18th
America, American Government, Christians, Louisiana, Politics, Freedom
Text of The Puppet’s Philadelphia speech ‘I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community’
posted by WorldNetDaily
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Two hundred and twenty-one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their Declaration of Independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution—a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part—through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk—to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign—to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together—unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction—towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story. I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners—an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts—that out of many, we are truly one. Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in States with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
[Maybe you are an African, but I'm tired of my fellow black Americans being labeled as African. Their ancestors may have come from there but they are simply Americans! The Africans trapped their ancestors like animals and sold them for rum and then the Spanish sold them for to the highest bidder. They are not Africans just like I'm not from France.!]
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn. On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
[We are all offended because clearly you're not American!]
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely—just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
[His use of the word "stalwart" at the time of this speech would, to many, seem like he was referring to being strong. But now, after a year and a half in office, I'm leaning more toward the reference of the "Stalwarts" of the 19th Century United States Republican Party. They were a type of offspring of the Republicans. But you have to understand that in the 19th Century the Republicans and the Democrats were the opposite of what today's political parties are. Today the Republicans are more reserved and the Democrats are more liberal—that wasn't the case in the 19th Century. The Stalwarts favored the hierarchy political-type machine. They were the type of "I do for you, if you do for me" kind of people. Political appointments were a big thing to them. So, why would the puppet use this particular term to describe Israel because he is the more stalwart type...not in strength, but in the political machine-running way. His many unnecessary political appointments proves this fact.]
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems—two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s† work here on Earth—by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity—”People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note—hope!—I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories—of survival, and freedom, and hope—became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish—and with which we could start to rebuild.”
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety—the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
[This man is living in the past because his now- ideology has been dead for years and years. I can say this because I LIVE in the South. I've had black professors, black Deans of Colleges, black bankers, black doctors who treated ME! There are NO differences here! Those who chose to be different, CHOSE to be that way. Those who CHOSE to sit on welfare, sit in the projects, suck up the drugs and sell their bodies, CHOSE to do that. I'm sorry. When I walk on the campus of Nicholls State University, I see equal. When I taught in the classroom, I had an equal amount of black and white students confide in me because they trusted me as a PERSON! The puppet is trying to cause a race war when there is NO race issue! Pay attention how many times he uses the words "race" or "racial." Pay attention how many times he makes a separation between black and white here. This man is hurting my fellow black Americans and we can't let this continue. They deserve more respect than this.]
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions—the good and the bad—of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother—a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love. [Very questionable!] Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
[He eventually does dismiss Wright, so much so, as if he never knew him.]
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America—to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality. [He's the one who's doing the amplifying.] The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through—a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. [Apparently he didn't fully understand what people were telling him.] And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
[None of these things have anything to do with RACE!]
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
[This speech was given in 2008. Why is he talking about Jim Crow and slavery? I know my fellow black Americans down here aren't slaves and if we need to, in the aftermath of a hurricane, we would share a shower. And all those who served in the military don't need a hurricane to agree—we all share a shower and not one single woman or man snorts or argues. Instead, we laugh and joke and share our soap. The puppet needs to take a reality pill!]
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them [Where? Haven't we fixed them?], fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
[This achievement gap has NOTHING to do with being white or black. It has everything to do with each individual person and their will to learn. Ask Abe Lincoln who had NO books, as well as the first century of Presidents of the United States. People who wrote the Constitution—some lacked formal education. I know of two people right now Mr. Paul Hains and Mr. Woodrow Oubre, Sr. who made millions with less than a fourth grade education. The lack of will in education is very apparent in this man's speech because his teachers have failed him. He has failed himself as well for not properly understanding or comprehending what he was reading if he studied history and the Bible at all!]
Legalized discrimination—where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments—meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.
