In a Speech on Patriotism, Obama Tries To Get Past the '60s
| Mon Jun. 30, 2008 10:28 AM PDT
Can Barack Obama walk a political/cultural tightrope to success on Election Day?
On Monday, he gave a well-written speech on patriotism. He noted that "at certain times over the last sixteen months, I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged--at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for." And unlike Democrats of the past--Michael Dukakis comes to mind--Obama is not going to give an inch in any battle over who is really a patriot. In the speech, he described the wellsprings of his own patriotism:
One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my grandfather's shoulders and watching the astronauts come to shore in Hawaii. I remember the cheers and small flags that people waved, and my grandfather explaining how we Americans could do anything we set our minds to do. That's my idea of America.
I remember listening to my grandmother telling stories about her work on a bomber assembly-line during World War II. I remember my grandfather handing me his dog-tags from his time in Patton's Army, and understanding that his defense of this country marked one of his greatest sources of pride. That's my idea of America.
I remember, when living for four years in Indonesia as a child, listening to my mother reading me the first lines of the Declaration of Independence--"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I remember her explaining how this declaration applied to every American, black and white and brown alike; how those words, and words of the United States Constitution, protected us from the injustices that we witnessed other people suffering during those years abroad. That's my idea of America.
Obama declared, "I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign." Which is not such a big promise to make. (He's going to call McCain unpatriotic?) And he defined patriotism to include dissent (such as the whistleblowing of the soldier who first revealed the abuses at Abu Ghraib) and sacrifice. But what was intriguing was how Obama blended a championship of dissent with a belief in American exceptionalism. In fact, he noted that in order for the former to be legitimate if must be cloaked with the latter:
Continues Below
Continued From Above
I believe those who attack America's flaws without acknowledging the singular greatness of our ideals, and their proven capacity to inspire a better world, do not truly understand America.
Is this a slam of the old U.S.-is-evil, flag-burning left? Whether or not it is, in that sentence there is something for everyone. America is No. 1, and America has flaws that must be exposed, no matter how difficult, by its patriotic citizens.
Certainly, no one is likely to be elected president in the United States without embracing its ideals and without paying tribute to the national mythology. Obama, it seems, can do this well:
it may be this quality that best describes patriotism in my mind – not just a love of America in the abstract, but a very particular love for, and faith in, the American people. That is why our heart swells with pride at the sight of our flag; why we shed a tear as the lonely notes of Taps sound. For we know that the greatness of this country – its victories in war, its enormous wealth, its scientific and cultural achievements – all result from the energy and imagination of the American people; their toil, drive, struggle, restlessness, humor and quiet heroism.
Obama celebrates the myth and calls for dissent--but dissent predicated on an understanding that the United States is in essence a good and special nation. Politically, this may be an effective way out of the still-resonating battles of the 1960s, a time when some citizens defined patriotism as loving your country right or wrong and others viewed disastrous governmental policies and unjust laws as reflections of fundamental American malevolence. Obama, its been said, is a post-racial candidate. (Election Day will show if that's true or not.) But he may also be America's first post-60s candidate.
Photo by flickr user Barack Obama used under a Creative Commons license.
Comments
There is something decadent in all of this?"Hail to One's Patriotism". The mere fact that pins of the US flag must be worn?to show patriotism, or yellow ribbons somehow signifying solidarity with "the troops" in a war created by fictions against an opponent that cannot even be legally defined and where the voice echoing from the echelons of power is by god don't you dare bad mouth the troops because "that's unpatriotic", then one is forced to admit the fact that the American people have lost?that they have sold out to liars and become a vast armada of wimps, who whimper in unison like scraggly mutts, "what can we do, what can we do"?I mean it is pathetic. Freemen Free-women need no master to tell them what to do?it is in the nature of freedom itself that truly free people have no master but they have one another and together they can create something worthy of respect?through the recognition that what is truly common to all of us is this notion that we in fact have common rights as individuals?it is in light of rights one discovers the nature of equality. We are created equal, not because you are a better tennis player or writer or tiddly-winks player than another but in light of the fact that we have "rights". Rights are the key in the sense of rights before the law. If your rights are taken away then what are you before this machine we call "government"? You are a slave and as long you do nothing but pout and complain like spoiled brats you will remain slaves. It is only through the actions allotted to us as people that these shackles and chains that have been placed on our lives can be broken.
