Why Obama supporters may cost him the Presidency

I have been wondering for a long time why my girlfriend who is an avid Clinton supporter is against Obama so much. We have had quite a few disagreements since I have a favourable view of Obama. I have been intrigued by this anger and have been trying to find out what triggers it until today. She is not angry at Obama, any other time he would be her first choice. She is mad at Obama supporters, so called “Obamabots” because of the vile, hateful things they have been saying and writing about Hillary, her candidate of choice and it suddenly dawned on me that this Primary has become much more then a process to just elect a candidate. It has become war between their supporters to anoint their candidate of choice. I am starting to wonder if this would be good for the Democratic Party? Unlike the media I don’t think this is because of racism or gender but because each candidate’s supporters are so vested in their candidate emotionally as well as in terms of time and money.

Wonder how this will play out?

To those who deny Global Warming

I have a question for all those who deny Global Warming. What is it that they are disputing – that the earth’s temperature is rising or that our way of life is having an adverse effect on the planet or both? While I may have questions about Global Warming, I have absolutely no doubt that our way of life has an adverse effect on the planet. My biggest beef with Al Gore is that by raising the specter of Global Warming and carbon footprint he has pushed other environmental problems into the background. It is almost acceptable to do anything to the environment as long as you minimize your carbon footprint. What I want to know is whether or not people who say global warming is a hoax do any kind of conservation in their daily life. I find it hard to believe that all of them go around driving in their Hummers and doing things which would be an environmentalist’s worst nightmare. I want to leave this one open for discussion and comments so feel free to chime in -

Obama to Ahmadinejad: Let’s have coffee with croissants and talk

Can’t say I am surprised by the recent uproar over Obama being labelled “Appeaser” by George Bush, but I am a little taken aback by how all the media bloggers and commentators have so over-simplified the statements and ideas. For anyone, especially if you have the intelligence to read and write a blog, to think that Obama would simply pick-up the phone the day he became the President and ring the Iranian President and go “Hey Ahmad, I understand you are angry with us and Israel, but why don’t you get on a plane and come on over to the White House and we can talk over coffee and croissants and see if we can find a solution to your problems.”, would have to be absolutely nuts. Even I understand that it would have to be more nuanced then that and I like to keep things really simple.

I believe I know that people don’t really think Obama means the above scenario when he says we should talk with our enemies, even Jimmy Carter didn’t go that far, and if we know that, then why don’t we give it a try. George Bush tried it with N.Korea as well as with Libya so why the ruckus over trying to talk to Iran. We are talking to them over the security situation in Iraq. Or is it that politics has become so partisan that we will shoot down any idea no matter how good just because it came from the other side.

If that is the case we will never solve any of our problems and I expected better from McCain.

My problem with Religion

Well while I was checking out some of the other blogs logged under politics, I was quite surprised to see these blogs from Christians. I am always surprised as to why the Christians always feel so threatened and angry and have this need to justify their religion. So you are Christian, who cares, so you go to church every Sunday, who cares, so you are homophobic, who cares??? I feel astonished by their need to impose their Christianity on other people.

While I have my issues with Islam,(don’t we all now a days??) which will be whole new blog, with Hinduism and their casteism, with Sikhs and any other religion for that matter I am absolutely astounded by the fact that the Christians feel so threatened all the freaking time. Isn’t the motive behind any religion to live and let live and to show love? Where is the need to get so riled up about same sex marriage or about placing the ten commandments in public buildings and this would be a problem for followers of all religion? Isn’t religion supposed to be a private matter between one and his own God? Since when did we feel the need to flaunt our religion to anybody? I have had some Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist friends – I am a Sikh by my parents religion, I went to a Catholic school, I attended Church with my Christian friends, but I have always been disappointed with every religion as I feel they always try to exploit people for their own agenda , whatever that might be.

I am not an atheist, I belive their is a God or a Superpower but that is between me and him and should be nobody’s business as should be your religion.

Resigned to see Obama as the Democratic Nominee

With one of the first Super-delegate to declare his support for Sen Clinton leaving her ranks and declaring support for Barack Obama today, one will have to have ones head buried fairly deep in the sand not to see the writing on the wall and still think she could win the nomination. I am disappointed to see her lose but I guess it is now time to roll ones sleeves and get behind the party nominee and I would hope that her supporters would see past their own disappointment and rally behind Senator Obama. If any body is to be blamed for her lose it should be that idiot Mark Penn who was so stubborn and arrogant in his own view as to not see that the country was tired of the partisanship that has been wrought over the last eight years where a majority of the people (I say majority because I know their are a few who are very happy with status quo) have seen nothing get accomplished due to partisan bickering. My belief is that Mark Penn spent so much time preparing from the Karl Rove book that he completely missed the massive change that was going on across the country. I hope he rots in Washington’s version of purgatory, whatever that may be.

On to Obama, while I have always liked Obama  and his message of change and have defended him in front of Clinton supporters I have always had this nagging fear that he is not experienced enough, not been in Washington long enough. Regardless of what people may say it is a necessary trait and an important requirement. It is not enough to say that you are willing to work across party lines, the important question is how if you don’t have a record to back it up. Working across party lines means give and take, make compromises on certain things without compromising the core issue. Senator Obama worked in a bipartisan way on the Ethics Reform bill, didn’t exactly turn out the was as one would have hoped.

So the next few months are going to be interesting and lets see how the Illinois Senator develops.

I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping. So should you.