Sen. Barack Obama’s speech abut race, politics and America is being hailed by some as the most significant speech on racism since Dr. Martin Luther King’s landmark “I have a dream” address.
What did you think? Watch the video and tell us your opinion:
34 thoughts on “What did you think of Obama’s speech?”
Griff:
If you meant suspended you should have said suspended. But you said abolished. The Constitution gives the President the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus when necessary during time of war or emergency. Lincoln did exactly what the Constitution required of him, including preserve, protect, and defend it.
As to the rest of your post, there is absolutely no substance to any of your statements about this supposed shadow organization that people call New World Order, with capital letters, implying that there is a group of people who secretly run the world, pullling strings, fixing things, eliminating people who disagree with them, etc. If such a thing existed and if George the Second was a part of it, do you think he would have revealed it? And as to Hart’s statement, since it was oral, where the heck do people get off capitalizing the three words at the end of the quote?
The very thought that Gary Hart might be a part of such a shadow organization is beyond ridiculous. Remember, he’s the one who was on track for a pretty good showing in the polls when he said to the press, “Follow me.” And they did. Sure, this shadowy NWO would let some skirt-chaser like that into the halls of power. When they do that you should run for the door and listen for the sounds of Beelzebub’s ice cream truck.
Ted
It’s pretty much common knowledge and historical record that Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus and declared martial law during the Civil War. He also had writers that opposed him imprisoned. I’ll assume you’re on the internet. You heard of Google?
As far as the NWO, that again is pretty much common knowledge. Actually, Bush 41 was the first to utter those words publicly on – of all days – September 11, 1990…
“Out of these troubled times, our objective…a new world order…can emerge…Today, that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we have known…”
And there’s Gary Hart just a couple of days after 9/11…
“There is a chance for the President of the United States to use this disaster to carry out what his father… a phrase his father used .. I think only once.. and hasn’t been used since…and that is a New World Order”.
The “friendlier” term would be globalism. So it’s pretty much mainstream now.
To GunnermateNC, barak and Charlie Couser,
Were you aware that The honorable Billy Graham was ANTI-Semitic? Did millions of his followers stop supporting him because of his views? OF COURSE NOT! Stop telling Mr. Obama to distance himself from the church he and family are members of. Those are Rev. Wright’s views and not Mr. Obama’s or his family.
May I suggest that you confer with Rev. Wright to get an understanding as to what his life’s experiences have been before you start judging his words. Remember, action speaks much louder than words! If you are going to start judging, start with Billy Graham..The so call Pastor of America.
Since you are not BLACK or any other minority, you will never understand their plight.
I am the product of a WHITE male who RAPED my mother who happens to be BLACK! This man was a city councilman and he had a fetish for Black women. Did they prosecute him?? NO! Here my mother was, left with a child by a WHITE sorry no good B*****D because he thought he was privileged. He was a coward and he ruined the lives of two people.
During that time, what decent man would have married my mother knowing that she was raped by a sorry good for nothing White piece of TRASH?
I feel as though I have every reason to hate that man because of what he did but I decided that I can’t live my life filled with hate.
I decided to make the best of my life.
I am asking that you give Mr. Obama a chance and see what God has in store for this country.
After 8 years of the Bush-Chaney circus, I think we owe it to ourselves to give Change a chance!
Obama 08′
To GunnermateNC, barak and Charlie Couser,
Were you aware that The honorable Billy Graham was ANTI-Semitic? Did millions of his followers stop supporting him because of his views? OF COURSE NOT! Stop telling Mr. Obama to distance himself from the church he and family are members of. Those are Rev. Wright’s views and not Mr. Obama’s or his family.
May I suggest that you confer with Rev. Wright to get an understanding as to what his life’s experiences have been before you start judging his words. Remember, action speaks much louder than words! If you are going to start judging, start with Billy Graham..The so call Pastor of America.
Since you are not BLACK or any other minority, you will never understand their plight.