[This is also not true. Yes, there WAS a gap in the past. I would have to add, there was a gap between rich whites and poor whites as well. This black-white gap spoken about here was decades ago. Here in South Louisiana, I know of several businesses owned by blacks and several businesses owned by whites—both at equal standing. The force of separation between black and white Americans is the fault of people with this type of thinking. If you go to any school campus and just observe the student body, you will see something very interesting. Pay attention puppet because obviously you missed this in Psychology class. Like-biological specimens tend to stick together. On that campus you will see a majority of the black students hanging together, a majority of the white students hang together, then theirs the intellectual breakdown: the science geeks, the math geeks, the writer geeks, etc. Get my point. This is the natural order of things. If you want to fully understand the WHY behind the tension between whites and blacks in South, you'll have to wait and read my books. I assure you, you WILL understand then!]
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families—a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. [This is also explained in my books. This wasn't the Southern white population's fault nor was it the Southern black population's fault. Who does that leave you?] And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods—parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement—all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
[This was a man-made created f....up which was brought on by a CAUSE! Then after the CAUSE was OVER, these great people who had to struggle just like the Southern French did (if you don't know that story, then you are very uneducated). We all were left ALONE to survive! After certain presidents got their vote, their promises were gone and guess who was left with NOTHING! The very people who ended up in these so-called government homes. They were mad as hell and I would be, too!]
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted.
[You are not very bright at all. You have to understand why segregation happened to understand history in order not to repeat it. A number of great Presidents warned not to go to War with the South over slavery, not to override States' rights—the North didn't listen. A number of great Presidents warned after the North came in and burned our Southern culture to the ground (including those black Americans' homes—the ones you so openingly call yours) to not rush Reconstruction, but the North did not listen. Instead they sent goons like the ones you have and forced Reconstruction. So let me put it simple for you—they carelessly threw two separate races into one pot. Let me break it down further for you. Take a dog and a cat for instance. If you throw a dog and a cat who don't know each other in a locked room, they are going to fight to the death, but if you slowly introduce them to each other, they will bind. I know...I've done it. That's what happened. Did you get that lesson, puppet. The North forced the black and white races together all at once instead of allowing us to mend on our own in nature's own way. The bottom line—the North played God. And anytime someone plays God, evil WILL step in and take over. None of us wanted to hate each other but the forced issued in turned forced us to retaliate using each other as a weapon against the NORTH! Now...do you see the bigger picture!]
What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
["out of no way" Slang? Like you? You are nothing like our black Americans!]
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American dream, there were many who didn’t make it—those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations—those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
[Oh! you are now talking about yourself in a very big way. Because no one has exploited what happened to my fellow black Americans more than you. And, I'm sorry again—I hate repeating myself—those who you have spoken about here in this paragraph, that are in prison, on the streets—they are there because of their own choice. All doors have been open for a very long time and you are blinded and all those who CHOSE to believe these are not open are blinded.]
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
[Your Reverend has blinded you to the real truth of this here United States of America. Blacks and Whites have together spilled their blood to form this great nation and I be damn if we are going to let you destroy it with you racial blabber!]
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience—as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.
[And now YOU are doing it! Give me a break. You are a lying sleaze. Go back to college because you've wasted your money! The federal government is constantly stealing our hard-working money, that's why we are angry. We're not angry because of black people. Did someone drop you on the head when you were a baby?]
They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
[What about it? We are all supposed to be equal! You should earn your position...as you should have and you didn't!]
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
[And you're doing exactly the same but in the worst kind of way!]
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze—a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; [Isn't this something to go back and read!] economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns—this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
[He's part white himself!]
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. [I don't see it.] Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy—particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own. But I have asserted a firm conviction—a conviction rooted in my faith in God† and my faith in the American people—that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
[I would assume he has retracted this paragraph in full. He doesn't show any belief in God† and the American people. He doesn't show any love for the races of the American people except for Moslems. He seems to WANT to create tension when there's no tension there. Seems kind of odd, don't you think?]
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our [Why does he continually put himself in this past?] past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances—for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs—to the larger aspirations of all Americans—the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off [He's singling people out here, why? What purpose does it serve?], the immigrant [They don't have a right to be here!] trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives—by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
[Okay, here, he totally oversteps what he said earlier that those in jail and on the streets were there because of racism, now it's a new story.]
