Comments on: Obama’s Cairo Speech: One for the Ages

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:43:39 +0000

It also does no good using logic to defend yourself against trolls. In one paragraph, he called you an anti-semitic Nazi and uninformed. What are you supposed to do to refute those charges? Say “no I am not?” Waste of breath.

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:35:48 +0000

Ari, don’t waste your bandwidth; if O were to magically accomplish all the things he promised in seven months, or even seven years, that would not change some minds. If the economy were to suddenly turn around (as it is doing), the reason (in certain minds) would be that either it is part of an economic cycle that O had nothing to do with, or it was due to policies started by Bush. You can’t win.

By: DICKERSON3870

DICKERSON3870 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:12:16 +0000

RE: “OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH: ONE FOR THE AGES”

A RELATED ARTICLE: “The Tone and the Music”, by Uri Avnery, 06/08/09

(EXCERPT)”…He walked onto the stage in Cairo, alone, without hosts and without aides, and delivered a sermon to an audience of billions. Egyptians and Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, Copts and Maronites – and they all listened attentively.

He unfolded before them the map of a new world, a different world, whose values and laws he spelled out in simple and clear language – a mixture of idealism and practical politics, vision and pragmatism…”

ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery06082009.html

By: Margaret

Margaret — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:04:37 +0000

Joachim – Words carry secondary as well as primary meaning. If the (un)words(/un) used to provide information also reflect a political perspective, the information provided will be filtered through the reader’s perception of that perspective. Words which are neutral regarding political orientation allow the reader room in which to consider the information, without requiring a decision on whether they agree with your political position. If there is no agreement, I think information presented in politically charged terms is perceived as unreliable.

By: rfjk

rfjk — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:18:00 +0000

Obama is a man of the center all right, but center of what? A political center? Ideological? A blend of interests national and economic? Our current chief executive’s power is more likely based on something ‘a little old and a little new’ rather than on the usual common partisan perceptions and interpretations.

By: Arie Brand

Arie Brand — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:30:42 +0000

Donald Johnson wrote:

“it’s Obamaphiliac lefties who imagine he’s in their camp,”.

If he was he wouldn’t be where he is now.-

If by a fluke of history, even greater than the one taking Obama to the presidency, a leftie would get into that position he would give many of us a ‘warm inner glow’, for a while. Then, when it became clear early in the piece that because of the obstruction by Congress he was achieving nothing but cooking his goose for a second term, disappointment would set in.

I read way back that when Obama became editor of the Harvard Law Review and subsequently its President (the first Afro American to do so I believe) a lot of people expected he would take a position, as far as the University politics connected with that journal was concerned, on the left. He didn’t.

So he is a man of the centre. However, as you know, he comes from a totally different background than Bush Sr. A man who went to an ordinary primary school in Indonesia and had neighbours there who could barely afford to bring a square meal on the table must look at the world with different eyes. For one thing it should enable him to have some empathy with the victims of empire – this was probably beyond GHB’s mental reach.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:59:14 +0000

What a great idea!

By: Donald Johnson

Donald Johnson — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:25:13 +0000

And another link connecting Obama's views to those of GHW Bush-- link