4: The government suppresses anyone who tells the truth.

Three people proved this to be true. While some considered them to be criminals, others consider them heroes for being brave enough to tell the truth about our government. Those people are Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning (formally known as Bradley Manning), and Edward Snowden.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to start pointing out signs of the Illuminati in music videos or claiming that government leaders are reptilians but I do have to ask:

How far down does the rabbit hole go?

What is the truth? What do Democrats and Republicans really believe? What do the third parties believe? What does it mean to be "liberal" or "conservative?" How biased is the media? What was this country really founded on? How many more "conspiracy theories" are true?

This blog is also about feminism. How did we become a patriarchy? How and when did feminism start? How much truth is there to the feminist agenda? Do I have to stop wearing makeup and loving fashion to be a feminist?

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