In the 1960's as Martin Luther King marched on Washington to make clear, "That he had a Dream" or in the West Coast as Caesar Chavez made bold the very meaning of the "right to free assembly" by assembling Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike to stand for the right to unionize so as to demand a wage and working rights that corresponded to the reality of living in American Society, and where all across the nation people had awoken to the disease and the lie that was called the Vietnam War?the people of the United States had discovered that by protest they could affect the very instruments that govern them?because those who govern have a need to be respected for their acts but equally they must be reprimanded and punished when their actions go beyond the morality of the norm.
It is the golden rule of power in a democracy that should it stray too far from the edges of common decency then it is not only the right of the people to stand their ground in defiance but it is their duty! How can Obama say?Go beyond this? It is "this" active population engaged against failed government that is in its roots the very meaning of democracy and it is when the people fail to stand for what is their rights that oppression becomes the rule of government. We have come to where this government oppresses the people?where it fails in the most basic of services and where it is but an instrument of corporate will and thus an "appeasement" of this corporate will. A corporation is nothing more than a machine whose sole purpose is to achieve total domination of the market?to control the means of all production in both vertical and horizontal consolidation?in a nut shell it is a dictatorship or what the fascist Mussolini called the Corporata. The consequences of this have left Americans the most imprisoned people on the face of the earth, and today your silence has seen your rights stolen by a criminal whose very presence in the White House is a symbol of the death of democracy. To win back democracy will require more than "sweet words", it will demand the iron in the soul that says?I will not yield to tyranny?such will does not bow before long lines of men clad in blue, with shields, clubs, guns, tear gas, attack dogs, water cannons and so on. It says "bring it on" you mother-f#cker. The iron in the soul does not yield but breaks the links in the chain of tyranny by saying "it is my right", That it is our right because it is only through this fundamental comprehension of having fundamental human rights that a sense of self esteem and decency are possible?it is for that those brave souls stood on the Concord bridge?what a sight for sore eyes they must have seemed to their British overlords. A motley crew indeed because on the other side of the bridge stood the well disciplined columns the highly trained slaves of British world domination?those Grenadiers that had proven unstoppable as they literally conquered the earth. But it was a motley crew of freemen who knew the price of freedom was indeed cheap compared to the price of tyranny. The knew that it was better to be dead than to be a slave.
For eight years we have been witness to the failure of the American people to stand their ground and to demand by threat of nation wide chaos and strikes to take down this regime of tyranny. It is the failure of government to have availed itself of the very principles by which this nation's government was designed?it is called the balance of power. Where the various factions of government balance one another and can call the other into account. The Congress has grounds to call the president out by holding him accountable for his deplorable actions?we call it impeachment. When government fails its duty then the balance of power falls upon the people to stand and to meet tyranny with the sinew of defiance. At this juncture it is only the people who can show those who sit snug in the illusion of power what 300 million anger people can do to the likes of wimps and cowards like George W. Bush
Thus when McCain or Obama speak of "Patriotism" what they mean is "anti-Americanism". These men cannot speak from a true heart because they lie all too easy. When they say they stand for the United States of American what they mean is simply that on this day?of all days when we celebrate the birth of this nation?where the very foundation of our independence is the notion of "the rights of the people", because that is what they died for, then I gag in disgust because both John McCain and Barack Obama are guilty of renewing legislation under the name "Patriot Act". Why Barack Obama and John McCain respect your rights of privacy so much that you will never again know whether anything you write or say in the confines of your house or via a message on the phone or by e-mail will not be used against you in some way?because these men say you have no rights?they say you have no rights whatsoever. Such men are not capable of leading in a democracy because they have no backbone?they have no iron in the soul and understand not a single thing of "freedom" or "equality" or "due process" or "habeas corpus" or whatever the case may be?these men suck the wienie of the fascist pigs and have failed to stand for the founding principles of good government, of government by and for the people?because these individuals are no longer "the people" but rather "the corporata".
When confronted with the choice of a police state or to retain our principles of government they chose tyranny?that they signed into power such legislation defines their very nature and no words of Patriotism can ever undo their acts?hold them accountable!
