He addresses Reverend Wright head-on, and in the course of doing so explains why he doesn’t “denounce” him or leave his church.
Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
Very honest — and for a lot of white people, probably the first time they’ve had a real look inside a black church.
He also takes a hard look at history, ancient and less so, and uses it to explain the dynamic in the church while also shining some light on some tough facts about contemporary American life (emphasis mine).
[after going through the history of Jim Crow and other overt and sometimes legal discrimination, he continues:] This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. … [F]or all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. 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.
He continues:
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.
Finally, it’s critical to understand the basis of his difference with Rev. Wright, even as he accepts the premise of much of what Wright preaches about:
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
There’s more — go read it. It’s really very impressive. Has anyone of Obama’s prominence talked in such a comprehensive and unflinching way about race in America in recent memory? If so, I can’t think of it.
Unfortunately, many people prefer sound bites to critical thought, and that’s why people don’t dig past the superficial “God damn America”/loud angry Black man and engage the entire context.
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p>Support or oppose Obama, his thoughtfulness, candor, sensitivity to his opposition and complexity of thought is lost on most Americans.
I think that “most Americans” want to move beyond what Obama rightly calls the “racial stalemate” in which we’ve been stuck for some time, and I therefore think that a lot of people will find what Obama has to say remarkably refreshing.
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p>I could be wrong. But I’m optimistic.
And much of what I judge my view of America’s appetite for sound bite over substance is what I see on other sites who are taking out of context the most sensational and kooky of Wright’s statements. Obama’s speech was awesome, however you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it.
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p>On the other hand, I’ve never been more encouraged my friends and family who are generally under informed on current events. Between today and yesterday I’ve had several conversations that essentially went “Reverend who now?”, indicating that a lot of people are insulated from this ordeal.
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p>So “We’ll see”, I think, is the only certain thing any of us can say.
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p>That’s what I tried to explain to you yesterday, that saying “God Damn America” is speaking as if our society is static. As I said to you and Laurel:
You gave that a “worthless”, but it’s exactly what Obama points out was his profound mistake: Wright was making a static, final judgement about America, at least with that particular quote, that America is bad and will spend eternity in Hell. Static = eternal damnation. And that’s precisely what I was saying Obama would have to renounce. And he did, exceedingly well. pwned!!
…I’ve adjusted the worthless to a “4: Needs work”.
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p>Maybe it’s just me, but I found your argument in the other thread very disorganized and hard to follow, and the way I understood what you said, I disagreed with and couldn’t understand what you were basing your opinion on. I disagree that you said anything in that thread “precisely”.
I think you were (and still are) too quick to see any objection to what Rev. Wright said as being equivalent to saying “white power” or “obama sucks” or something like that, as well as too quick to assume I’m arguing with you when I earnestly am trying to answer your question. It’s strange that you are unwilling to concede anything, you haven’t even really said that you accept what Obama said yet. It was the refusal by people like you to agree that Wright said something wrong that caused this whole thing. Are you still seeing it as static too? Do you now understand that “God Damn America” is a static, final judgement that anyone who wants to lead this country would have to repudiate? I bet even Rev. Wright will soon issue a statement that he understands and agrees he was wrong to be static about America being damned forever.
And I have no interest in getting into a tedious discussion about the meaning as I’m sure neither of us will change one another’s mind.
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p>I personally do not repudiate Wright and his words the way Barack Obama has repudiated the words. I don’t think Barack had to repudiate what he repudiated because the Pastor was wrong – and on some points he was – but because Americans only hear and react to soundbites and refuse to engage in any measured and sophisticated criticism of the actual and contextualized statements. Wright’s words are taken out of context and the claims of hate and racism is so exaggerated that it would be futile for Obama not to repudiate them. If people took a measured, sophisticated look at Wright’s words, there’d be a lot less for him to repudiate. But, generally speaking, people won’t so Obama has to repudiate to satisfy certain people. (Just my suspicion).
99.999% of people understand Damn to be a final eternal judgement that can’t be halfway given or taken back. Can you at least agree that much, that a static judgement is bad? You actually seem to revel in them, like when you say that “Americans only hear and react to soundbites” – Damn Them! Americans are BAD!