I am the product of a WHITE male who RAPED my mother who happens to be BLACK! This man was a city councilman and he had a fetish for Black women. Did they prosecute him?? NO! Here my mother was, left with a child by a WHITE sorry no good B*****D because he thought he was privileged. He was a coward and he ruined the lives of two people.
During that time, what decent man would have married my mother knowing that she was raped by a sorry good for nothing White piece of TRASH?
I feel as though I have every reason to hate that man because of what he did but I decided that I can’t live my life filled with hate.
I decided to make the best of my life.
I am asking that you give Mr. Obama a chance and see what God has in store for this country.
After 8 years of the Bush-Chaney circus, I think we owe it to ourselves to give Change a chance!
Obama 08′
A couple of things strike me here.
First, not one of us is in Barak Obama’s shoes, and it is not the time or place, and never will be the time or place, I hope, for us to tell him where to worship and what to believe.
Our only concern should be for his actions, which include the words that he says as well as the things that he does. And what he says is that he disagrees with the Rev. W(rong)right and rejects his hateful words from the pulpit. I am a Catholic, and though I disagree with the position of the Pope on a lot of things, that does not change the fact that I am a Catholic and I will worship in the way that I see fit even if that means disagreeing with Benedict. (Hell, I even disagreed with him on his choice of name. After two John Pauls I thought it was high time for a George Ringo.)
Would ANY one of you be put out if another one of us said, “You should not attend this church or that church for these particular reasons?” When that day comes that another person can tell you where or how to worship then we can rest assured that our liberties are gone. Why do you want to hasten that day?
As to mentorship, a parent is usually a mentor to his or her child; it was so in my case, even though my mother was one of the most bigoted people I have ever known. Did I reject her as a mother and a mentor? No, what I did was I kept my own counsel, following her mentoring attempts when doing so made sense and rejecting others. I hope that all of us have the wherewithal and internal gumption to do the same.
A thing I find curious is the underlying belief expressed by many here that the New World Order (NWO) is behind all the political shenanigans. A good many of the people who hold that position seem to be otherwise well-educated, well-informed humans with a great deal of interest in politics. In addition, many of you accept without comment the statements made about this NWO thing.
The thing is that though I have searched high and low I find absolutely NO credible evidence that such an organization exists or has ever existed. And my gut feeling tells me that there is zero probability that it does exist, except in the minds of writers like Robert Ludlum.
It’s almost like believing in God. There ain’t a shred of EVIDENCE anyone can point to that proves the existence of God, yet billions of people all over the world are believers of one sort or another. And on a smaller scale this seems to be true of the NWO: no evidence, just belief and a sort of faith. It puzzles me. And please don’t post a list of those right-wing web sites to try to convince me; a rational analysis shows that they are all in the end self-referential, which is no sort of proof at all. If you have concrete evidence of such a group and can provide stand-up-in-court proof of its existence, I can be persuaded to change my mind. Otherwise . . ..
Oh, and one last thing, since I have to go fix dinner now:
I laughed out loud when I read that Lincoln had abolished (the writ of) habeas corpus. I cannot help but dismiss a good bit of the rest of such a post, particularly when the writer presents absolutely no proof, documentation, or argument to support his or her views.
Ted
“Hope is all we have left, and I have to place mine in Obama.”
Well said. However Being a major league word freak, I might add the following….
“Hope is all we have left for the future of our country, and for now, I have to place mine in Obama.”
discrimination works across all spectrums, not just racial lines.
For instance, in some places in America, it is considered to be ok to be poor as long as you are not white, but if you are white and poor, then there must be something wrong with you.
When I was a very little girl, I was told that there were white people who hated black people just because they were black. And that there were black people who hated white people just because they were white. And that hate was not ok for any reason. That people should look at what a person does and how they live their lives and not judge someone for the color of their skin or their religion or the way they look.
As far as I can tell, there has been hate all the way back to Biblical days and then some (hahaha).
