Is Obama the first President to be supported by the counter-culture?

[Joe Republic]

Well I'm really looking at the actual term 'counter-culture' itself.  From the outset, it's defined as a social group that rejects the 'norm'.  Most presidents, including Barack Obama, are elected by a majority of the populace.  Thus, throwing yourself in with the majority of society and the guy on TV who says all the right things to get elected is not a characteristic of a member of the counter-culture.

[k-onmmunist]

Well, it's completely hypocritical if they do, given that he's a useless corporatist puppet.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Well, it's completely hypocritical if they do, given that he's a useless corporatist puppet.

There isn't an homogeneous 'they'.

There is the Counter-Culture, which has been a paradigm of individual freedom and tolerance overall which step by step took over during the 50 last years and which became the norm today.

And there are the current counter-cultures of the current epoch.

There is what I see as possibly becoming the new big counter-culture, that you could call the Conservative Counter-Culture, or the Re-Counter-Culture, or anything that could fit.

And there are some counter-cultures on the Left that try to exist, but really in those, there really isn't a clear message, and overall not a very different message from the Counter-Culture, it remains some general protest of the system, there is an aspiration toward nothing clear, they can't even claim for more personal freedom, except in some margins, since the generation before did most of the job. That's what I see as being part of the decline and the end of the Counter-Culture, then personally I wouldn't speak of counter-culture for them today.

There also might exist true new counter-cultures on the Left, with a clearer message, and some clearer aspirations, but either they remain confidential today, or they are mix in the soup of protest and also still in need to be better definite.

[Sbane]

Young people hate Bush because people on television told them that they were supposed to, not because they came up with that brilliant idea on their own.  (Hence why Bush-clone Obama continues to receive such high approval among Gen Y).  Indeed, most are incredibly facile in their political knowledge.  Today I was talking to someone, who is not a stupid person (in fact, he's a very intelligent and knowledgeable computer science major), and for whatever reason the discussion turned to farm subsidies.  My partner in conversation accused me of wanting farms to fail due to my opposition.  I merely pointed out that the proliferation of high-fructose corn syrup in foods is largely due to subsidies (and was backed up by another friend, who agreed with me), which was on it's own enough to persuade him to my position.  He hadn't actually studied this issue or very many others before - merely being outnumbered by his peers on the issue could cause him to change his mind.

How many wars has Obama started, instead of trying to wrap up orderly (which is very important)?

I will never forgive Bush for starting the Iraq War, quite possibly one of the lowest point in American history and definitely the lowest since Vietnam.