I am sure by now most of you have heard Obama's speach.

[Young Roids]

I had made a thread about my discouragement over the news that Obama belongs to what I would consider a racist church. And since then Obama has come back with a huge speach on the whole topic. A very famous speach that many are hailing as great. I believe however that he missed the mark and reinforced racial boundarys that we instead need to be demolishing. Obama should have clearly declared his pastor as a biggot and denounced him but instead he gave this line about how it takes a trainned ear to hear what the black church has to say blah blah blah. So I was listening to NPR today and they were disscussing the speach and the race issue and I was hearing alot of the same old same old stuff but then they had a guest by the name of Michael Meyers who totaly GETS IT! He is a columnist for the LA Times and he wrote an article entitled "Obama Blew It" in wich he explains much better than I can why Obama is not helping the race issue. Here is the link to the article wich I strongly reccommend that you take a look at.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oew-meyers20mar20,0,4038350.story

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

We place far too much relevance on this sort of fluff and not enough on how he wants to bleed our country dry on domestic and global socialism. His answer to every problem seems to be the application of large sums of taxpayer money.

 

[Young Roids]

We place far too much relevance on this sort of fluff and not enough on how he wants to bleed our country dry on domestic and global socialism. His answer to every problem seems to be the application of large sums of taxpayer money.

I have to disagree here. While you are correct that we do need to fix the economy and stop alot of government spending. The race problem is a HUGE one and we do need to get past it. I have been dealing with racism my whole life and I believe that Michael Meyers is compleatley right about this issue. Please read the article and I think it may change your views on this issue. Ron Paul didn't get the nom so since no candidates are going to fix the spending issue maybe someone will deal with racism at least.

 

[mndsm]

Obama talks a good game.....

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

I did read the article before I posted, and I do believe it is fluff. If I heard a presidential candidate had attended any one of the many churches where they preach against homosexuality, it would not impact my opinion of the candidate unless (s)he personally showed agreement in that matter. Grilling the candidate over the what the minister says in a church they attended is fluff to me, and disguises the far more significant issues the presidential race should be about.

 

[Young Roids]

Obama talks a good game.....

The problem with Obama I believe is that he is to afraid of alienating the majority of black voters by totaly denouncing his rev and his church.

I did read the article before I posted, and I do believe it is fluff. If I heard a presidential candidate had attended any one of the many churches where they preach against homosexuality, it would not impact my opinion of the candidate unless (s)he personally showed agreement in that matter. Grilling the candidate over the what the minister says in a church they attended is fluff to me, and disguises the far more significant issues the presidential race should be about.

I agree with you about there may be more important issues that need adressing. But bleonging to a racist church to me is no different than belonging to any other hate group like the neo nazis, the KKK, the nation of islam ect ect and on and on. This is one reason that I do not go to any church.

 

[Bartron8000]

The problem with Obama I believe is that he is to afraid of alienating the majority of black voters by totaly denouncing his rev and his church.

I don't know if I would agree with that. I remember hearing that Obama had been going to that church for something like 20 years, he also stated that he had never heard the rev talk like that. I honestly think this was a huge mistake, I honestly don't know all the details about this whole thing, but to me it seems as though the rev just got caught into the heat of the moment. It happens to everyone, you say something really dumb and later realize that you shouldn't have said it. I guess we'll all find out in time weather or not the rev meant what he did, because if he truly believes what he said, he'll say it again.

 

[Young Roids]

I don't know if I would agree with that. I remember hearing that Obama had been going to that church for something like 20 years, he also stated that he had never heard the rev talk like that. I honestly think this was a huge mistake, I honestly don't know all the details about this whole thing, but to me it seems as though the rev just got caught into the heat of the moment. It happens to everyone, you say something really dumb and later realize that you shouldn't have said it. I guess we'll all find out in time weather or not the rev meant what he did, because if he truly believes what he said, he'll say it again.

I really hope you are right but somehow I am more sceptical about the whole thing. At this point I will still vote for him if he gets the nom but I will vote for him knowing that he may support racist organizations. In related news it looks like Hilary is up in the latest polls.

 

[holmstar]

We place far too much relevance on this sort of fluff and not enough on how he wants to bleed our country dry on domestic and global socialism. His answer to every problem seems to be the application of large sums of taxpayer money.

Wait.... so it is ok to spend hundreds of billions of dollars that we dont have on a war we never should have started, but it is horrible to spend any significant sum on programs that help people here at home, or do anything that might improve our respect in the world?

 

[Young Roids]

The war is such a huge mistake on so many levels it just makes me sick.

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

I never said I advocated the war in Iraq. However, even if we left Iraq immediately, the money Obama seeks to spend is just as much not there as the money we're spending on Iraq. We need to cut spending all around significantly so expenditures are less than revenues so we can start cutting down on the debt (a process that will require decades at best).