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p>It’s not too late tblade, to admit that such a Final Judgement about Americans or America is not yours to make, and it keeps us in the stalemate to make such judgements. Please make a different move! America is not damned! At least as far as our obligation to morality is concerned. Take a sad song and make it better, tblade! For well you know that it’s just you, the movement you need is on your shoulder. Na na na na na na, na na na na, yeah.” (sorry i’m obsessed with that song right now)
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p>speaking of Hey Jude, I was thinking about it when the St. John’s Passion discussion was going on, but didn’t see the point in mentioning it. When Hey Jude was released in 1968 (the year of MLK, RFK, Stonewall, Humanae Vitae, etc), Paul decorated the Apple store in London with big “Hey Jude” signs, and there was a rather big controversy because the local Jewish community thought he was referring to them. He claimed he wasn’t, but the song can be easily interpreted as a Christian message to the suffering Jews that they can let it out and let it in, and, Hey Jews, begin, you’re waiting for someone to perform with. Somehow the Beatles (who two years earlier Lennon had clarified were only more popular than Jesus, not better or greater) managed to slip their way out of that controversy too. It was about heroin, or Julian, or Yoko, or something like that. Really only the assumption that McCartney is just too trivial and air-headed makes people assume he couldn’t have meant such a thing, kind of how Hillary could not have meant to send a subliminal racist message with the 3AM ad. Right…
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p>But back to my point to you, will you repudiate the STATIC condemnation of America? We all agree that we have done things wrong, terribly wrong, and that we have deep deep problems, but we have to hope that we aren’t damned and that we should try to do better, right?
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p>
Jesus himself damned america. Rev. Wright was using modern words to reiterate points Jesus made. On QueerToday a contributing editor to daily kos posted some of this, and more today on dailykos. I guess people forget Jesus was a radical revolutionary who spoke out about injustice.
One odd thing I remember Wright saying was that Jesus was a black man, who was oppressed by Italians.
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p>To deny the Jewishness of Jesus is ridiculous.
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p>And the disciples were irked with Jesus because he WASN’T more of a revolutionary, in their – and your – limited political sense. Jesus was a spiritual revolutionary, and as such was unconcerned with secular politics.
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p>His message was, and is, greater than politics, governments or kingdoms.
Dark skin doesn’t negate Jewishness.
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p>It’s not unreasonable to think that Jesus was darker than the occupying Romans. And Palestine borders on Africa, so it’s not unreasonable that some of his direct and recent ancestors might have been Black. Forensic scientists postulate Jesus was fairly dark by American standards and I’d bet my life that Jesus wasn’t as pale as Jim Caviezel.
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p>I don’t think Wright or anyone can claim for certain that Jesus was Black, but we don’t have any hard evidence to contradict Jesus being black – all we have are guesses. Maybe he looked exactly like Caviezel?
so Jesus was half Palestinian, half Asian. Or was it Alien? Hang on, i’m googling it…
You are right, it is hard to dig past the racism that Rev. Wright preached in some of his sermons. For a number of thinking Americans, if their minister had preached similar hate filled sermons, they would have gotten up and walked out and would have never gone back. In fact, I know a number of people who have done that in their lives. Apparently, Barack Obama did not feel the need to do that or to even confront Rev. Wright about his views. Racism, no matter what the source or what the reason behind it, should be confronted and challenged at the time it occurs. Words long after the fact are not enough. It shows a complete lack of courage and conviction.
It’s a very good speech. I hope it gets the attention (and the kind of attention) it deserves.
he would have mentioned, as an example of how this campaign has been unnecessarily “racialized”, how mccain is not being held up to the same scrutiny as obama over mccain’s obnoxious religious boosters. but i suppose he was trying to stay above politics in the speech. i see that as both a good thing and a bad thing.
taken the whole speech apart. Not only would it be playing politics but it would be “playing the race card” according to how that phrase is usually used. It’d become the main soundbite on the speech and destroy the nice parts of it as far as the media were concerned.
It sounds very impressive indeed. I hope that a thoughtful complex speech can outdo such an inflammatory 3 second soundbite.
when has that ever happened in modern political era?
That’s all I got.
