Race does play a part -

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I can remember when republicans attacked Hiliary and Chelsea big time. Dont you remember? So, now that someone has attacked Bush, his daughters and wife (seems like quite a bit is not attack but truth), the poster is wrong. Geez, I can remember when I would read awful attacks on Chelsea, who was only a child while in the White House, and I often thought all this is gonna affect her self esteem. Hiliary has been a punching bag and continues to be from the right wing. So, can we all get over it? Politics is tough and yes both sides attack, even personally (really..wow??) the other side. From the posts I have read between these two (GT and MT), me thinks one has a grudge against the other and that to me is ridiculous and tiring to read. So, kiddies, can we all play nicely in the sand box?

So by your reasoning if a child molestor had molested a child many years ago....you would be okay with the person teaching young children? Because that person has a right to privacy and if they are qualified to teach...their prior history should not be of any concern?

I'm sorry but there are exceptions to every rule here. A person who willingly, knowingly, and admittingly helped blow up several buildings while running a terrorist group should have no right to be a teacher or instructor to any students......period.

What I'm tired of - denial. Widespread total denial, even as live as we've known it crumbles to ashes.

Take the healthcare mess. Lobbyists of insurance and pharmaceutical companies buying the vote of every senator and congressman in Washington to keep the status quo. The people we elected to office taking bribes to betray the very people that elected them. I am sick of knowing that no matter how much I pay in insurance premiums, when the time comes for a claim to get paid, big business will find any loophole to deny the claim and bankrupt me - and they get legislated more loopholes every day by anybody I vote for. And if I am unlucky enough to have a disease that requires a procedure to save my life, the "loss prevention" department at any insurer I pay will diligently seek reason to deny that procedure as "unnecessary" so I will do without the procedure and die. All Washington can do is lie and deny about the healthcare situation.

The lie that the more the government spends on "defense", the safer we are. I found out after Katrina just how safe I was, just how much my government would take care of me, and just what fun living under martial law is. I have learned just how much respect for our enlisted men the government has as they deny insurance claims to their families if they die in action, and force them to pay back sign-on bonuses if they are careless enough to get hurt on the job and have to be removed from duty before their stint is up. I have learned how much are government cares for our other heros, as they deny 9/11 rescue workers healthcare, while providing the best healthcare that can be bought for the terrorists they have incarcerated. Whatever the government claims to be defending, it is not you and me, it is the interests of the big businesses that have bought their vote. Oh, and PLEASE, search every sweet little grandmother that gets on any plane going anywhere - that'll make me feel real safe, because nothing can possibly go wrong with a flight if all the American passengers are treated like criminals before they board it. Keeping the sky safe is all we need, since our borders are so secure that no terrorist could possibly sneak into the country by any other means, like our illegal aliens do!

I am sick of profiteers getting bailed out at the expense of the little guy. I am disgusted to watch incompetence be rewarded and responsibility punished. I am tired of watching people lose their homes, jobs and way of life - while we legislate billions to keep the corporate profits strong, and swallow the propaganda that offshoring our jobs to other countries is a good thing.

I am sick of the war on drugs. How many years and how much mony have been spent on this, yet we are not winning it, so lets just keep throwing money at it and surely someday we'll win. Certainly a DEA agent would never take a bribe or feel any greed like the folks in Washington do.

I am tired of the welfare system and the corruption within it. I am tired of reporting fraud just to be shushed because it causes too much paperwork for them to investigate. I am tired of hearing how anyone can get a government check for threadbare reasons such as questionable mental disabilities, drug/alcohol addiction, or simply the desire to breed irresponsibly until their reproductive organs give up the game. I'm sick of us giving welfare to anyone that strolls into our country illegally and sticks out their hand. I'm 49, I am assured that there will be nothing left for me when I am old and ill, and I have paid into the system all my life. I am also assured that no matter how much wealth I may amass to try to pay my own way, health care costs will continue to skyrocket past it and any illness at all will financially wipe me out, so the best I can hope for is a quick, severe illness that kills me before I'm penniless and homeless.

I am tired of charities that bombard us with heartwrenching commercials - then turn around and pay any contributions we give to CEOs, advertising, and overhead - only then maybe a few cents will actually be left over for the pitiful victims we intended to help.

I am sick of the environmentalists, PETA activists and vegans. Get real, folks. We can't even stop being barbaric to other humans - considering the way we treat our heros, veterans, children, elderly, poor, disaster victims, mentally ill and homeless - do you seriously think we'll become misty eyed about a marshland or an animal? Well, obviously some of us find it preferable to caring about other humans. But your lectures regarding what will we leave our future generations and where is our conscience also apply to the national debt and all the other problems we continue to allow to escalate. So which fire needs to be put out first, would it be possible to actually define and prioritize all the issues intead of just jumping on your bandwagon?

I'm also tired of hearing about the horrific conditions in other countries - imagine taking an interest in what's wrong with our own country before we go fixing everybody else on the planet!

