Dear Obama doubters, if this doesn't represent real change, please tell me what it is.

[mistertrickster]

Thank you.

Mr. T.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03Obama-t.html?_r=1&hp

On April 14, President Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University, trying to explain why he was taking on so many economic issues so early in his administration. He argued that the country needed to break its bubble-and-bust cycle and cited the New Testament in calling for a new economic foundation for the nation. This foundation would be built on better schools, alternative energy, more affordable health care and a more regulated Wall Street, he said.

[ananda]

1. "a more regulated Wall Street"

Has that happened yet?

[lamp_shade]

2. Uh... not yet. Maybe tomorrow or next week.

[Maven]

4. Heh.

:thumbsup:

[WonderGrunion]

5. Patience, grasshopper

Obama needs the financial institutions to all sign into the recovery process where they'll be forced to accept new regulation before he enacts it.

This man plays chess... many moves ahead.

[mistertrickster]

7. Yes, I think it's in the process of happening. The bank "stress-tests" would be

an example.

Also, anti-predatory credit practice laws are a step in the right direction.

[Occam Bandage]

9. And we still use oil, too! It's almost like crafting, enacting, and enforcing policy takes time.

But that can't be right. Everyone knows that once you elect a President, he simply switches the big blue "DEMOCRATIC POLICIES" switch to on, and the big red "REPUBLICAN POLICIES" switch to off.

Then goes out to clear some brush.

[HamdenRice]

20. Have you ever seen a "Securities Law Reporter" volume?

Do you have any idea what it means to overhaul regulation of Wall Street? It will take years just to read through and get a grasp of what the securities laws and regs say at this point.

http://onlinestore.cch.com/productdetail.asp?productid=131

[JHB]

3. It represents a speech. While encouraging, it's hardly "real change"

"Real change" means actions: legislation passed, rules and regulations made and enforced, etc.

In short, it's when all those good words are put into actual practice.

Did you really need that explained to you?

[mistertrickster]

6. I think my point is that just having

a president who puts these issues on the table represents a huge change from worstpresidentever.

But you probably didn't need that explained to you either, I'm guessing.

[Clio the Leo]

8. Ah yes, that's the speech were the White House supposedly covered anything Christ-related..

.... while the President was simultaneously QUOTING from the New Testament. lol

So confusing this Obama man is. :)

(obviously I'm kidding about the first part)

Here's the BS article to which I'm referring....
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/04/16/white-house-asked-georgetown-to-cover-christian-symbols-for-obam/

[BlooInBloo]

10. Me getting a pony NOW!

[Common Sense Party]

11. Citing the New Testament? Same ol' same ol'.

Some things never change.

[mistertrickster]

12. Sometimes, its good if liberals can avoid living up to their enemies' stereotypes of them.

The simple fact is that Christian Bible was and is hugely influential in establishing the values of our country. It is a source of moral authority for the vast majority.

Liberals who deny the obvious help not our cause.

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Well talking in certain terms is far from living those terms

Moral authority? According to Jesus, he IS the prisoners we beat and tortured. Read your Bible. We as a nation have zero moral authority, according to Jesus, we've been Waterborading Jesus, and now we want to let those who did it go free!
Your moral authority was splattered against the wall of secret prisons by the last Christian President, spewing verses as he went along.

[mistertrickster]

15. Good point. That doesn't mean Obama shouldn't talk in biblical terms however. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

16. No, but in the law of that religion

if he speaks in those terms, he better be doing the rest of it. It is fun for folks to shout about their alleged faith, but you know, I am sick of it being used in politics, and if it is going to be, let us speak true. Take my favorite hypocrisy of the Demo-religios, their proclamations of opposition to marriage equality, a secular issue, on the basis of their religion. To start off, John Edwwards did that while he was doing other things, ok? So he spouted off about be'n a Christian and yet he was, according to the actual words of Christ, being a whoremonger and making his wife into a whore, ok? So that is the faith. We hear Obama crackling about his holy pants devotioin to the Scriptures, demanding that he must oppose civil rigths. Well, it really is this simple, my friend, he does not live that Book at all. Against equality, he has Levitcus, which teaches slavery and that one should die for eating lobster or dressing like Michelle. Then he has St Paul, who teaches that women should be submissive, with heads covered in church and silent in the gatherings, but we see Michelle Obama living NONE of that. So. they reject the faith, if we were being honest about it, they and the rest of the grand political pukers of scripture simply do not live by it. Therefore, when they spew against good families in the name of a faith which they themselves practice only in name, when they spew a verse at me while breaking the next, they are not using the faith in a sacred manner,, but in a profane and-dig it-blasphemous manner, according to that very faith.
Jesus said never pray in public, only hypocrites do that. Jesus said that. Never do it. He said it was pointless, and a big show for other people. Said never do it. Obama does it. Biden. They whole 'christian world' does it. But the fact remains that Jesus said never do it. Yet they do it, and then when they want to hate gay folks, they line up this thing about being all concerned with doing what Jesus said. It is too fake for words.
There is such a thing as the teachings of Christ, and these politicians do not follow it, they use it as a bludgeon, in a way forbidden by-you guessed it-Jesus.
So get off it. It is wrong to wrap your own agenda in a divine mantle. It is wrong to support rules for others that you yourself do not keep.
Sorry, but I am just sick of the hypocrisy. At some point, they must be called out according to their own faith. They need to follow it, or shut the bloody hell up about it. So Michelle needs to go buy some hats, if you ask me.
And that completes my sermon for the day.

[mistertrickster]

19. Yup, you're right. A religion that demands that one "sell all he has, and follow me" is pretty hard

for most people to really live up to.

So . . . you make some very good point.

I basically have to agree.

[foo_bar]

18. pols rarely "cite" the NT, they recite it, or just make it up as they go

As a "nonbeliever" nothing would make me happier than the fraction of the population living in the Middle Ages redirecting some of their energy to, shall we say, creative endeavors in lieu of destructive ones. There's plenty of precedent in either "testament", from the forward-looking Ecclesiastes to even Leviticus with all its baroque pronouncements, in which is buried such ur-progressive ideals as emancipation (Jubilee) and the notion of the weekend and the sabbatical, and the NT of course runs the gamut from The Beatitudes and the Golden Rule to the paranoid missives of Revelation in which Jesus almost certainly played no role, assuming he existed to begin with, so I think Obama's clever to turn the canon against them. Maybe clever's the wrong word, I don't think you can be president of the US without paying at least lip service, from what I can tell of Carter/Reagan/Mr. Thousand Points of Light/etc.

[polichick]

13. I like how he plays the other side by packaging his "foundation" in the Bible - lol.

[bertman]

17. Maybe President Obama should consult with his ranking Senator from Illinois on what

kind of real change might happen to the financial industry if it's up to the Congress to make it happen.

I'm not holding my breath.

But I am hopefilled.