…I heard a partial rebroadcast of his delivery. Just reading it in its entirety it is as you say an amazing, intelligent and honest appraisal of a reality that sits in the room (as it has sat in this campaign), without the acknowledgment it deserves.
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p> Listening to him deliver it was a different experience.
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p>These words have passion in them but his delivery did not. I expect this will set off the usual round of Pro HRC/Pro BHO wrangling that any perceived slight usually does but words like this should be said with profound emotion and not, as his head turned side to side, so obviously from a teleprompter in that canned back drop of American flags. “I have a Dream”, “Ask not what your country can do for you” are remembered for the passion of their delivery as much as the content of passion those words carry. Even Deval’s “Just Words” on the common speech ( I was there) is entrenched in my memory for the experienced of Deval’s delivery and the crowds reaction as well as what was said. Obama’s forum is that large crowd and soaring rhetoric over the adulation. Its lack of an audience is this speech’s greatest weakness.
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p>Is it known who wrote it? I ask this as a genuine question and not as some slight against Obama.
that there wasn’t the orator’s fire behind the speech. i wonder if it is because it is so personal to him. when it is deeply personal, some people become very quite, not very loud ad fiery. or, it could just be that he hadn’t had much time to practice it. or, or or…who knows!
Or rather, I was relieved to see a non-pep rally speech. I voted for Clinton and have been pretty disappointed with Obama until now. This was the kind of speech I’ve been waiting to hear him deliver. It was a ballsy way to approach the issue of race, and was a welcome break from what I perceive as an overly cautious campaign.
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p>I donated to Obama halfway through the speech.
remember, i’m talking performance style here, not substance. on substance i think is was an excellent speech, but i didn’t think he delivered it with the same verve he has on the stump.
…the talking head late afternoon shows to see the reaction and I am left with the impression that he reached those with the foresight and intelligence to understand the profound nature of what was being articulated. But this could shoot right over the heads of those very blue collar and disadvantaged he has difficulty reaching.
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p>But it makes me wonder if “like Al Gore has since discovered” that running for president is not his best destiny (speculating here not advocating). I always thought Julian Bond would be the First Black President and was profoundly disappointed when he left he arena of Politics. But it freed him to take on a larger agenda than what politics would have allowed as evidenced in this recent speech on a subject related to what Obama spoke of today that he still equivocates on. (Think you will like this Laurel)
Julian Bond has been a fantastic ally. Thanks for linking to that speech.
But is that a bad thing? He delivered the speech differently than if it were to an auditorium full of supporters, and I think that was appropriate. It was more thought provoking than adrenalin inducing.
but i enjoy good content even more, so it really doesn’t matter. if his style worked for you, i’m glad.
you must understand, i come from a long line of baptist preachers. it is impossible for me to watch a sermon or political speech and not analyze the delivery style. they are both performances of a sort. people in both professions, but especially the ministry, actually study performance. not many people are aware of that. perhaps more should be.
I think if he had been too “fiery” people would have been turned off.
Calm demeanor, self control and composure are all things we must maintain when approaching and talking about such a serious and sensitive topic.
Personally I think he might have been thinking about the “I’m here for Ashley” story the entire time, which allowed him to keep focus.
I know that’s what I’ll be thinking about if I watch it again.
if he was afraid of having his style during this particular speech getting compared to Wrights. i can see fox-type entertainment shows showing speech-bites side by side, trying to create inferences in the viewer’s mind. by remaining more sedate, obama prevented them from doing this.
That very well could have been a factor. You don’t want to give up any more ‘fodder’
However, I have noticed that he has become more comfortable and steady lately. His debate performances were on par with this one and I think he is just projecting that ‘presidential image’
I thought the tone was thoughtful, not fiery. A fiery speech would have been, well, inflammatory, rather than (hopefully) palliative. He was simply acknowledging some uncomfortable truths, rather than denouncing various groups of people.
..Great speech.
Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic reports Obama was the sole author:
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p>
Here
which is what I expected from Obama. I also could have written many of the comments I’m seeing on the Internet, even before the speech was delivered. The consensus seems to be that it is the greatest speech ever written, which is exactly the reaction I expected. I’m sure we’ll hear more from his other supporters who are still too emotionally overcome to type.
