FP at the DNC: what did you think of Obama's speech?

 In Election 2012

Democrats are typically known for running scared from foreign policy, especially in a hotly contested election. In 2012, however, it was Mitt Romney who held back on global affairs in his convention speech, while Barack Obama had a bit more to say.

In the midst of a heated debate about cutting the deficit and reducing the bloated Pentagon budget, President Obama hit on a message we have been hammering for years:

And while my opponent would spend more money on military hardware that our Joint Chiefs don’t even want, I’ll use the money we’re no longer spending on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work – rebuilding roads and bridges; schools and runways. After two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, it’s time to do some nation-building right here at home.

Bringing balance to the federal budget, so that wasteful military programs aren’t eating up money that could be spent to improve our lives and help our most vulnerable, needs to be a top priority. You made that priority clear in voting overwhelmingly to pressure the candidates to address this very issue at the conventions.  Thank you to the thousands of you who took action.

While the Obama administration has stopped requesting money for some wasteful weapon systems (to the chagrin of many in Congress who keep throwing money at them), the budget plans he has put forth thus far would also increase military spending every year. It’s a far cry from Romney’s ludicrous plan to hit more than $800 billion in military spending by the end of the next decade, but it is still merely slowing the rate of growth of the bloated military budget rather than seriously reining it in.

With a deal to avert automatic spending cuts pending, we need to act to get President Obama, the Democratic Party, and Republican budget hawks to walk the walk.

President Obama also reiterated his plan to end the war in Afghanistan:

We’ve blunted the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over…My opponent said it was “tragic” to end the war in Iraq, and he won’t tell us how he’ll end the war in Afghanistan. I have, and I will.

The problem, of course, is that he hasn’t. This point is (deliberately) confusing, and not just to some voters—the media seems a bit unclear on this as well. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, President Obama has not delivered a clear plan to end the war.

At the end of this month, the 33,000 surge troops will come home from Afghanistan, leaving 68,000 troops on the ground. That means Obama’s first term will end with double the number of troops in the country as when he was inaugurated. He has yet to offer details on the withdrawals between now and 2014, other than saying they will continue at a “steady pace.” There are contradictory signals coming from the military, however, and House Republicans codified language supporting a plan to plateau at 68,000 troops for the next 2 years in their version of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The other major issue is that the administration clearly intends to have troops on the ground after 2014. Can you say a war is over when there are 10,000-20,000 troops leaving their families behind to serve in Afghanistan? Again, we don’t have details on troop levels or timeline, but the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership agreement leaves the door open to troops on the ground until 2024. The next step will be to negotiate a detailed Status of Forces Agreement, which will dictate conditions for a US military presence and troop numbers. While the SOFA ultimately led to complete withdrawal from Iraq, it will take serious pressure to get the same result from an Afghanistan SOFA.

President Obama’s aggressive promotion of a plan to end the war in Afghanistan is a testament to the mobilization of activists around the country who have helped shift the political climate on Afghanistan drastically over the last few years, and allies in Congress who have kept the drumbeat going (as Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) pointed out at the convention). Now we have to show that we are still paying attention to this issue and keep pushing for all of our troops to come home.

Democratic timidity around foreign policy issues has been one impediment to making progress on the pro-peace agenda, so seeing the party embrace leadership in this realm can be a positive step forward. That’s especially true when part of that strong leadership is embodied in rhetoric about ending wars and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

It’s unfortunate, however, that it also means embracing much of the war on terror rhetoric and the devastating policies that go along with it. Foreign Policy magazine tracked Osama bin Laden references at the DNC, and found 21 (20 more than at the RNC). The most notable was probably Sen. John Kerry’s “Ask Osama bin Laden if he’s better off than he was four years ago,” to my mind a nauseating line that could have been delivered in a bad action movie, evoking some of the beer-chugging celebrations that greeted bin Laden’s demise.

President Obama said in his speech, “I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have.” This supposed laser focus on terrorists, however, has swept up a lot of innocents in its wake. As Micah Zenko notes when commenting on criteria the administration supposedly uses for drone strikes, “The claim that the 3,000+ people killed in roughly 375 nonbattlefield targeted killings were all engaged in actual operational plots against the U.S. defies any understanding of the scope of what America has been doing for the past ten years.”

We need to continue to push for an embrace of foreign policy leadership that leaves behind the tragic and misguided war on terror. As Spencer Ackerman notes on the Danger Room blog, the speech lacked a vision for future engagement in global affairs. How exciting would it be to hear the president articulate a foreign policy vision based on cooperation, diplomacy, and shrinking our military budget to actually be relevant to the threats we face?

The next president will make crucial decisions on everything from nuclear weapons to Afghanistan to dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. The conventions gave us a small glimpse into their thinking. Next we have a series of debates that will force the candidates to go more in-depth. No matter what, we know we will always be called to mobilize and keep pushing for a better and smarter foreign policy.

What did you think of President Obama’s statements on foreign policy in last night’s speech? Let us know in the comments.

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Showing 263 comments
  • Michele Martin
    Reply

    I loved my Presidents speech – he is brilliant and wise and thoughtful and compassionate – he really cares about all people – not just the rich – I want him to get a 2nd term and really put in to practice all the things he wants to do to help our world

    • shaun
      Reply

      i agree Michele, thank you:)
      much love to Obama, thank you for caring about the young, the poor, the student, the immigrant and the environment…THANK YOU

    • Mary
      Reply

      My very same thoughts as well –

    • Marilyn
      Reply

      My thoughts exactly. With Obama there is even hope of peace. With Romney…. none.

