In the middle of Obama's speech I find him speaking about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons in their endless loop on Fox and Youtube :

' They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice.
' Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -
' a view that sees white racism as endemic, and
' that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America;
' a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel,
' instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. '

How about ;

' They were simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice.
' They examined the profoundly distorted view in this country -
' the view that casts racism as an historical injustice. and
' that elevates what is right about America in order to hide what we all know is wrong with America;
' a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam,
' instead of as a response to the actions of ourselves and stalwart allies like Israel. '

That is what Obama should have said. Instead he took this opportunity to reassure his financial backers that if they stick with him that nothing will change. The rest was inspirational bulls*t. What else can you call words so flatly contradicted by the reality of the man's candidacy? And "progressives" ate it up.

2008 will be the year that we finally dropped the duopoly, that we turned our backs on Obama/Clinton/McCain, that we finally got serious about the long haul and started to unite around alternatives like Gravel, Nader, McKinney.

Or 2008 will be just another skid mark in our long slide down the slippery slope to oblivion.

Another unbelievable day!

Bill Richardson, in a very moving interview, explained why he endorsed Obama, today on CNN, despite having served in the Clinton administration. I wonder if Obama would consider him for VP?? He has foreign affairs, administrative and congressional bone fides and other credentials, so is might be possible....a Black and hispanic on one ticket...How powerful!!! Yet Clinton has now regained in new polls (discussed on CNN today) relative to Obama after his 'race" speech...now a disaster despite its eloquence, as I posted earlier....Will this never end? good grief!

On the negative side, it turns out Wall Street in the past year has donated $6.3M to Obama, $6.0M to Clinton and a paltry $2.5M to McCain. Do they know who will win?? Who has been bought? And total cash on hand for the same three is $39M, $33M, and only $8M. How can McCain be the tool of the rich and Wall street with those figures. What argument can be made to show Dems haven't been bought like Republicans?

Good idea to include Obama's speech in the discussion at the US universities. I honestly believe that his words should be looked at and here are some samples from Barack Obama’s book; “Dreams from my Father”;
“I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.”
“I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.”
“The emotion between the races could never be pure..... The other race (white) would always remain just that: Menacing, alien and apart.”
“Never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, the son of Africa, that I’d picked all the attributes I sought in myself.”
In the above excerpts the irony is that 12-13 years old, Obama was fully benefitting from his “white” grand mother and other relatives. All this nonsense and calculated anger is displayed in a book that he wrote at “maturity and success.”
Can anyone deny that Barack Obama does not know what Michelle Obama uttered famous "first time really proud of America" sermon." There are no comments or condemnation because the media has not cornered him yet.
In July 2007, talking to the reporters Barack Hussain Obama said; “I would overcome Hillary’s lead in the polls because to know me is to love me.”
In January at a gathering he said that by the time he was done speaking "a light will shine down from somewhere. It will light upon you," he continued. "You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it."
A few months later, he said, "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."
His wife, Michelle said: "Barack is one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who will deign to enter this messy thing called politics," his wife said a few weeks ago, adding that Americans will get only one chance to elect him.”
What a sense of entitlement or the “stuff” that he use to “puff on”, he can’t say “I didn’t inhale it.”
Same is the case with the Farrakhan’s endorsement of Obama, he didn't condemn him until got cornered.
People are by nature good and I give benefit of the doubt to the blinded by the color and charisma followers may not know that his “spiritual advisor” went to Libya with Louis Farrakhan to see Muammar Qaddafi and his church gave Farrakhan a “lifetime achievement award.”
Obama's press spokesman Bill Burton said, "Sen. Obama has said repeatedly that personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they're offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church. Sen. Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees. But now that he is retired, that doesn't detract from Sen. Obama's affection for Rev. Wright or his appreciation for the good works he has done." (end quote)
When Obama says that America need to offer deeds, the only thing acceptable and meant for him and his that we Americans embrace Wright and Farrakhan as both are retired and elect Obama. By the way, it is only a coincidence that Barrack Hussain Obama is linked to two of the America’s most influential pastors who linked to each other in more ways than just speech.
So it is not about the "pastor's words" it is about the pattern of deception, crying wolf and keep giving, and vote him in.
As students of law, both Obama and I know the difference between the "freedom of speech" and "hateful speech." It is the arrogant followers who need to see the difference.
Thank you.
Najam, NJ