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p>These aren’t things “no one has been talking about.” They’re things the candidates haven’t been talking about. Do you mean to tell me that no one has talked about the residual black anger in the community, or that many whites have resentments? And Obama is only talking about them because he is in desperate damage control mode. If the Rev. Wright thing hadn’t blown up, he still wouldn’t be giving this speech. And I do think context matters.
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p>To those of us who don’t get swept up in his rhetoric, his appeal is considerably lessened. I get it, he gives good speeches. But I don’t see a lot beyond that. I notice he had nothing to say about what he would do to address racial issues. And I do think it’s interesting that he admitted to having attended services where Wright made many of these statements, after strongly implying earlier that he hadn’t. I also think tying this whole thing to Ferraro was cheap. I hardly think Hillary’s relationship with Ferraro even remotely approached the depth of his relationship with Wright.
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p>It seems to me that he was really at a loss to handle this thing until he could write an insprational speech and deliver it to a receptive audience. Before he got his reaction packaged, however, he seemed pretty rough around the edges.
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p>But congratulations to Obama supporters. I know it’s been a while since you’ve been able to get all gooey about him.
These are some good points.
“I notice he had nothing to say about what he would do to address racial issues.”
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p>but what we do that matters.
He would have been ten times better giving this speech. The more I see of Barack Obama the more I think Deval is a better orator.
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p>On the subject, I understood what he was trying to say but he still blamed others way to much. I particularly took offense to his labeling of the Regan Revolution as racist. That is so far from what I understand of the Reagan Revolution that I was a member, albeit very young one, of.
I must have missed the part where he called building the Reagan Coalition as “racist”
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p>
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p>And who was Obama blaming too much?
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p>I guess you must have missed it.
You are putting words into Obama’s mouth. Obama says the anger over welfare and affirmative action was legitimate, and that legitimate anger was a building block of the Reagan Coalition.
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p>He said politicians routinely exploited some of these legitimate fears – politicians on both sides exploit various emotional issues to get elected – but he contrasts that exploitation on the Reagan side by pointing out that some on the left are guilty of making bogus claims of racism, which some conservative commentators have worked to unmask. If anything, he saying that the commentators who who did not address the “legitimate discussions of racial injustice” were dismissive, not racist.
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p>I think a careful read of the speech will show that Obama does not suggest that the Reagan Coalition was racist.
reaction and I’ll stand by it.
God forbid you should reconsider an initial take on something that has since been proven wrong.
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p>Good solid Republican.
…to not expect compliments and validation from a liberal that he doesn’t know how to react. Obama points out that conservative pundits have unmasked bogus claims of racism and he points out that the people who are bitter over welfare and affirmative action are legitimate in their anger, and he still feels insulted! Maybe it’s PTBD – post traumatic blogging disorder?
…but do you have anything to back it up? Perhaps an alternative interpretation based on the textual evidence?
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p>He followed the paragraph with the second paragraph shown above. He mentions “white resentments” such as the Reagan Coalition than says they are counterproductive.
Remind me to never tell a person of another race they were counterproductive, because according to Eabo, calling someone counterproductive is a racist slur.
Read the last sentence on the second paragraph.
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p>He says that calling white resentments “misguided or even racist” “widens the racial divide”.
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p>To review:
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p>BO said white resentment distracted from core (economic and political) problems.
BO said black anger is often counterproductive.
BO said that labeling white resentment misguided or racist widens the racial divide.
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p>That’s pretty close to the opposite of calling the Reagan Coalition racist.
The context was a passage in which he is saying that there are legitimate fears and resentments on boths sides. I thought it remarkable that a left-of-center politician would acknowledge that resentments over the old welfare system, or fear of crime, were not just real but legitimate. The only other left-of-center national politician that I have heard acknowledge that won the White House, twice.
….that the Reagan coalition was inherently racist. Just that Reagan himself was hence guilt by association. The very thing Obama is being accused of.
Regarding the endless replaying of Rev. Wright’s comments by Fox “News” and their ilk:
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p>It is the height of hypocrisy for anyone who supports the Bush administration to accuse anyone else of being unpatriotic or anti-American. Genuine patriots despise an administration that has shown nothing but contempt for the American democratic values that have always been our great source of strength.
