You may have heard that history was made tonight. After an up-and-down convention, Obama hit his speech out of the park. And it was an awfully big park.
It was a tightly constructed, pitch-perfect speech. Obama came out feisty, challenging McCain directly and by name. Then he shifted briefly into wonk mode, laying out some of his policies for those who are too busy to check his web page. (My words, not his.) And he concluded by bringing out some of the soaring rhetoric that he does best. Here’s the text. And a tiny excerpt:
America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose – our sense of higher purpose. And that’s what we have to restore.
We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America’s promise – the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.
Tomorrow we can be all analytic and careful. Tonight, I’m just enjoying this.
Now that Senator Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, let us
examine his record.
Obama supports a total handgun ban, even going so far as to vote
against a bill allowing homeowners to assert self-defense if they used
banned handguns to defend themselves from an attack by an intruder.
Obama defended infanticide, voting down a bill that would require
medical care for babies born as a result of a botched abortion, even
though the bill contained Roe neutral language.
Obama said that ICE immigration raids terrorize communities, even as
illegal aliens kill people like Tony Bologna.
Michael Ejercito,
All of that sounds quite good to me.
he must be a pro Obama troll…
After Dick Cheney’s little adventure/misadventure in Caucasus, when Russia decides to follow Iran’s example and no longer accept USD for it’s oil and natural gas but ony to accept Euro’s and Japanese Yen. This will have a very serious effect on the long term value of the dollar and probably presage a massive collapse into a black hole (well this is a physics blog).
Putin’s accusation of Cheney using the Georian adventure to stir up things to get McCain elected, suggests that this policy change could happen on McCain’s watch if he gets elected. The fact that Putin said this means he hopes for an Obama presidency. I guess he thinks it will be possible to work with him. So the collapse of the petrodollar is not inevitable over the short term if you guys over there elect Obama.
Not that I personally have all that much hope in an Obama presidency. The president, no matter who he is, has to serve the interest’s of the owner’s of the American Empire. The big banking interests in New York, the military industrial complex primarily in California and Washington State and of course Texas and the oil companies.
He may shift the emphasis by balancing the interest of the different sectors that comprise the corporate control of the American Empire from the Neocon approach of direct military aggression to control the natural resources of the world and to prevent the development of any alternative centres of economic and political power to the neoliberal one where the control for the same objectives is carried out primarily by the big US-UK international banks and international institutions like the IMF and WTO. The military strength of the US being held as a threat in reserve.
So Obama at best is merely the lesser of two evils. Any way guys enjoy your election and remember he who controls the voting machines controls the …
dear americans!
your country is in deep shit!
and you need to restore the economy by decreasing your military budget look at the following data:
1. entire world military budget is 1100 mlrd USD, the leader is USA with 650 mlrd USD, PRC takes the 2nd place with 60 mlrd USD, 10 mlrd less from PRC is Russia, the rest is for other 135 countries;
2. since 2004 US foreign trade debt has been increased by 72%!!! from 5.5 to 9.5 trln USD that is a lot!!!
America is to stop tricks with wars and agression, it’s time to concentrate on your own internal problems, o/w in the nearest future USA will become a history…
hope Obama will stop America from falling into the hellhole…
warm wishes and have a good luck