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Technorati44 Takes Office with Blunt Rejection of 43
After thanking President George W. Bush for his service to the nation and for helping during the presidential transition, Obama veered sharply, offering no attempt at sugar-coating, no deeper genuflection toward the Bushes, who left the Capitol by helicopter soon after Obama's blunt speech and headed for Texas.
Instead, Obama hit his theme early and often in his 18-minute address: The presidential inaugural oath is sometimes taken "amidst gathering clouds and raging storms." Now is one of those times, he said.
Obama declared "we are in the midst of crisis" and recounted wars, a badly weakened economy that he blamed on greed on the part of some and "also on our collective failure to make hard choices."
Homes have been lost, jobs shed, business shuttered, he recounted. Health care is too costly, schools fail too many students and we waste our energy.
There was no affable reference to Bush's eight years in office or mention of the wonders of the Bush legacy, nothing warm and fuzzy. It was a putdown, a repudiation of the Bush years.
Obama was just warming up.
Aside from these "indicators of crisis," the nation is on an emotional downer. Our national confidence has been sapped, Obama said, and there is a nagging fear "that America's decline is inevitable and that the next generation must lower its sights."
OK, having painted the gathering gloom, the new president told what was needed to get out of it. Citing past sacrifices by Americans, Obama declared: "This is the journey we continue today."
While the challenges facing us are serious and many and will not be met easily or quickly, Obama defiantly proclaimed: "But know this, America -- they will be met."
The new president continued his indirect criticism of the old regime.
We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord, Obama said. The time has come to proclaim an end to petty grievances and false promises, recriminations and worn-out dogmas that have long strangled our politics.
The time has come, he continued, to "set aside childish things." No particulars were mentioned and there was no hint of emotion from Bush family members in attendance, including both President Bushes and their wives.
But it was difficult to recall an inaugural speech that so harshly described the nation's condition that now became the responsibility of the incoming president. It was reminiscent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1933 inaugural when he denounced "fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." Incumbent President Herbert Hoover sat quietly nearby.
So much for the old. And now the new.
The U.S. remains the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth, with productive workers and inventive minds. "But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed," Obama said. "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America."
The state of the economy calls for bold action, to create new jobs and build for growth.
To those who question the scale of our ambitions, Obama challenged, they should recall "what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage."
Cynics fail to understand that the ground has shifted beneath them -- "that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply," he declared.
Obama offered to renew U.S. leadership to all nations that seek peace. Earlier generations understood that "our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please."
Instead, "our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."
The U.S. will leave Iraq to its people, forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan, lessen the nuclear threat and fight global warming.
"For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broke; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
One watching Obama could only conclude that the page has been turned, dramatically and completely.
57 Comments so far
Show All"i must admit that i have posted some pretty insulting stuff here myself, though i have generally been remorseful about it afterward. i'm pretty good at it and some perverse and cruel part of me rather enjoys it." vox/01.22.09/1:56 a.m.
"if you can't defend yourself except by heaping abuses on people who see things differently, you simply make yourself boring." vox/01.22.09/1:42 p.m.
makes sense to me. no need to argue.
oh, and hootowl, it's time to change the bottom of your birdcage.
Nice self contradiction in the space of 3 sentences, that gnat like attention span will get you every time.
voxclamantis,
one can see how your job "to post skeptical opinions" - even if unnecessarily wordy - would have been perfect over the last eight years. however, it is a new dawning in america, and people such as yourself should come on board, giving the new leader a chance. or you can continue to whine, wordily. it is completely unrealistic to expect anyone to clean up, overnight, such a mess as was created by the outgoing punk and his chumps. it's safe to say that day one wasn't too bad, and i suggest that he's just warming up.
of course he's part of an insidious system. he could not have gotten where he is today without being a part of it. yet within that system, there can be good, certainly not to the level as exists the amount of rot and greed, but it's there. unfortunately, the rot and greed usually manage to overtake the good, whether it be in the form of bullets or sex, or unexplained plane crashes.
there's no need to explain historical theories here. if you are unaware of, or cannot grasp, the significance of 01.20.09, i can't help you out.
lino - I've never been comfortable "on board." It's just a personal thing. Obama has 80% of the country on board, and please don't misunderstand my cynical take on things to mean I do not applaud that, or harbor hopeful expectations for him. Being only human, when our leaders cease to hear the sound of clamoring, they tend to believe they have found a sweet spot. They think their mission is accomplished. They ripen, as Woody Allen put it, and rot. You stand in the temporarily mollified and correctly hopeful, happy center left. I stand on the eternally unsatisfied, exasperated, impatient and outraged extreme left. We are not on opposite ends of some moral or ideological spectrum, and I see no need to make the mistake, as you seem to do, of questioning each others educational credentials. If you have an argument, let's hear it. If you can't defend yourself except by heaping abuses on people who see things differently, you simply make yourself boring. Peace. Vox.