    • Julianna Elias
      Reply

      I agree completely, and because it is the truth, I know that there are many others out there that feel the same way. I am so grateful that he came to us at this time. No, he is NOT the Messiah. He is something better…a real man with character, intelligence, self-control, wisdom, compassion, and the determination that comes with knowing you are on the right side of history.

    • Gordon Johnston
      Reply

      Michelle,

      I suggest you read more widely in alternative publications (left leaning) to understand the litany of concerns and complaints that are being leveled at Obama’s past three and one half years of basic failures by members of his own Party. You come across like the ultimate consumer, trained to respond to carefully crafted language to promote a product and convince you to buy it. That’s what Obama is: a product. Unfortunately, he doesn’t clean our environment, protect us from abuse by Wall St., give all of us health care coverage, or save anyone from death and disability via his endless love of endless wars.

      Maybe the Drone King is lovable to you. To me, he’s the biggest fraud of a president that I can remember. And I have a loooong memory. You may want a double dose, but I’m not willing to compromise my integrity by enabling him to fool us again.

  • Nicholas Pierotti
    Reply

    I can’t believe you bought the smoke and mirrors AGAIN…

    He said it four years ago, and then led us down the garden path, continuing the Bush legacy of War and of stripping Civil Liberties from citizens.

    The Democrats are really no different from the Republicans anymore. They both serve Wall Street and the War machine.

    The rights and well-being of the working people are always placed second to serving the rich.

    And Obama has rubber-stamped and continued the policies of the Bush administration in stripping Americans of their Constitutional rights, while continuing to overspend on War and make our foreign policy contingent upon the orders of Israel.

    I will be voting Third Party from now on.

    After all, that is how America elected Lincoln.

    Here are just a few links to posts on my page that provide information on what my platform is and how I would go about implementing it:

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=367818403231983&set=a.294335503913607.89611.294324130581411&type=1&ref=nf

    http://www.facebook.com/notes/nicholas-pierotti/priorities/330599870297896

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=328309567182867&set=a.294335503913607.89611.294324130581411&type=1&ref=nf

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=367820593231764&set=a.294335503913607.89611.294324130581411&type=3

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=359466454067178&set=a.294335503913607.89611.294324130581411&type=1&ref=nf

    And while you’re at it, go watch this video.
    Five minutes of your time.
    It might change your life. It might change the world.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEQ04ma_Hnk

    And keep spreading the word. Keep sharing my links, especially my speech. I still have a steep and rocky uphill climb to media recognition. Once the American People hear about me, I am confident I will win by a landslide.

    • Shrikumar & Mayurika Poddar
      Reply

      how can one help?

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      Vanity, thy name is Nicholas Pierotti. Vanity…is that the name of your party? Good grief!

    • Julianna Elias
      Reply

      In case you have not yet noticed, we do live in the real world……as we inherited it. I am always amazed at older people who still have all the easy answers they had when they were 8 years old. I hope you will keep your ideals, but grow up a little long enough to vote for someone who is a LOT better than those who may defeat him at the polls if enough people like you insist on staying in La La Land your entire lives.

    • Beth Cullison
      Reply

      YadaYada,” they all do it.” That’s the battlecry of pity-party, perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good zealots. This gentleman should be a whole lot smarter and wiser than that.

      • Dave Moffit
        Reply

        So if you vote and quote (The Republicans made me do it) The Grand Bargainer, is that like, you know a “mandate” for Clean Coal, NDAA, Hit Lists and Social Security …”reform”?

      • Ted Voth Jr
        Reply

        So vote for Obama again. Didn’t Einstein define insanity as ‘doing the same thing again and expecting different results?’

  • Rod
    Reply

    Well, at least Obama isn’t sabre rattling and promising new wars. He has a plan that we can work to try to influence in a better direction. That definitely cannot be said about Romney.

  • Dorothy Chamberlin
    Reply

    I think Pres Obama covered all the bases quite well. He laid out a comparison between the two choices we have and scored a Home Run.

  • Morris Roth
    Reply

    As a foreign policy president, excellent. In fact, couldn’t be bettered. Imagine Romney dealing with foreign affairs. Frightening!

  • Rex Powers Jr
    Reply

    if you are really serious about cutting military spending and promoting peace you should support a candidate who advocates these policys. The only national candidate doing so is Libertarian Gary Johnson.

    • KenS
      Reply

      My take is a little different. I don’t condemn winning politicians for being politicians–practicing the art of the possible. The problem is the advocates who, after raising the roof to elect him in 2008, then moved on, took the pressure off, and started treating him like a savior. Politicians only do what we make them do. The only ones who can save us is us. Thanks, Peace Action, for stoking the fires.

      • jennifer schultz
        Reply

        i dont believe anyone treated him like a savior. that was given to him by the GOP saying the left called him that. I never heard anyone call him a messiah or savior. is there any fact to that. i dont believe so. and pressure was never off anyone especially in congress. TARP was enacted by hank paulsen. pres bush told him to whatever you have to and whatever you want. and what do you mean to peace action stoke the fire. they are encouraging dialogue.

    • David Myers
      Reply

      There are a number of candidates and elected officials that are democrats and are supporting cutting military spending and promoting peace. I don’t know quite what you mean by “national candidate” (unless your referring to candidates for president) because those house members and senators are running for the national Senate and House.

  • Joanna Welch Lasen
    Reply

    I loved President Obama’s speech, it became overwhelmingly clear to me that his priorties are to support the Middle Class, he is clearly one of us, the 99%.

