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Submitted by Rick on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:01am.
I just finished watching Obama's acceptance speech on Tivo, and I have to say that I found it pretty impressive. He spoke openly and honestly about a lot of issues, addressing them directly. These are real issues that will affect all of us, and I'd like to hear what other people thought, and how you perceive the choices in this election. In case you missed it, here's the video:
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Okay
Submitted by The Original Yoda on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:21am....Watched it last night and I gotta say, whether he wins or not, he was a good choice for the nomination.
Everything about his candidacy seems so unlikely and yet here he is - talking to us like we're NOT stupid. That is nice for a change.
I didn't really hear a lot of specific issue talk last night. Mostly just "Here's where I come from", "We need a break from the past" and "John McCain is not the one".
I thought it was well done.
Submitted by wilson on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:24am.Here's a couple of bits that I liked:
Submitted by Rick on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:28am.And:
Beware the terrible simplifiers.
Jacob Burckhardt
Thanks for the summary
Submitted by Bert on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 11:24am.Safe speech
Submitted by Arts From The Heart on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 6:39pm.I didn't think so
Submitted by sasqwatcher on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:03pm.What about...
Submitted by Rick on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:22pm....the bit about 150 billion for alternative energy? Whether you care about the environment or you care about security, this is a good idea that is long overdue.
Beware the terrible simplifiers.
Jacob Burckhardt
I'm Just Smiling, reading this
Submitted by Bert on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:27pm.He's skipping around
Submitted by Arts From The Heart on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 11:25pm.skipping around/ comments screened
Submitted by Bert on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 1:10pm.Oh....
Submitted by sasqwatcher on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 10:01pm.Yes
Submitted by The Original Yoda on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 12:00am.He did spell out some things there. He's definitely maneuvering towards a concillatory centrist approach.
Last night's historically large viewership (something like 48 Million) of a great acceptance speech was somewhat eclipsed (brilliantly) by Senator McCain's announcement of his running mate.
Boffo Oratory
Submitted by Laurian on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 9:07am.As for specifics, I felt there were many, some of which Rick mentions above.
Obama is a history making figure. His candidacy and pending election a game changing, and quite possibly a world changing event.
He is different from all other modern presidents in that his political career began as a grassroots community organizer. Three years before Barak I learned community organizing 101 in those same Chicago streets with ACORN. He has an understanding and compassion that comes only from that kind of gritty hard work where real people fuss and fight with themselves as much as the powers that be over real issues.
We are the change we have been waiting for.
Ugh...
Submitted by DrewHendricks on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 3:12pm."Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy."
[These two paragraphs illustrate that Obama sees "America" as an economy, and our interests as people as being synonymous with our ability to pay mortgages to banks, and that is at the heart of why I cannot support him. The President of the United States is not the CEO, and he's not the CFO. That's the job of the unelected Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. Obama calls for us to serve the interest and interests of this bank. He wants you to have a job, so you can pay your mortgage. He'll cut your middle class taxes to facilitate this, because the bank's tax is more important to him than the government's share. Later in his speech, he blames big government for some of our woes and promises to tighten the belt of 'the 20th Century bureaucracy.' Since when was he a Republican? Since when is someone who claims the mantle of FDR saying things which would fall from the lips of Pat Buchanan?]
"I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future. "
[Obama's assumptions about global politics share McCain's essential viewpoint; that it is for The U.S. to decide who else can have the tools which we say make us free (nukes). That somehow we can (as a country) fight against a tactic (terrorism) by using that very same tactic ourselves. That Russia is "aggressive" when they find a small country on their border being armed and advised by US Special Forces and take the next logical step (Gee, what did we do when we found Cuba armed with missiles?). That the role of the US is to decide what other countries are allowed to do. Zbigniew Brzezinski smiles in the background.]
"For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us – that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it – because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.
America, this is one of those moments."
[This is the same "I'm different, I'm new, I'm Change" rhetoric which Mr. Clinton used after three terms of Reagan/Bush and the disasters of that era. And what did we get? One hundred thousand more police. Welfare as we knew it gutted, and the Drug War ramped up to make sure those dispossessed were warehoused in expanding prisons and jails. A false promise of lower cost health care. (repeated in this campaign and just as phony). No thank you. Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me.] Yet another 'false dichotomy' / 'either or' prisoners dilemma.
So...
Submitted by Rick on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 5:02pm....should I take you to mean that Clinton and Bush I (or Gore and Bush II) would have been more or less the same? Do you really think that we'd be where we are under a Gore presidency?
Beware the terrible simplifiers.
Jacob Burckhardt
Well, not exactly
Submitted by DrewHendricks on Sun, 08/31/2008 - 1:53am.Could Bush I have passed NAFTA without Unions opposing him? Clinton did. The Zapatistas' critique is centered around their rejections of Neo-Liberalism, and Bush (II) is essentially a Neo-Conservative, but when it comes to business, both entities see globalized corporate rules and assumptions as being a good thing. They're both pro-central bank, they are both into debt money, they both like uniform rules of accounting and patent protections. The Zapatistas did not go away just because one wing of the corporatist party was out of power, they still organize against the Bush agenda in Mexico and La Realidad. But they started under a 'neoliberal' global situation.