"giving the new leader a chance" Yeah Vox give the new Fueher a chance, don't you know hierarchy and being a sheep is a good thing? What are you some kind of lefty rebel? :)
George W. Bush's last act as the President of United State was to co-sponsor an arrogant ceremonial human sacrifice in Palestine, a replay of a glorious tradition of the New World, the Aztec Empire. The purpose was to set up President Obama as the glorious bringer of hope and light to the Middle East.
The stage is set for Obama to play the "nice guy" in contrast to the horrors of the Bush years. Let's hope that Obama will play his ASSIGNED role right so that at least the lives of more than a thousand Palestinians are not a complete waste.
(((p.s. I still cannot believe the rumour that McCain and Palin was set up to lose the presidential election so that Barack Obama, as the new president, can open a new era in US history. But stranger things had happened. I wouldn't dismiss the rumour totally just yet.)))
Ah, the old "Good Emperor - Bad Emperor" routine.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
To be honest, mujeriego, I am now inclined slightly more towards believing in the rumour after watching the "Hollywood" big production of the inauguration of Barack Obama. To my knowledge most people would expect to see such thing put up by dictatorships like those in China, Russia, North Korea, or some Third World banana republics, certainly not in U.S of America.
You can hardly blame people for thinking that (i) the silly campaigns of McCain/Palin, (ii) the slaughter in Gaza, (iii) and the "grand standing" big production which brought in even the historical Washington, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, etc. was in fact an execution of a plot ending in a crescendo, in the form of a media blitz, to be broadcast to America and the world.
Yes, a new Emperor or Master of the Universe is enthroned, and the world had better watch out. Forget about Bush-the-Crude and his "Crude Power". You ain't seen nothing yet. Here comes Obama-the-Smart and his "Smart Power".
Pan
Helen will be back in town, a sign that a FREE PRESS may operate to help vitalize the land of the free and home of the brave.Where no reasonable question will not be answered .A time when a reporter need not be a sycophant to be present and retribution will not be visited upon honorable media.
May the sources multiply and prosper for ALL.
HURRAH for freedom of the press our life blood.
Welcome back and many others also.
"At last, at last, we're free at last." Helen is free to ask a question at the Whitehouse Briefing, and for sure she will be called on to speak and ask a question and will finally get an answer. Thats what is called freedom of the press. I hope Dan Rather will finally get his question answered. But of course Bush is gone, but not AWOL this time.
Georgie Junior is a grown-up.
NOT!
Notice the contrast with another Junior:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:
"Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator — that something we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.
"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that's not important. Tell him not to mention where I went to school.
"I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace; I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.
"We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. ... And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It is a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity."
Here is some of what Bush said in his first address.
"We have a place, all of us, in a long story. A story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer. It is the American story......
Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations. Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along; and even after nearly 225 years, we have a long way yet to travel......
What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort; to defend needed reforms against easy attacks; to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor. I ask you to be citizens. Citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character......"
The difference is Bush didn't write this speach.
Obama's inaugural address was written by Jon Favreau:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/17/AR2008121703903_pf.html
"The U.S. remains the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth, with productive workers and inventive minds."
I don't think it is any longer productive to try to inspire people with such nationalist sentiments. Our problems are partly a result of these sentiments. It should not be our goal to be the most prosperous, powerful nation, nor should we use that to justify anything.
If we value above all the well-being of all, the nationalist sentiment becomes a liability. And even if we could be convinced that zero-sum competition is tolerable, the USA competes by consuming more resources per capita than others, and various other dysfunctional means.
Basically, the USA pursues a dysfunctional end via dysfunctional means. We have to change both. Both the end and the means have to serve the people's better interests: Economic/political self-determination, i.e. proportionate control over markets/institutions.