    • Gordon Johnston
      Reply

      Obama hasn’t supported the middle class for the last 3 and a half years, so don’t think he’s going to catch up on that if he gets a second term. He’s surrounded by Bush appointees who serve the corporate power structure and he has done little that’s substantive to curb Wall St. excesses. And that’s because he’s in bed with the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned the nation against. Obama is too focused on his death list and who to point his drones at to address unemployment, student debt and CEO golden parachutes. The middle class? Let them eat bread crusts. Obama prefers cake.

  • Carole Gilchrist
    Reply

    I am not happy that the “Jerusalem, Capitol of Israel” words were added back in. I know it’s rhetoric, but what does Israel have to do with the presidency of the U.S.? (other than popularity, of course) America’s citizenry oughta be asking more about the dual citizenship of some of our leaders and legislators. Isn’t the door wide open to conflicted interests? Is that really best for the American people?- leaders making choices based on dual-allegiances?

    • WizardG
      Reply

      @Carole Gilchrist. Pay close attention to them, because these taxpayer-wealth stealing, self-serving liars in politics and government do not act in our best interest! They all give lip-service to many issues. Their main objective is to keep their positions of power, wealth, and notoriety. They work tirelessly at helping each other, while the common people in this country are fooled into believing so much fluff. The door has always been wide open for conflicted interests and more when it comes to these con artist, deception based criminals. Again, we are being made fools by the whole political process and the “elite” sociopaths who keep it going.

      • Marilyn
        Reply

        The best solution is to work to change the system. First add an amendment to the Constitution to overtune and make Citizen’s United illegal and un-American. It is impossible to be revolutionary in a government won with corporate and rich guy billions. I also think that incorporating more influence by third parties in forming coalition governments might be interesting. However, since third party candidates would give us the worse candidate, I will vote for Obama. I don’t want an election like the one we with W.

    • Vaughn Hopkins
      Reply

      I agree that Israel did not belong in Obama’s speech, nor does it belong in the Democratic Party platform. Obama is pandering to the fundamentalists who think they need Israel to be strong and to engage in a great world ending battle with its neighbors. But, I also know that Obama is many times better than Romney on every issue of significance, and a vote for anyone but Obama is a vote for Romney, so I enthusiastically support Obama.

      • Lisbeth Applefield
        Reply

        I’m Jewish and I agree that the whole Israel/Palestinian issue has no place in a political party’s platform. And I also agree that Obama has greatness within him and the ability to really lead us forward.

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        I wouldn’t agree that Obama is pandering to fundamentalists, because it’s quite obvious that they will never vote for him. Obama, although he is not the kind of glad-handing politician we are used to seeing, must present balance to attract the center of the political spectrum, particularly those who identify themselves as independents. He’s a centrist himself and far to the right of me, but I recognize the danger of the Republican ticket and platform. Our democracy is in grave danger already, thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which triggered this flood of lying ads we are now drowning in.

        Obama’s speech gave me hope that we can make progress as a nation. It was quite the opposite with everything that happened in Tampa. I will gladly cast my vote for Obama, and I am working to get my Senator, Sherrod Brown and Obama re-elected. Our future is on the line.

    • jennifer schultz
      Reply

      well, pres obama had to give in somewhat to the party in order not to split it apart such as akin did with the rape comment. funny too cause the person who originally made that comment about legitimate rape was dr. mengele in nazi germany.

    • Carence
      Reply

      Why care about what the O man said in his speech? ‘Member when he said he’d put on a pair of comfortable shoes and march with striking workers? ‘D’ja see him out there in Wisconsin? Waitin’ to see him out in Chicago supporting the teachers?
      The one guy talkin’ about getting the US outta the wars, bringing our kids home from all our foreign bases and ending the drug “war” was marginalized and his voters vilified as cranks. Obama or Romney, we’ll get more fracking, more wars, more wire tapping, more silencing of whistle blowers, more kids thrown in jail for minor pot offenses, more…

  • jeandavid
    Reply

    I did not watch any of the Republican or Democratic party speeches or their conventions. It does not matter to me what any of those corrupt politicians have to say because what they have to say has next to nothing to do with what they will do if elected. The candidates of both party are corrupted by their paymasters and serve only those interests. Nothing the common citizen wants matters. Both parties are agents of the same rulers, not of the citizens. It is a big charade, Watching it is a complete waste of time.

    • David Myers
      Reply

      So you don’t vote either – because it’s a waste of time? I watched both conventions and I know a lot about how the two parties are different in their promises (some of the republican promises I have no doubt they would keep and would make the country worse for everyone but the rich. My knowledge of the Bush years and policies as well as the last (nearly) four years of the Obama presidency make it clear to me that Obama and the democrats do try to accomplish what they promise in spite of the obstructionism of the tea-party kidnapped republicans who famously stated that their princilple goal was (not to solve America’s problems but rather) “to make Obama a one-term president”. (republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell).

      • Joyce Hertzig
        Reply

        Thank you David. You have stated my feeling exactly. We can’t fault Pres. Obama for not keeping promises that only congress can legislate. People should go back to civics class and read how a bill is made.

        • Dave Moffit
          Reply

          Vote O’bama, Quote O’Bama-The Republicans “made” me do it! BTW, did the POTUS take a “civics” class and miss the day when they pointed out the legislature “makes” law, so his promise was just plumb ignorant? By voting you lend the bastards legitimacy… In the era of Corporate Owned-Corporate Operated Elections (CO-COE)…”We the People” have no choice. On Nov. 6th, I’ll be having my CoCoa at home.

          • Robert Mihaly

            We DO have a choice, but if we don’t exercise our right to vote, we will TRULY have NO choice. People who are ignorant about our political system probably don’t deserve to vote. Or are you just so smug and cynical that you don’t care to work for yourself to make it better?

