Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

President Obama's Speech - what did it do for you?

Options
  • 21-01-2009 12:57pm
    #1
    stevoman
    Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭


    I watched President Obama's Inauguration speech yesterday evening live and i have to say i found it inspiring. From my opinions of being somewhon who lived in America for a couple of years and watched the Bush Administraion first hand I am delighted to see a change and to see the optimism in America spreading once again. I really think it hit an all point low about a year into Bush's second term and it is definitly time for America to lift herself up again. After watching President Obama's speech yesterday it gave me the feeling that we are going to be looking a new and better and fairer America in the future.

    We all have our opinions about that nation, but im wondering what you people thought and your views on the speech and what his Presidency will be like?

    Obama's Speech and Presidency 46 votes

    I though the Speech was good and he will make a good president.
    0% 0 votes
    I though the speech was'nt good, but he will still make a good President.
    78% 36 votes
    I though the speech was bad, but he will make a good president.
    15% 7 votes
    I thought the speech was bad, and i dont think he will make a good president.
    6% 3 votes


«1

Comments

  • Options
    #2
    The_Minister
    Registered Users Posts: 10,255 ✭✭✭✭The_Minister


    The number of clankers in that speech was awful, he kept stopping for applause that never came.


  • Options
    #3
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • Options
    #4
    Mark200
    Registered Users Posts: 3,536 ✭✭✭Mark200


    I preferred his speech on the night he won the election, but still this was amazing too.


  • Options
    #5
    sink
    Registered Users Posts: 4,314 ✭✭✭sink


    OT but i'm curious to know how stevoman called a poll in the politics forum? I thought you couldn't.

    edit: Just figured it out, someone moved it from another forum!


  • Options
    #6
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,804 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    I'm curious about that myself. It doesn't seem to have been moved (until just now).


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    I couldn't vote... you forgot one option:

    I thought the speech was good, but he will turn out to be Jimmy Carter incarnate.


  • Options
    #8
    Matt Holck
    Registered Users Posts: 9,706 ✭✭✭Matt Holck


    Isreal could certainly use a peace settlement

    I was glad to see he sited alternative energy

    The conclusion of the speach recalled a poem I had wrote
    So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

    "Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

    cross the Delaware


  • Options
    #9
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    Lets face facts people. Hyprocracy is rampant in American politics. I was disgusted with the poetic end to the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery during President Barack Obama's inauguration. Then afterwards Obama gives Lowery a big hug. If GWBush would have had a white minister say something even remotely similar during his 2000 inauguration, he would have been impeached that very afternoon.

    "Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."


  • Options
    #10
    Ruskie4Rent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,088 ✭✭✭Ruskie4Rent


    Pocono Joe wrote: »
    Lets face facts people. Hyprocracy is rampant in American politics. I was disgusted with the poetic end to the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery during President Barack Obama's inauguration. Then afterwards Obama gives Lowery a big hug. If GWBush would have had a white minister say something even remotely similar during his 2000 inauguration, he would have been impeached that very afternoon.

    "Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

    Disgusted? Were you actually disgusted or are you getting worked up over this just for the sake of being petty?


  • Options
    #11
    RoosterIllusion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 395 ✭✭RoosterIllusion


    It gave me a firm erection.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #12
    Black Swan
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,258 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    Pocono Joe wrote: »
    I thought the speech was good, but he will turn out to be Jimmy Carter incarnate.
    Oh, but there will be a difference! No peanuts!
    Pocono Joe wrote: »
    Lets face facts people. Hyprocracy is rampant in American politics.
    Oh, I can find proof of that... Just read what is quoted at the base of the Statue of Liberty and compare that to the treatment of men, women, and children that entered illegally and are now held indefinitely in Texas private sector for-profit prisons (traded on the NY stock exchange), which the former VP Dick Cheney had an interest in.

    "Give me your tired, your poor,

    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"


  • Options
    #13
    banquo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,487 ✭✭✭banquo


    His iowa caucus speech was the best.

    "They said this day would never come"


  • Options
    #14
    Matt Holck
    Registered Users Posts: 9,706 ✭✭✭Matt Holck


    Blue_Lagoon wrote: »
    Oh, but there will be a difference! No peanuts!
    what about beer?

    the speech
    more transparent sounds like a hedge trimming not open government

    hedge cutting


  • Options
    #15
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    Blue_Lagoon wrote: »
    Oh, but there will be a difference! No peanuts!

    You’re so right... no peanuts... just plane nuts.

    Blue_Lagoon wrote: »
    "Give me your tired, your poor,

    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

    Ahhhh, that kooky zionist Emma Lazarus and her sonnet. Time to change the inscription... how about:
    Give me your educated, your credentialed, your cubicle jockeys yearning to cash checks, the fluent doctors abandoning your teeming shores. Send these, the smart, the trained, to me: I lift my lamp beside the door of privilege.


  • Options
    #16
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    Ruskie4Rent wrote: »
    Disgusted? Were you actually disgusted or are you getting worked up over this just for the sake of being petty?

    How can we ever transcend racism when we sanction and embrace (from anyone) things like that poem, or even this:
    http://michellemalkin.com/2009/01/19/feel/


  • Options
    #17
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,804 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Pocono Joe wrote: »
    How can we ever transcend racism when we sanction and embrace (from anyone) things like that poem...
    What, specifically, disgusted you about it? Genuinely curious.