You just made my day! Thanks!
While I was watching the ceremony together with friends from various countries - in Europe - we all agreed that we had never seen as much poverty in a First World country as each of us individually had seen when travelling through America. We actually moaned when he said that. It is just simply not true.
My friends and I all live in countries which are statistically either on par with or only slightly below the US - since there aren't that many billionaires where we live, I guess - but where people simply are much better off, and that's very visible.
It pains me regularly when in America to talk to poor people who still believe that they are better off than anybody else in the world, because they have no clue of what life could be like. But that's what's been hammered into their heads. They know no other place and they are constantly being told that they are lucky to live there. That's mean, IMO. Just to keep them quiet and prevent them from revolting, I guess.
But realizing where you REALLY stand is normally the beginning of a real change. I hope one day never again to see so much poverty in America. I hope that one day they really can count themselves lucky to live there, and not just because they've been brainwashed into believing it.
A topic nobody even touched during the election campaign, BTW.
Good point.
rtdrury,
I would like to offer you job. My driveway needs a speedbump.
"One watching Obama could only conclude that the page has been turned, dramatically and completely."
And that you'll be asking him some tough questions soon, right Helen?
you are indeed correct, ms. thomas. it was quite amusing to watch the bush pup squirm as obama leveled him. of course, had papa bush not had on his fur-lined bomber cap to help conceal his discomfort, it would have been doubly amusing. surely there was a reason the bush/cheney cabal caught the fast train out of town. time is no longer on their side.
to the likes of zephyrregent and the doctor and nakli and tennegon and voxclamantis, among others, really, it is sad to see you all, as amused suggests, sitting around with your heads up your asses. clearly, yesterday was a moment in history, of history, and for history. if any of you failed to grasp that simple truth (and it's clear by your posts here today and elsewhere yesterday that you don't), then just sit back and suck on your thumbs, with you daily whining, for the next four years.
"most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across the truth. most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as if nothing had happened." - Sir Winston Churchill
I am increasingly disappointed to hear the word "whining" on this blog applied to people who express too many complaints about things. You must, in using such language and taking such a supercilious posture, imagine yourselves to be adults admonishing children, whereas in fact you are simply borrowing a common invective with which relatively unimaginative posters attempt to belittle those with whom they disagree. I must admit that I have posted some pretty insulting stuff here myself, though I have generally been remorseful about it afterward. I'm pretty good at it, and some perverse and cruel part of me rather enjoys it. But it tends to put one "off topic" as we say, and does not contribute to civilized dialog. I tend to post skeptical opinions. That is my job. You wish to celebrate a season of victory and hope, and I would not for anything deny you that joy, even if I seem to rain on your parade. Please continue to characterize your antagonists any way you wish, but try to do it in a more entertaining and effective style.
Please elaborate on your theory of history. For me the inauguration was a ceremony, rather vapid like most self-congratulatory human ceremonies. If by a "moment in history" you mean a "significant moment in history," I would characterize the bombing of four UN schools and the butchery of 350 children while the diplomatic world watches mute as Ralph Steadman lizards, as vastly more significant. Obama is of course an improvement over Bush. Dracula would be an improvement. But I'm waiting (hopefully I should add) to see whether he has the vision or the ability to turn his lofty rhetoric into a reversal of a very very insidious and entrenched system, of which he may yet be a part.
Here, here, the role of true lefties is to always speak truth to power. If I wanted the Dimocrapic party line I'd be hanging out with the prozac zombies over at "KOS." I like it here because it is honest, about being deeply humanistic and sustainable, and at times very funny. Lets keep it that way and not become mere sycophants for Obama.
p.s. Thanks for the Ralph Steadman image, we need more rabble rousers IMO, the 21st century has been incredibly boring so far:
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/05/ghosts_of_tim_l.html
Thanks for the link. I've bookmarked the essay, which I will read tonight when I am not in skimming mode. As for Hunter Thompson hanging by his tongue in hell, I'll say that I mostly believe that whereas God doesn't appear to give a shit about us, she does have a sense of humor. Guess we'll find out.
