It looks like rain is going to greet Barack Obama here in Philadelphia this morning. He is giving a speech on issues of race right now at the Constitution Center. It seems the right-wing and the mainstream media have discovered that Sen. Obama is an actual bona fide black man who belongs to an urban black church with urban blacks pastors. This is apparently such an alarming revelation that it could conceivably render Obama as ‘unelectable’.
His friend and pastor is now defined as a ‘hate-preacher’ and openly compared to David Duke and Louis Farrakhan. The 527 groups are salivating at the chance to link the Great Hope from Illinois to the ‘God Damn America’ ghetto-victim rhetoric of the drug wars. ‘Did that black man just say on 9/11, we had it coming? Someone grab my noose!! We gots to have another hi-tech lynching.’
So, Obama has to address this shit, now, before it metastasizes into some kind of Swift-Boater’s for Truth inoperable brain tumor. Yes, he does. And he’s here, in the Constitution Center on Independence Mall to explain to the ‘straight’ community a thing or two about being a brother in America. And the straight community flat does not want to hear it…any of it. They want to hear that Obama ain’t like those other brothers that feel they got a raw deal…a shit hand from a stacked deck. They want some kind of explanation for why a nice Ivy-educated ‘articulate’ man like Barack would be slummin’ with those other brothers in a no good church no how.
It seems like an impossible task. How can Obama make the white people understand when they think the man that baptized his children is a sub-human subversive treasonous kook? And don’t lecture the white man about he jess don understand the nigra culture. Nothing pisses the straight man off more than to be told he can’t dance.
So…I’m here, and I’m waiting to see what Obama is going to feed the suits. Once that is done, maybe I’ll know what the suits are going to feed Jack and Jill Six-Pack. Whatever that is, it is going to be vomit inducing. But, I’ll tell you what…
I went into this campaign season wanting Russ Feingold…wanting him because I want that fight. Now they’re telling me it’s no good to be black. I’ll take that fight too. I’m ready for that fight. This is the year we can beat all the odds.
HuffPo has the speech transcript
Link to comment in last thread which link’s to Huffpo and the text. It is a great speech.
Direct link to Huffpo
my diary has it up.
thanks, I was in a hurry.
The Dow seemed to like him, shot right up during speech vs Bush it always plummets. I know I know, nothing to do with it, but was worth a smile.
New meme, ‘not this time’
Obama gets some insulation from where it matters.
McCain interviewed by Hannity, Defends Obama: via Ben Smith, Politico
Good for McCain, especially since Hillary is apparently unable to make such a statement.
I guess Hagee’s support is a big motivator.
Hillary says she didn’t even watch or listen to the speech. That’s just horrible, I think. This was an important speech on an important issue. If I were running against him, I would have taken the time to listen.
If your opponent gives something billed as a major speech, don’t you want to at least know what they’re saying so you can counter it if you can?
Seems like a major mistake on Clinton’s part. She’d better at least have had a top aide on top of it; otherwise it’d be letting him take the ball and just run all the way to the basket with it (since Obama is a basketball kind of guy, from what I’ve heard).
It was probably just her best way of avoiding having to say anything about the content of his speech. You really think she didn’t see any of that yet?
I don’t.
I saw that comment from her at her live press conference. She looked truly bitter as she said that she had not seen or read it yet, but you know she’d been briefed on how it went over. Obama had stolen her thunder and she knew it. She knew that nothing she had to say would make the news tonight or possibly all week. Then she went on to say she’s glad he did the speech because it’s important that we discuss race and gender inequality.
I recommend teacherken’s diary over on Orange.
has their narrative now…….and they’re going to run with it. As usual, it benefits the Republicans.
An uppity black man, surrounded by angry black people, being preached to and led by a bunch of Louis Farrakhans.
Every issue in this election is going to become obscured by the race card. There was no way to keep it from happening. Because the majority of the United States is inhabited by bigots and racists.
And Hillary and Bill team have done their bit to feed this momentum. This is the only way that Hillary or McCain can win this thing. Bring out the worst possible fears in white America. So that is what will be done. Because this is the character of our country and this is a reflection of our collective soul. The fear of terrorism card has become, for the most, ineffective. So let’s make it about the next best scary thing, angry subhuman dark skinned people just looking for a reason to fuck over whitey.
I’ve said all along that this election cycle would be worse than we could possibly imagine. This is bad, but the worst, by far, is yet to come.
Bet on it.
On the cable channels, their lily-white panelists wondering “Yes…but is it enough for white America?” never mentioning that some of these states the Senator won were the whitest states in the union.