        • Dave Moffit
          Reply

          Can we fault him for making promises only the Congress can deliver?

        • Robert Mihaly
          Reply

          It appears that civics is no longer taught in schools, because so many of these posts show complete ignorance of our system of government. Representative democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the others, it’s been said. The negativity in this forum is discouraging, so I will be cutting off comments shortly. My time will be better spent working to get Obama and Senator Sherrod Brown re-elected.

          • tedvothjr

            I fault him for making promises he knew he couldn’t keep if he would and wouldn’t keep if he could. He did, however, deliver on his promise of a bigger, better, badder war on Afghanistan. Wise choice; we can fight in Afghanistan forever. If Alexander and the British Empire and the Soviet Russian Empire couldn’t conquer Afghanistan there’s no reason to suppose a failing state like the US could. The Afghans will fight till the last foreigner is dead or has left their country (Afghanistan: Remember, even Americans are foreigners when we’re in someone else’s country.) And this is just fine with the Military-Industrial complex…

    • Lisbeth Applefield
      Reply

      Then, why waste your time on your negative pronouncements-you’ve already made your decision to allow others to dictate your life’s future. You wasted your time and energy writing the above and you wasted my time too.

    • Marilyn
      Reply

      Way too cynical for the citizen of a democracy. We have to have hope and keep working to change what we can. The conventions simply give us a good idea of what could happen with that candidate at the helm. If we change the system of electing and campaigning, things will improve. With the Republicans, that would never happen. It’s important to vote Obama.

      • tedvothjr
        Reply
      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        I like your attitude. But it’s painfully obvious that many of those who have posted on this forum have gone off the deep end, and, sadly, like Clint and members of the Tea Party, are also seeing an invisible Obama. If you continue posting, good luck with that. I’m sure not ready to give this country lock, stock, and barrel to the 1%, by default, no less. To those who can’t get over their disappointment that Obama wasn’t the Messiah…get over yourselves. We all have to be part of the solution, and we always did. I’m doing my part, and adding my 2 cents here ain’t it. We are up against the stupidest, most backward pack of Republicans I’ve ever seen, and we don’t combat that by being stupid, too. Some here, like you, get that. Some clearly don’t.

      • - bill
        Reply

        Just got around to reading your link above, Ted. It cuts cleanly through all the BS to the heart of some of the fundamental issues that progressives would be all over if Bush rather than Obama were pursuing them. Thanks.

  • Paul Troyano
    Reply

    President Obama raised good points in contrast to the other guy. But he neglected foreign policy, he did not mention Palestine and he did not mention his drone program. O yea and his rendition program, he is the first president to pass a law stating the president can hold US citizens indefinitely. I have no answers but I wish he was tough on single payer, and closing Guantanamo and holding banks accountable and ending foreclosures. I am glad he mentioned climate change which we need to stop and ending the wars. But I am not sure who I can vote for, I know it is not Romney.

    • Vaughn Hopkins
      Reply

      Any vote for a Presidential candidate other than Obama is a vote for Romney. That is an unfortunate truth. So, given that Obama is a lesser evil, by a factor of thousands, to Romney, I have to vote for Obama.

    • Kate Cloud
      Reply

      I didn’t watch the speech but am glad to know he talked about transferring some of the funding for war and the military toward meeting human needs. What I can’t figure out is why anyone believes he’ll actually do it. Haven’t we learned that he will often promise or imply a position that many of the left want to hear and then neglect to follow through? And yes, there are the drone assassinations, the erosion of our civil and constitutional rights, the gifting our health care system to the insurance companies etc. And don’t even get me started on his support for “clean” coal and fracking.

      Even if/when he actually wants to act in our interests the system will not allow it and he supports that system, above all else. As John Turley said recently in an interview with John Cusack: “there’s a great desire of many people to relieve themselves of the obligation to vote on principle”.

      Vote for Obama if you must (I’m voting for Jill Stein) but be honest about what you’re getting.

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        In other words, you’re voting to give this country to Romney and Ryan and Exxon. Don’t pretend to be high-minded when you allow the enemies of democracy to steal this election, or worse yet, by handing it over to them without a fight. When the Green Party becomes a legitimate force in this country and puts up a viable candidate, I might vote for him or her. This isn’t that time. Just remember how Ralph Nader allowed Dubya and the Supreme Court to steal the election in 2000. That was principles getting in the way of common sense. Don’t make the same mistake again.

    • Marilyn
      Reply

      There will never be a candidate I completely agree with. I pick the one I like the best, of the two major parties (third parties are too dangerous right now) and go all out for them. I am working to elect Obama and get out the vote.

  • Kathryn Riss
    Reply

    I read the President’s speech and was impressed with his thoroughness, thoughtfulness and truthfulness. Obviously, we would like more details about how he plans to solve many of America’s problems. He showed that he has the values, compassion, intelligence and ability to do so, but that will depend upon cooperation from recalcitrant Congresspeople.

    • David Myers
      Reply

      If you want that “cooperation” make sure you vote for a democratic House and Senate as well. In addition, if the democrats keep the Senate they must use the opening of the new Congress to amend the Senate rules (by a simple majority vote, not subjected to filibuster) to reform the Senate rules concerning filibusters so it can no longer be used as an absolute veto by a minority party. Originally filibusters were merely delaying tactics that could slow the passage of a bill – only for as long as a single opponent could continue to stand on the floor of the Senate and continue talking – when they stopped the vote was held. The republicans have abused the process so that now they threaten to filibuster every bill but their own bills. This is abuse of process. If the democrats take back the House and retain the Senate (as well as re-elects Obama) and then amend the Senate rules on the filibuster, they will be able to go ahead with their legislative agenda without the default veto of the republican minority in the Senate.