  • Options
    #18
    Manic Moran
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,401 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    Where's the "The speech was about what one would expect, and we'll wait to see before determining how good he is" option?

    NTM


  • Options
    #19
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,804 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Reason number 412 why we don't generally allow polls on Politics.


  • Options
    #20
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    What, specifically, disgusted you about it? Genuinely curious.

    This might come as a surprise from a "supposed neo-con," but I have always tried to preach against racism. I have always taught equality amongst races to my children, and argue against hate speech when I hear it – no matter it be white, black, red, yellow or green. As I stated, the entire poem I previously noted is disgusting to me. In the 60’s it was revenant, and maybe that is where this preacher is stuck. But when this kind of speech is sanction and embraced, it tells people that it is okay to think and communicate this way. And it isn't!


  • Options
    #21
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,804 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Pocono Joe wrote: »
    This might come as a surprise from a "supposed neo-con," but I have always tried to preach against racism. I have always taught equality amongst races to my children, and argue against hate speech when I hear it – no matter it be white, black, red, yellow or green.
    I'm genuinely pleased to hear that.
    As I stated, the entire poem I previously noted is disgusting to me.
    I still don't get why. It's as if you're annoyed by the mere suggestion that the US isn't a colour-blind utopia, and the election of a black President is just a run-of-the-mill occurrence.

    Have you asked your black, red, yellow and green friends if they feel the same way?


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #22
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    The green ones are still hunched over the toilet.

    Okay maybe this will be more clear. Sure there are individuals who are racists. But to target an entire race in hate type talk is disgusting. It would be like me stating … When the Irish refrain from being dullards and drunkards…

    (Side note: I am guilty of Irish Alzheimer’s… I forget everything but the grudges)


  • Options
    #23
    orourkeda
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,918 ✭✭✭✭orourkeda


    Racism will persist as long as people exist. Everyone has a chip on their shoulder, it's just that some are more prominent than others.


  • Options
    #24
    CtrlSource
    Registered Users Posts: 825 ✭✭✭CtrlSource


    Pocono Joe wrote: »
    This might come as a surprise from a "supposed neo-con..."

    Didn't the neocons go the same way as the dinosaurs? Cheney was looking fairly Paleocene on Tuesday..


  • Options
    #25
    Pocono Joe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Pocono Joe


    Obama might be comming over to the Dark Side. I see he just attacked Pakistan.


  • Options
    #26
    silverharp
    Registered Users Posts: 18,393 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    Jon Stuarts take on it , funny

    http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216538&title=changefest-09-obamas-inaugural

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Options
    #27
    The Raven.
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,008 ✭✭✭The Raven.


    Pocono Joe wrote: »
    Okay maybe this will be more clear. Sure there are individuals who are racists. But to target an entire race in hate type talk is disgusting. It would be like me stating … When the Irish refrain from being dullards and drunkards…
    … and when white will embrace what is right.

    Relegated to the bottom of the colour pile, this statement implies that white people in general are not at present embracing what is right. In fact, it singles out white people only as wrongdoers. It is interesting to note that this kind of racist rant was suppressed during the election campaign. Is it safe now to come out and take a swipe at the ‘whities’? What kind of message does this inaugural irreverence from the Rev. Lowery send out to ‘fellow Americans’, including those who voted for Obama?


  • Options
    #28
    Matt Holck
    Registered Users Posts: 9,706 ✭✭✭Matt Holck


    rhyming white with right is problematic no matter how that last line was phrased

    I tried "the white are all right" in a colloquial feel good sense
    but that could be interpreted as white people know what's best.

    perhaps
    ""the white won't have to live in fright"


  • Options
    #29
    The Raven.
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,008 ✭✭✭The Raven.


    To say ‘the white are all right’ could also suggest that all the white people are politically conservative. To say ‘the white won't have to live in fright’ could be construed as casting aspersions on other races.

    The whole sentence points a finger at white people. In the interests of the ‘feel good sense’ he should have left it out altogether, as it is hideous rubbish anyway.


  • Options
    #30
    Overheal
    Registered Users Posts: 83,282 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    I dont see anyone complaining about this:

    Lowery.jpg

    “Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest,
    and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for
    that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown
    can stick around. ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and
    when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do
    justice and love mercy, say amen. Say amen.”

    -Rev. Joseph Lowery

    best benediction evar


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #31
    Running Bing
    Registered Users Posts: 3,841 ✭✭✭Running Bing


    donegalfella wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.

    He's centrist in almost everything he does tbh.....it all adds to the feeling that Barack has had his eye on the prize for a very very long time and has done everything in his power to get there. Nothing wrong with that of course as long as he can deliver when the time comes.


    As for the benediction.......the way I interpreted it, and feel free to point out if Im out of line on this, is he is saying we will work for the day, in the future, when Black people and Native Americans will no longer be discriminated against and when white people will embrace what is right. This suggests to me at the moment white people have not "embraced what is right".

    I dont think that's a very appropriate thing to say tbh and I do find it slightly offensive. To suggest racism is dead or the US is a colour blind nation is pure folly of course and I am not condoning that view for a second. I just feel now its a case of everybody working against racism and for racial equality rather than the "white people need to wake up" view.

    Racism is certainly not only confined to white people and I believe the majority of white people have embraced what is right and I think it is wrong to suggest otherwise.


Advertisement