What strikes me the most about Obama's speech is not its comparative greatness to MLK's 1963 speech

[Perky]

but the clarity of this speech's unspoken argument

Martin called for a new America. One that did not look at the color of one's skin but at the content of one's character.

Sadly in the last forty years since Memphis, race relations in this country have remained largely stalemated, unspoken and certainly unresolved. There can be no doubt that things are "better" but they are still largely segregated. Race has always been the big ugly secret in the closet that no one wanted to deal with and it has been voiced and not voiced in White Guilt and Black anger...It has been seen in the Neo Nazis and Willie Horton, but also from the black pulpit and the aftermath of Simi Valley.We see it in Pastor Wright's language and tone, but we also see it in the media's treatment of Obama since he announced more than a year ago. Before that it was Colin Powel and before that it was Jesse and David Duke and Jimmy the Greek and AL Campanis and Howard Cosell.

And yet here is Obama asking the nation to begin to do what MLK asked us to do in 1963 to start moving beyond racial polarity.

What strikes me about the speech, no matter how history may rank the speech, is not that he may in fact be the only politician who has ever had the audacity and courage to say these things out loud; It is not that he is perhaps the only politician who by confluence of personal history, current events and political gravitas has the capacity and the right to say these things.

What strikes me is the not the comparision to King, but that in both grand and simple ways, in transcendent and basic ways. Barack Hussein Obama asks us not to simply rekindle what MLK talked about in his dream....but he asks us, all of us, to recognize that he is proof that we can be guided by our better angels and with his candidacy and election offer tangible evidence that MLKs' dream was more than just words only deferred for another generation


It is not about him it is about us. He asks us in stark yet unspoken words to act upon those words and let us let him lead us.


And I am sorry but Any democrat who want to crap on this speech, is not much of a democrat at all. The speech was inspiring and presidential, blunt and transcendent and brutally honest. It reminds us why we are progressives and democrats.

Any democrat who disses this speech as pandering or insufficient has no sense of history beyond their last bowel movement.

[Beregond2]

1. Yes, and...

Well said. I would also point out that he dwelt on the economic roots of this injustice, and directed attention to how corporate America benefits from these divisions. That may have been the bravest part of the speech. It is virtually unheard of for a mainstream politician in America to call-out the economic exploiters in this way.

[JeffR]

2. 5th rec

:toast:

[Perky]

7. thank you

[uponit7771]

3. TOUCHE`

[OhioBlue]

4. so very true. n/t

[patrice]

5. He talked to us, not at us, nor about us.

He explained what's going on.

[mopinko]

6. you didn't get the memo?

damage control, just damage control, but a, gasp, politician.
get with the meme will ya?
no, me neither.
i agree with ya. years from now, they will tell you about how the tears streamed down their faces. we will get the last laugh. fear not.

[IsItJustMe]

8. Could not have said it better.

[juno jones]

9. K&R!

[madrchsod]

10. martin is a prophet

obama is his foot soldier

[Perky]

11. Martin was Moses...Obama is Joshua.

If you can find the Selma Speech from last year you shou;d.

[thevoiceofreason]

12. K&R

Perky rocks