      • Lisbeth Applefield
        Reply

        Bravo!! My sentiments exactly and I couldn’t have said it better!! You nailed it!

      • Marilyn
        Reply

        The other most scary thing…. It is likely that the next President will be choosing two new Supreme Court justices. Vote Obama!

        • Robert Mihaly
          Reply

          Not only is it likely that the next President will be choosing two new Supreme Court justices. It is likely that Robert Bork will be choosing them, along with all other Federal judges. See my comments from around 10:58 last night for what a bad idea that is.

  • Linda Tift
    Reply

    Great speech. I hope he wins a second term to move our country forward. Especially loved his points on becoming less energy dependent and yet protecting our health and enviroment while working to become a green economy. Loved that he wants to make sure education money is a priority and making sure young people who want to go to college are able to afford it.

  • Mark Albertson
    Reply

    Just another “We Gonna.” Just like Romney’s acceptance speech. Both mean nothing with regards to offering legitimate hope to the American electorate. For America now is a Corproate State, with a single party, the Corporate State. Democrats and Republicans provide the two chapters–or wings–to the single Party. So voting for either of these corporate employees will hardly advance the interests of the masses.

    • Robert Szeles
      Reply

      Sadly, you are correct, Mark.

    • David Myers
      Reply

      You are wrong Mark. The democrats (most of them anyway) want to reform the process and remove the power and abuse of the almighty buck. Yes elements of both parties are under the thumbs of the corporations but it is the democrats who want to change that – not the republicans. You have to get elected and be in the majority in both Houses to make those changes. Elect the democrats and once they are elected, keep the pressure on them for reform. You’ll get no support for reform from what’s left of the once proud republican party of Abe Lincoln, who would be deeply ashamed and embarassed as to the fate of his party today. He would not be a republican today, nor would the original conservationist and trust-buster president (also a republican) – Teddy Roosevelt.

      • Vaughn Hopkins
        Reply

        Obama told us just that in his speech, when he said we are the ones who did everything he has credit for. Our job is to elect the best of the two who have any chance to win, and that is Obama. But, it is also our job to keep pressure on Obama and Congress to force them to act in our interests instead of the interests of the corporations and their wealthy owners. We can vote for Obama and continue to chastise him every time he strays into a corporate/wealthy servant. I will do both.

      • Gordon Johnston
        Reply

        When Obama was elected in 2008, he had a Democratic majority in Congress and both he and the Democrats squandered their opportunities to right some of the wrongs done under the Bush/Cheney regime. Democrats are notorious for blowing their edge. Obama is notorious for giving too much away when negotiating with the GOP. He’s not the most effective president we’ve had post-WW2, yet many want to re-elect him thinking he’ll do better the second time round. This is the battered wife syndrome. Stick with the abuser and things will get better. With Obama, they won’t.

        He says what he thinks people want to hear until he’s safely inside the magic kingdom of the White House and then he panders to the Corporate Elite to which he owes allegiance. How much Wall St. reform has he achieved? He never put the single payer option on the negotiating table, because he only bets on a sure thing. He’s allowing more off-shore drilling because he has not interested in weaning us off fossil fuels. The Justice Department is a scandal. And he keeps launching drones and refining his
        kill list and allowing endless wars to continue with occupying forces, the CIA and mercenaries. But for you who burble over Obama as the answer to our prayers, wake up and stop believing his very thin sales pitch.

        And think about this, who has more power over American foreign policy in the Middle East, Obama or Netanyahu? I just can’t figure out whether we’re Israel’s vassal state, or they’re our 51st state. In either case, we’re both rogue nations that deal too much in death and suffering while we blather about being democracies.

        • Kate Cloud
          Reply

          Thank you Gordon for speaking the truth. I’ve been reading many posts on this list (a peaceaction blog!), trying to figure out why so many are supporting Obama. To me, they seem to fall into one of two general categories: those who get it that Obama is a tool of the corporate elite and their economic system of greed and wars, but figure that Romney would be even worse, and those who for whatever reason can’t/won’t listen to or acknowledge any criticism of Obama. So, lesser of two evils or see no evil. I picture the latter group with their hands over their ears saying, “I can’t hear you.” I have some sympathy for these people since the reality is so upsetting but it’s dispiriting to see so much of this attitude on a peaceaction blog where I expected a more progressive and honest response.

        • Ted Voth Jr
          Reply

          True that, Gordon; ‘the battered wife,’ right on!

    • Lisbeth Applefield
      Reply

      I must say, you are not paying attention if you can’t define the very extreme differences between our two parties. You have tunnel-vision, and if you think not voting won’t make a difference in your life – wait – and you’ll experience for yourself what a real oligarchy is like.

      • Ted Voth Jr
        Reply

        The differences are real, but they’re superficial. The repubs are whacked, the alleged ‘dems’ are wusses. The repubs are crazy, the ‘dems’ are cowards. But they all serve Wall St, the Banksters, all the Corporate Overlords.

    • Marilyn
      Reply

      But Obama wants to overturn Citizen’s United! We need that action to start cleaning up the system.

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        Right on, Marilyn. People like Mark will get just what they decry with attitudes like he has. All it takes is for good people to keep their heads in the clouds or up someplace farther south for Romney to make this a true corporate state.

  • Teri T.
    Reply

    I thought it was a Great Speech~! He touched on many important subjects and reminded us what Democrats stand for.