There is something decadent in all of this?"Hail to One's Patriotism". The mere fact that pins of the US flag must be worn?to show patriotism, or yellow ribbons somehow signifying solidarity with "the troops" in a war created by fictions against an opponent that cannot even be legally defined and where the voice echoing from the echelons of power is by god don't you dare bad mouth the troops because "that's unpatriotic", then one is forced to admit the fact that the American people have lost?that they have sold out to liars and become a vast armada of wimps, who whimper in unison like scraggly mutts, "what can we do, what can we do"?I mean it is pathetic. Freemen Free-women need no master to tell them what to do?it is in the nature of freedom itself that truly free people have no master but they have one another and together they can create something worthy of respect?through the recognition that what is truly common to all of us is this notion that we in fact have common rights as individuals?it is in light of rights one discovers the nature of equality. We are created equal, not because you are a better tennis player or writer or tiddly-winks player than another but in light of the fact that we have "rights". Rights are the key in the sense of rights before the law. If your rights are taken away then what are you before this machine we call "government"? You are a slave and as long you do nothing but pout and complain like spoiled brats you will remain slaves. It is only through the actions allotted to us as people that these shackles and chains that have been placed on our lives can be broken.
In the 1960's as Martin Luther King marched on Washington to make clear, "That he had a Dream" or in the West Coast as Caesar Chavez made bold the very meaning of the "right to free assembly" by assembling Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike to stand for the right to unionize so as to demand a wage and working rights that corresponded to the reality of living in American Society, and where all across the nation people had awoken to the disease and the lie that was called the Vietnam War?the people of the United States had discovered that by protest they could affect the very instruments that govern them?because those who govern have a need to be respected for their acts but equally they must be reprimanded and punished when their actions go beyond the morality of the norm.
It is the golden rule of power in a democracy that should it stray too far from the edges of common decency then it is not only the right of the people to stand their ground in defiance but it is their duty! How can Obama say?Go beyond this? It is "this" active population engaged against failed government that is in its roots the very meaning of democracy and it is when the people fail to stand for what is their rights that oppression becomes the rule of government. We have come to where this government oppresses the people?where it fails in the most basic of services and where it is but an instrument of corporate will and thus an "appeasement" of this corporate will. A corporation is nothing more than a machine whose sole purpose is to achieve total domination of the market?to control the means of all production in both vertical and horizontal consolidation?in a nut shell it is a dictatorship or what the fascist Mussolini called the Corporata. The consequences of this have left Americans the most imprisoned people on the face of the earth, and today your silence has seen your rights stolen by a criminal whose very presence in the White House is a symbol of the death of democracy. To win back democracy will require more than "sweet words", it will demand the iron in the soul that says?I will not yield to tyranny?such will does not bow before long lines of men clad in blue, with shields, clubs, guns, tear gas, attack dogs, water cannons and so on. It says "bring it on" you mother-f#cker. The iron in the soul does not yield but breaks the links in the chain of tyranny by saying "it is my right", That it is our right because it is only through this fundamental comprehension of having fundamental human rights that a sense of self esteem and decency are possible?it is for that those brave souls stood on the Concord bridge?what a sight for sore eyes they must have seemed to their British overlords. A motley crew indeed because on the other side of the bridge stood the well disciplined columns the highly trained slaves of British world domination?those Grenadiers that had proven unstoppable as they literally conquered the earth. But it was a motley crew of freemen who knew the price of freedom was indeed cheap compared to the price of tyranny. The knew that it was better to be dead than to be a slave.
For eight years we have been witness to the failure of the American people to stand their ground and to demand by threat of nation wide chaos and strikes to take down this regime of tyranny. It is the failure of government to have availed itself of the very principles by which this nation's government was designed?it is called the balance of power. Where the various factions of government balance one another and can call the other into account. The Congress has grounds to call the president out by holding him accountable for his deplorable actions?we call it impeachment. When government fails its duty then the balance of power falls upon the people to stand and to meet tyranny with the sinew of defiance. At this juncture it is only the people who can show those who sit snug in the illusion of power what 300 million anger people can do to the likes of wimps and cowards like George W. Bush
Thus when McCain or Obama speak of "Patriotism" what they mean is "anti-Americanism". These men cannot speak from a true heart because they lie all too easy. When they say they stand for the United States of American what they mean is simply that on this day?of all days when we celebrate the birth of this nation?where the very foundation of our independence is the notion of "the rights of the people", because that is what they died for, then I gag in disgust because both John McCain and Barack Obama are guilty of renewing legislation under the name "Patriot Act". Why Barack Obama and John McCain respect your rights of privacy so much that you will never again know whether anything you write or say in the confines of your house or via a message on the phone or by e-mail will not be used against you in some way?because these men say you have no rights?they say you have no rights whatsoever. Such men are not capable of leading in a democracy because they have no backbone?they have no iron in the soul and understand not a single thing of "freedom" or "equality" or "due process" or "habeas corpus" or whatever the case may be?these men suck the wienie of the fascist pigs and have failed to stand for the founding principles of good government, of government by and for the people?because these individuals are no longer "the people" but rather "the corporata".
