speech

(sorry, this is kind of dated, I wrote it last week, but proofreading has become an issue)

Barack Obama gave a speech on race last week. I'm assuming the motivation behind it was to address the anti-white/anti-American comments made by his Minister (Jeremiah Wright.) Some of Wright's comments included:

"Who cares about what a poor black man has to face every day in a country and in a culture controlled by rich white people?"

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Obama could have distanced himself from Wright. He could have simply stated that he disagreed with Wright's comments and put an end to the "controversy." But he didn't.

Although Obama didn't support his Minster's comments - he called them a "profoundly distorted view of this country" - he did not distance himself from Wright either. In fact, Obama defended him. He defended a man who blamed America for 9/11 and referred to attack as nothing more than 'America's chickens coming home to roost.'

Addressing Wright's angry comments, Obama said,

"But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races."

I've heard him make statements like this before and I like it, I think it's sincere. ("Brave", adds Cindy) ("Mature" adds me)

He's actually respecting the intelligence of his listeners.


Remember when Bill Clinton first responded to allegations of marijuana use by saying, "When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again."

If that statement was somehow true, wouldn't it be worse than if he was lying? If in fact he didn't inhale, then what was there to not like about smoking marijuana? It certainly wasn't the taste of smoke in his mouth that bothered him. We all know how much he likes cigars.

And what about the fact that by not inhaling, he was wasting somebody else's weed? It's probably safe to assume that the people with whom he was smoking would have enjoyed inhaling the shit that Bill wasted.


back to Obama. Obama seems sympathetic. Not that Hillary Clinton is unsympathetic, but from reading parts of Obama's book and listening to him speak, it seems to come more naturally for him. I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that he is an extreme minority? (by that I mean although he's black, he's a minority amongst black people in this country because he is not a descendant of west African slaves.) When the racial group to which you belong does not exist, when you are without those who understand your own racial issues, it forces you to examine those of others.


Two tangentially related things:

1) Juice used to work out at Obama's gym. He told me that he's seen Obama lifting weights in a pair of full length spandex pants (Juice, can you please expound on that?)

2) Paul Krugman believes that Clinton's health care plan has much better chance of truly being universal than Obama's. (that was for you HG)


I'm as tired of hearing about all of this "Change" bullshit as everyone else. America's not so bad that we need a candidate campaigning exclusively on a platform of "Change." Constantly hearing about "change" actually makes me want to vote for Nader... again.

But we still rule the world. Obama's minister has a point. If the quest for world dominance was a football game, in 2001 we were up 58-0, and on 9/11 the Islamic extremists kicked a field goal. In response to their FG, our second string QB came in and hastily threw and interception that was run back for a touchdown. But we're still up 58-10.