  • Bob Kay
    Reply

    Military contractors wage a war of sorts on our legislators. The wars of the past decade have served as a proving grounds for all sorts of modern-day military hardware. I think that’s the underlying motive for keeping the fighting going on for so long.

    The amount of outlay that goes to military stuff each year is CRIMINAL. We outspend HOW MANY other countries combined??? That’s not “security”, that’s lunacy. SO MANY Americans going without the mere basics of dignified living and we’re gonna sink more trillions into war stuffs?

    With respect to this, maybe Obama’s the better choice – but to what degree? Both Obama and Mitt have zero military experience in their portfolio. As a consequence, they have to depend on generals for guidance as to what we MUST have to remain ahead of the pack, militarily speaking. So who trusts ANY of those generals – generals who’s legacy depends on them having demonstrable record of their prowess – generals who’ll be filling out job apps at the MIC companies as soon as they doff their uniforms – to be advocat65es for peace?? I don’t trust Obama OR Mitt.
    Yeah – big cheers for Obama getting us out of Iraq. This after he’d told prospective voters he’d “end that illegal war the day he took office” – and that they could take that pledge to the bank. Sorry Mr. President. My bank said your account had insufficient funds.

    Syria – Iran – Yemen – who’s up next? I mean like …… we got ALL these cool weapons piling up!

    • David Myers
      Reply

      Exactly – Syria and Iran are on the republican hit-list (as seen in their convention statements) – but by his actions and his words (and the democratic convention) we know that Obama is opposed to this. No president can impose their policies without support in both houses of Congress. Never before have we had such an obstructionist opposition party nor such an abuse of the filibuster process to give the opposition minority party a virtual veto on any and all bills before the Senate. This must be changed as noted in my comments above.

  • Sharon Willmann
    Reply

    Obama is definitely the better choice of the two. Romney sounds like he will go to war with anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat. He is even trying to piss off Russia. Been there, done that! Republicans want to increase military spending even if it is for weapons and policies that are no longer relevant. They want us to continue funding obsolete weapons since it may cost jobs in their particular states. They don’t seem too interested in jobs for the country at large. Democrats and Obama are moving in the right direction but need to be reminded of the fact that we want out of Afghanistan and not get into another unnecessary war. I email Obama with my complaints at least twice a week (on his site). I’m still bugging him to put some Wall Street CEOs in jail and get Eric Schneiderman to do his job! We must ALL email him. Let him know our wants and needs.

  • Lois Brooks
    Reply

    Obama’s speech was what he does best rally the crowd. He has a knack from knowing just how to balance on that thin line between center right and slightly to the left of center. He gives his progressive base just enough to get them to reluctantly vote for him and taps into the emotion of what people care about whether he can or has delivered on those promises or not. I thought he did an amazingly good job with his speech saying exactly what he needed to say. I mean who but Mr. Obama can mention Climate Change and Clean Coal, off shore drilling and reference fracking in the same speech to a single audience and continue to receive applause? Amazing. Who else has the acumen to so passionately call for civil and human rights while everyone knows, even though they do not speak of it, that Mr. Obama presides of an assignation list and has included US citizens?
    Mr. Obama found a way to bring back his messaging of “hope” to his disillusioned and disappointment base. He touts his warrior status as commander in chief all the while claiming to stand for peace. He promises jobs and equality, and yeah, I am sure he would like to see that but there is no way he will deliver on those promise and we all know that. It is beyond the capabilities of the office.
    So what did I think of his speech. I thought it was brilliant.

    • Kate Cloud
      Reply

      Excellent analysis, Lois. I couldn’t agree more.

  • Marianne Flanagan
    Reply

    I thought his foreign policy statements wee right on the money. He talked about his accomplishments, and where he wants to go with regard to the defense budget and winding down Afghanistan. He also pointed out how inept Romney was in his first foreign policy venture. I also liked the focus on “you did this”. I don’t know if anyone else saw those words the way I did-he tried to paraphrase Elizabeth Warren’s remarks about how nobody makes it without help, and the republicans seized on the opportunity to say he told people they didn’t build their own businesses. By continually bringing home you did this, I saw a counterpoint to those remarks.And,finally, as a Head Start teacher, I love hearing him promise to support education, early childhood education, and Head Start.

  • Felicity
    Reply

    FANTASTIC – All major points covered with style and panache

  • Michael
    Reply

    Obama has not kept promisses made in 2008 to bring our troops home from foreign wars. So far he is only talk and there is no reason to think he will keep these promisses.

    Defense spending is to high. The demands of the military for adequate defense of our country, research and development may have been reasons that Obama or any person may foresee, thus Obama’s failure.

    Egypt’s new Islamic government is an excellent example of how the US must not interfer with foriegn affairs which impacts US defense spending. Unfortunately, many US government agency think the need to malipulate foreign affairs. These agencies view the world as a zero sum game that negatively impacts the perception of the US by many nations.

    The US needs to negotiate with it’s allies with the goal of increase military spending in those countries and be more involved on the world stage. The lack of timely intervention in the napkins affairs is a prime example.

    Kay’n Dave’s
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    Culver City
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    http://yelp.com/biz/sr6S-enQo2uDl2KhBwIvSgs

  • Butch T.
    Reply

    Didn’t here all of it, what I did was fine. What a long way we’ve come when several LGBT supporters can “come out of the closet” at a party convention. Not that it was the best part of it, just the newest.

    Loved the speeches by Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama and Sandra Fluke!