When confronted with the choice of a police state or to retain our principles of government they chose tyranny?that they signed into power such legislation defines their very nature and no words of Patriotism can ever undo their acts?hold them accountable!
NEO-MARXIST IDEOLOGY LOST IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. ITS ONLY REMAINING ADHERENTS ARE THE CRYPTO-NEO-MARXIST NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBS, WITH THEIR CONTEMPT FOR PATRIOTISM, CHRISTIAN CULTURE, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE REAGAN CONSERVATIVES AND KENNEDY LIBERALS.
'Dissent' is neither patriotic or un-patriotic. It is democratic and a necessary component of free speech.
As for Obama:
His biggest chance of blowing his momentum is if he gets cute. People can tolerate disagreeing with him on certain issues. They will never tolerate being played for chumps--like Clinton did with his:
"I never had sex with that woman . . . "
"It depends what you define as sex . . . "
or-
"It depends on what the defination of "is" is..."
Democrat lawyers (pretty-much all of the high ranking D's) have a serious problem with fibbery.
DAvid,
I understand what Obama is trying to say, but I must take issue with his dismissal of those who fought in the sixties to advance America. His presidency would not have been possible if not for the so-called sixties counter culture. That's eras most profound accomplishment was not ending the Vietnam War, it was to challenge the conservative orthodoxy governing America and to say we will be full citizens whether you like it or not. It bought forth people willing to challenge long standing ideologies and even getting the Supreme Court to uphold its rights.
Obama, like many other non-political people, have one thing in common, they do not revere the past progressive era for its ability to push America forward despite the regressive movements of Conservatives. Obama uses a conservative meme when he talks about the miniscule numbers of people who mistreated soldiers when they returned home from Vietnam. In fact, it was progressives who forced an end to the war and then fought to obtain the rights and services those returning soldiers deserved.
I am quite disappointed in Obama over the past couple of weeks for using Republican memes to prove he is not a leftist, or liberal. We will be headed to another close election because Obama will lose the intensity of his base if this continues. The idea of partisanship ruining governmental action mostly resides on one side of the aisle. Conservatives had to move the debate to this level,because when discussing the issues, they lose.
We all want a politics that gets back to solving the problems of the American people, Obama seems to think the left is as big a problem in this process as the right. Has he been paying attention in Congress the last couple of years, and more specifically the last eight to fifteen years under Republican rule. There is no such thing as a post partisan politics because most of us have ideoligical views of what America should be and how it should act in the world. Without partisans on both sides we will never push ourselves. Those people in the middle are those who really don't have strongly held beliefs and therefore will follow the past of least resistance everytime, no matter what results it yields. Nothing good in politics comes without a fight. Democrats, liberals, and progressives always yields to facts in the end, Conservatives always bends toward ideology, no matter the facts thus they march 99% in lockstep. This David is true, no matter how pundits try to shape the ideological arguments.
There are still many voters out there who do not know him. That is why he has to re-tell stories of his mother, grandmother and grandfather, so that voters can understand that he had a pretty average upbringing and is not some strange person. He needs to talk about patriotism because people keep questioning it. I am not sure of the reason for the negativity against him on this blog. His campaign is not funded by lobbyists and PACS and for the first time, we have the chance for a leader who fights for working people and has concrete plans for energy, the economy, and ending the war. Read "Dreams for my Father" and you will get a real understanding of who he is.
Budweiser.
This is what I think of when I read this. Make a product of a certain general definition that is bland enough to still be palatable to the most consumers.
He's done a great job of walking that tightrope of marketing. Does that make him the best candidate. No. But under the current system this strategy will work. It's worked so far. Look at all the Americans who drink Budweiser.
I read nothing in the speech to take exception to, unless you are hyper-sensitive. People need to learn to be less defensive and more reflective in assessing all things political. The alternative is the quickly drawn conclusions and low curiosity that brands of media like Fox use to derail what should be a thoughtful political process.
Submitted by William W. Wexler (not verified) on Tue Jul. 1, 2008 6:58 AM PDT.
Jeugenen...
I don't know where your caps-locked gobbledy-gook came from but I'd suggest that you need to see about getting that Prozac scrip refilled.
Obama is expected to announce today that he is EXPANDING Bush's "faith based programs", which are unconstitutional and promote the illegal practice of hiring and firing based on religious preference.
Illegal and unconstitutional.
If you want change you can actually believe in, vote Nader '08. Otherwise you're going to get more of the same.
