damn, that was brilliant.
the ugly truth of yesterday, the bitter herbs of today, hope, for tomorrow.
i applaud senator.
Damn speech made me cry.
Wow.
Just Wow.
First Class: Obama--his heart and this latest speech.
Also First Class--the stew picture on
the blog of Minstrel Hussain Boy.
just words, but words have power, words have strenght
I hope this will defuse the Rev. Wrong issue, but I fear the Corporate Holodeck Media will turn the Rev into something like Willie Horton.
A brilliant speech about the number one barrier to America perfecting herself. We can better this nation and the first thing we need to do is elect this man to lead us into the 21st Century.
This speech confirmed for me that I have made the right choice in who I support for President.
Word.
Steve would have loved that speech.
I think i found in this speach part of obamas apeal to me.
"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love. "
Im a Mutt as well, my dad was autrian(came over before the revolution..minor noble that married a jewish girl an ran to america), hungarian(came over in the early 1900's where grocers and slum lords during the depression), soctish(minor nobles came over before the revolution after backing the wrong side in the war of the roses)
My mothers side is hispanic from equdaor (pure concistador bolld, they would prove it too, if that odd church fire hadn't distroyed teh marrige and birth recoreds...only the marrige and birth recordes.)
I look different enough from my dad and sister that I have been asked "are you adopted?"
I am not a scottish americna, i am not a equadorian americna, I am not a hungarian american. I AM AN AMERICAN.
we all are, every one of us, every diffrent story, every different face. we are all mutts.
It is amazing that the Sub Hu Mans are still relivant
"Call me punk cos I wear a leather jacket
Call me a hippie cos I believe in love and peace
Call me an idealist cos of songs like this one
You can call me what you like I am all and none of these
Fix a label on me to keep illusions happy
Fix a label on me does it make you feel secure?
Fix a label on me to keep me at a distance
And I'll label you as ignorant not wanting to know more
Before we understand ourselves do we have to fight each other?
Before we share opinions must we keep them undercover?
We classify and categorize to keep ourselves divided
We are all individuals not the images provided
Fix a label on me to keep illusions happy
Fix a label on me does it make you feel secure?
Fix a label on me to keep me at a distance
And I'll label you as ignorant not wanting to know more
Labels are a subtle way of keeping us in line
Divided by conformity we waste away our time
We are all individuals divided by their rituals
Think again like I have done--throw away the labels!
"
"
An awesome speech, but this puts Barack directly in the bullseye of those in power who are more interested in having corporate presidential candidates looting the nation amid neverending war, than those who actually inspire us to "bear any burden" or have the "better angels of our nature" or "have no fear but fear itself"
Seriously...pray for Barack's safety...
I'm currently listening to Obama's speech and all I can think is that it's absolutely beautiful. He was able to change a possible major (and completely manufactured) negative into a big positive.
What, no equal time for Obama's Dem opponent? 
Seriously, what a fine speech, in both delivery and content. I don't remember the last time I saw a politician who got out in front of a potential problem like Rev. Wright before it became a real train wreck, let alone couched it in such a frank, positive, and inspirational message. Leadership, folks...
I watched this speech, then read it one from the generational point of view LM discussed in his excellent earlier post. And what used to sound like fluffy calls for unity and comity now have a lot more heft. Add in all the talk about young people, about future opportunity, and you have an appeal to transcend Boomer-era adversarialism and Silent-era hopelessness and complacency. It's the dog-whistle deployed for good purposes, borrowing an effective tool from the arsenal of the racists and Christopaths, just as they borrowed effective tools from earlier progressives.
The McCain campaign should be trembling in his boots at the thought of coming up against a candidate who handles himself and runs his operation this way. If they thought they'd be able to easily Swiftboat and smear Obama before, only the fools think so now. And fortunately, GOP campaigns attract fools like manure attracts flies.
dang...i'm increasingly impressed w/ Mr Obama...that was truly Statesmen like, i think this speech is destined to be a classic (at least one would hope)...i don't even care that he is a politician, this is a classy guy, this is exactly what this country needs right now, even if the reality is gonna be grim & complicated, a President Obama would so expand the horizon of possibility upward...most especially in contrast to our dismal & dismaller other prospects, at this point...COME ON America! this is the last best chance, this is the critical Stupid Test we canNOT afford to fail!
OTD: obama has a DEM opponent? i only see him and two republicans.
hard to turn Rev Wright into Willie Horton.