Scarborough has two black people not named Robinson, Sharpton or Jackson. Unfortunately, Buchanan is on the panel.
I can’t wait to see what the spin is going to be on this. It’s a pretty good speech. Anyone who poo-poos it either has a lot invested in their hate or didn’t hear the whole thing.
Richt here.
At the end of this paragraph.
The conflict in the Middle east does NOT emanate “from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam”, it emantes from the same perverse and hateful policies of American and European economic imperialism over the last few hundred years that supported the slavery and racial discriminatiuon that he so decries at home and all the political tapdancing in the world isn’t going to make that fact go away.
Eliminate those policies and “radical Islam” disappears into a corner with fools like David Koresh and Pat Robertson.
The nutted-out 10% or so that is ALWAYS with us. With all cultures.
I haven’t finished reading the speech yet. But there itis, right on page 2.
Sorry…he can’t run a campaign on truth principles and simultaneously lie through his teeth like that.
And he IS lying, Booman.
He’s too smart not to know better.
Too bad.
The parsing of politics is what is STOPPING him.
Too bad.
He’s got more than that.
AG
You’re so full of it. With all due respect.
Where is this statement “full of it”, exactly.
I’d LOVE to know.
AG
Did you hear the speech?
It was brilliant.
Bo, I have not.
Do not mistake brilliant preaching with rational discourse.
They are often not the same thing.
AG
“No, I have not.”
AG
Arthur, don’t pontificate based on your ignorance.
I have called this election right down the line so far.
Were you an Edwards cheeleader? ()Betcah…)
I called his shit the day he entered the race.
You could look it up.
Here and here among many other places on the web.
Called Giuliani’s fate too.
I called Gore’s non-run in comments on a pro-Gore post way back in July, when so may leftiness Shmoons were slobbering over His Eminence’s coming ascension to the Presidential Throne.
Were you a Gore boy?
Think about it.
Maybe I am NOT so fucking ignorant after all.
Hmmmmmm…???
AG
Except in your own little mind, AG, you have NOT “called” much of anything very accurately. I have been reading your nutty comments for a year or so now and you have been no better at predicting anything than any of the other armchair analysts I see on TV. But they at least come off as serious while still being wrong, as you are.
Get over yourself.
Yeah?
Who have you been “supporting?”
AG
More signs.
Like I said.
Do not discount the power of the PermaGov.
They have ALL the guns.
Bet on it.
AG
Yeah, AG.
Bet on it.
Take your meds.
who respond to reasoned posts with “Take your meds” or “What do YOU know?” or just plain “Fuck YOU, fella!!!” kinds of so-called answers.
I may be wrong on some points, but I have arrived at my positions through the use of reason.
Back your shit up.
Or be ignored.
Your choice…if “choice” is what any of us really have in these matters.
It is precisely this kind of arrant, uninformed and apparently uninformable stupidity on the left and on the right equally that keeps us in continual hot water in this country.
Maybe the Founding Fathers were a little AHEAD of their time. They wanted ownership of land…proof in its day of some sort of basic achievement in the world, some sort of ability to reason and work…to be a prerequisite for being able to vote. That was before IQ testing. Maybe…if only there was a truly accurate kind of IQ test, of course…maybe we need a baseline IQ level to be the qualification for voting.
Impractical, I know.
But what a concept!!!
You can only vote if you have proven that you have the God-given ability to think something through.
Oh well…that wpuld be the end of the leftiness blogs as well.
Guess not.
On with the fun.
AG
P.S. I take NO meds…not even aspirin…if I can possibly avoid it.
And I avoid it very nicely.
Maybe you oughta try it for a few months.
Then perhaps you;’d be able to understand what I am writing.
Until then…have a nice day.
Bet on it.
What an ignorant comment and disgusting slur.
You might take a second to poke around the comments about the speech and find that AG has company with regard to Obama’s pandering (BooMan’s word, I believe) to Israel. And regardless of what you think of AG’s assesment, take your meds is highly offensive and reeks of FreeRepublic immaturity.
There are people in my family who have to “take their meds”, jackass, and every time I hear some knucklehead use their condition as a slur I want to…well, don’t go there.
And you look to be the one who has been most invested in calling Clinton a bitch here.
I have some advice, Randy, grow the fuck up or shut the fuck up.
That one sentence — out of the entire speech — caught my ear too. It was the one thing he said I wasn’t thrilled about. Because the whole Middle-East “problem” is far, far more complex than that, and “radical Islam” is certainly not the sole cause of violence or strife. In fact, I’d say the roots of turmoil in the Middle East are very similar to the roots of racial turmoil in this country — a history of injustice, economic and political disenfranchisement, and a rich ruling class (some of it local, some of it foreign) that wants to get richer at the expense of others. Even the strife between Shia and Sunni in Iraq has far more to do with economic and political issues than it does religious matters–it’s just that the political splits happen to also fall along social/sectarian/geographical lines.
