shimmeringjemmy posted earlier today. I’m going to follow up with a bit more rhetoric.
I seriously ask friends and readers to take the time to read this and follow the link at the end.
Like many people I have been very angry at the last 3 elections. My anger has not stemmed from what the Republicans are doing to the Democrats. My anger has stemmed from what the Democrats do about the Republicans.
Personally, I had pretty much come to the conclusion that both parties want nothing more than to polarize the country to take the inevitable decision out of the populaces hand so that they could turn it into a contest to see which side could wield the better legalese interpretation.
And then in my eyes… it got worse. The Democrats would counter with minority candidates. Now personally, I’m not pleased with what government (read the current administration) has done in the past 8 years. But… I really saw no draw from the candidates on the other side of the alley either.
When I entered the Washington caucus I did so uncommitted to a candidate. I was hoping that there’d be more representation at the caucus.. but apparently that is not the time to actually discuss candidate issues. I walked away from the caucus at least feeling like I could vote Democrat but not necessarily feel bound to one candidate or the other.
Over time I moved into the Obama camp. In researching the candidate he actually covered issues that meant something to me. His videos are often subtitled. He talks about problems with outsourcing, education, poverty. But he doesn’t simply throw around the issues. He talks about where the problems are coming from, what mechanisms have prevented them from being repaired and how to deal with them.
In the last few weeks, the whole minority issue has been thrown around. X says Y and thats about race. Y says X and that’s not about race. And of course the political thing is to look away or doom say those who spoke improperly.
This week, Obama went in an entirely different direction. He stood up and talked about race. He commented about how we have race issues in this country. He commented about how ignoring the issues and side stepping them doesn’t resolve them. By politicising them we don’t deal with them. He pointed out that by making them non-issues or political-issues… they will never be non-issues, we will never find resolution and things will not change.
He said that once again we can turn this into political partisan bickering. We can worry about if it’s a “race” race. We can judge politics on trends. We can do the same thing we’ve been doing for 8-12-20 years. And at the election we can be in the exact same place.
Or we can face the actual issues. We can look at why there aren’t jobs for Americans. We can look at why our education system is failing. We can look at why an average middle class American can’t afford a house and work on those issue for the future.
For years. I’ve begged people to look at what’s actually important and stop turning this into a “What the other guy does to make him Evil” race.
Obama has given a speech that make me proud of the country again. Proud of its accomplishments and potential. There is a perspective of reality. And a faith that it can improve.
I strongly suggest you listen and read this speech it is YouTube embedded along with a 99% accurate transcript. It is moving, sincere, and speaks volumes.
Maybe if we can get more people to realize what the issues really are… Maybe if we can remember that picking sides is for sport not for governance… Maybe we as a people can say, “Not this time”
I’ve got my candidate and I am actually enthused about him
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that speech made me proud too.
IMHO: Obama is great with the speeches, but he hasn’t pushed through much meaningful legislation on his own. This election makes me wish we had a different system. I think he’d be a fantastic head of state, and Clinton would be effective as a Prime Minister. It would play to their strengths.
but he hasn’t pushed through much meaningful legislation on his own.
Even if that were true, that’s completely irrelevant. It’s not whether you get legislation through on your own that counts, it’s whether you get legislation through in the first place. And he’s done just that, mostly by working with someone on the other side of the aisle. (You know — “bipartisanship.”)
Take for example this website that exists because of a bill he pushed through with Tom Coburn. Or this bill to reduce the number of anti-aircraft weapons in circulation, which he worked on with Dick Lugar. And there’s more where that came from.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. I do think it’s entirely relevant whether or not someone gets bills through which they’ve authored themselves. To me, that’s leadership – presenting ideas of your own and convincing other people to work with you on them. He only managed in the 110th Congress to get through:
Global Poverty Act (S.2433) [this bill has been put on hold]
Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act (S. 230) [Languishing for over a year in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, this is Feingold’s raison d’etre]
Lugar-Obama proliferation and threat reduction initiative (an add-on to the already in place Luger-Nunn Act of 2003).
The first web site you linked is pretty cool. I just don’t think he has much to show for his efforts in Congress.