Rev Wright spoke truths that the white part of this nation might not like, but then he wasn't speaking to a white audience or trying to smooth white feathers. He wasn't selling a fairy tale, just specifying some home truths.
Blowback exists. We have felt it. Pretend all you want that the USA can kick anyone anywhere as often as its wishes without getting an eye gouge or two in return. 6 billion folks in this world, less than 1 billion of them have any of the amenities americans take for granted, but all of them have seen our amenities thanks to television and movies and american cultural imperialism. That's a mighty powerful world of hurt having its nose rubbed into a tiny minorities world of debt inspired conspicuous non production.
pretend all you want that the prison population that takes in 33% of all black males between 19-33 isn't real, it is. And it is run by white men for profit. Pretend all you want that Air America isn't still running under a different name with different planes but still lugging the same old same old, Columbia this decade the golden triangle a few decades back but the target market for the cargo is the same now as it was then.
Pretend all you want that "benign neglect" is not just another poison for minority families. Rev. Wright was talking to the folks who suffer the outrages, who have sons in prisons but no husbands to help carry the burden, who have children in schools that do not teach and do a damn poor job of basic warehousing.
To my way of listening to it, the good reverend was a bit moderate in his analysis and bit easy in his condemnation.
Those lowest on the ladder have the shortest distance to fall when the economic crap hits the fan, but they also have the shortest distance separating them from starvation, from rampant epidemics, from forced relocation to the latest in concentration camps built by republicans.
Class trumps race, race trumps gender. The thing folks who love globaliztion forget is that it is a two way street, the poverty out there is now connected to the poverty in here. The wage rates out there now determine the wages rates in here. To the nations with the absolute advantages will flow the wealth. For 200 years the USA had one absolute advantage, two oceans and no enemies within reach. The absolute advantages disappeared. Now a fat dumb lazy and overarmed nation of 330,000,000 is still pretending that it is the be all and end all of history.
Funny thing, Rev. Wright told his congregation the same things Ron Paul told the nation. Failed foreign policy, failed drug war, failed war on poverty, failed federalized educational system, failed financial markets --- a litany of failures elucidated once from the pulpit and once from the podium.
The intentions were never "good" but they have laid the paving stones well and grouted the road to hell anyhow.
Obama til Denver:Yeah, me too. The generational talk came through loud and clear. I wouldn't call it dogwhistle 'tho because I thought it was pretty up front and honest. Obama made it clear that Wright is a relic of a past age. All the anger and hate and confusion is of a past age, and it's time to move past it.
The rhetoric is beautiful; the reality is ugly.
Reality is that Obama's tied just as tightly and securely to the interests that were--and still are--utterly indifferent to poor Ashley's plight as any of the others posing and posturing for that little chinchilla (stet) of putative legitimacy that we bestow withouor 'votes'...He wouldn't be where he is if he weren't at LEAST palatable to the oiligarchs, pollutocrats, and the rest of the moneyed elites.
He hasn't yet said much about what he's gonna do, but here's list of things I'm morally certain he NOT gonna do:
He's NOT gonna end the ICORP in Iraq anytime soon.
He's NOT gonna restore the 1st Amendment Constitutional barrier between church & State (black churches have been HUGE beneficiaries of Bushevik largesse here), or restore the mortally injured 4th Amendment prohibitions against warrant-less search & seizure.
He's NOT gonna revoke all those Bushian signing statements or rescind all those authoritarian Executive Orders.
He's NOT gonna support REAL 'universal' health care.
He's NOT gonna reduce the military budgets; he's NOT gonna close any USer bases overseas...
He's NOT gonna put a solar collector on every roof in America.
He's NOT gonna give the necessary Fed support to REAL alternative energy solutions (ethanol is NOT a Real alternative energy source, but Con-Agra & ADM LURV it).
He's NOT gonna stop building the border fences, or tear down those already up.
He's NOT gonna re-regulate the FIRE zone of the economy (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate).
He's NOT gonna cap carbon emissions.
And he's NOT gonna raise the cap on income taxable for Social Security (indeed, he seems willing to compromise with the Pukes on reducing benefits.)
Not, mebbe, cuz he doesn't want to, mebbe...but mainly cuz to do so would alienate the vast majority of his LARGEST CONTRIBUTORS (Finance & Agri-Bidness)...and that just ain't gonna happen.
Great speech.
umm woody...look at his finaces (that have been released) his largest contributers have not been any busniess.
every politition is a whore. every polititon is bought and knows full well who bought them.
we bought Obama.
Woody, an American politician that came out with what you need to support him, couldn't get elected dogcatcher in America. Keep railing against the wind...