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p>Michael Bate
In this speech, I don’t think he was saying that the “Reagan Revolution” was itself racist. Obviously there was a lot going on with the Reagan victory, and much of it had nothing to do with race. I don’t think Obama implied that it did.
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p>What he did say, and what I think is indisputable, is that issues like welfare and (even more obviously) affirmative action played a big role in the Reagan Revolution coalition, and those issues were very strongly tinged with race (without question the whole “welfare queen” phrase was meant to invoke an image of a lazy black woman). The interplay of public policy and race is one of those things that is undeniable yet rarely talked about frankly in public.
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p>It was a very, very good speech, I thought. I read it and haven’t seen the video, so I think it has little to do with oratory and more to do with the impressive content.
It is so refreshing to hear a politician speak what we all know is true, but few ever have the courage to take on.
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p>I take offense with those who give Obama a back-handed compliment of “he gives a good speech”, as it is the thoughts and principles, the “content” as Hoyapaul notes, that really count.
…as do many of Obama’s speeches.
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p>They are not all just “Yes We Can” chants.
when words like “courage” are thrown around. Obama gave that speech because he was in damage control. The last place he wanted to be was on that podium, talking about that issue, which is why he hasn’t addressed it up to now. All of this stuff about “uncomfortable truths” is really annoying. He gave that speech out of self interest, in an effort to save his campaign. And I think that context does matter. JFK didn’t give his Catholic speech to the Knights of Columbus, he gave it to a room full of Southern Protestant ministers. Obama dissembled about the situation until he could get behind closed doors and write a speech. I’m interested in putting forth the candidate with the best chance to win in November. Obama doesn’t respond well on his feet, and I think he’ll see that he can’t handle every controversy with a speech.
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p>As for the substance, most of the speech was about himself. He said there’s a lot of anger in the black community, some of it justified. And there’s a lot of resentment in the white community, some of it justified. Raise your hand if you didn’t know that. Rhetoric isn’t substance, nor is it greatness. The difference between what Obama said and what a lot of other people have said is that he’s really good with words. You might be interested in this Bill Clinton speech:
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p>http://www.afn.org/~dks/race/c…
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p>in which he addresses the very same issues. Only he wasn’t doing it to save his skin.
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p>Obama didn’t say a word about what he would do to help heal this racial divide. What’s more, he didn’t say a word about what he has done in the last 20 years to heal this divide that so concerns him, and that only he has the “courage” to address.
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p>Finally, I really, really resent people who dismiss Obama’s critics as “low information” voters. Saying this speech was for “thinking Americans” and implying that the only people who won’t “get it” are people who just aren’t equipped to seriously consider the issues is insulting. When I see tripe like that I have no sympathy for those who complain that Obama supporters are stereotyoped as Starbucks liberals. I thought long and hard about who I was going to support in the campaign. I still read a great deal about both candidates. When I post a comment on a political blog, I try to make it as substantive as possible, even though the responses rarely address any of my points. I think a lot of Obama supporters might find that a little bit less elitism will result in a more responsive audience for their views.
you obviously did not “understand what he was trying to say.” I’d say, rather, that you missed the entire point of the speech because you cannot abide the idea that race is still an issue in American society. Hey, guess what, it is.
Not sure if it was the political home run he was looking for. Stopped the hemorrhaging, but this situation is going to linger.
Know I’ll probably be drummed off this site (even if I did identify myself as a GOPer going in), but not sure that I see a heck of a lot of difference between Wright’s and Falwell/Robertsons’ post 9/11 comments. Both make me ill, and Obama did nothing to distance himself in his speech from Wright, at least that will play in the general election. Not sure that you can excuse either one, be it the “black experience” or the “inbred white cracker/bible thumper experience”. Still think that Obama hasn’t put this issue to rest, no matter how you want to spin the speech.