Would Gore have brought about the 9-11 false flag operation? Probably not - but what's to say the military which runs politics in America would not have? They killed Kennedy, after all. They regularly terrorize Congress, get caught spying on UN delegates, fix elections in countries which we're nominally allied with, etc. What's to keep them from playing Gore the way they played Carter? Remember April 24, 1980? Remember January 20, 1981? Those two dates have a lot of VERY interesting links, which would add up to treason if objectively observed. I once stood in an auditorium and asked Oliver North about his role in the April 1980 rescue attempt. (North was part of the team which decided how many aircraft to task for the mission. Wow. Kinda like Katherine Harris, yes? History doesn't repeat, it stutters.)
Clinton's presidency saw Oklahoma City and WTC bombing plots One and Two, (Plot Three was the one which brought both towers down). Both of these were early on in his presidency. Clinton's reaction was to sign into law an extension of FISA which allowed secret sneak and peek warrants to be issued and allowed that evidence TO BE USED IN A COURT OF LAW LATER. This was essentially a precursor to the Patriot Act, but was much less maligned on the left when Clinton did it than when Bush did more of it. When both sides of the "coin" turn the ratchet in the same direction, how much choice do we really have?
I like Nick Hornby...
Submitted by Rick on Sun, 08/31/2008 - 6:09am....and there's this scene in his movie "Fever Pitch" that I want to share with you. "Paul" is a cynic, forever let down by his team, Arsenal. After a great season in which they had the chance to be league champions, they blow it in the last match -- they have to beat the perennial favorite, Liverpool, by two goals. At halftime the score is still nil - nil, but Paul moans: "It might as well be 8 - nil for all it matters." His friend, who is watching the game with him says, "If we have to win by two goals, then we're rather better off with nil - nil at halftime than eight goals down."
That's what I don't get about your position. So Clinton and Gore wouldn't have been so great, but at least we didn't have to worry about jack-booted thugs breaking into our houses and doing ID checks.
Do you see my point?
Beware the terrible simplifiers.
Jacob Burckhardt
Hey Drew
Submitted by Laurian on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 8:38pm.Commenting on Obama's Community Organizing Experience
Submitted by Bert on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 2:16pm.I'm originally from Illinois
Submitted by DrewHendricks on Sun, 08/31/2008 - 1:47am.And yet I never in my life had heard of the man before his name started appearing everywhere about a year ago... Google news says he started getting presidential airplay in July of 2006. I had moved from Illinois to Seattle 9 years earlier.
I'm not interested in investigating the man's background any further, since he's made it clear that he's aligned with the debt money system and the politics of corporatism. Most of my time is spent directly measuring my own environment. I see a lot of sell-outs here, too.
A fellow...
Submitted by The Fire Inside on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 4:45am.OlyBlogger mentioned this a month ago to me.
Dr. Ron Paul's supporters will be holding a rival convention in Minneapolis, not far from the Republican National Convention. The event has a great name: Rally for the Republic. It's being described as an event for those who are "anti-war, anti-government regulation, anti-immigration, anti-taxes, anti-Federal Reserve, anti-outsourcing, pro-individual liberty, pro-civil liberties and pro-Paul."
It's a shame Ron Paul won't be speaking before the Republican Convention (although I'm guessing finishing ahead of McCain in a few states is a big reason why; plus he hasn't endorsed McCain), because I think if you put in front of a microphone in prime time, people would listen and might even begin to explore the Republican Party.
I also think Ron Paul and Barack Obama, on the podium at the same time for the presidency, would be quite the duel.
Paul should open the Rally for the Republic with the platform of the United States Progressive Party ("Bull Moose Party"):
Ron Paul,
Submitted by JT on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 6:17am.although I like much of what the libertarian platform is about, Paul is a horrible choice. The guy is about as far from presidential as you can get.
Like I said months ago, I'm confident Paul gave up his lunch money on the school grounds many times as a kid. Not the guy I would want arm wrestling with hostile world leaders.
"What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations." -- Sun Tzu
itchyhitch.blogspot.com
What you say may be true...
Submitted by Rick on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 7:17am....I've never seen Paul speak. But you also have to acknowledge that he's right about one thing: the unholy alliance that exists between business and government.
Beware the terrible simplifiers.
Jacob Burckhardt
Nader / Gonzales Campaign Open the Debates Media Blackout
Submitted by Bert on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 2:04pm.Read more: Wild 24 Hours
Couple of Videos to Share
Submitted by Bert on Sat, 08/30/2008 - 4:16pm.Ralph Nader on the DNC [link includes transcript]:
Vincent Bugliosi on the Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder:
Obama Biden on Military Dominance
Submitted by Bert on Sun, 08/31/2008 - 3:24pm.Interview
Submitted by Bert on Sun, 08/31/2008 - 5:49pm."Obama's speech wasn't that great"
Submitted by Bert on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 10:01pm.http://www.progressive.org/radiodaily
Pepe Escobar on Full Spectrum Dominance and the Cold War
Submitted by Bert on Tue, 09/02/2008 - 6:48am.Why would any state desire "full spectrum dominance?" What purposes might such a policy intend to serve?