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Barack Obama Sworn In As 44th President of the US
Just before noon today, Eastern time, Barack Obama was sworn in before the US Capitol building as the 44th President of the United States (Whitehouse.gov has already been updated to reflect the new President), and offered an inaugural address which outlined some of the challenges that the country currently faces, both within the country's borders and abroad. Obama's election has been called "a civil rights triumph," and his candidacy has inspired perhaps the most visible political involvement of young voters of any candidate since John Kennedy. Here's your chance to discuss the newest occupant of the White House and what you'd like to see happen over the course of his presidency.
I didn't say I didn't question it. I don't believe a word any politician says but I have *never* witness the number of people following along with the campaign promises of a candidate/president like they are with Obama. Even people I would normally believe to be levelheaded are acting like 13 year old girls after their first kiss.
I don't know what to be more frightened of, Bush's right-wing, conservative, religion wackos or the mass of people that Obama has mobilized into believing that something will be vastly different with him in charge.
... of hearing "black this" and "Afro-American that" and he just became President. I just hope that the media (and America) can finally get over this whole "race" thing and let the guy do his job. For an election that wasn't supposed to be about race, we sure do hear a lot about it. To Obama: America and the world is watching - MAKE US PROUD!
I disagree with your view. Why let people hype it all up, and let people 'believe', when all that's going to happen is a huge disappointment. Speculation is what gets the markets in huge trouble, because eventually a correction comes and reality hits, and hits hard. So by your very logic, we shouldn't have tried to do anything with all those speculators on the market, we should have let them keep dreaming of limitless profits... NOTHING BAD HAPPENED, right??? But I guess my example is flawed, since giving people who are drowning in debt, with shitty job prospects at best, a fantasy of everything changing for the better will not end up in even more heartache and suffering in the long run when reality sets back in...
Making Obama into some saviour is just asking for trouble. He can't deliver, not for lack of trying, I'll give you that, but he cannot deliver, the system can't let him. And when he doesn't, and Americans realize that there isn't some magical new president that's gonna make all their problems go away, there's gonna be major backlash.
Of course, please, don't take my word for it... just go to google, or wiki, and look up what happend to other countries who went through similar leadership changes, where the populous believed the new leader would fix all. Scary shit. So letting the delusions of idealism flourish without a reality check is simply going to result in way more sting when reality finally hits home... and it always hits home.
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Looks like they've already got a Technology Agenda posted. This is change I can stand behind. Believe in? When I see it in action. Don't let this make us any less vigilant in protecting our freedom to share information in an open and uninhibited manner.
Which is the greater benefit: saving 340 homes at $500,000 each, or giving 2 million attendees hope for the future with a big ceremony? Given the degree to which consumer spending props up American GDP, the inauguration may actually MAKE money.
I think that's twice in as many days I've seen mis-application of the broken window fallacy.
The broken window fallacy assumes that resources are fully employed. The argument would be that, were it not used to wage war, U.S. industrial capacity would've been doing something else -- something more productive. The problem is, it wasn't being used for something more productive during the depression.
There are perfectly good arguments for why war is not the cure-all for a national economy that many cynics claim. In the context of the Great Depression, the broken window fallacy is not one of them.