I personally don’t understand why he is considered black and not white. He is half african american and half caucasian. You would think that would be the perfect combination (haha)….someone who can understand it from both sides so to speak.
It’s all a distraction anyways to keep us from addressing valid issues.
I don’t see Griff’s remarks as being hate-filled, but rather they seem to be more realistic than everyone else’s. Griff seems to have seen thru the smoke of Black-is-beautiful and grasped the reality that Obama is not only pandering to the Black vote, he is openly saying that elevating black people to new levels of authority, regardless of qualifications (and Whitey, if you don’t like it, TFB, it’s payback time for slavery and repression) will be a major thrust of his administration.
As one who suffered from discrimination (YOU try being one of four Jews in a school of 900+ believers that Jews killed Jesus) growing up in the 1940s, I know full well what Obama was saying–but I lament that he is merely parroting the same old crap about the repression of Blacks. If he had said “Black Americans instead of African Americans, I might have had more respect for what he said. But he didn’t!
I am tired of hearing about African-Americans. I don’t hear about Jap-Americans or Viet-Americans or Israel-Americans–we are Americans first and foremost. We have ethnic backgrounds but we don’t use them as excuses for failure. The majority of black people try to do just that, and perhaps if they would relinquish their hatred and spend the time and effort in educating their children and strengthening their families, perhaps they wouldn’t be crying “I didn’t have a chance because we were slaves and
Whitey kept us repressed!” You don’t hear that crap from yellow skinned or golden skinned or semetic appearing Americans, just from the black or very dark brown crybabies who would rather feed at the social welfare teat than work studying and improving their minds.
Obama had a strange family, but at least they made him get an education and made him feel loved and a part of a family. If more black people would do the same for their children we wouldn’t be hearing about Afro-this and Afro-that. They would be climbing the economic and social American hill that is available to those who get good educations. Don’t tell me that the tenement life in early 1900s America was a fine educational platform. People succeeded and pulled themselves out of those ghettos because they had strong families and worked their asses off getting enough money to educate the kids–in sub-standard schools of the day.
Obama’s people have the same opportunity, they should use it instead of spending all the time hating whitey for their plight.
Bat
Jeremiah only said the shocking words.
Bush has been acting them out for his entire Presidency.
One can only wonder what was in his past to make him hate America so badly that he would try to run this country so far into the ground that it will take years to extricate us from this ruinous course?
I think we may have found our long-lost statesman in Obama, and, if we are disappointed, there may be more chances around the corner…there had better be some solution to our national ills very soon or we will cease to be America, both in deed and in name.
Hope is all we have left, and I have to place mine in Obama.
No doubt about it, Barack Obama is a powerful orator. However, as a Presidential candidate, was he wrong not to completely distance himself from Mr. Wright?
How can one profess a desire to heal the racial morass in this country and then tolerate a man who clearly hates white America and everybody in it.
As one who comes from very humble beginnings, I was fortunate in that parents taught me to respect people of all races, all ethnicities and all beliefs. I still do to this day. However, as a professed man of God; Mr. Wright clearly was taught a different set tolerances — beliefs I condemn. Is Mr. Obama of that same philosophy? Can we, as a nation, afford another ‘UNITER?’
Beware America — we are all products of our pasts…
Charlie Couser
Because they’re afraid to face reality?
It’s sad that there will always be cynical and hateful people like Griff, so consumed with hate that they will never open their minds. I wonder if Griff would feel the same if Obama were 100% white instead of 50%. It is attitudes like Griff’s that perpetuate the divsion in this country, be it race, religion, gender, economic class. Perhaps living in upstate NY, Griff is merely living in a cocoon and isn’t exposed to different kinds of people in different profssions and different levels of education. Can Griff claim a law degree from Harvard? Does he even know anyone that was smart enough to graduate from Harvard?
You don’t have to vote for Obama or even like him, but open your mind up, stop being so negative and stop hating. Obama is not just another lying politician and if you actually listened to him and followed his transparency, you would see that. The fact that someone with Obama’s background could now be the presumptive nominee for president of the USAS only shows that anyone can overcome odds if they work hard enough, white, black, or purple, even you, Griff.