  • Kathleen E. Sullivan
    Reply

    As usual, Oboma is a gifted speaker, tho Clinton is a tough act to follow. I was proud of the whole Convention, so superior to the Republican effort, so vastly more articulate and thoughtful. Positively exciting, gave me a lift! Kathleen S.

  • Robert Szeles
    Reply

    I’m encouraged by some of these comments. People are finally looking beyond the pleasant, upbeat rhetoric and watching what is actually DONE. Both candidates perpetuate the same system. Frankly, any time I would watch Obama now, I would be distracted, wondering who is on his “Kill List.” http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-13-2012/newsleaks?xrs=playershare_fb

  • Patricia
    Reply

    He’s not the dove I would like ….. but on everything else he can’t be beat!!! I want out troops home from Afghanistan now!!! The government is so unappreciative ( of course we are killing innocents as happens in every war), untrustworthy, we’ve done enough, they want us out and are turning against us…..NO MORE WAR!!!! I LOVE MY POTUS – SOME DAY WE WILL HAVE A DEPARTMENT OF PEACE INSTEAD OF WAR – GUESS THE TIME IS JUST NOT RIGHT NOW.

  • Charlene Rush
    Reply

    He is quite effective, clear and mostly to the point.
    I would love to see the Democrats show the clip of Mitch McConnell, saying how his main position in life, is to make certain, President Obama is not re-elected. I would shove this clip down the throats of the GOP, over and over and over, because the Republicans have proven that repitition WORKS. If you say something oftens enough, it penetrates.

  • Stephanie Mills
    Reply

    President Obama’s speech was just inspiring and heartfelt. He is so correct in stating that it will take more than 4yrs. to repair all of the damage that was done to our country before he took office. Romney never mentions that. I doubt that he could have done a better job and miraculously got us out of the horrible state of our economy. I agree with former President Clinton that no president even himself could have repaired the damage in that short of a period of time. Let us give President Obama another 4yrs. to help save our country the correct way. He speaks from his heart and really cares about the middle class. I also want to say that he has tried several times to try and pass bills/legislature that would benefit all of us but the House just would not let anything he tried to do to help us get passed. He had road blocks all the way. How could anything get done?? Does Romney ever mention that?
    Go Obama!!! You deserve another 4yrs!!
    Stephanie/Bradenton,.Fl. / DEC/DNC – Obama for America

  • elinor petuskey
    Reply

    President Obama’s speech was great. He has accomplished a lot and given this country healthcare FINALLY. He is intelligent, compassionate and moving in the right direction. He has consistently represented and fought hard for the middle class. We owe him four more years and I know he will not disappoint us. As Vice President Biden so aptly put it, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” Obama understands what needs to be done to continue to move forward. Romney/Ryan will move us back to tired ineffective policies and will destroy the middle class. Fellow Americans don’t let this happen. Fight for your own future and that of your kids and grandkids. We are a great country and can continue to be a world leader with President Obams at the helm.

  • Carlyn Leeper
    Reply

    The speech was excellent, to the point and very sincere !! I sure hope he will get re-elected, or we will be in deep trouble !!!

  • Vickie Wilson
    Reply

    Speaking has never been a problem for Obama. That is how he is able to keep the average democrat “thinking” he is actually going to do the right thing. Unfortunately, “by doing the math” and adding up the things that Obama promised to do and didn’t do one can quickly see that his “talk” and his “walk” do not match. American’s had better wake-up and judge all politicians not by what they say, but by what they do. Unfortunately, most on both the isle only say what they think will get or keep them elected. We are voting for Rocky Anderson or Jill Stein. It is hard to decide between these two excellent candidate, but, It sure beats the hard choice between choosing the lesser of the two evils..

  • Sally Savin
    Reply

    We loved the Presidents speech. There are some ideas which need to be brought to the table. For student debt, we need to have students help our country & minus their debt for doing so. They can clean parks, assist the elderly, teach Computer Labs, the jobs are endless. We can pay them $10.00 an hr. let them learn about service , put them to work, and assist in lowering debt, while helping our nation. We need to gather the bright minds of The Sierra Club, Climate Reality, and LCV to gather all information we need for Green Jobs, give America a brighter future, and cut unemployment while claiming Independent energy. We need America’s brightest, while teaching our youth service, responsibility and getting people back to work. We have 300 million jobs, waiting for us to claim, some by learning the Technology needed to meet these jobs. We can find away to learn these things.

  • Rev. Lance Lindgren, SCPO, USN (Ret.)
    Reply

    Us usual, President Obama was right on… The prblem is how does the Democratic leadership get past the GOP’s constant obstructionism on capitol hill? All emocratic candidates, local to federal, need to keep banging away at that issue: the Gop obstructs… That’s why the jobless rate still hangs as high as it is, and I’ll wager that with an Obama victory, they’ll obstruct any attempt to pair back on the DoD budget, when Senator Karry, President Clinton, and the Obama-Biden team reveal otherwise…

    • David Myers
      Reply

      If the democrats take back the House, keep the Senate, re-elect the president, and most importantly, change the rules of the Senate when the new Congress commences – we can stop the republican obstructionism. The Senate, every new Congress, can amend their rules by a simple majority vote (not subject to a filibuster). They need to change the rules so that once again a filibuster can only be used to delay a vote and only temporarily (until the one speaker conducting a filibuster can no longer stand and speak – then the bill goes to a simple majority vote). This can and should be done. To make it work, however, the democrats need to take back the House and keep the Senate. Tell you friends to get registered, and get out and vote in record numbers if they want to solve the nation’s problems.