However, this speech wasn’t about the Middle East — it was about racial and religious issues in America. So I’ll wait to hear Obama address the issues in the Middle East more specifically. But I don’t think that one sentence really sums up his full understanding and stance on it all. He’s focused on different issues here, and those he’s got absolutely right.
But Janet…
Without a clear statement of goal-oriented action against the root of ALL of this sufferig…here and abroad..the socio/economic cancer of racially driven and excused imperialism, this is all empty rhetoric.
JUST as Ms. Clinton has been saying.
Not the she’s going to take action against it either, of course.
But still…ride the wrong horse and you ARE going to get hurt.
Careful.
AG
Triple? Home Run?
How’d he do?
By the closing minutes of the speech I was absolutely certain that if he’s not the next President there is no hope that anything will change in my lifetime.
The closing of the speech with that ‘coming together’ message was superb, IMO.
I liked how he broadened the discussion to include all of our history; white people’s fears, black people’s struggles, and where that’s all gotten us. But is that enough to overcome the corporate media bloodlust? I don’t know.
Candy Crowly is gushing about it on CNN, btw.
It’s strange no? I mean, the words the talking heads are saying are nice and sound gushing, but everyone seems a little upset. Maybe they’re serious because They’re Talking About Race.
But as I said above, I think to diss the speech would only show your inner hate. These people have to do it filtering live on TV. I give them 18 hours to change the narrative.
It’s definitely weird. Is it just that white person’s general discomfort with talking about race? Sometimes I think people are inhibited about talking about race because they want to pretend that there is no divide.
They are really hung up on the quote from his grandmother about being afraid of black men.
Sometimes I think people are inhibited about talking about race because they want to pretend that there is no divide.
White people are afraid to talk about race because they don’t want to stumble into a “gotcha” moment by saying something stupid. It’s not like there’s a whole lot of sympathy for people who are trying to be better; you either get it 100% on the first try or you might as well be David Duke. One is forever suspect afterwards.
True enough. But how do we ever get more practice at talking about these things?
To me, the thing that is most offensive, more than plain stupidity, is the outright denial of people who say that they don’t hear anything racist in some of the outrageous statements from camp clinton that we’ve heard over the past weeks, simply because they aren’t aimed at them. Men aren’t tuned into the subtle sexist putdowns that are directed at women, because they aren’t the target of those remarks. Racism is very similar: some of it is obvious, and much of it is more subtle, and designed to be that way.
Well, of course. Which is why I’ve been trying to make an effort to articulate my thoughts on the subject and hope for the best.
I don’t think that racism and sexism are all that subtle, frankly. You don’t have to be “tuned in”. You just have to pay attention in the first place, and that’s where a lot of people fall down. It’s easier to filter it out than deal with the rather ugly world that comes into view when one pays attention.
Buchanan is praising the speech and is now pushing the line that Wright spoke like that every weekend, which gave Joe and open to point out that Obama admitted to be in the pews when Wright said stuff he didn’t agree with.
I flipped over to Fox and they were replaying Rev. Wright speeches….so predictable.
Now they’re pushing the crap line that he didn’t disagree with what the pastor said strongly enough to go to another church. The black commentator they have on CNN is having a fit at that one.
If he’s not elected, we are hopeless and despite the exchange with the EUro that farmhouse in France will be ours!
What was your impression from being there in the room? (Or will that be the subject of an entire post?)
I am by nature a cynic and I had to fight back the tears.
This speech took some major cojones. And I am not one to be affected by political speeches.
That’s the thing to notice on the first level.
The thing to notice on the second level of analysis is what would make a frontrunner do something like this. The answer, the only answer is: he truly, honestly, sincerely believes all this.
And people can smell sincerity a mile away. THAT, my friends, is why Obama is doing so remarkably well in this campaign.
I think people will look back at this as one of the great American political speeches of all time. This is going to be up there with JFK’s and FDR’s greatest hits. And whatever the immediate media reaction is — and I really don’t know what it will be — won’t have any bearing on the historical importance of this speech.
It’s SO interesting . . . many of us have been asking for Obama to show some leadership during this campaign. Generally we think of that as being leadership on issues, but with this speech Obama showed leadship in a completely different way: with his rhetoric.
