Get Ready to Be Disappointed...
November 7th, 2008 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & FamiliesI appeared on Al-Jazeera's World News yesterday evening to discuss Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama's selection of Rahm Emmanuel and his transition to becoming president. We all saw how fervent and emotional Obama's supporters were over his election win this week, but it's also interesting to see how much international adulation there is of Obama.
I explained that both domestically and abroad, a ton of irrational expectations are being piled on Obama, expectations he can't possibly meet.
Despite his lack of experience, Obama certainly is an impressive individual--intelligent and a great communicator. (Perhaps most importantly, he's young and strong enough to still have some energy left after this absurdly long/absurdly grueling American-style presidential election/fiasco.)
But he's got an economic crisis, a huge budget deficit and two wars, and his supporters are expecting way, way too much of him. I doubt he'll be able to follow through on most of his ambitious plans, some of which are problematic anyway.
Speaking of Obama's supporters, a somewhat embittered Republican friend of mine emailed me the absolutely wicked Onion video above. He's had it up to here with his co-workers' endless enthusiasm over Obama, and distributing this video is his revenge...
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November 7th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Yes, so much for the speculation that Obama's presidency would mean the destruction of Israel. Obama's stumulus plan to build infrastructure is promising. More ominous is the rise in stock prices of defense companies Northrup and Grumman during the second day of a post-election market collapse. The rise accompanied news of Obama's plans to stimulate the economy through defense spending on bombers; this led to speculations that the Obama administration plans to follow the Bush administrations efforts to re-ignite the Cold War.
The video was spot on, incidentally.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Good Lord, that was really well done!
Regarding Rahm....ouch. Nothing on the websites say anything about morals ...only about his ruthless behavior, his enthusiasm for revenge...
When will America get a leader? I have a really bad feeling about this...
November 7th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
He definitely will pass anti-male legislation, and his Vice President will be writing some of it. But here's the thing: McCain would have done the same. We have no friends in the political establishment, which is why we need to create a new one.
Only explosive netroots and grassroots support will sweep in a new era, in which fathers have rights and dignity and women are no longer able to lie about men in court.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
McCain might not have done us any good, but come on...after Obama's speech and, his VP being the author of VAWA, for Christ's sake....we can expect nothing but bad from this administration as far as Men's Rights are concerned.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Hey, was that Roy? LOL Congrats to BHMO!
Bill C
November 7th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Shoot, maybe with Obama and Biden runnin' things, we can finally have some leaders that will go after "deadbeat dads" a little harder, and "wife beaters," with a little more vengence. We can at least look forward to harsher prison time for not being able to pay child support, and some more good false allegations of domestic violence. That will show you mean old men that hate women so bad.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Sometimes, StevenM, you have to set your ideology aside and make the decision on who should serve the USA based on other issues aside from Men's Rights. Voting based primarily from this platform won't help either.
McCain was hardly a saint for fathers. And I don't care if he wouldn't have pushed anti-male legislation like Obama is, he's still soft on father's rights.
And face it, in reality, McCain is a sick man. LIterally a sick man and its questionable whether he would even survive his first term. Would you really want Sarah Palin as his successor should he have died during his presidency? Please put aside your ideology for one minute and consider this.
I think, as far as Men's Rights were concerned, you got screwed either way.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Steve M,
I thought you would like that...........I thought that video was great.
Bill C
November 7th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
King of K: you may be right, but let's look at this the way Machiavelli would have. If more men are screwed under Obama/Biden, won't that be good for our movement? Most MRAs are men who have already suffered. Even higher levels of anti-male extremism will swell our ranks.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Hello Eagle -
I'm interested in boys and mens rights over political party as I said. I have no ideology to set aside regarding my motives in voting.
My views mostly reflect that of a republican-centrist.
My beliefs match many in the conservative agenda, and always will. So do a few of my beliefs match those of the ind's, democrats, libertarians. Example I'm pro-family but not threatened by homosexuality in that context, or other.
I've never once voted political party, I vote on the individual, always will.
I'm not judging Obama voters, I just don't see what would motivate and MRA to vote him. I'm not God and don't have the answers and can't say "you voted stupid and I voted smart." In the end we all know that not much will change no matter who's in the seat.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
ManCan: Interesting thought on additional anti-male policy and there's probably a lot to that idea. Nothing better than saying "See? Look at this xxxx policy......".
I think that's a positive way to look at the steps we can take and where we can get a foothold, as opposed to just complaining about Obama and what's to come.