What's the feud today between Carvile and Daschle? One is calling the other "coward"? What's going on here....Is this a way to win hearts and minds??? Boys,boys,boys, so very embarassing!!!

Maybe politicians are unable to do much of anything right. How did the countrys founders agree on a constitution, a rather substantial one at that, and yet today the Dems can't agree on whether to count votes in Florida and Michigan and the Republicans who want a conservative can't even find one.

It's crazy out there!!!! And public opinion polls are changing by the hour!!! I'm voting for my Yorkie!!!

To start a dialogue on racism, there also needs to be an understanding of some "white" issues. I'd be the first to admit that likely many, maybe even most, whites don't fully understand many black grievances, but the reverse is also true. Because some proportion of whites are likely racist, don't blame me for things I've never even thought about let alone done.

For example, where do we hear about the fact that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time? Black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse? And nothing is more sad than black on black crime in minority communities. Is white America completely responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent? Changing those behaviors and outcomes must largely come from the local community.

What about Tawana Brawley and the Duke rape case. They turned out to be unfortunate hoaxes. It's probably considerd "racist" to talk about those. But it must have scared some whites. Probably a lot of whites. What about the terrible riots in Watts, Harlem, and Newark where too many of the black community decimated their own neighborhoods? Scared me. Somone else posted recently that 13% of the population contibutes 40% of the prison population. That should scare everyone. It's a terrible waste of talent, resources, and human dignity. And we all have to pay for it....maybe $40,000 annually for each!!! That's crazy!

And likely few white people can listen to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and take them seriously, despite their abilities. I don't know how many they represent in the black community, but they do it in a way that fosters distrust. Al Sharpton, for example, is in fact very "sharp" , very capable, but has chosen to pander rather than heal. Nobody would stand for a white Al Sharpton nor Jesse Jackson. And rightly so.

On the reverse side of the ledger it's understandable that some blacks might think the inability of New Orleans to get back on it's feet after Katrina is a white problem. Bush, Blanco, blame whomever. There's plenty of blame to go around. Yet the state and local institutions there have been liberal democrat with substantial local black composition, for decades, so blaming whites seems overly simple from the white perspective. I never heard mayor Nagin acknowledge local failures, why such a large proportion of the largely minority police force quit and left,for example, but I sure heard him blame everybody else. That's a failure of not just national, but state and local leadership.

We have a long way to go. The only way to succeed is to work together. Blaming the other person, the other race, the other political party, the other religion, just makes meaningful solutions that much harder.

Come one let's open our eyes and be honest.

Many of us heard about the Natalie Holloway story, right?
Yet how many heard about what happened to Megan Williams in Oct 2007 in WV???

I hope ALL 1.6 million of those viewers have watched this video too if they truly want to know the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

What a bunch of quitters on this thread. Here, the man has given the most electrifying, painfully honest and beautiful speech of this generation, and the self-appointed pundits here are assigning him to oblivion. I was 20 when Bobby Kennedy was shot--or he would have been president. Not since then has a politician commanded the passion Barack Obama has behind him. He did write this speech, it is in his voice, his language. Lincoln became President because of a similarly inspiring and intelligent speech he gave at the Cooper Union in New York. People listened to his words then, instead of calculating how it would be heard by this group and that group, or trembling in fear how the newspapers would tear him down.

I was a Hillary supporter until a couple of months ago, when I concluded that Obama, however little we knew of him, would have the better chance of beating McCain. After I read the speech the third time through, I was convinced that Barack Obama is the person this country needs to clean up the mess left by Hurricane Bush. He is a litmus test for whether this great country can be rescued from the cynics who have been raping it for the last seven years.

