Speech of Michella Obama given on January 31, 2008 at Delaware State University in Dover, Delaware.
This woman is an amazing speaker. An astounding speaker. And she will make you realize one thing: she gets it. Barack gets it.
They understand what has happened to America. This speech is not about vague policy talking points. It's about what we know to be true. And it's not a speech you have ever heard before.
Watch the whole thing. Please. I guarantee this is worth your time.
.
4 comments:
Nice lady, I'll take her over Bill any day. I wonder, though, what her husband and her plan is for our education issues. I don't hear her speaking against corrupt and ineffectual teachers' unions or denouncing the antiquated tenure system or even questioning if the cost of education is rediculous on the face of it.
Isn't diploma chasing a whole lot like ribbon chasing? The substance that the ribbon/diploma is supposed to represent isn't really being created or assessed by the very expensive process upon which those awards are given.
The message of change is nice and all, but what is changing? A coat of paint on the outside or the foundation of the house? I do real estate as a side business and I'll confirm that most buyers notice and even buy because of the fresh paint, but they're fools for ignoring the foundation. I don't think voters are much different.
The foundational platforms of all of the candidates have major problems, but it takes work to examine the foundation, it only takes impulse to assess the paint.
I'll probably hate every policy issue Obama puts forth as president, but at least the speechs will be better. I don't think I'm wrong in thinking that most voters will decide on charisma instead of platform. That'd be no different than any election before.
Listen to what she's saying (at least listen if I have put up the right video ... I am on the road in Philly, using a borrowed computer, and I have put up this video up after seeing the speech on C-Span, but I cannot see it on this hotel computer for some reason, so hopefully I got the right clip up, but if not, I will add the right one in a few hours).
Barak Obama is saying (through his wife in this clip) that what has to change is US. All of us. We have to recognize that we live in a society of mutual obligation. "To which much is given, much is expected." That's a bit different than the "I got mine, screw you" that the nation has been working on for the last 8-20 years.
The message is also one that change is not free. You want to wage war? Great, but it is not free, and it is not going to be a war in which only the soldiers and their families will be asked to sacrifice. You will have to pay more taxes to pay for it (yes wars cost a lot of money), you will have to embrace new fuel standards so we don't have to do it again, and we will have to take care of the veterans who will be on colostomy bags and without legs, arms and eyes for the duration. Yes war, results in not only deaths, but the seriously disabled as well. "Support the troops" is not a yellow ribbon sticker on the bumper of your SUV. It means supporting YOUR responsibilities to pay the consequences which are very real, very fiscal, and very human.
In other words, you will be asked to do MORE than go shopping. You will be asked to bear RESPONSIBILITY for consequences and choices.
As for education policy, that's not something the feds control a lot of, is it? The central plank of the GOP is to scrap the Dept. of Education because so much of it is state and local driven.
Of course we hear a lot of nonsense about education. A lot of well-to-do folks (that would be the folks you and I know and see on a daily basis) will tell you that money and facilities do not matter to education, and then they move into the areas with the richest schools or send their kids to private schools. You yourself are saying degrees are just paper and that hardly matters, but you say this from the security of Stanford University. That's a bit funny. As I have said before, watch what people DO, not what they say. People tell the truth with their legs and arms. Where they sit is almost always the choicest seat.
But not always. Some folks truly are different. Barack went to the poorest and most blighted neighborhoods in Chicago to organize for $10,000 a year while the other candidate went off to engage in padded billing at a law firm doing dubious deals. One was the solution, the other the problem. One sacrificed and lived the message and walked the streets of the poor and sat with the unemployed fctory workers, the other got paid while talking about a theory she got for a book. Oddly, the one that worked directly with the poor for years is also the one that went on to get the best law degree and the the one that also has the most time in elected office, and the only one that has worked at the local and state level where education can really be shaped. Again, hands-on experience, not second-hand theory.
Patrick
Most folks talking about health care have never walked around and looked, listened and smelled inside a nursing home. Most folks who talk about public schools have not been in one in an city public school in 20 or 30 years (if ever), much less sent their own kids there. People talk about union workers, but they have never been in a union workers living room, they talk about poverty but would never drive through a poor neighborhood, much less drive around. We need someone to say this. We need someone to ask us to get out of our comfort zone of suburban malls and nice lanscaped university campuses with center-hall lounges. We need someone to tell us that energy is not free, and war is not free, and education is not free. We can be better, and we NEED to be better, but we are not going to get there by doing the same old same old.
P.
PATRICK!
We need to start "Crazy opinionated dog bloggers for Obama!"
Michelle Obama's speech at UCLA Sunday literally made me cry.
Glad I was not the only one!
Patrick
Post a Comment