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p>On taxes, Obama’s economic advisor stated that moving the top rate from 35% to the pre-EGTRRA 39.6% rate wasn’t going to exactly “end the world”. Neglected to add in the additional little kicker of extending the FICA 12.4% tax to infinity (at least on those dopey rich folks who actually work for their money or don’t turn Sub S like John Edwards did). Even the Hollywood types might give pause when they figure out how to contrast 35% and 52% when they look at their pay stubs. A little disingenuous to say the least (have to remember that no one in the media can actually add and subtract).
Too much money in the hands of too few. Can’t spend it fast enough to keep the economy going, while hoarding it from the masses that could.
I ain’t know economics genius, but here it goes. For my own understanding. I’m doing some catch up.
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p>I have pondered the demise of the Soviet system. The model I imagined had “Reagan America” using tax dollars, recirculating to the working class, so wealth was sustainable.
The Soviet model was linear with GDP terminating in the “product” so to speak.
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p>Pardon my hair brained imagery here. I am out on a limb, but
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p>Imagine the Soviet system as a gutter. Resources pour in but are linear, terminating with the production of the material items, say a ICBM. It costs them less to make a missile, but the workers are not sustained by the production.
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p>The American system is more like a sophisticated irrigation system, where material items are produced and the workers are sustained by the process. It costs more, but the process is sustainable, because resources are “returned or recirculated” via taxation and commerce.
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p>Now the Soviet system failed, no arguing that. However, I take your point, Can’t spend it fast enough to keep the economy going, while hoarding it from the masses that could. to mean that we are dwindling the available resources (wealth), so the system will not be sustainable.
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p>To simplify, we are experiencing a “stagnation of wealth”?
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p>Now I have heard it stated that wealth must be redistributed. I agree, but under what model of economy can we acheive equilibrium of wealth. And when I mean equal, I don’t mean to the 3rd decimal place.
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p>Should we, Americans, look to Europe where it is reported that the CEO makes only 5X what the custodian makes? Would that be sustainable, although conceptually unfair.
Let’s look at what tax rates currently are (just using joint filers for example):
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p>Schedule Y-1 – Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Widow(er)
If taxable income is over– But not over– The tax is:
$0 $15,650 10% of the amount over $0
$15,650 $63,700 $1,565.00 plus 15% of the amount over 15,650
$63,700 $128,500 $8,772.50 plus 25% of the amount over 63,700
$128,500 $195,850 $24,972.50 plus 28% of the amount over 128,500
$195,850 $349,700 $43,830.50 plus 33% of the amount over 195,850
$349,700 no limit $94,601.00 plus 35% of the amount over 349,700
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p>In addition to repealing the EGTRRA tax rate changes, Obama is also talking about removing the cap on FICA taxes, albeit providing a “doughnut hole” (say keep the current taxable wage base, but have the FICA apply to earnings in excess of say $200,000). Now unless you believe in Santa Claus economics, the wage earner will be picking up both halves of the FICA tax here, or 12.4% of income.
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p>Austan Goolsbee has been on record stating that moving the top rate of 35% back to the pre-EGTRRA rate of 39.6% is “not that big of a deal”. I’d say so also; however, that isn’t the whole story. What Obama is really proposing is taking the top rate up from 35% to 52% (39.6% + 12.4%). Could be specious and say that it is only a 17% increase in taxes; one could also say that you’re talking about a 48.57% increase in taxes paid.
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p>Of course, what would actually happen is that every law firm in the country would convert to a Supchapter S corporation, pay themselves a nominal salary, and then take what would have been income out as dividends (subject to a lower rate AND not subject one iota to SS taxation, either FICA or Medicare). If you don’t think this won’t happen, then you don’t remember the machinations that occurred when the cap on Medicare taxes was lifted, all over 2.9%. People will be doing backflips over 12.4%, from either side of the aisle.
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p>Now maybe on this board you want to move back to the good old days of confiscatory (I mean “progressive”) tax rates, so you’ll see this a good proposal.
for comprehensive progressive tax reform
Wasn’t just the S&L debacle that took out Real Estate back in the late 80s. TRA ’86, which basically changed all of the ground rules, helped. The only thing that you have to count on in any shifting of tax basis (be it a switch to the left or the right) is a pretty deep recession/depression during the transition.
