Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Barack Obama's new speech on gay marriage

    My fellow Americans, if there is anyone out there who still doubts that it was possible for me to end my long evolution from my naïve days as a state senator supporting gay marriage, to going back into the closet to serve as your president, and up to the present day, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by my decision to take the Citizens United case one step further and allow corporations to marry anyone they like, just like the American citizens they are. Now any American can marry anyone they like, except for the gays, but, like, gross. This is your evolution!
    The speech will start out by pandering to the gays, the not-gays, the disabled, the not-disabled, the minorities, the not-minorities, the people who I can comfortably label, and the people I can't comfortably label but can comfortably sit down to dinner with. But by the end, you'll all be upset by my carefully considered bland hypocrisy.
    This evolution exists thanks to the people sitting at home with a microwaveable dinner and popping in the sort of DVD that can unite Americans from all walks of life by portraying gender stereotypes in a way that makes us all cringe. This is your evolution
    To paraphrase a great American, the late Bobby Kennedy: “Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not string you along under the pretense of waiting for a politically opportune moment while your long-term partner dies in a hospital bed you are not allowed to sit by?”
    Earlier today I received a most gracious call from my opponent, Mitt Romney, congratulating me on selling out. I have thought long and hardly about this evolution, but Governor Romney has thought about it longer and more seldom than me. “Corporations are people, my friends,” he says. Tonight, I am here to prove him right. In addition to forming my own SuperPAC, I am happy to announce a new horizon in American family values: the corporate right to marry. I congratulate Romney on his achievements in service of corporations and in knowing how tall trees are.
    But after talking about all this gay stuff, I would like to assure you that your president is uber-straight by telling you about my white bread family and the puppy, too. Those heterosexual norms rock. I got mine. Now, you can got yours, too, as long as you're publicly traded. This is your evolution. It belongs to you.
    Never mind an environmental record that's nearly as bad as George Bush's. Never mind those illegal wars I took a lot longer than promised to get America out of... sort of. Never mind that in this economy, a college graduate will be lucky to work bagging groceries. Tonight, this victory is yours.
    Never mind that my Attorney General's take on “due process” is a real John Ashcroft-quality move or that I've also evolved from calling Guantanamo unconstitutional to using it as a model for taking away Americans' right to a trial. Tonight, we inaugurate a new spirit of sacrifice – of giving up your daughters for Exxon-Mobile. As a father, using the slut word makes me uncomfortable. Comparing wage slavery to prostitution is so untoward that it might make people notice that I'm not only not a socialist but well far right of the pope. I don't like to hear our daughters put down in such a way. So I'll just say this: “drill, baby, drill!” Who doesn't want their kids to marry up in the world? This is your evolution.
    Let's leave behind our history of partisanship and pettiness. Let's heal those divides and promise to get things done, as long as what's getting done is good for the bottom line of a megacorp that doesn't pay taxes in the United States.
    Let me tell you a story about an old lady – a lesbian – a story about her heartache and her hope. She has lived through wars and gas shortages, being ostracized by her peers and her family, public health crises and crises of public conscience... also gas shortages. Those must have really hurt. At a time when young boys and girls are taking their own lives in despair and isolation: yes we can! At a time when lesbians' voices were silenced... you know what, I got nothing. Yes we can!
    She was there to witness a generation rise to greatness, a generation that didn't give a shit about her. Yes we can! A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by the American telcos. And in the last election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because she believed I would do something about heterosexual privilege. Man, what a sucker. Yes we can!
    This is our chance to answer the call to progress. This is our moment. This is our time to end discrimination against corporations and allow them to fulfill their dreams of marriage. Remember: this is your evolution. You deserve it.
    Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

8 comments:

  1. one of the more convoluted, inarticulate attacks i've seen on the man who has more to offer the causes and values that i think the author supports...

    what? you really think any Republican seeking office... any tea party patriot... is going to advance your ideals?

    unfortunately, but as expected, the Reactions options do not allow for negative feedback...

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  2. In what way is this convoluted and inarticulate? If it's convoluted, it's because the form borrows heavily from Mr Obama's speech playbook. It's a very direct parody of the election night speech from 2008. Mr Obama has done a few good things, but in many respects he is George Bush's third term, which is precisely what he has promised not to be.

    1) He is a hypocrite on the gay rights front, and this isn't just about being able to call someone your spouse. As I point out, the consequences can by dire, and the times are desperate for gay and lesbian kids. His politically motivated throwing of the LGBT community under the bus is disgraceful.
    2) People describing his environmental record as Bush-like are climate change deniers. They think it's a good thing for his environmental record to be abysmal. I don't.
    3) Eric Holder's position that "due process is not judicial process" is quite similar to Bush era legal work, in that it is convoluted, dishonest, and ultimately harmful to the constitution. Does it remind you of renaming torture as "enhanced interrogation" or what? We're talking about killing American citizens without trial.
    4) The president came into office with strong words about Guantanamo prisoners not receiving trials being unconstitutional, which it is. Now, there's the National Defense Authorization Act, which endorses a similar imprisonment without trial, even for American citizens. This is troubling as well.
    5) The president has spoken against Citizens United but is happy enough to have a SuperPAC.
    6) Yes, the president is right of the pope.