-Wexler
I had to laugh at Trollstein's: "Democrat(s)...have a serious problem with fibbery" and uses as an example a married man trying to hide his sexual adventures.
I recall something about "There are Weapons of Mass Destruction in Irag."
That particular 'fib' has gotten thousands of people killed.
OBAMA TO FIGHT FOR GOD AND COUNTRY
Obama, the victorious Kennedy Liberal, will purge the defeated Leiberman Neo-Liberals from the Democratic Party. These Crypto-Neo-Marxists have corrupted the Democratic Party for the past 60 years, with their notorious ideological contempt for Christian culture, the Constitution, patriotism, historical fact, and Kennedy Liberals.
Jeugenen,
There must be a prize for the first and all capital-letter incoherent post to a blog today.
Obama's running right folks, every day, every way. Hillary's wankers are pulling him in that direction, as are the Repubs.
The longer I live in the U.S., the more I dislike the political system ... and the people who control and vote it in year after year.
David Corn's characterization of 60's liberals really misses the mark, and I hope Obama hasn't bought into the notion that the war protesters of that era were all anti-American. The country's conduct of the Viet Nam war was shameful, and we had good reason to be ashamed of our government for allowing it to continue as it did. The same is more true of the Iraq War. There is nothing unpatriotic about criticizing our government for its blunders, and I for one consider it false patriotism to adhere to the "America, love it or leave it" mentality of many of the 28 percent who still support Dubya. Sadly, I see John McCain placing himself in that camp every time he sacrifices his independence to pander to the 28 percent. Bill Clinton said "There's nothing that's wrong with America that Can't be fixed by what's right with America." The idea is the same - with every new administration we regain hope that our strength and resilience as a nation will bring about a course correction. After the last eight years it amazes me that anyone would consider voting Republican or would see anything resembling patriotism in the policies and misdeeds of the Bush administration and those who have supported it.
Some people need to wake up and smell the coffee. Obama is the real thing. On the other hand, McSlime has no solutions for what Americans are going through. His staff will and is manufacturing stories about how McSlime is being smeard on Patriotism. They are doing this to make people think that a war hero is being attacked and people should feel sorry for him. Think of what McSlime has done to you the American people. First, he is being advised by the person who has used wall street as a haven for profiteering from the housing crisis. Secondly, he has endorsed all the Bush policies of torture, rich loopholes, gimmicks for solving the energy crisis, war mongering, spying on innocent Americans, and the ethanol red herring.
Submitted by William W. Wexler (not verified) on Wed Jul. 2, 2008 5:21 AM PDT.
Obama is A real thing.
It's still unfolding as to what he really is, but it's appearing more and more like he used the progressive wing of the party to get nominated and is now crapping in our general direction. He appears to be clawing his way to the center, pandering to the flag-pinners, the paranoid spy-on-America-firsters, the never-chat-with-your-enemy jingos, the inside-the-beltway campaign funders, and now the bible-thwackers who put superstiion (a.k.a. "religion") above the US Constitution.
Anyone who bleats about how patriotic they are should automatically be disqualified from the race, because there are real issues to talk about. Why does Obama want to be known as "patriotic"? Because if he's "patriotic" then he doesn't have to explain the intricacies of his impending FISA vote.
Obama's campaign has turned to garbage. I quit the Dems in 2002 and then got sucked back in by this promising candidate that came out of nowhere.
Never again. They got my last nickel, my last vote. I love this country way to much to let the slime-mongers from the Democrat party back into control. You can see what they do... you have had a taste of it for the last 2 years.
NOTHING.
-Wexler
Maybe he is just stating the obvious. That there can be a middle between two extremes. That you can recognize that we aren't always right, but also recognize all the good things we have done and how e have been a model for democracy. I'm starting to feel that people are looking for things to get offended about.
I am REALLy sick of Obamaniacs bitching about boomers (althought, I'm not officially one, I dont think)If you guys would all like to roll back tthe 60's, dont bother trying to vote, and pack fopr Iraq! Oh, thats right--you're mostly rich kids--and it shows . That's one reaseon you cant convince "avg/ Am.". Stop bitchin' about mom & dad and rebel against somethingworth it for a change--like hero worship in the two-party system!
obama is a figment of your imagination...a fairy tale...he has done nothing, but his campaign people have suceeded in selling him ,...unbelieveable.....they even compare him to jfk?rfk?..was he a war hero? pt 109? serve in the congress 14 yrs? been attorney general? 4 yr sen from ny ... ...i dont get it, some sells job
I agree with ricko, Obama may be "overrated" in terms of his credentials. It isn't his fault though. It all started when he gave the keynote speech at the DNC in 2004. Ever since then it turned into a year or so where he was "undecided" and doing "research" on whether or not to run. By the Time the actual primary campaign started over a year ago, Obama had built up so much anticipation that he has somehow transformed into a mythological man (he is a much greater speaker than Clinton or McCain)..........That being said, how come the campaign has to start over a year before election day? in this day in age every news story has been overanalyzed and comes out through the news networks as pure garbage, 24/7? Im venting, I hate this election.