LOL!! I made exactly that point in my initial post when Rev. Wright’s first hit the front pages:
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p>I love how Republicans find it inconceivable that Democrats would criticize their own, and how they think they’re being so bold and shocking if they say things like “Wright is similar to Falwell.” Maybe John Dean was really onto something with his “authoritarian personality” theory.
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p>We’re way ahead of you, Mike.
But maybe for the claim of the dopey rich people who actually work for their money.
Sound like he doesn’t know what rich is or how most of them get there.
Targeting income tax only goes after those who earn their money. Those living off of their investments, whether they made them or got them from a trust fund, aren’t affected by any of these proposals. Of course, you can create a can of worms by say looking at a Teresa Heinz Kerry who has a ton of nontaxable income ($5m/year) from earnings on muni bonds. Can get on your high horse and say that’s not right, let’s tax that stuff, but then you just raise your borrowing costs for states and municipalities, since they can’t get lower rates.
Another solid argument for comprehensive tax reform. I fully support the idea of taxing dividends. They should probably lower the death tax to…oh say, at least in the hundreds of thousands (and cut out the charitable trust loopholes).
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p>And in MA, that’s only part of the solution. You can’t have a federal govt that allows itself to deficit spend while mandating the states to have a balanced budget…who in turn limit local revenue sources to 2 1/2 percent of the tax levy and a handout from the legislature.
Which is why this comment strikes me as odd,
For many people, it is not the manner of preaching and worshiping that is disturbing about Rev. Wright, it is the words he chose to preach. Racism is racism, no matter how it is expressed and no matter what the reasons are for the expression. There is no excuse for it. And there is no way that Barack Obama did not attend services where similar sermons were preached. In fact, he admitted as much during his speech yesterday.
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p>What is troubling about this story is that Barack Obama did not distance himself from this minister sooner or, apparently, did not even challenge the minister on his views. For me, and for a lot of other people, actions speak louder than words, expecially in matters concerning racism.
I agree with the consensus that Obama’s speech was an impressive attempt to distill the history of race in America in a comprehensive and a fairly courageous way.
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p>Still, I remain troubled that Obama, during his twenty year as a member of the Chicago church lea by Rev. Wright, apparently did not feel compelled to discuss privately with Rev. Wright his misgivings about Rev. Wright’s racist, toxic rhetortic or confront the minister in church settings and meetings after hearing his minister’s incidenary racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
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p>It seems to me that one critical test of an effective community organizer and an aspiring politician, such as Mr. Obama, living in a diverse, urban setting should be the following:
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p>Does the community organizer/politican have the personal courage to confront either privately or publicly a prominent religious leader in his or her community whose racist, anti-Semitic sermons serve to undermine the laudable political, economic, and social goals and objectives that he or she is trying to accomplish in his work as a community organizer, a state legislator, or a U.S Senator?
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p>Apparently, the answer for Sen. Obama is that he is only willing to confront the racism and anti-Semitism of a prominent religious leader and mentor from his community…when the political calculus in his presidential campaign demands that such an action be taken. Obama’s unwillingness, over a twenty year period, to reflect upon and address with Rev. Wright the toxic social consequences of his minister’s frequent racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric should give his supporters pause before asserting, ad nauseum, that Mr. Obama has demonstrated consistently “superior personal judgment” throughout his adult life.
and there are some questions he did not address. The issue of race needed to be discussed and I thought the speech was remarkable and honest, that doesn’t happen much in politics. But the fact of the matter is that this was a political speech responding to the Rev. Wright issue. What he is trying to do is change the argument from Rev. Wright and his remarks to racism in America. Time will tell if that works.
….to a political attack, it was way more than that. I believe that is why there is so much struggle among these comments to understand what happened because that is not the usual forum for such honesty.
of being given lemons (the political problem of Jeremiah Wright) and making lemonade (making a terrific speech that has served as the catalyst for the most honest, broad-based discussion of race in America seen for many years). Also in the “lemonade” category is that a lot of people who were wondering whether there was much substance behind the inspirational oratory may be feeling better about Obama today. Even Jon Keller, the “Mikey” of pols and politics, liked the speech. (No permalink — for some reason Keller’s blog no longer provides permalinks.)
…. my enjoyment of it left a sour taste in the mouths of some on this site……