    Finally, the whole basis for the parody is that the republicans are even worse than this and actively prefer corporate rights over gay rights / human rights. No one is advancing my ideals, so I will. I'm glad I'm pissing off the Obama faithful because you deserve it, you smug shits.

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  3. Barack Obama being the best we can do at this juncture is not a good thing. It's awful that the best we can do is a planet-abusing, gay-abusing, constitution-abusing prick whose few true words can best be described as pandering. In fact, in Britain and elsewhere, they view us as choosing the main belligerent in World War III (the war in Iran which is now unfortunately viewed as inevitable for some reason) rather than the president.

    Also, I encourage everyone to read about depleted uranium shells in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would describe the use of DU, atomized particles of which find their way into local water supplies and cause cancer, as willful mass murder.

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  4. My initial offense was with your attribution of Republican principles to Obama. Yes, your writing style was consistent with an Obama speech, but I think your substance missed the mark. I do not believe that Obama supports the pure principle of corporations as 'people', even though they do have a long history of being distinct legal entities.

    I do think we, as a country, have come a long way in forwarding gay/lesbian rights in the past three years... much further than we would have under a McCain/Palin administration. Yes, I would like to see things moving more quickly. I do think the Obama administration is moving the issue in the right direction as evidenced by the increasing number of states legalizing gay marriage and the removal of Don't Ask/Don't Tell.

    Unfortunately, I do think there is a trade off between some environmental issues and some economic issues. In the current economic environment, an aggressive environmental agenda is a practical impossibility. I believe that Obama would like to be more aggressive on this front, and I would like to see him do so... I simply do not think it is possible today, and needs to be kept alive and pursued more fully tomorrow.

    Hmmm... your third point... i COMPLETELY agree with you and find the position inconsistent with my basic principles and my perception of those of the United States.

    Guantanamo is a multi-faceted, difficult issue. I agree with Obama's early decision to close it... and, am appalled by congressional action to defund the closing. I don't like some areas of the NDAA and can't reconcile them to my own values. On the up side, we have stopped putting new prisoners there, and have far few in custody than when Obama came into office. In general, I'm not happy it exists, but I think we are stuck with cleaning up the mess generated by a prior administration. I'm not willing to blame the clean up crew for creating the problem, even though i really wish they'd make it go away faster.

    I absolutely support an Obama Super Pac. When your opponent picks up a weapon that can hurt you, and is preparing to attack you, you better be willing to pick up a comparable weapon... or, be prepared to lose.

    I think the Pope would disagree with you regarding Obama's liberalism...

    You are correct, the Republicans are further from your positions than Obama... unfortunately, after actually attempting a conversation, your final statement simply illustrates your immaturity... grow up and work on making things work the way you'd like them to instead of simply settling for pissing off anyone who is not completely in lock step with your views and schedule, you smug shit...

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  5. Please demonstrate in what way the principles I attributed to Obama are not his own. I enumerated the main points, and they are all his own. The Obama super PAC is, at best, a performative contradiction and more likely to be an implicit endorsement of something he supposedly finds wrong (i.e., he is a hypocrite). He may not like that corporations are legally people, but he acts like it.

    We may have done better under Obama than under McCain, but so what? His "evolution" on the matter is all about political positioning. His weakness on this front is only his own fault. You believe he will take leadership in the future, but there is no guarantee.

    Whether it is realistic or not in this economic climate, it is Mr Obama's policy to throw lots of money at alternative energy and other environmental projects, yet he still has a poor record.

    Guantanamo may be a complex issue, but giving our prisoners a trial is not. Calling it the problem of a previous administration is simply not good enough. On the economic front, I think that is a fair argument, but in this case, he made it a priority to correct the injustices at Guantanamo. In the first month of his presidency, the question was what kind of trial -- military or civil -- to give these people. Now, it is not a question.

    You lack a basic understanding of what left/right means. I'm talking purely about economic issues. Yes, the president is right of the pope.

    Guess what: you are smug. You do need to be taken down a notch. You did not attempt a conversation. You just complained about what I had to say. Please, attack me personally by calling me immature and inarticulate when you have these qualities in abundance.

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  6. I initially found the quality of your writing to be lacking, and the substance of your content to lack logical coherence... I also challenged your apparent premise that the current administration is an equal threat to the Republican alternative.

    When you gave what I initially saw as the opening of a reasonable exchange of ideas, i welcomed that and participated equally.

    When you closed with a statement that clearly illustrated that you only speak to hear the sound of your own voice, i choose to leave that a sound you may share with yourself...

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  7. Reiteration is not a demonstration. Look, I've described to you the facts behind my critique and the stylistic basis for my parody. They're real things that you can look up in the mainstream press. If you find being upset about what I have to say to be more logically satisfying than what I have to say, good for you. The current administration is a near equal threat to a republican alternative, even if we can survive the war with Iran you are so keen to have. Nuclear holocaust is no joke.

    Your comment is not "the opening of a reasonable exchange of ideas," it is a personal attack. If you can't take a tiny dash personal attacks (based in fact: the definition of smug is self-satisfied and complacent, and your eagerness to defend the status quo is, in fact, both these things) in with the facts about how you are wrong and have poorly comprehended what I have written, tough. If you want to see that as my own self-satisfaction, fine. But since you are not self-satisfied and you are a man of your word, I will be glad to be left with only the sound of my own voice.

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  8. don't feed the trolls plz.

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