Mark Twain once wrote, "Bad habits can't be thrown out the window, they need to be coaxed down the stairs one step at a time." Senator Obama is taking those steps at least two at a time. Senator Clinton is taking one step back for every step forward and Senator McCain has locked himself in the room with the bad habits. What is your choice in this election?
I suspect Woody is correct, but then I'm nearly 45, I feel twice my age and I basically have given up on this world anyway.
"This world is not my home..."
He's NOT gonna run the economy into a ditch and set it on fire.
He's NOT gonna invade two countries who never did us any harm.
He's NOT gonna stand idly by while nature devastates the homes and families of one of America's great cities.
He's NOT gonna use the powers of the Presidency to eavesdrop and jail his political opponents on trumped up charges.
He's NOT gonna plunder (what's left of) America's wealth for the benefit of his few business cronies and benefactors.
... do I need to go on?
Look, I'm not any kind of Obama cultist. But I'm a white American whose client base consists of a fair number of African-Americans, and I thought the speech was a superb attempt at giving us a common place to stand while we could actually discuss matters of race. We haven't had many of those.
At the same time, he not only defused his opponents, use of his minister against him, but actually made it much harder for those dogwhistle attacks on race and religion to gain much ground against him.
That's pretty frickin sharp.
damn. i'm sitting here with a lump in my throat. I've been hoping for an FDR for our time. Obama certainly sounds like it to this grandchild of farmers who knew FDR saved our country from the devastation wrought by a previous generation of rapacious Republicans.
Woody, I would sum it up by encouraging you not to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good-or at least the better.
In a nutshell: The last 7 years have been VERY BAD. McCain as president will be just as bad. I believe Obama has the best chance of beating McCain. Therefore, I support Obama.
Also, Al Giordano at the Field has been saying that there is a salutary effect to this Rev. Wright stuff: it puts a laser focus on Obama's attendance at a CHRISTIAN church, thereby diminishing the Muslim nonsense. If Obama's speech today sapped the ill effects of the Wright story, it will still have undercut the Muslim disinfo.
It remains to be seen if the speech did neuter the Wright story, but if it did, that double effect will have been a pretty slick trick.
Yep, Woody, won't argue with you. In fact, the progressives over at Black Agenda Report (http://www.blackagendareport.com) have been making that very same case about Senator Obama for some time now, much to the chagrin of a significant portion of their readership, AFAICT.
But as you basically said, going straight at the corporatocracy just gets you politically squashed almost immediately (see Kucinich; see Edwards). The man is doing what he needs to do; if his earlier years are any indication, there's some righteous attitude inside that politician's exterior shell. I gotta hope and help based on that history; can't do much else, at least that's useful to anyone.
That speech just kicked serious butt. I see a turning point in the campaign because of that.
I may have said it before about some other event, but I wanted to say again that it would be wonderful to hear what Gilliard would have had to say about all of this.
Meanwhile, does the speech help in Pennsylvania? I'm going to see what Al Giordano opines about that.
The speech was absolutely fucking brilliant. I cried which is something I NEVER do with speeches.
The speech did all that he needed it to do which is answer the questions of the Democrats, independents and the small group of sane Republicans who make up his base of potential votes for the fall.
The loony right-wingers who have used this episode to hyperventilate and smear Obama as David Duke would never be won over anyway so the continued criticism that he gets from them only matters in so far as it keeps something negative out there.
I fear he's also going to need a speech to tell the right to shut the hell up to put the matter to bed once and for all.
Brilliant speech. I've only read it, haven't seen/heard it yet.
My fav part was when he spoke honestly about his grandmother. Can you imagine most of us being that honest and yet loving about our grandparents? Very impressive.
And that Ashley story never gets old, always gives me a sniffle
I may have made a mistake by reading the transcript before watching the video. On paper, I loved how gracefully he addressed the issues he'd been challenged with, and how he used this not as a defensive moment, but as an opportunity to say some deeply honest things about race, and to set an example in trying to *understand* other people's anger and pain, and not just blindly hit back. This is important stuff that nobody has done until now, not like this.
When I finally watched the video, he sounded a little tired to me, maybe very slightly hoarse. A lot of his sentences had the same rhythm and the same dropping off at the end; it felt monotonous. He also looked small between the big flags behind him.
I suspect I ruined the immediacy of his performance by reading the transcript first. I'll have to watch again at a later time.
Just reading it has the power to move me, cynical bastard that I am.