Always nice when someone has fresh perspective that adds up to a positive spin and hence contributes to a "hey we can make this work to the greater good" attitude.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Eagle30, I see your point but unfortunately I voted right along with StevenM for the same reasons that he did. My life, views and ideology where not necessarily formed by my self. The U.S. anti-male policy consumed my life. It jailed me as an abused husband, it stole my children and it continues to make me pay for repossessed children with a monthly invoice/ friendly reminder that my kidnapped children are trapped with an abuser. It's been eight years now and I've since had a second set of children. I'm sorry but I could not set them aside for any economic or foreign policy that is sworn golden by the media and mob hysteria. I wouldn't set them aside for anything but unfortunately I now have a President and a Vice-President who have sworn to do everything in their power to ruin my family if the road gets bumpy in my marriage.Eagle30, I see your point but unfortunately I voted right along with StevenM for the same reasons that he did. My life, views and ideology where not necessarily formed by my self. The U.S. anti-male policy consumed my life. It jailed me as an abused husband, it stole my children and it continues to make me pay for repossessed children with a monthly invoice/ friendly reminder that my kidnapped children are trapped with an abuser. It's been eight years now and I've since had a second set of children. I'm sorry but I could not set them aside for any economic or foreign policy that is sworn golden by the media and mob hysteria. I wouldn't set them aside for anything but unfortunately I now have a President and a Vice-President who have sworn to do everything in their power to ruin my family if the road gets bumpy in my marriage.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
ManCan Says:
November 7th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
King of K: you may be right, but let's look at this the way Machiavelli would have. If more men are screwed under Obama/Biden, won't that be good for our movement? Most MRAs are men who have already suffered. Even higher levels of anti-male extremism will swell our ranks.
Ouch, I'm torn. More men would be good but the children thrown under the bus is something I can't stand to think about.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
"Hell hath no Fury as a women scorned."
Jesse Jackson claimed Obama would support Palestinian demands against Israel. Obama's Chief of Staff, Emmanuel, is a Jew supporting Israel. There is no compromise here, unless Obama has divine powers Furies on both sides will pursue him. Strengthen VAWA and black men along with other men will suffer; weaken VAWA and its funding and NOW feminists will be scorned. The emoters in our country emoted for Obama, expecting their pains to be relieved by Obama; but, will they scorn Obama when their painful emotions are not relieved.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
ManCan said:
King of K: you may be right, but let's look at this the way Machiavelli would have. If more men are screwed under Obama/Biden, won't that be good for our movement? Most MRAs are men who have already suffered. Even higher levels of anti-male extremism will swell our ranks.
----------------
Inetersting post ManCan. As I have said a lot lately that things need to get a lot worse before they get better. And I think your statement here falls along those lines. We need the majority of men to start getting screwed over by the government before most people will be begin to notice. I think an Obama presidencey will definately help then in this matter.
Eagle30 said:
And face it, in reality, McCain is a sick man. LIterally a sick man and its questionable whether he would even survive his first term. Would you really want Sarah Palin as his successor should he have died during his presidency? Please put aside your ideology for one minute and consider this.
-----------
Eagle30, based on this logic, would you really want Mr. Joey Biden in charge of things if something were to happen to Obama?
November 7th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Joe Biden (just like Mike knifong) is going to publicly face what he has done to fathers/men/fammilies.
He has caused more childrens suffering in this country than any man in recent history. It seems his VAWA legislation came from his days of being beaten by his sister.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Eagle! Your reasoning makes perfect sense. I did not vote for Obama, but he's going to be our president, and he needs our TOTAL support. What other choice do we, as Americans, have? The big picture for the country does not include MRA's [at this time].
Please, everyone, no matter how you feel about the new administration, that's all we've GOT for the next 4 years. Let's just pray that obama can turn the country around~!
November 7th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
MCA: Unless he just made that story up. Biden likes to makes up stories when he isn't plagiarizing them.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Obama is not going to be President until January? I predict that we will be a Monarchy by then, and he will be crowned King. LOL
Bill C
November 7th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
don't forget to blame the media....they love him and protected him throughout the campaign......
November 7th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
And now ladies and gents, the King Obama and Queen Oprah show.........Wow...........
Bill C
November 7th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
awww yes.... true true true ..... the frigging media shielded him DAILY ... i know!
But it's OVER now
He's our President come january ....
SUPPORT the country!!
November 7th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Yo, Ga. Girl,
As far as I know, this is still a democracy. We can bow to King Obama in January. Let the Monarchy rule in January.
Bill C
November 7th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I think is important to look for the good in every individual.