Patriotism to me would be talking about the incredibly dangerous position our country is in financially. In not one MSM outlet have I seen any details of the startling rate of job losses over the last year. Guess what, you can't drive an internet ad sale to work, anymore than you can retire on a credit card. Isn't a president supposed to at least mention looming national disasters? How can we as a people live in such willful, penned ignorance of reality? It terrifies me when I listen to family members who have barely survived recent bankruptcies and loss of their homes vehemently defend conservative banking policies. My uncle lost his business, and his family lost their home. But he leaps at any chance to spout nonsense about "normal business cycles" and "Mexicans destroying the economy," when the truth is, the people he defends basically threw his life over a chair and raped it. And suffered not a lick. Guess what - he is the average voter. As for Obama, what to say... he is just as much a trojan horse as any other candidate. We are a long way from bottom, sadly. Think what you want about me, but you might consider saving for a rainy day, regardless of your candidates assurances that the sun will never be hidden again. Good luck to you all.
Such strong emotions flailing about! LOL With all the puffery about patriotism and "moving to the center," the MSM has once again shifted the focus off the neocon economic agenda of deregulation, privatization of public wealth, and the erosion of civil liberties and government oversight.
I guess come November we'll see who the real patriot is. Will Obama stand up to the multinationals, renegotiate NAFTA, push for a "Manhattan Project" on alternative energy, come through with green jobs and tax relief for the middle class? Or is he just another DLC wolf in liberal sheep's clothing? BTW I'm voting for the rascal in November. Will we be singing "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who or is Obama juust another Bill Clinton?
The last thing we need after years of catastrophic destruct by Bush and company is a weak and vacillating president. When the country is at war that is bankrupting the treasury, civil liberties under attack and the economy has been gutted by the merchants of fake globalization; we can't simply afford to play the game of drifting left, shifting right, or slanting to the center.
During the primary, we have sensed a glimpse of hope in a man whom we felt was speaking to principles. We voted for the man because we could sense a new scent of change. Those millions who supported Obama did it because they were tired of the politics-like-usual game. They were more tired of the Democratic establishment taking them for granted; telling them what they want hear before election, then selling their soles to the highest bidder after they are voted in. The taste of the great deception played on us by the 2006 Democrats is still fresh. All the promises of the great Nancy Pelosi and honorable Harry Reid are fizzling in front of our eyes us day by day as they cave in to the special interests. The war in Iraq is still raging to the tone of several billions a months, despite their promises to end it. New FISA Bill has been pushed in Congress making it easier than ever for the lawless president to spy on Americans. The Telecoms companies who violated our constitutional right are off the hook.
And here comes the New-Born Obama moving to the center and walking on his primary promises; supporting the FISA Bill, vacillating on NAFTA and Iraq, and embracing the same old Politics as usual. The evil intention of Obama and company can't be more obvious: Now he is the Presumptive Democratic Candidate and he thinks that we got stuck with him. He wants to stick it to us and dares us to vote for McCain. Well, Obama better remembers that we got a second option: To stay home on Election Day. Electing a black president is not an imperative if such president abandons the universal principles of honesty and straightforwardness. I wonder how many historians will remember the tenure of Condoleezza Rice as a woman and black Secretary of State. Obama better see the writing on the wall.
The whole point being that we need to get past the 60's, the Kennedys, vietnam and the Neo-cons. It's time for a new perspective, time for a new generation to lead the world. It is time to get past all of America's issues. United We Stand... To whom does this country truely belong? It is generational. It's a new day. Time to wake up and smell the coffee....sniffffff.
Obama said, "SOME of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties" and "MOST Americans never bought into these simplistic world-views - these CARICATURES of left and right."
Obama is right: "defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic." And they still do to this day!
This idea of "my country right or wrong" is what's gotten us into the mess we're in. This kind of Right Wing sloganry along with the likes of "America, love it or leave it" or "Support our Troops" reduces patriotism to agreeing with the policies of whoever is in the White House. I do not agree with this kind of uncritical patriotism.