I didn't vote for Obama, but thought his speech was great. So he gave Bush the business, well he deserved it. When Bush took office, this mess of a country wasn't something he had to fix. The problems he left for Obama to clean up are gigantic. The least we can do is help him solve them instead of bringing the old baggage into the new White House.
What's the matter with this author? Obama's not much different from Dubya and she still "praises" him. No wonder MS keeps voting GOP !
Apparently sitting in the front row of the Warshington press corps for the past eight years has caused the venerable Helen Thomas to lower her expectations of the new president. After the nefarious and inept George W. Bush, it's easy to see why.
Obama's speech was masterfuly delivered and replete with high-sounding but vague phrases and promises. While he hinted at the malfeasance of the Bush administration, he said nothing definitive about stopping warrantless wiretaps, the ever-expanding wars and the return of habeous corpus.
He said nothing about rolling back the dictatorial powers of signing statements and presidential edicts that could result in the president pointing his finger at you or me, calling us terrorists and throwing us into dungeons to be tortured. He said nothing about the horrific renditions where the president could order a "detainee" to be shipped to some other country for torture and disappearance.
Obama said nothing about unclenching the corporate stranglehold on the our nation's lawmakers and the president himself.
We cannot let Obama off so easy. It's time to demand that our leaders deliver more than smooth words and a confident smile. They must change the course of our nation or face the consequences of an angry electorate.
Sioux Rose
CAVEDWELLER: Well said.
And just what are the consequences of an angry electorate?
It is time for Helen Thomas to retire.
Jesus Helen. I expect this kind of facile drivel from Naomi Wolf but I assumed you knew better. That's my bad, I guess. And BTW, cynicism may not be rational but neither is mechanistic optimism.
Anyone out there who thinks a new era has dawned is in for some rude shocks (but very little awe).
Helen has certainly been one of the better MSM voices -- so much so, that the Bush admin basically sent her into exile.
Nonetheless, she's got her limitations. She was basically bamboozled by Obama's empty Happy Talk, and swallowed it whole.
It's odd that she writes, & quotes Obama as saying,
------------
The U.S. will leave Iraq to its people, forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan, lessen the nuclear threat and fight global warming.
"For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broke; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
------------
The US is not going to leave Iraq. At most, there will be a modest draw-down of troops, but most will remain. Meanwhile, Obama is promising an ESCALATION of the war in Afghanistan. (Last I checked, 'war' is not the same as 'peace.')
And who is it that's really "slaughtering innocents?" In reality, that would be us, and our allies Israel & Britain. But that's not what Obama meant. He was giving a warning to "the terrorists": Iran, Hamas, Syria, Hezbollah, those near the Afghan/Pak border, & potentially anyone else who doesn't accept being ruled by Washington DC. He was making it clear that the War on Terror will continue.
Unfortunately, Helen seems to have missed this ominous message (& others like it). She probably just got a little swept away by the moment, & by her hopes for change. I predict it won't be long before she recognizes this.
"amidst gathering clouds and raging storms."
I hope B.O. will not let our Genocidal Monsters continue with the slaughter of Palestineans while he is busy transfering our childrens' future earnings to the business maggots.
* Egypt keeping Iran aid ship from Gaza
* Israel deploys troops along Gaza border
* Israel resumes razing al-Quds houses
* UNRWA: Open Gaza crossings or brace for crisis
* Israel denies medical teams, food supplies entry to Gaza
* Crisis hits Gaza but Rafah not opening
If you are speaking to children, of course you don't talk in the dark terms we discuss here. But we are not children, we need to be clear here not fanciful. BO hopefully will live up to his dreams and my offspring will enjoy the uplifting, but I come here to speak my mind, to discuss reality and what needs to happen to correct the problems, when they are this serious. If you're just lookin' to shuck over this and think anyone smart is still partying, it's time to be serious.
Except you become as little children, you will not see the kingdom of heaven. Don't get me wrong here, I am well aware of the shape the world is in; I've been watching for a long time and if your name indicates your age, I'm way past thongs. I was fortunate to be able to march in Washdc in 1972 against the Vietnam undeclared war, and have been somewhat of an activist if not physical, then very vocal. Sometimes you just have to sit back for a moment and bask in the fact that for the time there is a relative calm. If you never take a moment to rest, you eventually burn out and then you join the other side, like many of the sixties activists. Choose battles wisely. Progress can be measured here, even if just a small bit.
