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| Obama chooses reconciliation over rancor | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 18 2008, 11:54 PM (201 Views) | |
| Mystical | Mar 18 2008, 11:54 PM Post #1 |
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Obama chooses reconciliation over rancor Experts say 'nonpartisan' speech on race is almost without precedent updated 2 hours, 46 minutes ago It was an extraordinary moment — the first black candidate with a good chance at becoming a presidential nominee, in a country in which racial distrust runs deep and often unspoken, embarking at a critical juncture in his campaign upon what may be the most significant public discussion of race in decades. In a speech whose frankness about race many historians said could be likened only to speeches by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, Senator Barack Obama, speaking across the street from where the Constitution was written, traced the country’s race problem back to not simply the country’s "original sin of slavery" but the protections for it embedded in the Constitution. Yet the speech was also hopeful, patriotic, quintessentially American — delivered against a blue backdrop and a phalanx of stars and stripes. Obama invoked the fundamental values of equality of opportunity, fairness, social justice. He confronted race head-on, then reached beyond it to talk sympathetically about the experiences of the white working class and the plight of workers stripped of jobs and pensions. "As far as I know, he’s the first politician since the Civil War to recognize how deeply embedded slavery and race have been in our Constitution," said Paul Finkelman, a professor at Albany Law School who has written extensively about slavery, race and the Constitution. "That's a profoundly important thing to say. But what's important about the way he said it is he doesn't use this as a springboard for anger or for frustration. He doesn't say, 'O.K., slavery was bad, therefore people are owed something.' This is not a reparations speech. This is a speech about saying it's time for the nation to do better, to form a more perfect union." Broad coalition Obama's address came more than a year into a campaign conceived and conducted to appear to transcend the issue of race, to try to build a broad coalition of racial and ethnic groups favoring change. In the issues he has emphasized and the language he has used, as well as in the way he has presented himself, he has worked to elude pigeonholing as a black politician. Video Controversy March 18: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., confronted his connection to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the controversy surrounding it. Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and radio talk show host Rachel Maddow discuss. Countdown He has been criticized as "not black enough" and "too black," he acknowledged Tuesday. In recent months, the issue of race has stirred up the smooth surface of his campaign and become a source of tension between him and his opponent, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the past week, videotaped snippets of the incendiary race rhetoric of Obama's longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., seemed on the verge of tainting Obama with the stereotype he had carefully avoided: angry black politician. He faced a choice: Having already denounced Wright's ferocious charges about white America, he could try to distance himself from the man who drew him to Christianity, married him and baptized his two children. Or he could try to explain what appeared to many to be the contradiction between Wright's world view and the one Obama had professed as his own. To some extent, he did both. In a setting that bespoke the presidential, he began with the personal: He invoked his own biography as the son of a black Kenyan man and a white American woman, grandson of a World War II veteran and a bomber assembly line worker, husband of a black American who carries "the blood of slaves and slave owners." Seared into his genetic makeup, he said, is "the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one." He condemned Wright’s remarks as divisive but at the same time embraced him as family, "as imperfect as he may be." He traced the roots of black church preaching deep into "the bitterness and bias" of the black experience. He offered a primer on the link between today's racial disparities and the system of legalized discrimination that prevented blacks from owning property, joining unions, becoming police officers and firefighters, and accumulating wealth to pass on to future generations. "For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away," Obama said. "Nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table." And occasionally, he said, "in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews." I personally don't think that race should play any part in the presidential election. I think that the U.S. voters should be paying more attention to what the presidential candidate can do for this country not what ethnic background they have. I understand that Obama had to clear this up with dignity because it could really have an impact on his race for the presidency. I do commend him for this speech. Although I don't agree with some of the things said I felt that they needed to be said to clear things up. For full story: http://www.msnbc.com/id/23702758 |
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| Isis | Mar 19 2008, 11:58 AM Post #2 |
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The Goddess of Darkness & Desire
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I have to admitt i think he's the best one for the job out of the three main runner's right now... |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Isis, The Goddess of Desire & Darkness. In The Darkness, We Find The Light. This is a Drama Free Zone..! | |
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| Mystical | Mar 19 2008, 11:25 PM Post #3 |
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It's pretty slim pickings out of the 3 that are running against eachother. Although McCain has the republic nomination it's still a battle for the democrat nominie. What makes me laugh is that if you have the teeniest bit of dirt in your past "it's comin out" if you running for the president or any high office. Nobody pays attention to what your strengths or ideals are just what nonsense they can find out about you that makes you look like your a total idiot. I say may the best candidate win. |
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| Darknight | Mar 20 2008, 02:47 AM Post #4 |
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Higher Species
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I say may neither candidate win. Lets keep bush in for another 2 terms.
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| LarryOldtimer | Mar 30 2008, 07:40 PM Post #5 |
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The Man!!!
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I don't think that either of the Democratic contenders would do anything but harm to the US. Just more socialism is what each stands for. IMO, Obama is noting but a racist. pure and simple. He typically uses (when he slips up) common racist terms. I can assure all, that if I have only racists to choose from in voting, I will be sure to vote for the white racist. Being white, I would be foolish to vote for any other type of racist. I don't think that we do anyone any favors by supporting them, whether with direct aid, or with foreign aid programs. Charity, by definition, has to come from surplus, and I haven't seen a surplus of taxes above American needs in my entire lifetime. When you owe someone, and instead of paying them, give someone else the money, all you are really doing is cheating the person(s) you owe, and because you gave money away, can't pay. Socialsm hasn't worked. not anywhere, and can't work. More of it is worse, not better. |
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