Please don't write in "Hillary" - you might as well just vote for McCain then. Obama may be moving to the right in a lot of ways, but he's not McCain yet.
...
If you like the way things are going in the USA today, vote McSame; if you don't, vote Hussein!
Obama should have also said:
Defenders of the Baby Boomers' counter-culture movement accuse anybody who questions the wisdom of any of their actions during that time of wanting to roll back their (civil rights) achievements.
@treehugger
"Will Obama stand up to the multinationals, renegotiate NAFTA, push for a "Manhattan Project" on alternative energy, come through with green jobs and tax relief for the middle class?"
Will McCain? No. Would Hillary? Probably not. Am I cynical? Maybe.
As for this not being an important topic, I would have to disagree. Lots of people already see Obama as an unpatriotic outsider. It would be great if we as a nation could focus on the issues during the election, and decide based solely on the issues who would be best to run the country, but we all know it will be "issues" like patriotism, race, age, perceived right or left wing leanings and religion and BS that will decide this election.
Growing up in Berkeley amidst communists, anarchists, hippies, and punks, I learned early that anti-patriotism can be almost as dull and silly as patriotism itself. Both inspire simplistic, self-aggrandizing, pieties and group-think self-righteousness that drive out thought, replacing it with sanctimonious slogans. Obama's views on patriotism are slightly less repulsive than the usual candidate's. Go Obama!
Growing up in Berkeley amidst communists, anarchists, hippies, and punks, I learned early that anti-patriotism can be almost as dull and silly as patriotism itself. Both inspire self-aggrandizing, pieties and group-think self-righteousness that drive out thought, replacing it with sanctimonious slogans. Obama's views on patriotism are slightly less corny and simplistic than the usual candidate's. Go Obama!
Senator Obama's glib speeches do nothing to me but convince me that he is all talk and no action. Obama nuts constantly charged that Hillary Clinton would say or do anything to get elected.
How funny! What do you think Obama has been doing for the last few weeks as he "modified" his approach to one issue after another?
It had to come. The flim-flam man from Chicago made suckers out of millions of idealistic fans. I don't know if they're strong enough to face facts and see the truth.
Submitted by James M. (not verified) on Sat Jul. 5, 2008 4:18 PM PDT.
As fearful as some conservatives and weak-willed legislators are about flag-burning liberals, I'd be willing to bet that more conservatives than liberals engaged in unlawful flag-related behavior for the Fourth--in many cases an unfortunate byproduct of combining patriotism with ignorance. And that would be true even if flag burning were made illegal, rather than just being the legally proper way to dispose of a worn flag.
Conservative wingnuts, helped by the mainstream media, use flag pins and the National Anthem to try to portray Obama as non-patriotic. Yet many of those same conservatives regularly violate the U.S. Flag Code, adopted during the hyper-patriotism of World War II.
Part of the problem comes because many people seem to consider the flag a religious symbol. Yet the various apparel versions of "these colors don't run" T-shirts manage to fetishize the flag while violating the U.S. Flag Code. I'm no Jehovah's Witness, but I do appreciate the Witness' Supreme Court-approved stance that saluting the flag (which I do, incidentally, though I don't own a flag pin) might be deemed idolatry.
There is something decadent in all of this"Hail to One's Patriotism". The mere fact that pins of the US flag must be wornto show patriotism, or yellow ribbons somehow signifying solidarity with "the troops" in a war created by fictions against an opponent that cannot even be legally defined and where the voice echoing from the echelons of power is by god don't you dare bad mouth the troops because "that's unpatriotic", then one is forced to admit the fact that the American people have lostthat they have sold out to liars and become a vast armada of wimps, who whimper in unison like scraggly mutts, "what can we do, what can we do"I mean it is pathetic. Freemen Free-women need no master to tell them what to doit is in the nature of freedom itself that truly free people have no master but they have one another and together they can create something worthy of respectthrough the recognition that what is truly common to all of us is this notion that we in fact have common rights as individualsit is in light of rights one discovers the nature of equality. We are created equal, not because you are a better tennis player or writer or tiddly-winks player than another but in light of the fact that we have "rights". Rights are the key in the sense of rights before the law. If your rights are taken away then what are you before this machine we call "government"? You are a slave and as long you do nothing but pout and complain like spoiled brats you will remain slaves. It is only through the actions allotted to us as people that these shackles and chains that have been placed on our lives can be broken.