I am tired of being politically correct. We are sooo, sooo worried about offending "someone", and a slip of the tongue in front of a camera can ruin a career....but we have no problem taking away anyone's livelihood, housing, self-respect, dignity, health or even their life if it stands in the way of corporate profit. So why keep up the pretense that we care how anyone feels?

I am tired of going to the polls to vote for people who claim to stand for something, but are prepared to change their mind the minute they hit Washington and the bribes start rolling in. I am tired of having no good choices on election day, and no candidate that I have any faith in actually making it on the ballot. I am tired of knowing that any candidate from any party that makes it to Washington will be on a lobbyist's payroll before they cast their first vote on any issue, so whoever I vote for will put the highest bidder's interests first.

I am tired of the widespread apathy of my fellow citizens, who waste their brainpower on entertainment and fluff, instead of questioning the system and working to change it. I am tired of greed that has taken over every aspect of this country. I am tired of a society that worships wealth, celebrity and beauty for all the wrong reasons. I am weary of everyone being in debt up to their eyeballs, one paycheck away from total financial anniliation, and thinking its a sensible way to live because "everybody" does it. After all, our national leaders show us by example that the solution to huge debt is borrowing more money without a thought for tomorrow, and daily the media assures us those guys really know what they're doing! I am tired of conspicuous consumption and planned obsolesence. I am sick of the skyrocketing costs of education and transportation. I am sick that everything I voluntarily purchase or involuntarily contribute to via taxes has been deberately engineered by some corporate fat-cat to cost me more and give me less than it did yesterday.

Sign me - Just another unheard voice in the land of the deceived, home of the naive.

I prefer the LA Times version, though I don't really like them. Their article did not try to deliberately mislead.

despite how many times I tell you it has nothing to do with what my Christian beliefs are, other than my belief in Christ strengthens my moral resolve. Abortion is morally wrong and it is on that level that I most strenuously oppose it. I have no reason to believe that if I parted ways with God as you have that my moral convictions would go with Him. I had moral convictions before I knew Christ. All knowing Him has done is strengthen them.

You have morals, right? Has nothing to do with religion, as you don't have a belief in God, right? You and He parted ways a long time ago didn't you say? Did your morals go with Him? Of COURSE they didn't. You think war is morally wrong. That does not come from any religion in you does it? NO. It comes from your morality. The same place my exception to abortion comes from. There are many people against abortion on moral grounds who aren't Christians.

You ignored my question again. Do you think war is ever justified? Was the Revolutionary War? Was the Civil War? ANY war?

Just as you think it is a shame war casualties do you light a fire in my heart like millions of aborted children, I think it is a shame that aborted children don't light a fire in yours.

Geeezzzz piglet. Is there a GOOD way to murder a baby? I don't think so!! I don't care how they do it...it still kills them. Murder is rarely done in a "humane" manner. It would not be more palatable to me no matter how it was done. I mention how it is done because you continue to talk about maimed and mangled and bloody war casualties. That is why I bring the point that that is exactly what abortion does...maim, mangle, torture, and kill. Neither is pretty. Both are ugly, and both end with death. Would you want pictures of aborted babies on the 6:00 news? Would you like live video footage of a late term partial birth abortion with your evening meal? Perhaps we could have a half hour of war victims and a half hour of abortions?

I think you are wrong about abortion going underground. Women would start going to Mexico or to whatever state abortions were available. But at least the woman still has a choice of an illegal abortion or carrying the child. The child NEVER gets a choice. In your world that is fair. In mine, it is not. That being said, I realistically do not believe that we will ever live in a country again where abortion is illegal nationwide. I do not believe it will happen. That does not mean I will not continue to speak out against it or work with organizations to give women a choice other than abortion. And if called upon to vote for or against...it will be against. Just like I would not vote to legalize murder. Or theft. It is just amazing to me how outside the womb it is a crime to kill a child, inside the womb it is open season. Freaking amazing. That is why in a partial birth abortion they have to force a breech delivery, then pull back skin of neck, insert needle and suck the brain out, to collapse the skull, while the head is still inside the mother. So that the baby is dead when it is "delivered." If the head was out before that procedure, by law the child has been "born" and to kill it then would be murder. So, to be "legal," have to suck the brain out while the head still inside. Sick.

Going to war is not a unilateral decision. It requires a majority of Congress. Abortion requires a majority of one. Giving one human being total control and choice to take the life of another is morally wrong. Any other time that happens we call it murder without blinking an eye.

It's not about what kind of job this guy can do, or how well he can lead the country. No it most certainly has not been! And I'm sick and tired of everyone making it out otherwise. It's always been about race and that's all its ever been about! I'm hopeful that anyone will be able to pull us out of this depression no matter what their color is or whether it be a man or woman. It's not going to be an easy job. But all through the campaign and to this day we kept hearing about how it's not about race. That was the line that this man from Illinois was trying to sell to us. He'd walk around and tell us he understands what we're going through, it's not about race. Then he'd talk about his grandmother being afraid of black me (uh, hello..I thought you said it wasn't about race). When he was elected my brother and his friends went out and celebrated in the streets because now we got a brother in there. He said to me, "you should be happy because we finally got a brother in the white house who is one of us". I asked him what does he mean "one of us", that's he's black like us so I should rejoicing and saying hallelulah thank you Jesus.