No matter what, he has made history today by proving Socrates' dictum that the unexamined life is the one not worth living - he has held the mirror to the face of America, and asked us to look, long and hard, at the image.
My God, what a speech. I've never heard anything close to that from a politician. It transcended all of the usual weasel-worded mush-mouthed utterances that we almost take for granted because we hear them so much. The campaign staff take a bunch of platitudes, put them in a hopper and see what comes out. This was magnificent.
Just listened (and read simultaneously) with my 8 year old son. Loved the speech. Love Obama in the race for my son. I tell him he can do anything - this helps.
Even Tweety was saying how this was the most important speech in a generation. Hyperbole? Probably, I shy away from MOST GREATEST EVER, but in my 43 years, I don't remember anyone actually addressing the nation as a whole on race and (secretly) class like that.
Gods bleeding wounds, that speech was magnificent.
This man can lead.
He's NOT gonna revoke all those Bushian signing statements or rescind all those authoritarian Executive Orders.
Woody,
He said he would be reviewing each one of those.
Regarding the rest, I don't know what he will be allowed to do but he is preferrable than the other two. Neither of them mentioned it.
He did it. He said what no white person can say: Blacks are still mad because your boot is still on their necks. And whites are mad at the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
Also, he said it: The generation that fought Jim Crow made a way out of no way, so that my political dreams could ever come into reality.
And finally, he said it: The self-help orientation of my elders who suffered pain I haven't had to suffer IS conservative. My pastor is older and more conservative than I am.
Man, that tasted like a cold glass of water after the car broke down on I-10 outside of Yuma.
My God, what a speech. I've never heard anything close to that from a politician. It transcended all of the usual weasel-worded mush-mouthed utterances that we almost take for granted because we hear them so much. The campaign staff take a bunch of platitudes, put them in a hopper and see what comes out. This was magnificent.
Exactly. I read this speech with as cynical an eye as I could manage, and I can manage quite a bit, despite my screen moniker (which is mostly a reminder to myself to at least try not to be an inflamed hemmorhoid while posting here). And this speech managed to put a little crack in that shell of cynicism, not in the least because I cannot imagine a standard-issue blow-dried DLC hack even being capable of giving such a speech in response to such a potentially damaging controversy. And not in the least because it related a lot of truths in a very candid fashion that the country really needs to hear right now. And not in the least because it did so in a way that has the sound of leadership and vision.
Damn, looks like I'm going to hold my nose with one hand and push down the "Dem" lever with a finger on the other hand again this November. And I was all set to give them a very different kind of finger for the first time in 22 years.
If the Dems nominate Hillary now, they fucking deserve to lose.
newdealfarmgrrrlll has it right. (So do a bunch of others.) A few weeks ago there was a non-issue going around (from his own political party) that he couldn't just ignore. So instead of reacting like a normal politician, he looked it in the eye and chuckled.
(Sorry, a memory that almost goes back to the last days of FDR doesn't easily retain a detail like which of the stupid non-issues that was. Must look it up, but not this late at night.)
Seeing the address he gave, I thought of FDR winding up with "They're even attacking my little dog Fala!" There was no verbal resemblance here, but I wondered if we were starting get someone who was channeling Roosevelt.
It looks more like it all the time.
yes he can.
and, more importantly, yes we must. our live can get worse, but they can also get better, if we make the effort to continue this conversation.
Markos' shout out to Steve brought another tear...gosh, what he would make of all of this!
Brilliant speech. I've only read it, haven't seen/heard it yet.
Amanda Hussein - Here you go:
Part 1
Part 2
As skeptical as I've been of Obama, earlier today I emailed a link to this speech to some friends and prefaced it by saying "this guy is going to be our next president".
Well, this is one awesome speech if I ever read one.
Actually I think it goes better on paper than the way Obama spoke it, but that's just me.
As a speech, it's very impressive. Just makes me definitely consider Obama as the best candidate with any serious chance of success the US had for at least 25 years, and probably since Carter. It's not that Gore was bad, at the end of the day he may well be a better president than Obama, but he was far less charismatic.
It's been decades since I haven't seen a major US pol able to do by himself that kind of speech.
If he isn't the next president, then the whole country is hopeless, as far as I am concerned.
How I fucking wish Gilly could've heard it.
Woody - Here's some more to your ever hopeful view:
He's NOT gonna talk to us like children.
He's NOT gonna whine.
He's NOT gonna pretend.
He's NOT gonna NOT BE who he is.
He's NOT gonna parent us.
THE Speech rendered me speechless w/tears.
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