In the 1960's as Martin Luther King marched on Washington to make clear, "That he had a Dream" or in the West Coast as Caesar Chavez made bold the very meaning of the "right to free assembly" by assembling Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike to stand for the right to unionize so as to demand a wage and working rights that corresponded to the reality of living in American Society, and where all across the nation people had awoken to the disease and the lie that was called the Vietnam Warthe people of the United States had discovered that by protest they could affect the very instruments that govern thembecause those who govern have a need to be respected for their acts but equally they must be reprimanded and punished when their actions go beyond the morality of the norm.
It is the golden rule of power in a democracy that should it stray too far from the edges of common decency then it is not only the right of the people to stand their ground in defiance but it is their duty! How can Obama sayGo beyond this? It is "this" active population engaged against failed government that is in its roots the very meaning of democracy and it is when the people fail to stand for what is their rights that oppression becomes the rule of government. We have come to where this government oppresses the peoplewhere it fails in the most basic of services and where it is but an instrument of corporate will and thus an "appeasement" of this corporate will. A corporation is nothing more than a machine whose sole purpose is to achieve total domination of the marketto control the means of all production in both vertical and horizontal consolidationin a nut shell it is a dictatorship or what the fascist Mussolini called the Corporata. The consequences of this have left Americans the most imprisoned people on the face of the earth, and today your silence has seen your rights stolen by a criminal whose very presence in the White House is a symbol of the death of democracy. To win back democracy will require more than "sweet words", it will demand the iron in the soul that saysI will not yield to tyrannysuch will does not bow before long lines of men clad in blue, with shields, clubs, guns, tear gas, attack dogs, water cannons and so on. It says "bring it on" you mother-f#cker. The iron in the soul does not yield but breaks the links in the chain of tyranny by saying "it is my right", That it is our right because it is only through this fundamental comprehension of having fundamental human rights that a sense of self esteem and decency are possibleit is for that those brave souls stood on the Concord bridgewhat a sight for sore eyes they must have seemed to their British overlords. A motley crew indeed because on the other side of the bridge stood the well disciplined columns the highly trained slaves of British world dominationthose Grenadiers that had proven unstoppable as they literally conquered the earth. But it was a motley crew of freemen who knew the price of freedom was indeed cheap compared to the price of tyranny. The knew that it was better to be dead than to be a slave.
For eight years we have been witness to the failure of the American people to stand their ground and to demand by threat of nation wide chaos and strikes to take down this regime of tyranny. It is the failure of government to have availed itself of the very principles by which this nation's government was designedit is called the balance of power. Where the various factions of government balance one another and can call the other into account. The Congress has grounds to call the president out by holding him accountable for his deplorable actionswe call it impeachment. When government fails its duty then the balance of power falls upon the people to stand and to meet tyranny with the sinew of defiance. At this juncture it is only the people who can show those who sit snug in the illusion of power what 300 million anger people can do to the likes of wimps and cowards like George W. Bush
Thus when McCain or Obama speak of "Patriotism" what they mean is "anti-Americanism". These men cannot speak from a true heart because they lie all too easy. When they say they stand for the United States of American what they mean is simply that on this dayof all days when we celebrate the birth of this nationwhere the very foundation of our independence is the notion of "the rights of the people", because that is what they died for, then I gag in disgust because both John McCain and Barack Obama are guilty of renewing legislation under the name "Patriot Act". Why Barack Obama and John McCain respect your rights of privacy so much that you will never again know whether anything you write or say in the confines of your house or via a message on the phone or by e-mail will not be used against you in some waybecause these men say you have no rightsthey say you have no rights whatsoever. Such men are not capable of leading in a democracy because they have no backbonethey have no iron in the soul and understand not a single thing of "freedom" or "equality" or "due process" or "habeas corpus" or whatever the case may bethese men suck the wienie of the fascist pigs and have failed to stand for the founding principles of good government, of government by and for the peoplebecause these individuals are no longer "the people" but rather "the corporata".
When confronted with the choice of a police state or to retain our principles of government they chose tyrannythat they signed into power such legislation defines their very nature and no words of Patriotism can ever undo their actshold them accountable!
???? is obama the second coming??? i must have missed something, is it easy to criticize others, when you have done nothing and have no record? i just feel the people got a fast one pulled on them by this guy and his crafty campaign people, thats not change,,, in fact i think he is changing his change right now....investigate where he s money originated, he s being funded by big money people , who have an agenda, who are they? msnbc is obviously on the pay roll