There is lots of good in Obama.
All here would be wise to look for ways to map what is good and unique about this man onto the problems we face and the solutions we seek.
He is not a nut. He is not into inflicting unfair treatment upon others. He seems to take his responsibilities very seriously. And he definitely knows the plight of men crushed under government.
He needs to deliver some wins. Wise to think of ways to help him deliver some while helping men and their children be together, and break the shackles of the modern slave-trade in male economic flesh.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Idealogy aside, there are some positive things about Mr. Obama. My problem with things since his election is this mass sense of "Global Bliss," that is surrounding him. This might create a situation for him that he will have to be too perfect. The world is going to be watching, and there better not be any sign of weakness, because that is what other countries are waiting for. I hope that he can deliver on his promise to unite this country. So far with some of the people that he is appointing, I wonder if that will happen. We do need to be united again, but this is going to be a long road to recovery.
Bill C
November 8th, 2008 at 4:29 am
It amazes me that Obama can actually make jokes about being a "mutt". Perhaps Jesus isnt as PC as his record sugests. Perhaps.
November 8th, 2008 at 4:41 am
On Obama's website, he has an issue section under "family": http://change.gov/agenda/family/
Some of what is there sounds good -- eliminating some marriage penalties, providing various tax credits, expanding the Family Medical Leave Act, making sure that all child support payments actually go to the mother and kids and not the state (!!!!), etc. Some of it is completely irrelevent and pointless, like raising the minimum wage and introducing a minimum wage cola, increasing sick days. (Feel good crap that won't do anything for workers or families; employers will just take the sick days out of wages and benefits anyway.) Other stuff sounds like typical feminist hysteria; harsher penalties for "deadbeat dads," offering women who claim to have been beaten or raped time off. etc. Not a word about punishing false accusers, but that's no surprise.
Maybe his heart is in the right place, and maybe some of this stuff will even help. I think it will mostly come down to a lot of cheap gimmicks and blaming it all on fathers.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Mancan says "King of K: you may be right, but let's look at this the way Machiavelli would have. If more men are screwed under Obama/Biden, won't that be good for our movement? Most MRAs are men who have already suffered. Even higher levels of anti-male extremism will swell our ranks."
Hey, I was named after Machiavelli, LOL. So I can really relate to that.
A lot of us on this blog have been coming around to this kind of realist, scorched earth position for a while. That is, until more men have been sufficiently marginalised and hurt by the current system there will simply not be sufficient support and activism to bring about real change. In that sense it may be better to have liberal Democrats in office, because they will go even further in attacking men but this in turn will simply energise our support base and help bring the issues to a head.
So come on Joe Biden. Do your worst! We are ready and primed for battle.
The new rallying cry of MRAs: "yes we can".
November 8th, 2008 at 9:42 am
The best union recruiter is bad management and the same logic may swell our ranks with Obama's anti-traditional male agenda.
We shall see.
November 8th, 2008 at 10:09 am
The video posted above by The Onion is priceless! Did anybody catch the obvious homage to George Romero's zombie flicks? The actors really got the stumbling zombie walk and vacant stare down perfectly! (I still like "Dawn of the Dead" best, because the zombies just want to continue shopping....)
Here's a maybe naive idea about how MRAs could get a foot in the door with an Obama administration.
Re-frame men's and father's rights as CIVIL RIGHTS issues. Hammer daily about the discrimination against men. Define men as a class being denied its civil rights.
Obviously with his Chicago community organizer background and education and law practice and teaching Constitutional law, Obama is very familiar with civil rights legalities.
When I visit MRA sites, I see what could be reasonably described as the beginnings of a kind of class consciousness.
Kind of like team sports, only with serious political intentions.
November 8th, 2008 at 10:52 am
please don't take this as being so negative...but a third of democrat voters are idiots...so they will forget their expectations....really i've heard some of the expectations from these people on radio...i'll bet money that if you asked them 2 yrs from now they won't remember...their votes were based on hype and emotions.......also the daily show with jon stewart(comedy show).....his job just got harder....his comedy won't be as funny because of political correctness...a black democrat president..the man the media and stweart protected ..his ratings i'm guessing will drop...so i'm getting the last laugh
November 8th, 2008 at 11:11 am
It’s Pat said:
“ . . . what has happened in the past 8 years to make the rich richer by making the poor poorer.”
By all means I am willing to be edified on this but I think that is not what has happened. It is true that the disparity between the very rich and the rest of us is greater but if you look closely at the figures, overall everyone (on paper, except for the very bottom percentile, (at least until 2004) was considerably better off than previously.