Rhetoric gets a bad name because it is assumed to be in opposition to substance. But rhetoric is immensely important in affecting attitudes and influencing people, and Obama is just brilliant at that. THAT’S where he can demonstrate leadership of the most impressive kind.
One for the ages.
Just read this take over at MyDD:
“This is pretty ugly and unfair though of Obama, to equate statements by Ferraro with Wright. Obama goes on and on about how great a person Wright is, without a single kind word about Ferraro, just rubbing it in further. I believe the campaign has reached a new low.
Otherwise, great speech.”
Turns my stomach to be reading this on the heels of such a remarkable speech. I think we’ve already past the point of no return for the ugliest campaign season of my lifetime anyway.
I mean…gawd. We’re in for some pretty bad times, I’m afraid.
No matter what. These are people who think that Obama should be seen and not heard. They think he never shows enough deference to Clinton or Ferraro. Some of those people over there are very invested in their bigotry and wouldn’t hear what Obama said if he was yelling in their ears.
here’s an opposite view on the speech: LINK
Trust me, the Clinton supporters would find the speech full of faults no matter what he said.
I don’t expect the Clinton true-believers to let go. They won’t bother listening to the speech. Likewise, the Rethugs need to hold on tight to the hate. But anyone with an open mind who actually listened to the speech has to have been moved.
It’s unfortunate that MyDD has attracted such blind and deaf observers. They ignore the corporate ties and impotence of the Clintonistas to change anything!
It’s really odd to see them embrace an establishment, DLC, top-down candidate and campaign style, given that Jerome Armstrong was a co-author of Crashing the Gates, which supported a grassroots, 50-state, anti-DLC strategy, isn’t it?
I read it, but I couldn’t watch it since I’m at work. Reads like a great speech, even more so given that he apparently wrote it himself. And “great” by the Obama standard is too good for words by the typical standard of American politicians.
Will Smith not Don Cheadle.
I agree with Arthur about the Israel line – to be frank, it’s total bullshit. “Radical Islam” only has power because the policies of America and Israel give it power. Without Israel’s ongoing genocidal war, without America’s ongoing military subjugation of the region for cheap oil, its reason for existing collapses. However, if Obama admitted this, he could not be elected. It would end his candidacy in an instant. McCain would be the next President, no matter who walked out of Denver. So I don’t believe we know what Obama’s stance on Israel or Islam is, and we won’t and can’t until we look back from the end of his Presidency. That statement’s unimportant.
What is important is that he’s addressed the race issue head-on. He’s refused to sever his ties with Wright, or simply dismiss his complaints outright. He’s provided reasoned and rational analysis and explanation of the complaints, explored their causes and implications, and embraced them without tying himself to them. He’s talking about the elephant in the room, and using it to articulate progressive values. This is exactly the rhetoric he needs to be using:
Will his policies stand up to his rhetoric? Will he be able to turn American foreign policy away from the looming iceberg of disaster? I don’t know. But he’s sure as hell not any less likely to do so than Clinton and McCain, who’re both standing on the bridge screaming “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” Ashley’s story in particular gives me some hope that he might just understand the plight of the poor in America right now. And make no mistake, anyone who’s not in the top 0.1% is poor, or about to be. It’s Shruburb time, ladies and gentlemen – the Hoovervilles are back with a vengeance.
I just took MY DD off my bookmarks. Their goal is to have HRC be the nominee no matter if it costs the Dems the election in 2008.
I have been an Obama supporter for a long time but if it looked as bleak for him as it does for HRC right now, I would be wanting him to bow out without costing her a chance at victory.
Fear Mongering, Anti Muslim Religion Whispering Campaigns, and depressing vote totals are straight out of the GOP’s horrific playbook.
Her campaign’s low blow behavior along with Slick Willie’s act proved that all the GOP slime unjustly thrown the Clintons’ way in the 90’s maybe had more validity in it than I ever imagined.
The Democrats and Independents want something different in this country other than what Hillary Clinton is selling or what George McBush is offering too.
At what point to the Clinton’s realize their time is over and it is time for a new era in US government? NEVER?
This speech isn’t going to make a difference among people who were dead set on Clinton or McCain. I think it will diffuse the press though and that’s important. It is a great speech and it was a brave thing to do, considering the never-ending MSM coverage of Rev. Wright. He showed he can handle the pressure of a presidential race and address issues head on. I also agree – I don’t look at MyDD or TalkLeft anymore. Never cared for Taylor Marsh anyway.
Agree. As for the haters, A closed mind is a terrible thing to cut and paste.
He had me at hello.
But then, so did Curtis Mayfied
I think we’ve been geting ready for this fight a long time. We’re not foolish enough to say ‘bring it on,’ but we are ready.