Best Speech I’ve Ever Read

[KeithE]

Well I came home from writing probably my best Request for Information (RFI) ever at about 10:00pm and went to bed reading a new book edited by David Cay Johnson. It is anthology about our economic times in the US. The first “overview” chapter is which has to be the best speech I have ever read. I thought I’d share it with ya’ll.

Here is Rush Lindbaugh’s response: .

We are “divided” and the choice is yours. Please read them both as I have.

I just wish Obama would (through Presidential Executive Orders if necessary) do what has to be done and/or fight harder with Congress, rally America to protest Congressional inaction, and focus our country into being a land of shared prosperity, having the world’s best education, and being a land of equal opportunity.

[Sandy]

Not bad for a "community organizer," food stamp, welfare, Muslim, Socialist, non-natural born American President.

I always had a hard time figuring Rush Limbaugh out. His ego and bravado are indications of a lot of insecurity, which would be consistent with his substance abuse history, inability to stay in a committed relationship, and his past. I don't think there's any question about his hatred and contempt for African Americans, and on his radio program, he panders to racist elements. He's made a litany of anti-Semitic remarks. Al Franken's book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat, Idiot and Other Observations, explained him by using the same kind of satire that Rush uses. Sometimes, Limbaugh is so outlandish that I wonder if he's just capitalizing on overdone sensationalism. If he's genuinely serious, then he's a bigger promoter of hatred and bigotry than the Ku Klux Klan.

If it's satire, then he has a tremendously low opinion of his radio audience, especially his "dittoheads" and he sees them as nothing more than a means to make money.

[Haruo]

It's his addict talking.

[KeithE]

Reactions from anyone who read the Obama speech?

[David Flick]

[Bruce Gourley]

Keith, thanks for sharing the link to Obama's Kansas speech; it is fantastic! By today's Republican Party standards, yes, even Roosevelt was a socialist (and probably Reagan, since he raised taxes 11 times). Adam Smith is rolling over in his grave; as has been discussed in these forums, the father of capitalism, modern economics and free markets warned in no uncertain terms that too much wealth accumulated in the hands of too few destroys nations. We are on Smith's path to destruction. I can only hope and pray that Smith's vision of responsible capitalism and free markets somehow, in the decades to comes, returns and triumphs over the current plutocracy that America has become ... or my own child, and the children of most Americans, face a future bleak landscape of hardship and poverty, victims of unadulterated greed and avarice masquerading as liberty (only for those who are wealthy).

[Mrs Haruo]

Rush Limblargggg is a hateful bitter man who has the worst case of cranial-rectal reversal syndrome I have ever witnessed. I fear for my grandchildren's future if things don't turn around and education and public transit are not better supported so the elderly, disabled and disenfranchised can get to work and needed medical appointments, and those who want to improve their lot in life get every possible chance to.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

If dollars are decibels, then noise nuisance abatement laws might well apply to the political expression of the spendhappy rich.

[Mrs Haruo]

"If Dollars were Decibels"--- good turn of phrase.

[Sandy]

The content of that speech is as clear an indication that Obama isn't a socialist, or anything close to it. I'd say he's got a pretty clear and concise view of what it means to be an American, in terms of economics and politics, as opposed to what it means to be anything else.

For all the criticism and contempt that is leveled at the President over his role as a "community organizer," though that was before he got his law degree, it has given him a very clear and realistic picture of life in America at a different level than most people see it. In that environment, you can see that, while there will always be some abuse and some resigned dependence, the image of "welfare queens" and food stamps that the extremist right pooh-poohs is nothing like they think it is. His perspective is well informed, as you'd expect from someone with a Harvard law degree, and even more so from someone who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He underlines his points with facts, and that enrages the no-nothing right wing mouthpieces like Rush Lamebrain and Glenn the Mormon turned right wing Christian baiter.

The religious right does a lot of talking about family values and claims the moral high ground, but they are loathe to come up with anything like this, though it rests on the Christian morality they want you to think they have, but don't.