It never ceases to amaze me how folks can get up in arms about so much these days. I personally have not wanted to talk politics because many really don’t want to hear the truth. Take for example a recent conversation I had with a woman who is blaming the Obama administration for her credit card woes. She holds Obama personally responsible for her credit card debt rising to an unbelievable number. Her minimum payment has doubled and of course, it’s because of Obama. Added to that she wanted to blame me — probably because I am an African-American — for voting for him. She added to her rage filled conversation “I hope you’re happy about what you did.” Huh?

I told her I’m not happy and I do not blame Obama. The truth is, and I told her this, the problem we are now having dates back to the 1980s when Carter and Reagan were in office. At that time Congress passed a set of laws responsible for our being screwed now. The laws were the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA) and the Alternative Mortgage Transactions Parity Act of 1982 (AMTPA). This did not happen under the Obama Administration.

For the record, DIDMCA abolished state usury caps, period. DIDMCA also opened the door to predatory lending in low-income communities. Prior to AMPTA, banks were limited to making loans that were conventional fixed-rate, amortizing mortgages. That was it. After AMPTA, those restrictions were lifted giving way to some pretty exotic loans such as ARMS, balloon loans, interest only weirdness and the even weirder Option-ARM.

Don’t blame Obama I told her, blame Carter, blame Reagan or blame your representatives who were in the House or Senate at that time — while she was sleeping.  Of course, she was having none of what I was saying and oh, don’t talk about Clinton.  When I told her how in 1999, under Clinton and the Republicans, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was pretty much abolished, well she lost it.  Oh well.

People are waking up now but they are waking up blaming everyone from Obama to their neighbor. Truth is, they were sleeping all of this time and thought all was well because none of the mess was biting them in the butt at the time. Now it is and they are blaming the current administration. Don’t drink the night before hoping you won’t get caught hung-over the next morning is all I can say. Being reactionary now when you should have been proactive earlier does not cut it. It makes no sense.

So, Obama lost — yes, I mean he lost — the Olympic bid for Chicago. How great thou art. I had no idea he had so much power. Considering he was asked at the last minute to go as a way of trying to pull power to Chicago, I don’t think so. I cannot blame Obama for Chicago’s loss when the Mayor of the great City was off trying to get an Olympic bid for his city while a young man — one of many I might add — was being prepared for burial. Daly was in Denmark kinda saying “yeah, we have dead kids here all of the time. I don’t care, just bring us the Olympics.” It appeared a little cold-hearted. Instead of looking as if he cared, he was off trying to win himself the Olympics.

Then there is an equally heartless CNN blast I saw of the dear mayor saying “this happens everywhere, not just in Chicago.” Wow dude, how about paying attention to your own backyard. Nope, Obama did not lose the Olympics for Chicago, Chicago lost it all by itself and they need to take ownership for their loss and stop hiding behind rose-colored glasses. Sorry.

Now the bobble-heads, talking heads or pundits have lost their minds regarding Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh My God, call out the police. What is wrong with these crackpots. Instead of being proud they are criticizing everyone.

Quite frankly, since Gandhi did not win a Nobel Peace Prize, I’ve not been fond of the group or the prize. It has always been for me “what’s the big deal?” In recent years, however, I have seen a change in this group as they have given awards to those who have not been able to bring about the change they want to see in the world but they have tried in their own humble way.

Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner was a surprise to me, a welcome surprise. Unfortunately, her award too was considered a slap against the Bush Administration as if slapping a group of guys who once slung their wieners with rags tied around them while in the “Tomb” over at Yale divulging all of their sexual secrets before some dudes dressed as the Pope, the Devil and a Don Quixote figure as Skull and Boners are somehow unworthy of an occasional slap. I do believe there is something called free speech in this country that says we can say we disagree with someone and others in foreign countries have a right to disagree too.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1991 is still imprisoned behind the walls of her own home. She won “for her her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.” Has she done anything? No. She is trying and her win was another welcome surprise for me.

The committee, in recent years, is beginning to look like people who care and that’s a good thing.

So, now we have Barack Obama and quite frankly, he has said more during his run for presidency and after his presidency that speaks more to humanity than any president I have seen in years.

I’ll go back to 2001 and the U.N. Conference on Racism. We — the United States — were the jackasses of all jackasses during that conference. I found it ironic that after the conference ended that weekend, planes hit landmarks in the United States. With all that was going on in the Middle East at that time, Bush acted as if his temporary ranch in Crawford was more important than anything else in the world. He could not speak to or offer anything to those who were being bombed in Israel, Gaza or anywhere. He was on vacation for the first few months of his term trying to figure out how to eat up all that money Clinton left him.

Well it happened. We have two wars, Wall Street got our money, something or someone tried to suck the market dry in October 2008 — there still has been no explanation for that — and now Obama is being blamed for everything. He inherited the mess that was created years ago. We don’t make anything for export, hello. We buy a lot of exports, hello. We have been borrowing from other countries — particularly to finance our wars — hello. Our U.S. companies are putting their money off shore, hello. They are outsourcing your jobs, hello. The rich are happy, you are not and Obama had nothing to do with it.

Let’s return to old Christian principles since we claim to be a God fearing country. Who has been dropping all of the bombs on people? We have. Who has killed the greatest number of people in war in recent years, innocent and otherwise? We have. Who has the largest collection of nuclear weapons? We do. Who is the most violent industrialized nation? We are. What is the world view of us? Not very good. Again, who do we owe money to? A lot of foreign interests. It’s time for the drunks to wake up.

Obama, in these past few months and prior to entering office, has made an attempt to improve the world’s view of the U.S. Putting our ridiculous supersized egos aside, we need a better world image.
Telling folks we are willing to extend our hands if you are willing to open your fist is a good start. Equally so, apologizing for mess he didn’t do also helps. Maybe someone will cut us some slack instead of calling in our debt which will really cause us to fail miserably to third word status. You don’t think so? Be careful. Again, someone drew a lot of money out of the market in October 2008 and it was not the Taliban, guys wearing turbans, Al Qaeda, or some guy reading the Qu’ran. We had to shut the system down in order to stop the bleeding of money from the market. Some folks will smile in your face and stab you in the back. Could it happen again? Yes.

People are either jealous or dumbfounded he has received so much world attention, to the point of drawing crowds wherever he goes in the world. People are happy to see someone from the U.S. who is not an egotistical power hungry maniac. He may be but at least he’s not wearing it on his sleeve and as such, considering what we have seen over the years in this country, he represents a breath of fresh air by verbalizing peace to the world. That’s a start coming from this country and I’m glad he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In my book, he deserves it.

Now, will he be able to do anything as president? That remains to be seen. Unfortunately, he has a bunch of egomaniacs in his downline who still believe in the old ways, both Democrat and Republican. Change can only come if all of Washington changes and I cannot see that happening real soon. He still has war mongers who can only fathom winning at all costs. He still has politicians in both the House and Senate who want their palms greased. He has folks in his cabinet watching other folks in his cabinet who are there to get their palms greased. He wants change but he has to fight hundreds of folks, elected by you and me, to get that change and they don’t want it.

The Nobel Committee has honored his attempts and I believe they know he won’t get far, but they wanted to thank him for trying.

Of course, Rachel Maddow says it best: