Barack Obama Makes The Case For Progressive America
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The man still has his chops. Check out this commencement address he gave to Knox College.
And then America happened.
A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form a more perfect union on this new frontier.
And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an empire for the sake of an idea, they started to come. Across oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It s answered by us.Have we failed at times? Absolutely. Will you occasionally fail when you embark on your own American journey? You surely will. But the test is not perfection.
The true test of the American ideal is whether we re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life s big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams.We have faced this choice before.
At the end of the Civil War, when farmers and their families began moving into the cities to work in the big factories that were sprouting up all across America, we had to decide: Do we do nothing and allow captains of industry and robber barons to run roughshod over the economy and workers by competing to see who can pay the lowest wages at the worst working conditions? Or do we try to make the system work by setting up basic rules for the market, instituting the first public schools, busting up monopolies, letting workers organize into unions?
We chose to act, and we rose together.
When the irrational exuberance of the Roaring Twenties came crashing down with the stock market, we had to decide: do we follow the call of leaders who would do nothing, or the call of a leader who, perhaps because of his physical paralysis, refused to accept political paralysis?
We chose to act regulating the market, putting people back to work, expanding bargaining rights to include health care and a secure retirement and together we rose.
When World War II required the most massive homefront mobilization in history and we needed every single American to lend a hand, we had to decide: Do we listen to skeptics who told us it wasn t possible to produce that many tanks and planes? Or, did we build Roosevelt s Arsenal for Democracy and grow our economy even further by providing our returning heroes with a chance to go to college and own their own home?
Again, we chose to act, and again, we rose together.
26 Responses to “Barack Obama Makes The Case For Progressive America”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Obama’s going to go a long way, I think. I hope so, at least.
Nice words. I wish he’d vote in the Senate as a progressive, instead of as a Vichy Dem.
I have a hard time listening to Obama. The man’s eloquence and ability to speak right to my inner progressive leaves me feeling inadequate and unworthy. He’s frigging amazing! I only wish there were more like him.
Random Reading….
Kathy writes, “Why in the world would CIA Director Porter Goss say that he’s pretty sure he knows where bin Laden is but can’t go get him because we have to respect the sovereignty of other countries? I’m not suggesting…
I have a vision: Barak Obama coming out of a Court House, doing the “perp walk” with a Chicago Tribune over his face.”Obama faces ____ Federal indictments” (fill in the blank)…
He is an Illinois Democrat, after all.
I have a vision: Mississippi conservative Senators afraid to go back to their constituents having voted against lynchings. Oh wait, the dream is real!
If anyone can come up with video of this I would appreciate seeing it. This man has a gift.
I have a dream too. Idiots like Frank D disapeering from the political discourse. At least until they grow the fuck up.
I figure either ’12 or ’16 – first black man in the White House to have the first seat in the Oval Office, tho we may need him sooner. Hope he’s ready.
TomY:
Who “voted against lynchings”? Get your facts straight.
Conservatives did, Vincent. Then they were Democrats. Now they are Republicans. Get your facts straight.
Mike S: I will not disappear from the political discourse 1) Because I’m a conservative “Right – to – Lifer”, and we’re just beginning to dominate the political discourse; and 2) As long as Oliver doesn’t delete my posts or ban me, I can write whatever I want.
Oh yeah, I grew up before you were born.
For someone who grew up before I was born, you sure do act like a child. Thankfully your domination will be short lived. You Randall Terry idiots will splinter the party soon now that people see just how fascistic you are.
Mike S: I’m not a fascist because you say so — you’re an arrogant twit.
Why am I acting like a child because I see a novice like Obama going the way of so many other Illinois Democrats?
Are you afraid to see your bubble burst? Don’t you have enough faith in St. Barack to say, “Frank’s full of crap; that’ll never happen”? Why attack me?
And why do you Democrats insist that Randall Terry runs the Republican party, when I couldn’t care less about him? And, I don’t even want to know how you get from protecting life in the womb to being fascistic…
Gee, Frank, since you’re a “right to lifer” you do believe the death penalty is wrong, correct? You are against the war in Iraq, right? Lives are being wasted there. You are for public funded pre-natal care for poor women, corrrect? So they don’t have to turn to abortion? You are for teaching birth control to teens so they don’t find theirselves with an unwanted child, correct? And you are in favor of allowing gay couples to adopt so they can absorb all of the unwanted children, correct? Just wanted to see how consistent you are, after all.
Senator Barack Obama’s Commencement Address
Senator Obama gave a beautiful commencement speech at Knox College. Here’s a sample: And then America happened. A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the…
And why do you Democrats insist that Randall Terry runs the Republican party,
Maybe you can tell us how many times President Bush has ended his vacation early and rushed back to DC to sign something? I’m sure it must have happened dozens of times. What’s that you say? Only once? Hmmmm.