Oh and as long as we’re trading websites, this one might interest you: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/legislation.xpd
Thank you! I just read Obama’s speech. I hope he offers Hillary the chance to be his running mate, and I hope she accepts. With his hope and the Clintons’ political machine, they would surely win.
Gods I really hope he becomes our next president. :-/ After that speech I actually feel good about my country and have a measure of hope for it.
Wow. That’s the first time I’ve felt patriotic in years.
Yeah.
I commented to Heather tonight…
That wasn’t a candidate speech. That was a state of the union address.
That was a president talking today. And one I’d be proud to have and support.
It was fucking brilliant!
Thought you were out w/ C tonight?
One of the more interesting analysis of the speech that Obama gave: The Obama speech:
These are the themes of the speech he gave (below) in order to explain his meaning in current racial debate now wracking American politics. Obama’s candidacy itself brought many of these issues to the fore, partly by the inevitable process of semiosis and partly through the effect of people like Jeremiah Wright and Geraldine Ferraro. But now in his person, in which a “a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas” are sacramentally and genetically united, does the nation have an opportunity to move on.
The one constant of the Democratic nomination of 2008 is that it will simultaneously be about ‘getting beyond race’ while being about race. But Obama tells us not to be afraid because we must be confounded before attaining ultimate understanding. …
Make no mistake: Barack Obama is a brilliant orator. And I will highly recommend that those who want the full impact watch the video rather than simply read the speech:
It is pretty clear that to Senator Obama, race is a fundamental issue to him; most politicians and speech-givers are at their most eloquent when they are speaking about issues which are basic and fundamental to them. Ronald Reagan was at his best when he was talking about his fundamental beliefs on the goodness of man and on the need to overcome communism.
That said, I cannot vote for Senator Obama. Not that I would have a significant problem if he got into the White House: the central irony of my life is that my family is better connected to Democrats than Republicans and I personally do better under a Democratic administration: I always do better in a recession. But I simply cannot abide by the principles that the current Democratic Party stands by.
And worse, when you drill down into Obama’s position on a number of issues, he seems to support the expansion of the Federal Government along an axis of Socialist Statism which I find repugnant and a violation of the basic principles which I believe this country is founded on–that of individualism and individual liberty. His recommendations on the economy are fundamentally command-driven recommendations: top-down impositions by the government on the economy to control it, rather than create incentives or remove obstacles. The same with Homeland Security: many of his recommendations (such as ‘reuniting families after emergencies’) are properly the role of the State governments, not the Federal government.
And while I’m happy Barack Obama had the guts to create this speech and address the complex issues of racism head-on, and think this will be one of the more memorable speeches in recent history, I think to elect him would be a fundamental mistake.
I was going to comment on this, but it got so long that I just posted it here in my LJ instead. Basically, I thought it was a good speech, and I continue to not be completely horrified with the apparently very likely concept of Obama as our next president.
Read the full content if you like, but I did sort of get off into other issues.
Andrei, he said gently, women are not a minority.
(Oops – forgot to check that I was still logged in…)
Andrei, he said gently, women are not a minority.
Now if only he’d used the speech to actually take a stand against Wright, the minister deeply involved with his life and campaign that has basically been running the black equivalent of a Klan church for 20 years or so. He refused to really stand up and say ‘hey, they guy is a nutjob, sorry’ and by doing so he completely undercut every single other thing he says about race in the speech.
It’d be like a white guy making the same speech, while refusing to completely refute the Aryan Nation group he’d been affiliated with up until, oh, the previous week.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m where you were: NOBODY represents me in this race. I don’t think I’m alone there, either, you were apparently there at one point. I just get frustrated when people are so enamored with this guy based on his ability to give speeches. Listen to some of Dr. Alan Keyes’ speeches and compare to Obama. Keyes has TWO doctorates, really knows his stuff, and is a -policy- guy, not just a talking head. They’re both black, and they’re both presidential candidates.
Why haven’t you heard of Keyes?
Simple. He’s a conservative, and that’s still an unforgivable sin for a black man in modern politics, no matter what Obama says about race in his speech.
Vote ‘anyone else’ in 08!