Ironically, this quintessentially American—and yes, conservative—notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change. The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country—a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old—is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know—what we have seen—is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope—the audacity to hope—for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
[He totally praises this man then totally bashes him in the same speech and no one caught this. America, are you still sleeping?]
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination—and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past—are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds—by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system [What? When the judge has no right to sequester a jury, when the judge has no right to strike anything from the record or throw out ANY evidence, fairness! I think you need to look at your own people first.]; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.
[What other ladders do you want. I love my black Americans as much as my White Americans but come on. Ebony Magazine, black networks, black talk shows, black talk show hosts, black universities...I don't see any strictly white anything. You are pushing buttons that don't need to be pushed. The card falls on both sides of the table. White people can't have all-white universities but black people can. I think every American citizen knows that the dues are paid and that we have moved on. The only person still living in the past is you. If those on welfare want to get off of welfare and live the American dream, they need to get out the house, find a job that pays anything, and start their road to success. It's all about choice. They either want it or not. Don't be passing this blame game because you will lose!]
It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
[This is America buddy. You earn your own money. That's what this country was built on. You have misinterpreted Scripture. It means to take care of our brother when they are down, sick, hungry, in need. It does NOT mean that I share my wealth with them because GOD† does not reward those guilty of the Seven Deadly Sins—Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth. You, my friend, are guilty of every one.]
For we have a choice in this country. [Did he say CHOICE?] We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle—as we did in the OJ trial [He KILLED his WIFE!]—or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina [The Mayor and the former Governor failed to do their jobs and those people knew a hurricane was coming...they had time to get out! What stopped them? Hell, I would have walked. That wasn't about race, my sweet innocent puppy, that was about government not doing its job just like now back here in Louisiana for this oil spill.]—or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies. We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
[You were the one wanting a race war. John McCain is a war hero. You are a disgrace!]
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.
[Puppet...hey, they are still crumbling. Do you want to know why? I have your answer. Remember, I was a teacher. They are crumbling because the federal dollars you send to the school systems have a tag on them. It says not for use other than technology or books. Guess what...it's a waste of tax dollars. I have a book on this, too. Feeding the Monster. Guess what the Monster is? It'll be out later this year, then you can get educated on the education system.]
This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
[You are such a hypocrite. The reason we have problems in the school—no political official will ever see this because when a political official visits a school, the school is groomed for the visit. Clinton is the fault of this one. Remember, you beat your kid than you go to jail. That was Clinton. Oh, he retracted 4 years later. Four years to late. Many families were separated because a child got a whipping from a parent and called social services because they were mad. Now, there is no discipline in schools. Punishments are a joke and teachers have ZERO rights so they give up! It's your fault. It's the No Child Left Behind fault. The federal government is a joke when it comes to education. The best thing for all these children is for the federal government to GET OUT the education business because it's your fault that our children are low on the international educational pole! You have no idea what you've done...absolutely none. All your shrinks and fancy numbers people are a waste of tax-payer money and they drive BMWs while the poor black kid and the poor white kid might be sleeping in an old broken down dodge tonight—if their lucky. Idiots!]
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together. This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
[Guess who's pushing them overseas...you! You are a hypocrite. Said that already. Instead of allowing all those banks to fail like they should have because they chose to do what they did, you gave them OUR money and now we are in a bind, aren't we? We are not created equal....GET THAT! We are NOT equal. Hitler already tried this...he FAILED and so will you! Americans aren't afraid of war. We aren't afraid to die! You greatly underestimate who we ARE!]
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. [But not you!] We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged [A Lie...you are doing everything you can to keep them there. You bad mouth a United States President then you turn around and do exactly what he did because you know he was right in the first place. Bush would have brought them home already. Bush made mistakes like every other President in our history, but he was proud of our Country. He cried for our Country. He served our Country. He wasn't afraid to shake a strangers hand or hug a stranger is despair or salute our flag and sang our National Anthem (he knows every word). Bush was a great President because he clearly LOVED America.], and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
[How about mourning them when they die!]
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. [At the time because you LIED to them.] This union may never be perfect [How dare you?], but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation—the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
[But you have destroyed the next generation's hopes!]