Wise words.
And today, already, small but important changes are happening.
Even if Obama is merely a pragmatist this will be a vast, indeed, colossal improvement over the ideologs that gripped the country in the iron fist of the faithful.
I, for one, will never stop pushing.
But I will also not diminish the accomplishments we achieve.
Nor will I deign to judge Helen by a single op-ed...which quite rightly points out that this inaugural address really WAS a systematic condemnation of regressive thought.
The corporate-owned press has labled Barack Obama as a pragmatist. It seems to me that rather than a pragmatist, he should be called what he really is: a dissembler.
The Doctor beat me to it . . . that quote about terror and slaughtering innocents . . . what ironic timing, and the very next day he pledges support to Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, with no mention (still) of the recent atrocities by Israel in Gaza. This is the "much to say about it" for which we've been waiting?
If anyone has seen any truly meaningful commentary on what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have said about the Gaza invasion, which is being polite, I'd like to know about it. I found it interesting that CD ran Dr. King's Beyond Vietnam speech on Monday, with no real comment in that regard. Is this really the legacy?
Change---I believe in...
You mean CHUMP change you can "believe" in.
Anyone that doesn’t feel an uplift from the departure of Bush has their head up their ass. Whether you’re an Obama fan or not. I agree with John Two Dogs… Give it a chance and give it a rest.
I thought human sacrifice in the Americas went out with the Aztecs, but I was wrong. More than one thousand Palestinians were sacrificed to highlight the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama. I believe our President did not like it or support it but it was done FOR HIM neverthelesss.
These buckets of blood debts are now President Obama's and Americans' to pay. Make no mistakes about that. Hilary Clintons can talk all she wants about a new age of American "Smart Power", but nobody in this world will forget or forfeit blood debts. Will President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton creat more buckets of blood debt with "Smart Power"? That is what the world wants to know.
Obama and Clinton helped create those "buckets of blood," and are just as responsible for the carnage in Gaza as Bush. But the actions of O, B, and C in support of the Zionists has created its own blowback in renewing Arab and pan-Islamic solidarity that is stronger than at any time in the past and is likely to grow, as this fine item points out.
This must never be forgotten and those who were responsible must pay. All those who felt this was a side show, must be made to understand that this was in fact the main act. Netanyahu's visit to Bush in December laid out the details and garnered the outgoing criminal's support. Those who feel this will go unpunished, must be assured it will not stay hidden on the back pages of history. I will never forget who brought the cold blooded murder of hundreds of children, just in time for the party.
I'm with you tg. Neither will I forget Hillary Clinton cheering on the cluster bombing of Beirut. There is a malignancy in the Middle East, We can pretend it isn't so or we can remove it.
If you feel no optimism at this time, I feel sorry for you. Perhaps you have been irreparably damaged; I hope not. I have been in a darkness since January 2001. Before that I may not have been paying attention, but I did not feel the depression I have been in for the last eight years. I gladly ride the wave of optimism that engulfs me at this time and will ride it for all it's worth. I hope that it brings me totally out of the funk I've been in and gets me into some kind of action, because I have also become somewhat of a hermit seeing no use in protesting in front the willfully blind and deaf justice of the previous administration, and left only to the impotent meandering on discussion pages with the likes of some of you; from others of you, though I get hope. Please give this new, fresh administration the benefit of the doubt toward their actions, and if you judge the actions unfavorable, then, that they will listen to your civil protests and consider action opon them. Maybe just give them the first 100 days.
You are correct sir. I would urge everyone to contact Obama with millions of emails and ask that he reinstate Change.gov., our direct line to our representatives.
We have been in darkness since WAY before Bush's regime started JohntWodogs, does 500,000 dead from Clinton's cruel sanctions against Iraq ring a bell? How about his "ending welfare as we know it? How about his trying to put a "clipper chip" in all out tee vees for censorship purposes and advocating for school uniforms to crush out diversity of thought? How about Clinton's salvage logging that decimated the forests of the Pacific Northwest? How about Clinton putting many more cops on the street to lock up non violent drug offenders such that the U.S. started leading the world in percentage of citizens imprisoned during Clinton's reign?