There's seven months to the general election--plenty of time to unite the party, raise the money, and teach the American public what being American really means. Maybe we need some slightly more diplomatic, less bitter Jeremiah Wrights to get good people off their butts and put them to work. We have the chance to take back this country with the true patriotism that the flag-waving lapel button wearing haters of the right will never understand.

The Neocon postings on this page make me sick. All of the feigned "outrage" over things said not by Obama, but by a pastor. Have you people ever heard of freedom of religion? Or freedom of speech? Or separation of church and state? This shouldn't even be an issue.

The fact that CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc., played Wright's speeches virtually in an endless loop shows you that all they care about is making hype and overamplifying marginal stories. This while violence again increases in Iraq and a major bank goes belly up. Oddly, the story about who originated the Wright story is missing -- did it come from Hillary or McCain?

If this fake issue is fair game, then where is the equal time for the kooky preachers supporting McCain? Where are those endless video clips of Hagee calling Catholicism "the Great Whore"?

The American public shows its true sheeplike qualities by buying into the crap hook, line and sinker. They have no idea what it takes to overthrow the entrenched corruption in Washington.

Do yourselves a favor and turn on the John Adams miniseries on HBO -- you'll get a taste of what true revolutionary spirit. If you don't get HBO, then pick up a book about it.

Obama IS the next president -- you just don't know it yet.

The problem is, for someone who elevates the value of words, the words of a 20 spiritual confidant, will cause trouble, lots of trouble. The dialogue is long over due, but at what cost to his candidacy? The dialogue of gender is long over due as well. Women make 77 cents to every Man's dollar, are more like the victims of domestic violence, are traded as sex slaves, 1 in 4 women are raped or sexually molested by 18, etc etc etc, but I guess calling Senator Clinton a "bitch" is okay.

"GOD DAMN AMERICA" JUST WORDS?

REVEREND WRIGHT'S SPEECHES......."JUST WORDS?"

Well, after the Ferraro comments, and all this talk on race, I couldn't help but enjoy more South Parks take on it all.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/102800

It is peculiar how, as noted in this blog, many are saying that Obama's speech is a call for a national conversation on race. But what is striking is how narrow its scope is. It is a speech on race as seen through Obama's own lens of black and white. Hearing him speak you would think that in this nation it is only Blacks who have felt repression and discrimination. What about so many other peoples like Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, and for that matter, poor people of all races? It appears that Obama and Wright are stuck in the 1960s; an era before this country became a multicultural society and they have, in addition, chosen the opposite direction of the one taken by MLK.

And since the speech was an attempt by Obama to defend his continued relationship with Wright it is a serious ommision that gender was only mentioned in passing. Wright is not only a racist but is also a rabid hater of women. Let's hope Obama will make a priority of addressing this as well.

This is but the beginning. What is about to happen will be the great upheaval of this century. What Senator Obama has started will slowly gather steam and by election day the whole country is going to be fin or a surprise (my hope and prediction as a quasi gay Shaman). Time will tell, but this I know everyone is talking about it the great oration, openly and with wonder.

Now that its out (the great divide), it will be like a refiners fire. It is a starrkt contrast to the evil (harmful behavior) demonstrated by many media outlets. Those with much less of a pure heart will wither and "soon be forgotten in this new age.

Everything is there, Dr. Kings Legacy, Mathew Sheppard's death, HIV/AIDS, poverty and the incredibly, I don't believe this is happening" statements we the people make all the time in relation to the current corrupt and diseased administration. The polarization fostered by the greedy will be put in a perspective never before seen in this country. I can feel it in the body politick,

I hope for it dearly, now in my last days. I wish to leave this plane with a smile of hope and a joy in my heart, that underneath all the madness of these last seven years laid the AMerrica I believed in that has finally risen to its great potential.