Is Barack Obama becoming the new Che Guevara?

[Keystone Phil]

Please don't turn this into "You guys are just jealous!" or "Yeah, they're all a bunch of brain washed freaks!" Let's try a civil conversation on why Obama is or isn't Che-like.


I'm not saying that all of his supporters are crazy or anything like that but isn't this stuff getting to be a bit much?

On my way to and from school, I pass through some rough areas. The roughest area closest to my campus is a predominately black neighborhood. There is an abandoned wharehouse that I pass by that began to stick out the other day. It had two of the posters (that I posted above) plastered outside.

I started to think to myself that it is great that people have such faith and hope with their candidate. It's great that they're so excited. Then I remembered what has always worried me: there seems to be too much passion about this guy. It's one thing to trust your candidate and have hope but it's become a blind following. I see these posters and these t-shirts and I get to thinking that Obama really is the new Che to so many people.

If you want to think that Obama is some type of revolutionary, fine. I'm going to respectfully disagree but if you have something serious that can back up that claim, more power to you. But the blind allegiance...it really is something to worry about...

[Keystone Phil]

No, mostly because he will become president and then most of the enthusiasm will vanish in 6 months or so besides maybe in the African-American community. That will vanish in a much longer time but I don't think he will be that popular as president with a large recession on the table, high gas prices and probable big foriegn policy desicions to make.

Hmmm...this is actually a very good point and I agree with it, to an extent.

I have always been one to say that the Obama glow will dim when he can't deliver on everything. I think a lot of his supporters (even some of the hardcore Obama backers) will feel betrayed. However, I also think this could cause some of the hardcore supporters to rally to his defense even more than they do now when the GOP starts calling him out on broken promises and other stuff.

[Keystone Phil]

No, Obama is a Christian Democrat not a liberation theologist - or was Guevara an atheist?

That's not what I meant.

I believe that comparing Obama and his supporters to Guevara and his supporters is insinuating that Obama and his supporters do not fully back American ideals, which is not true. Obama and his supporters love America and all that stands for, including its system of democratic capitalism. Neither Obama nor his supporters are communists/socialists like Guevara, et al.

A more apt, patriotic and less divisive question would be whether or not Obama is becoming the new JFK of his generation (i.e., a once-in-a-generation charismatic candidate of change). I think the answer is clearly a resounding yes. Clearly no candidate since Ronald Reagan has garnered such an enormous amount of popularity prior to becoming president.

I'm basing it on the fanaticism; not on the ideology of the two groups/figures.

more like Reagan: beloved by his party, and some take it to an excess, wanting bridges, airports, roads, and rivers named after him, and wanting to plaster his image on Mt. Rushmore, public squares,

...or JFK.

[Keystone Phil]

No. Obama is not a communist, an authoritarian, or a militant. To compare the two men and their supporters is asinine.

So you didn't read my thoughts. Not surprising.

[Keystone Phil]

no. Obama isn't a revolutionary, and he won't achieve his means through murder.

This.

My friends, I'm not saying that Obama himself is like Che. I'm saying isn't he being adored like Che has been adored. Che has become a pop culture icon and most don't know what he is truly about.

[Keystone Phil]

I think he's the new Rick Santorum personally. Only more successful at politics and life in general.

And you probably thought that you didn't have much in common with Rick!

[Keystone Phil]

I think he's the new Rick Santorum personally. Only more successful at politics and life in general.

And you probably thought that you didn't have much in common with Rick!

Don't be silly, I like gays.

...

That doesn't negate what I said. But, yeah, Rick likes gays, too. His former chief of staff is gay. He has a history of standing by gay supporters of his campaign when certain other people wanted to "out" them.

[Keystone Phil]

marketing campaign directed towards rebellious adolescents who have the urge to piss off their parents.

A Presidential campaign that has energized the youth as much as this one has can't be similar to that marketing campaign?

At least we can have a civil disagreement on those grounds. I just don't appreciate being accused of calling Obama himself a new Che or that all or most of his supporters are revolutionary Communists.

[Keystone Phil]

Has Obama ever advocated/used violence to achieve his political goals?

Did you even read the first post?

[Keystone Phil]

YES!

Barack Obama is the most liberal member of the Senate.  Joe Biden is the second most liberal member of the Senate.  These guys make Bernie Sanders look downright conservative.  And we thought that book-reading, French-looking John Kerry was liberal?  We ain't seen nothing yet.

I am sure that in the first six months of the Obama-Biden administration, we will see the following...

1.   The Bible banned nationally as hate speech.
2.   U.S. troops ordered to unilaterally surrender to the insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban/Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.
3.   Operations of the U.S. military handed over to the United Nations.  And mostly, the French.
4.   Kindergarteners encouraged to try anal sex.
5.   Crack made legal.

Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Collective farms, summary executions, forced abortion and Islam being made the official religion of the US (or Wicca, perhaps)....that's all a year or so out.

Another person who didn't bother to read my first post...

But, yeah, Rick likes gays, too.

Gee, he's got a funny way of showing it:

 - Voting to prohibit same-sex marriage:
(Bill HR 3396 ; vote number 1996-280  on Sep 10, 1996)

- Opposing prohibition of job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation - a wonderful gesture to all those gays who worked for him that he 'stood up for':
(Employment Non-Discrimination Act; Bill S. 2056 ; vote number 1996-281  on Sep 10, 1996)

- Opposing expanding hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation:
(Bill S.2549 ; vote number 2000-136  on Jun 20, 2000)

- Supporting a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage:
(Marriage Protection Amendment; Bill S. J. Res. 1 ; vote number 2006-163  on Jun 7, 2006)

- Equating same-sex marriage to 9/11:
“This is an issue just like 9-11, we didn't decide we wanted to fight the war on terrorism because we wanted to. It was brought to us. And if not now, when? When the supreme courts in all the other states have succumbed to the Massachusetts version of the law?"

- Lying (or at least being profoundly ignorant) about homosexual coupling in history:
"In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality"

(For the record, dozens of civilizations throughout history, from Ancient Rome to Medieval Europe, to Mughal India, to modern Europe and the U.S. have embraced same-sex relationships and accorded them full matrimonial rights)

- And let's not forget his asinine statements equating homosexual acts to bigamy, incest, etc.:
 "if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery"

(I am aware he's commenting on the case itself, but he chose to phrase his criticism that way, and only that way, when given the chance)

Rick Santorum may have a passing toleration of gays who work for him (not exactly an unbiased source, by the way) and, Phil, you may have seen another side to him. But those things don't hold up under the withering reality of Santorum's record. His position on homosexuality with be remembered as one of clueless bigotry which contributed, in part, to his well-deserved electoral humiliation in 2006.

Most of the things you mention don't pass for "hated of gays" but whatever.

And you're not exactly an unbiased source either, pal.