There is a wonderful post Media Corruption and Obama’s Theory of Governance up at Firedoglake that points out something that really resonates with me:
Bigorty, racism, militarism and media corruption are strangling America, and we have to find a way to beat them.
They link to a a speech in Indiana this weekend, where Obama is referring to Bobby Kennedy's speech after Martin Luther King's assasination:
I think about those words often, especially in the last several weeks - because this campaign started on the basis that we are one America. As I said in my speech at the convention in 2004, there is no black America, or white America, or Asian America, or Latino America. There is the United States of America.
But I noticed over the last several weeks that the forces of division have started to raise their ugly heads again. And I’m not here to cast blame or point fingers because everybody, you know, senses that there's been this shift...
We’ve got a lot of pent-up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding. But what I continue to believe in is that this country wants to move beyond these kinds of divisions. That this country wants something different. . . .
I just want to say to everybody here that as somebody who was born into a diverse family, as somebody who has little pieces of America all in me, I will not allow us to lose this moment, where we cannot forget about our past and not ignore the very real forces of racial inequality and gender inequality and the other things that divide us.
We have to come together. That’s what this campaign is about. That’s why you are here. That’s why we're going to win this election. That’s how we're going to change the country.
The person who posted this - Scarecrow - goes on to point out the dissonance between Obama's desire to "end the mindset" while at the same time rejecting the underlying message that Wright gave voice to.
My sense tonight is that ill winds are blowing all around us, that the storm clouds of 9/11 aftermath are heading right into raging immigration anger, with a tornado of economic collapse quickly encircling us.
2 months ago, there was a meme that pondered whether Obama was the Messiah - just over a week ago, Glenn Beck, host of the third-highest-rated radio show among adults ages 25 to 54, asked Pastor John Hagee whether Sen. Obama is the embodiment of evil.
Obama plans to deliver a speech "on race, politics and unifying our country'' Tuesday morning in Philadephia. Sen. Dick Durbin, a close advisor who has talked to Obama about the speech, said the address is one the candidate "has reflected on personally and with a great deal of intensity."
Headlines like this are on the front page of sites & newsprint:
GREENSPAN: FINANCIAL MESS WORST SINCE WWII...
Wall Street waits for next domino to fall...USA in Iraq Long-Term...
POPE: ENOUGH WITH THE SLAUGHTERS...
I was not really aware of all the turmoil in the late '60s and '70s, when I was growing up in America. I am aware of it now. That awareness leaves me shaken, disheartened and moving deeper into prayer.
For some reason, Marvin Gaye's masterpiece What's Going On is playing in my soul:
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya
Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today
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