If spending hundreds of billions of dollars we don't have and sacrificing our sovereignty to what is evolving far too much into an international supergovernment was the only way we could improve our respect in the world... I would rather not have it. Charity is the business of private citizens in our free society, not the business of government, and it is a direct violation of the Constitution to allow the United Nations to strip away our sovereignty.

Same thing with at home. Government is not in the charity business. It is up to people through formal and informal charitable donations to help people over crisis points in their lives. However, it is also the responsibility of each individual to not be a burden on society.

On topic, I would not necessarily consider the church a racist organization because the minister has said some racist comments or even if the minister IS a racist. There is more to a church than that.

 

[holmstar]

Same thing with at home. Government is not in the charity business. It is up to people through formal and informal charitable donations to help people over crisis points in their lives. However, it is also the responsibility of each individual to not be a burden on society.

That is easy to say if you never needed any of those programs yourself. When I was a kid, my dad got layed-off due to no fault of his own. If we hadn't been able to use the wellfare programs we would have been on the street. And yeah, you can hope that someone will help you out of the goodness of thier heart, but hope doesnt get you dinner or a roof over your head.

Ohh... our soverenty is in danger huh? guess we better be confontational with the rest of the world to prove we're indepenent.
<sarcasm>Say no to cooperation with foreign countries! It will only bring us peril! :usa1: </sarcasm>

 

[ij1889]

That is easy to say if you never needed any of those programs yourself. When I was a kid, my dad got layed-off due to no fault of his own. If we hadn't been able to use the wellfare programs we would have been on the street.

welfare needs to be fixed in so many levels, sure it does about 10% of the people who use it good but it fucks up eveyone else, for instance my mom, after my dad died the gov gave her a ss card saying she couldnt work but would get 1000 bucks for each one of us(her, me, and my brother) 3k isnt bad at all and im not complaining but once my brother turned 25 and me 18 last year, my moms only income was $1000, and she had the choice of working and not getting any type of help, or pretty much trying to live a life with a thousand bucks each month, she choose to work and make more, the fact is that welfare fucks us tax payers money bc many people who recieve rather than getting a job preffer to live of the gov, the gov should help people that try and have somesort of job and bearly make it through other than recompense the lazy.

there are so many holes in our goverment and its getting filled with corruption (healthcare, welfair, immigration, economy, politicians, etc etc...) frankly i dont see any good from any of these candidates, and im losing all my interest in them, i seriously do not see a way of comming out of this horrendous debt that we have unless the chinese cut us alot of slack, which we all know prob wont happen unless they invade something and we dont say shit about it, we own much of the debt to the chinese and many other country, to me i believe that the us is gonna step down as the global power, and no president can do anything to stop this.

pretty much i have lost most of my faith in our gov and politics

 

[ij1889]

its gonna be great to talk politics tomorrow

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

holmstar, since the money is being paid, I am glad to hear your family received some real necessary benefit from it. However, I see a real ethical problem with government stealing money from one person just to give it to another they believe is more worthy of that money or needs it more. If people want to help those in need, they should do so with their own money rather than spend other people's money... it's a lot easier to spend other people's money, though.

I never said we should not cooperate with other countries. What I said is we should not place ourselves under any form of international government. One can maintain their sovereignty and still cooperate with others, though we should determine intelligently when and if we do so.

ij, I think there needs to be a change in the model where it encourages (if not requires) work of those who are able to do so, and is intended to be a temporary form of assistance rather than a permanent one.

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

on the signature... not a fair assessment. Of the 7 bills in recent circulation, only 2 or 3 depict slave owners.

$1 Washington - slave owner (Virginia)
$2 Jefferson - slave owner (Virginia)
$5 Lincoln - not a slave owner (Illinois)
$10 Hamilton - not a slave owner (New York)
$20 Jackson - unknown to me (Tennessee)
$50 Grant - not a slave owner (can't recall)
$100 Franklin - not a slave owner (Pennsylvania)

 

[AJ]

Am I the only one who hasn't heard the speach, and thinks all political shit is pointless?

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

Unfortunately, there are all too many people who think that.

 

[ij1889]

lol im just playing about the slave owner think, and yes im sure jackson was the biggest one of them all, i hate jackson so much for the shit he did to this country and he should not be in our bills, yes i know he did some good, but is it worth putting a man who almost wiped out a whole civilization of people (the indians)?

 

[ZoomZoom Diva]

OK... according to The Hermitage, the foundation for his home in Tennessee, he did own slaves, up to 150 of them by the 1840's.

As far as his legacy, that is a matter for another thread...