And before that Bush I brought us war against Iraq I, before that Reagan brought us the war against central and south America, and the triumph of "greed is good." Before that Jimmy Carter supported a covert war against Afghanistan that led to the rise of Al Queda and the Taliban, and also supported the brutal Suharto regime in Indonesia and he was probably our most humanistic President post WWII. I hope I don't have to tell you about the horror that was Nixon and LBJ? Kennedy brought us Vietnam and the Cuban Missile crises.
BOTH parties have screwed the pooch post WWII on behalf of multi national corporations, read some history like Howard Zinn or William Blum and get back to me John.
http://www.killinghope.org/
With Obama's current cabinet of economic proteges of deregulator Rubin like Summers, combined with foreign policy disasters like Rahm Emmanula, Hilary Clinton, and Joe Biden expect more of the same American empire from Obama, with a very slight green sugar coating.
You seem to think it's all about you personally being able to feel happy & optimistic.
You're not focusing on whether the new administration is objectively likely to make the desperately needed changes; you simply hope believing in Obama will make you feel better. You don't want anyone to take away your hope, but you're not really evaluating whether your hope has any objective basis. In fact for you, the less evaluating, the better!
This attitude is typical of Obama supporters -- "I want my hope!", because it feels good. (And implicitly, "To hell with whether or not the hope is justified!")
We all pick and choose what we hear, Ms. Thomas. Many, judging by some of the comments I read yesterday, heard the other, more scary parts of President Obama's speech. But let's assume for a moment that President Obama is his own person and, despite initial appearances, really intends to carry out serious reform on all fronts.
Most of Congress is still bought and paid for by the multinational corporations. The budget and its load of special interest earmarks and tax exemptions, lobbied for on behalf of those corporations, must still make its way through that same corrupted institution. The voices of sanity, such as Kucinich in the House and Sanders in the Senate, are drowned out by the noise made by the others desperate to keep this cushy job. They still think the way to do this is to keep their hand out to those same corporations and keep their head inside those corporate trousers. Unless Obama decides to take a much needed and radically different look at campaign donations, that will remain the way for Congress to remain as it is. We've already seen how responsive they are to the masses of people who are supposed to put them in their job in the first place, when they passed the TARP, also known as the Splurge, despite the massive objections of those masses. And of course, the masses have a REALLY short memory because, despite this betrayal, the masses returned many of those crooks to their suites of power.
Then there are the courts, the federal ones anyway, which are still overloaded with conservative appointees from the last four conservative presidents, including the only Democratic one. Except for the 9th Circuit, and I'm sure it isn't far behind, most of the decisions that come out of these are getting scarier and scarier. And many of the judges are still relatively young and need only wait out the next four years, because it is doubtful that the Democrats will remain unblamed and unblemished by these turbulent economic times and so, rightly or wrongly, depending on one's point of view, will take the lion's share of that blame. People do tend to have really long memories for the really bad stuff that happens to them personally and the people they think are responsible. Assuming, of course, that the Democratic Party has the interest of the people in mind and not that of their corporate benefactors.
Yes, I would like to see radical reform on all fronts, but if, and this is a big if that I'm not counting on, Obama is intent on doing such a thing it will be like sailing a small boat across the widest oceans with nothing but hurricanes in the forecast.
"For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broke; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
Sounds like he's talking about the mudering Zionists, Obama will change his tune and have his U.N. flunkey veto any war crime charges against the zionists. Meet the new boss same as the old boss. Change you can believe in is voting out both Democrats and Republicans.
Barack Obama spoke to us not just as President but as our first Community Organizer in Chief. Not just in Washington but all across the country crowds of thousands gathered to watch, listen, cheer and sometimes cry, and he spoke to us of organizing, of continuing the work and the struggle. Far more than who he picks for Commerce Secretary, this call to action will shape our future.
We are going into a crisis not unlike that of the Great Depression, but probably more profound in that the financial structure of global capitalism is far more rotten and over-leveraged than in '29, and the consolidation of capital into a few hands has proceeded to a point where far less renewal can be achieved by the strong gobbling up the weak. But politically we are in a sense in a far stronger position because of the realignment brought about by the Civil Rights Movement, the enfranchisement of the "Blacks" in the South and the desertion of the Dixiecrats to the Republican Party. The election of Obama marks a great victory along that path, a milestone on a journey that is however far from completed.