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today—a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there. And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat. She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the round-table that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents, too. Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegal [Yeah!]. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of the puppet. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.” “I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. [That should have told him right there that there is no RACE issue!] It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children. But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty-one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
[A little bit more education. Puppet, you should have studied the American people a little bit more. No American President refers to their people by race. They refer to their people as "Every American," "Americans" "Every man, woman and child." Because that's who we are here. We do have our differences and sometimes those differences get pretty colorful...but their OUR differences. We ARE AMERICANS..."EVERY AMERICAN." As a country, we are not white or black, we are AMERICANS. Apparently Oprah and your terrorist buddies didn’t properly inform you of that
To who ever reads this…I apologize to you if I sound disrespectful. I’ll be honest. I don’t recognize this person as my President. Sorry…I know the Constitution and I have served my country and a member of my family has fought in every single war this country has ever been in. I can’t stand by and hold my tongue. ENOUGH is ENOUGH and I know there are plenty of “MEs” out there.
As a Marine who’s job it is to salute this man when he gets off that plane…I wouldn’t. YOU don’t HAVE to do anything. The Military Salute is a sign of respect. By Saluting to him, you are lowering your standards to his level…you are lying about who you are and what you stand for! Don’t let this man and his goons do that to you.
The puppet says he’s a Christian man. I don’t see it. And only God† know if he truly is. But because of HIS failure to lead, failure to do the job he was HIRED by THE PEOPLE to do…he has shown me that he is unworthy. He needs to be fired! The PEOPLE of the United States should call for an IMMEDIATE IMPEACHMENT. Compared to the charges against Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, the puppet should be put immediately in prison and the key thrown away. So, do understand my “pissed” off attitude. Believe me, it’s not anger. It’s more of a disbelief that good American people would vote for a man because of his skin color and not because of his experience, ethics, character, background, service record, voting record, beliefs, family values, and honor.
I’m more stunned than anything. I have come to terms that a mistake was made. This wrong can be righted. God† didn’t give us…US…our ANCESTORS…this vast, wonderful country just for the sake of it. He knew that every generation that follows no matter if your history includes slavery, persecution, slaughter (my people barely made it)…it doesn’t matter. God† gave this land to them to give to us. Our Ancestors came from everywhere—Europe, Africa, the Islands, the Far East. They came to this new world and struggled and bled for US.
We all have it really nice, and it doesn’t matter if you live in a five-bedroom mansion or a one-bed room shack. We have our freedom. Look around…when the law does come, it’s because you did something suspicious or wrong and they have been given the position as our watchdogs to keep us safe. We all have jobs that help keep us safe…some more important that’s all. So, don’t think just because you’re always in trouble now, you’ll ALWAYS be in trouble. You’ll get through it and the lawmen will stop coming around. Just remember, if you’re an American reading this…you are special. You live in the greatest country in the world. Yes…you do. It’s yours and it’s free. Step outside…take a deep breath…see the sun…see the trees…see people just walking everywhere….hearing someone yelling somewhere (makes you want to yell back)…hear that traffic go by…guess what…that’s freedom. That’s what it looks like.
So, raise your voice. There’s NO Color here…”EVERY AMERICAN!” Get these people out the of OUR White House and take back our freedom by abolishing these crazy, loony laws they’ve been passing behind our backs. Come on, fight with me. I’m not in the condition to care an M16 anymore, but I have words…lots and lots of words. Come on…I know there’s a lot of rappers, actors, artist, teenage girls, skate boarders, gangsters…all the ones who like NOISE! How about making some NOISE for freedom. Retirees, farmers, firemen, lawmen, soldiers, doctors, nurses, teachers, writers, animal lovers, tree huggers…come with me…MAKE SOME NOISE!!! You have the freedom of SPEECH…Get on a sidewalk, in the middle of a shopping center…in a mall. Get some blank paper…draw something that stands for being free. Hell-smell print this up and pass it around. We Are AMERICANS! Let’s show the world what this new Millennium of AMERICANS can do! God† Bless. k.
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