From US Census Bureau 2004 (pgs 44-45) –
“While per-capita, disposable income has increased 469% since 1972, it has only increased moderately when inflation is considered. In 1972, disposable personal income was determined to be $4,129; $19,385 in 2005 dollars. In 2005, disposable personal income was, however, $27,640, a 43% increase. (http://bea.gov/bea/newsrel/pinewsrelease.htm
) and (http://www.bls.gov/bls/inflation.htm ). Since the late 1990s, household income has fallen slightly (http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-8.pdf ).
November 8th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
# Georgia Girl Says:
November 7th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
awww yes.... true true true ..... the frigging media shielded him DAILY ... i know!
But it's OVER now
He's our President come january ....
SUPPORT the country!!
_____________________
You mean the way Lefties did under GWB? Funny I don't remember any of them screeching about supporting the president for the good of the country then. Hypocrites.
November 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Nelson Says:
November 8th, 2008 at 4:29 am
It amazes me that Obama can actually make jokes about being a "mutt".
__________________________
Yes, on November 8th he can make those jokes. Prior to November 4th no one ever referred to him as anything but "an African-American" or a "black man." Why just today I read an AP article that pointed out that his mother was white. Who knew? It would be funny if it weren't so true. Who ever talked about the white aspect of his mother or grandparents or saw them in old photo's etc? What about the comment about his white grandma that she was just a typical white woman? Whoosh! She went right under the bus in no time flat. I guess its okay to talk about his white ancestry now the election's over and done with...Bully for Obama. Rah.
This whole thing reminds me of the SNL episode in the late 70's mocking the movie Saturday Night Fever. In the original movie Travolta has a brother who's a priest who comes home and tells everyone he doesn't want to be a priest anymore. In the SNL version (Samurai Night Fever) OJ Simpson played the priest brother. Rather than saying he doesn't want to be a priest anymore, Simpson keeps telling everyone he doesn't want to be black anymore and he actually goes around saying I'm not black anymore, I'm white. Funny how real life imitates sarcastic things like SNL and The Onion.
OTOH, this may be better news for whites in general than for those who elected Obama based on him being an African-American as it seems to me Obama is now rushing to back pedal on that campaign position just as he is on many others relative to the economy. If his administration runs half as well as Jimmy Carter's did, I'll be surprised.
November 8th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
# Georgia Girl Says:
November 7th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
But, Perspi, what other choice do we have ... for the country ... at this time?
If we have the attitude to "sit back and watch him fail", how do we benefit?
_______________________
Isn't that exactly what Lefties and Dems did? No, not exactly. They didn't sit back and watch GWB fail, they spent their every waking hour demonizing him in an ongoing effort to to *make* him fail in the eyes of the population at large. How did "we" benefit from that behavior? When did you worry about the "good of the country" then?
And now you are worried that might happen to the Left's new Golden Boy. Don't worry, most won't sit back and watch like I'm doing. Most will be going for his throat with every move he makes and every word he speaks. Turn around is fair play. Lefties should have thought about this more over the last 8 years.
November 8th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Oh my god this is too funny. Watch the video again and then watch this.
http://www.euronews.net/en/article/07/11/2008/obamamania-in-kenya-creates-new-generation-of-obamas/
November 9th, 2008 at 10:21 am
# LorMarie Says:
November 8th, 2008 at 3:41 pm "This is one of the best decisions the country has ever made. What we should really be concerned about is the economy. The republicans just didn't deliver, thus they lost."
what is it that you think with?
November 13th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Georgia Girl says: "Eagle! Your reasoning makes perfect sense. I did not vote for Obama, but he's going to be our president, and he needs our TOTAL support. What other choice do we, as Americans, have? The big picture for the country does not include MRA's [at this time].
Please, everyone, no matter how you feel about the new administration, that's all we've GOT for the next 4 years. Let's just pray that obama can turn the country around~!"
PK responds: Let's try this, GG: Let's treat the Obama presidency the same way that the left has treated Republican presidents for the past 70 years or so. To hell with the country, it's all about OUR special interests. Let's focus on all the voter fraud from acorn just as the left claimed that Y2K and 04 elections were "stolen". And let's chuckle and even cheer EVERY misstep this guy makes and call him stupid, incompetent, and corrupt.
Supposedly, he's smarter than GW, right? Then he should be able to handle it. If he can't, tough. Nobody forced him to run for office.
Last time I checked, he's already planning to renig on his "tax cut" that's going to turn out to be a tax increase. Bill Clinton II, here we come!