I was one of a number of high school students in New York City in the late '50's who wanted to learn about socialism. With the help of Leo Huberman of the Monthly Review we organized a group, the Tom Paine Club, which brought in left and progressive speakers for a monthly event that drew up to 60 students. Out of this came a study group led by a young veteran of the labor struggles in Michigan, Jim Zarichny. We met every Saturday in Jim's room to study the history leading up to the Civil War, with the central theme being the way in which political parties in the US two-party system could fracture and realign under pressure of a social movement and struggle.
The participants of this study group framed the idea of a political realignment in America coming out of the Civil Rights Movement. An alliance of "white" and newly-enfranchised "Negro" voters in the South would drive the Dixiecrats out of the Democratic Party, making possible the realization of the dream of many during the New Deal that it could become the party of the working people. We formed a political action group within the Tom Paine Club around that vision, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Club, to organize the high school and college students in New York City in support of the Civil Rights Movement.
We published and distributed a mimeographed student newspaper, "Common Sense", picketed Woolworth stores endlessly, organized a rally of 4000 young people on Broadway in support of the Freedom Riders and raised money for the movement. We actively participated in the Reform Democratic Movement which overthrew Tammany Hall and in particular played a vital part in the election of Carlos Rios from East Harlem as New York's first Puerto Rican City Councillor. The FDR Four Freedoms Club, with its strategy of political realignment, was one of the strands that fed into Port Huron and the founding of SDS.
The election of Barack Obama as President can be seen as a major breakthrough in the realization of that vision of a grand political realignment, but the job is far from finished. The Democratic Party must be wrested from the hands of the centrists and the DLC, through organization and mobilization of the people within it in support of progressive issues and candidates. Leading this work and carrying forward this vision is the Progressive Democrats of America, the political arm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, along with Democracy for America, Democrats.com and MoveOn.org, and now the grassroots movement coming out of Obama's own campaign. An absolutely crucial part of this process is the passage of the Free Choice Act which will foreseeably allow a great wave of union organization to sweep across America.
The completion of this political realignment will be powered by the need to keep alive the world of people doing and exchanging the products of useful work as the financial system crumbles around us, to keep each other fed and housed and clothed, caring for our young and elderly and keeping each other healthy, and laying the foundation of a new economy. Obama in his speech clearly signaled that he understands this as the core issue we face and around which we need to build hope and organize.
Chris Horton
Sioux Rose
CHRIS H. Although you have greater faith in Obama than I do, I admire your background and appreciated hearing about it. It's refreshing that persons like yourself remain committed to their ideals.
If Obama is really a change agent why is his cabinet filled with war mongering shills, and bankster frauds?
He could have been talking about Bush and the Repugnantones here: "For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broke; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." Bu-shr and No-Shamey, AKA "So" and "So What?", sure got out of town fast.
"...begin again the work of remaking America." Yeah, impeach Bu-shr (sounds like "No" in Chinese) and No-Shamey-No Blamey retroactively.
Yes, we have a new Resident, but the same faces that helped lie us into two wars and parroted Bush propaganda for 8 years are telling the same lies on the news nightly and there is still the same corporate ownership of the government. I expect O'Bomb'em will throw a few crumbs at the masses but continue business as usual.
We are not as a baseball team who has lost its "confidence" and we are not as a jilted lover who chose the wrong mate. We tolerated the last eight years while Bush, his wife and administration and their close loved ones, watched this mad man's murderers do the things Bush ordered. No new hairdo will exonerate Laura or the gals who were just there for window dressing. No party will lift the spirits of those who have felt these atrocities. No bull market will erase the image of children blown apart in Palestine just days ago with Bush's blessing, and probably more than that. I respect you Ms. Thomas, but this is a unique moment in history when many of us are in the state of shock and don't know what to do. Will the media do the right thing and make sure the Judy Millers' and Shawn Hannitys' of the world are brought to justice for carrying the water, gladly, for the butchers returning to Texas?
A page has been turned, but the Bush Legacy of progress and prosperity will last thousands of years. Appalachia has been bombed, blasted and bulldozed right into Third World America. http://www.wisecountyissues.com Change is coming from the bottom up in Appalachia !
The irony is that Appalachia supported people like Bush, McCain and Palin; and mocked people like Al Gore on the environment. If Appalachia continues to vote against it's own interests, than what does it really expect?