And why do I call you and your ilk “fascistic?” Maybe because of quotes like this from Saint Randall.
“When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you. I mean every word of it.” He added, “I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed.”
Mike S,
Randall Terry does NOT run the Republican party.
James Dobson runs the Republican party. Randall Terry is just a useful idiot.
Hey Neo (sez Zappa in his best old man Frank_D accent),
My views on right – to – life are relative to only a small portion of the life question. You see I am old enough to know that you can pick and choose what your morals are – you young twit.
We may support a War that has killed thousands and thousands based on lies and fixing data, but we are not as bad as other liars and war mongers. Look over there someone said something irrelevant and now I will ignore your specific questions and talk about how old I am and how young you are.
(ending statire)
I receive an almost daily eMail from Ken Mehlman, the Chairman of Bush’s 2004 Campaign, amd Chairman of the RNC. If you go to GOP.com, you’ll find no mention of Terry or Hobson.
And I wouln’t talk about “useful idiots” with Al Franken and Bill Maher shilling for the Demovrats.
Your poorly composed satire made a huge error in the first sentence. There is no such thing as a “life question” of which the right to life is a part. I have an idea what you mean, but you are incorrect.
Some people are opposed to war under any circumstances — I have great respect for these people. They are usually opposed to abortion and capital punishment, because they oppose the forfeiture of life, under any circumstances.
I believe in just wars, and I believe that the war in Iraq was, and is, a just war. I don’t wish to argue about it here.
Some people are opposed to capital punishment because they don’t believe the state should take a life, or because they don’t believe that life is an appropriate punishment for any crime. I believe that retribution, or revenge, is an appropriate part of justice, and so I favor the death penalty. Keep in mind that the criminal has made a choice to commit a crime, and the victim made no choice to die.
Then we come to abortion. First argument: It isn’t alive. OK, then let’s forbid abortion after the “blob” can be born alive — say 24 weeks. No, then we run into argument 2: A woman should be free to do what she wants with her own body. First of all, she isn’t free to do what she wants to do with her own body now. She can’t walk around topless — she can’t even breast feed on public transportation. Feminists want teenagers to have abortions without parental permission, but not ear piercing.
You can’t drink until you’re 21, or smoke until you’re 18, but teen abortions — fine and dandy. It’s a legal and moral Gordian Knot, and I give life the benefit of a doubt.
The bottom line? Abortions prevent life…
I forgot something —
Is that something like what the antiwar crowd did from 1992 – 2000, while Clinton was President?
Barney Frank: “Republicans believe life begins at conception and ends at birth”
So true, so true.
“I give life the benefit of the doubt.” Yea, sure. Unless they are Iraqi lives. Or convicted criminals (who may or may not be guilty, we’ve released lots of people from death row through DNA evidence).
No, you give FETUSES the benefit of the doubt. You don’t give a damn when they are born.
Yes, loopy. That’s because there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they are innocent.
None.
Of course, after they pass through the birth canal, they aren’t innocent anymore. Unless they are Iraqi or Afghani and the mother happens to be in the way of a missile. With the unborn fetus that you are so worried about.
You’re beginning to behave like a left wing Sean Hannity, trying to force a point you want to make to come from me. That’s why I don’t listen to him, or watch him, anymore.
Despite the fact that your last post was incoherent, I got the drift.
There is a big difference between civilians killed in a war, and an abortion. Since you’re trying to pretend you don’t know that, I will humor you, and explain it to you.
After conception, a fetus, or embryo, or whatever, is on its way to becoming a newborn child. If a woman asks a doctor to perform a procedure on her, whereby that birth will be prevented, she has puposely and consciously terminated her pregnancy, and the baby that was to be born, will not be born. Please note: “purposely and consciously”.
If a group of bombers fly over a military installation, or an oil refinery, and, in the course of bombing them, accidentally kill civilians, be they men, women, or children, it was unintentional — an accident. Please note: “unintentional — an accident”.
I trust I don’t have to explain to you the difference between “accidentally” and “on purpose”, do I?
What if that “accidental” bomb hits a pregnant woman, that’s what I was saying? Is the child no less innocent?
It is exactly my point that people like you who claim to be “pro-life” don’t give a damn about the baby when it is born. You don’t even care about the mother carrying the baby. People murdered in Iraq in an illegal war- hey, no big deal, it was an accident, but a 13-year old pregnant girl carrying her fathers baby has an abortion, that is murder.
Don’t claim to be “pro-life”, you are not. You are not even “pro-innocent life”, because those Iraqi civilians aren’t guilty of anything except being born in the wrong country. You are “pro-fetus” and “anti-abortion”.