G-d Damn Germany and G-d Damn Spain and G-d Damn Syria and all the Arab countries which persecute my people. In fact, G-d Damn every country in the world EXCEPT China, because all have persecuted Jews for millennium. If anyone has a right to hate a lot of people its the Jews, because EVERYONE including the Blacks picks on us.
But we don’t hate. We don’t take anyone’s shit since Israel was founded, but we don’t hate everyone. Well, I’m a bit different and I really don’t like Germans, but that’s personal. So I don’t hate Obama or Clinton or even the two-faced fool who will probably get the Republican nomination. I despise Bush/Cheney and I hate what they have done to my country, but I am angry with myself for allowing them to do it without raising more protests than mere words.
I liked Obama’s speech, but if you listened very carefully to the construction of the sentences and to his word choices, you need to step back and be a bit wary and a lot suspicious. Griff voices eloquent dislike for the Senator and Carl Nemo also displays his eloquence in praising Obama. This is part of what makes America great–our diverse opinions and then our ability to come together in times of crisis. I believe this was one of Obama’s points. The trouble is that I just don’t believe Obama. I have always been reluctant to support him because of where he came from–i.e. Chicago, how he came to the Senate, and the great eagerness to jump onto his bandwagon. He scares me because I remember black politicians like Harold Washington and Richard Hatcher–inept mayors of Chicago and Gary, IN. I don’t see much difference with Senator Obama, and his speech, while good, was by no means great or anywhere near the caliber of John F Kennedy.
The words Obama spoke expressed good ideas and thoughts. We all hope that these things are possible, and so it is easy to want to support a man who espouses these things. The trouble is that trust is still lacking. The worst thing of all is that the other candidates are worse, or seem worse. This has been the case in too many of our elections–we vote for the lesser of the evils. Why do we not vote for a good man or woman? Why can’t a decent person like Joe Biden succeed in his candidacy? Are we THAT self-destructive?
I truly hope not…
I was not an Obama supporter and had not really listened to his previous speeches. Foolish me, I still like a presidential candidate with some semblence of national, international, and/or military experience. However, I found the speech very impressive and better understand why his supporters are willing to overlook his lack of experience.
His supporters rush into say well Cheney and Rumsfeld were very experienced and look where they took the nation. Although it is true that some with experience have been a disaster and some without have been successful, in these difficult times, I still would like a candidate with experience and the policy inclinations of an Obama. McCain is experienced. However his world view and policy inclinations are as disasterous as his good buddy George W. Bush. Either Hillary or Obama would be acceptable as candidates. At this point, it probably needs to be Obama in order to keep the black vote motivated without which the Ds cannot win and that would lead to a third term for Bush which is the worst possible outcome.
My libertarian perspective is that I have rarely heard a better explanation of the racial problems that persist in this country. Unfortunately, also speaking as a libertarian, I have to conclude Obama has the wrong answers, which all involve more centralized government control (he spoke about more central government involvement in issues such as health care and global warming, for example).
I would probably support Reverend Wright even more forcefully than Obama did. Some of the rev’s conclusions are wrong, but he forcefully states the reasons for black resentment and frustration. Too many white Americans still have a problem, for example, understanding the context of a black man who would shout “God damn America.”
Doesn’t anyone understand that one could say such a thing out of frustration with a nation that professed undying love of liberty, yet used the government to enforce Jim Crow laws for decades? Why is this so hard to understand?
Would you condemn a Jew who shouted “God damn Germany,” if his context were survival of the holocaust?
Would you condemn a native American (sometimes called, absurdly, “Indians”) who shouted “God damn America” after his tribe had been murdered, his wife and sisters raped, by the legions of “war hero” William Tecumseh Sherman–the same general we still honor by naming a tank after him?
Why is this so hard for white Americans to understand?
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