posted August 29, 2008
While Barack Obama has adopted the phrase, "yes we can," as a major campaign slogan, the words that come out of his mouth and the type of policies he proposes suggest the exact opposite...No, You Can't.
No, you can't provide health care for your family. No, you can't send your child to college. No, you can't prepare for and support your own retirement. No you can't put a roof over your head. No you can't get a decent job that will pay you a comfortable wage. No, you can't afford child care. It is instead the role of the federal government to do for you what you are clearly incapable of doing for yourself.
That's the message of the Obama campaign. You can't, government can. Inspiring indeed. This type of political rhetoric has been around for a 'long' time. If you can see beyond the color of Obama's skin and evaluate him on the content of his message, it's no different from any other leftist of the past 50 years. The lyrics might have changed, but the tune is the same.
This is a man who follows closely in the footsteps of another past famous "community organizer" by the name of Saul Alinsky, who also happens to also be from Chicago. If you have never heard of Saul Alinsky I encourage you to do some research. I have neither the time nor space to get into a history of Saul Alinsky and his philosophies, but here is a quote of his...
"Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."
Read that last sentence again. "This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."
In order for "change" to occur you must first convince people to accept the fact that they are "frustrated, defeated, lost, and futureless."
Sound familiar?
Obama's message is 'not' one of hope. It's instead a message of hopelessness; that you have no power over your own well being, that you are incapable of providing for yourself and your family without a strong government presence in your life. Regardless of his slogans, Obama's campaign for President depends on his ability to convince millions of Americans to believe "No, We Can't" and that their hopes, goals, and desires rest not with themselves, but with Him and His government.
I, for one, feel sorry for people who will vote for Obama with the misguided expectation that he can make their lives better.
Shane Beasley
Signal Mountain
* * *
I think Mr. Beasley watched a different speech than the one so many Americans, including myself, was riveted by last night. Or perhaps he didn't watch the speech at all and is only regurgitating the rhetoric that has become par for the course these days in politics. Either way, I'd like to share how different Obama's speech was than what Mr. Beasely has accused. Obama did not say that the government would fix everyone's problems - in fact, he said pretty much the opposite. He talked about personal responsiblity and making sure each individual does his or her part. He talked about the promise of America, the promise that says "each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect". I can't argue with that, can you Mr. Beasley? Obama went on to talk about government's role and our own individual roles, saying "Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves – protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology." Again, I tend to believe those things play a key role in how government's should operate.
Obama went on to say "Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need." Here is a "leftist" Democrat, imploring us to be more energy efficient in our homes and to take care of our own children, not promising that the government will turn off your light switches and micromanage your parenting style. He's asking 'you' to do it, what you should be doing already but what many of us forget or are too busy for or don't know we ought to do. He is asking for personal responsibility from people and not what Mr. Beasley has proclaimed, a "passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude" non-thinking America.
Obama couldn't state it any clearer when he said "That's the promise of America – the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation". How Mr. Beasley misunderstood this speech is beyond me. But don't take his word for it - don't take my word for it or any of their words for it, the people who talk and talk about these candidates day in and day out.
Listen, watch, don't fall prey to the rhetoric on either side, and then make your decision not our of fear or old habits or idealism, but out of love and respect for this country and the American Promise that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation.
Lacie Newton
Chattanooga
* * *
I think Mr. Beasley hit the nail right on the head. Everything about the Democratic National Convention was all negative. It was all about how bad America is, how bad the war is, how bad our president is, how bad the economy is (though yesterday it was announced that GDP grew by 3.3%), how we middle Americans can't get along without Obama and the liberals to save us. How they have the answer to all our problems and the energy crisis, while they stand firmly in the way of our drilling and producing our own oil.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid both ran on having an energy plan when they took over congress. Two years later gas prices doubled and they recessed with no vote and no plan. The rhetoric is the same as it has been for years from the left, not an original idea in the mix. Even the naming of Joe Biden wreaks of a dinosaur that has been in Washington most of his working life and he has been wrong on more foreign policy decisions that right.
I have many things that I am not happy with President Bush about, primarily his reckless spending, though the 9/11 attacks did require the creation a homeland security agency and a complete overhaul of our depleted CIA and FBI, crippled by the Clinton Administration. And we have not been attacked again, so I would think it somewhat successful. We were attacked numerous time during the Clinton years and nothing substantive was done to prevent 9/11, which was planned during his administration.
The illegal war was simply not illegal by any standards of common sense. There were 17 UN resolutions that that lame agency was not willing to enforce, though we fund the majority of their existence.
We went to war with all of the leading Democrats, including Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton, voting yes, and we have tapes of their hawkish speeches about Saddam's threats to this nation. Even Al Gore and Bill Clinton numerous times talked about Saddam's threat to our security and the region that the world economies depend on. Yet, when it became convenient to turn on the President to win an election they threw our soldiers under the bus. This is the lowest of lows for any politician, and it didn't happen in WWII even after losing 15,000 soldiers in one day on the beaches of Normandy...but then again there were no CNN or MS NBC reporters on the beaches with our troops. The majority of AL Qieda operatives captured or killed were killed in Iraq, and Al Zarquiri was recovering in Saddam's hospital from leg injuries suffered in Afghanistan. So I guess there was some support from Saddam.
The bottom line is, for the Democrats to succeed America must fail and it must be a dreadful country in their minds, and that is a bad place to be for any party platform to be. We are now planning to exit Iraq in the next three years as victors not losers, and not defeated by a bunch of radical Islamic terrorists. And Barrack still thinks the surge should not have happened? Go figure.
Keith Roberts
* * *
This is a great example of the main difference between the Christian, rightwing Republican philosophy and the Christian, leftwing Democratic philosophy. One espouses the goodness of selfishness and the idea that “the least of these” are not our problem and should not be helped by our government, while the other believes just the opposite.
One would think that a government that spends trillions on illegal war and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, it wouldn’t hurt it to share a little of our great wealth with the “least of these” and even with the great middle class that is struggling and finding itself in need of some help from the government for the sake of their children and their elderly.
What good is a government that cannot use our tax money in a way that helps us as a whole American family, especially those that really need help, and especially the “least of these” that are desperate for help? A true family helps and cares for all its members and doesn’t cast any of them aside just because they can’t make it on their own.
There is no logical reason to believe that helping our own is a bad thing and will prevent people from pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
Those that can do well without any help, let them do well. It’s not going to bankrupt them or be any skin off their noses if help is given to those that need it, especially “the least of these.”
Naman Crowe
Ferger Place
namancrowe@yahoo.com
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