But this latest display of what he has planned for the innaugeration has got to be the most downright utter distasteful display of "flaunting" his race. Now at the inaugeration it's going to be a huge "Gone With the Winds" type of theme with ladies in their plantation dresses. I haven't read it yet, but I'm sure I'll be hearing about him dressing the blacks up like the what our ancestors were dressed when they were slaves. He has taken racism to a whole new level. This is disgusting and this is not what the men who founded this country had in mind. It took us years and years to get through the slavery issues and now here comes Mr. Obama bringing all that sh!t back up again and dividing people. I've got some friends who are white and nowhere in their history do they have any relatives who owned slaves, but now Mr. Obama is going to make all of them feel as though they are slave owners. I don't know what it is but why does America seem to get stuck and not be able to move forward. Instead of looking into the future he's dragging back up the plantation and slavery issues and making a big deal of them. I am just sick to death of coming on and reading how it's not about race when that's all that it is about. I voted for Mr. Obama because I like him. I didn't think he was qualified and he doesn't have the experience, but I'm willing to give a new unknown person a chance. Now he pulls this racial crap and it makes me ashamed to be black and more ashamed that I was conned into his lies and voted for him. (even the NAACP is criticizing this). It's not about race?????? Tell me another one.

Because of the following, which has been well known for hundreds of years now. This form of racism was established in the American culture by white people, some of whom now deny its existence.

Subconscious mental connection between blacks, apes may reinforce subtle discrimination

Many U.S. citizens may not hold openly racist beliefs today, but they still may subconsciously link African Americans with apes because people still use words and metaphors that subtly reinforce a less-than-human bias and endorse violence against Blacks, according to a new study.

"Historical racist images and books dehumanizing African Americans in the 19th and early 20th century relied heavily on the Negro-ape metaphor, which was used to stereotype Blacks as lazy, dim and aggressive," said lead author Phillip Atiba Goff, assistant professor of psychology at Penn State. "Such dehumanization and animal imagery have been used for centuries to justify violence against many oppressed groups.

"The images have disappeared from popular culture and from most people's memory," he added. "However, after completing six studies, we found strong evidence that Black-ape linkages still influence people subconsciously and impact their judgment particularly in the case of African American suspects and defendants."

The study's findings are published in the paper, "Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization and Contemporary Consequences," in a recent issue (February) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association.

Goff and fellow researchers Jennifer Eberhardt, associate professor of psychology at Stanford University; Matthew C. Jackson and Melissa J. Williams, graduate students at Penn State and Berkeley, respectively, conducted six studies of college-age students. They found that participants � even those with no stated prejudices or knowledge of the historical images � were quicker to associate Blacks with apes than they were to associate Whites with apes.

Goff and fellow researchers Jennifer Eberhardt, associate professor of psychology at Stanford University, Matthew C. Jackson and Melissa J. Williams, graduate students at Penn State and Berkeley, respectively, conducted six studies of White college-age students. They found that participants � even those with no stated prejudices or knowledge of the historical images -- were quicker to associate Blacks with apes than they were to associate Whites with apes.

In the first three studies, researchers subliminally flashed Black or White male faces on a screen for a fraction of a second to "prime" the participants, who could identify blurry ape drawings much faster after they were primed with Black faces than with White faces.

http://www.physorg.com/news123944737.html

Please do not tell any of the following their lives are not DIRECTLY affected by the President:

1. The teachers and students who spend most of their time preparing for NCLB standardized testing while falling behind in basic life skills. This affects EVERY student and EVERY teacher in EVERY public school in the United States.

2. The soldiers who have been to Iraq,as well as their survivors. Their mission was to destroy nonexistent WMDs.

3. The millions of people who cannot afford health insurance or oil to heat their homes. Of course our president does believe "profits" are a good thing; unfortunately they are for corporate America.

I am not advising who to vote for; obviously it is a personal choice. But anyone who says no one person can make a difference, good or bad, is naive.

People can raise this question over and over again but what I would like to know is this: Has anyone ever raised the same questions regarding white candidates in this and/or past elections and why people voted for them? Of course not...I wouldn't care if Obama were multicolored - people are going to vote for whomever they choose and I for one am weary of the constant references to race...

I have always voted for dems regardless of race. Had Hiliary made it through the primary, I would vote for her, even though I personally believe that our country is not ready a female to hold that position. I speak from a female point of view and we are too often guided by our feelings and make rash decisions, but later end up regretting our action because we did not think it through. I would love to have Bill back as our president, life was good and he worked for the people.