  • FORRESTHOPPING
    Reply

    I am voting for Obama and am telling others to do so. However, I am uneasy about the drones, apalled that people could scream with joy over the murder of a man (Bin Laden)apalled at the hostility toward China and Iran (what have they done, exactly) Obama didn’t crack down on Wall Street; the Justice Department, for instance, won’t prosecute Goldman Sachs. Income inequality in the US keeps getting worse. Some of the US’s most profitable corporations paid less than zero taxes between 2008 and 2010. Only five too-big-to-fail mega-banks control 56% of the US economy. The absolute majority of jobs created during the Obama administration are only low-wage. I expect Obama to fix these things. A tall order, to be sure.

  • Gayle
    Reply

    He always falls short when it comes to alternative energy. He has allowed Shell to go up to the Arctic where they continue to get favors from the Obama Administration. They allowed them to start drilling without their containment vessel should a spill occur, although they’ve said they wouldn’t be able to contain a spill. They’ve waived air quality rules since Shell couldn’t meet them. He is allowing unregulated fracking all over the place. We shouldn’t be increasing our dirty energy output in the US, but should be developing solar, wind and whatever other green energy solutions there are. He is way too drill, baby drill for me. I’m voting Green Party.

  • cephalis
    Reply

    I thought Obama’s speech too long. Comparing it to Bill Clinton’s speech–no contest, Bill wins. I would like to have heard Obama’s explanation for not closing Gitmo and for removing access to many medical cannabis dispensaries. People in constant pain don’t need the additional aggravation of having to scrounge for their medication.

  • mike
    Reply

    I thought the Obama speach was a bit flat. No damage done, but not nearly as charged as clinton’s, biden’s, or even lilly ledbetter’s.

  • Sirina Sucklal
    Reply

    Loved his speech. Addressed issues important to me. Speech had content and was not empty.

  • Mark
    Reply

    I have a few qualms or misgivings about some of the domestic — too many homes are still underwater — and international policies Pres. Obama has chosen to pursue. But I do not doubt his sincerity, or the general soundness of the administration’s economic policies, or his capacity to perform in what is surely a highly complex job. We can measure this in part by what has NOT happened: there has been no unilateral confrontation with any other nation; indeed, there has been restraint, even while the U.S. pursues policies and goals fraught with military and diplomatic risk, such as Libya, North Korea, and Iran. Pres. Obama’s swaggering, bellicose opponents already want to warm up the combat bombers and naval battle groups, even as they decry the huge national debt, as if the next war they may be hatching with the neo-cons would be any less astronomically expensive or quick then the most recent two. It can almost be certain that Russia and China will not be as idle as they were about Iraq should or when Mr. Romney decides Iran needs to be pummeled.

    Pres. Obama is ready to welcome other nations back to the international fold: Burma/Myanmar, for instance. Perhaps it is premature, given the level of corruption there, but extending a hand in friendship is almost always better than slapping someone with it. This may well be a nuance Mr. Romney does not grasp. Clearly, Pres. Obama concurs, as he observed so wryly that Mr. Romney is ‘new’ to diplomacy, more ready to insult than engage. Lastly, the economy did not collapse from ’09 to now; millions were and remain frustrated, broke, angry and hungry, but no one starved on bread lines and the nation did not fall into a depression. Putting the listing ship of state back on course after it has been methodically bludgeoned and ripped off by collusion, and repairing the many broken systems, takes years, not months. Sorry, but if Romney and his pals didn’t want the rehab to take so long they shouldn’t have been on a deregulated monster’s binge for almost a decade. They broke it; we the people were forced to buy it; and now Romney assumes he should be rewarded with the kingship merely for making the right pals in high places. WRONG!

    Lastly, all Pres. Obama’s detractors conveniently deny one crucial fact: he’s not an interloper who snuck in on hanging chads or swift boat ads or a deadlocked electoral college: he is the duly and properly elected President of the United States.

  • Joe Valentino
    Reply

    Just like the last time he says the right things and just like the last time i am sure he lied.

  • Sophia
    Reply

    He was absolutely BRILLIANT! He covered just about everything (i.e. military, foreign affairs, economy, healthcare, debt, etc.) unlike his opponents! I appreciated his candor in that he ‘never said this was going to be easy’… which it has not!

    “We’re all in this together! Thank you Mr. President!!”

  • jamesltyreeiimes L. Tyree II
    Reply

    I was very pleased about the speech. Bill Clinton was a bit more clear. There was less specifics about the need for peace over war as our priority though.

  • Swami Prem Kavyo
    Reply

    I thought he stated the case for re-election clearly and concisely, and pointed out that his opponents don’t have the tools necessary to do the job of President of America!

  • levinebarry
    Reply

    I heard president Obama bemoan that “the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money” but I voted for Campaign Finance Reform four years ago, and have nothing to show for it. I will not keep snapping at the same bait like some rural Republican slavering to overturn Rove v. Wade and never geting it. If not now, when??

  • Farrell Winter
    Reply

    I didn’t watch because I don’t care. Obomney and Rollabaloney, no difference!
    Jill Stein for president! No more ruling-class bozos! Change your name to War Action West, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party.
    Farrell Winter

  • Michael E. Peterson
    Reply

    I thought President Obama’s acceptance speech mediocre when compared to his earlier speeches. I won’t say what the others in this string had said; but I think no one has mentioned one or more Supreme Court openings that will probably come up in his second term. For that reason alone, I’m voting for Obama.

  • RICHARD RALPH ROEHL
    Reply

    Yeah! President Obama gave a wonderful speech. Certainly encourages me to vote for him.

    However… Mr. Obama made grand speeches (and too many promises) back in 2008. There are disappointments in this camp. NDAA, as an example, is an atrocious piece of legislation that seems more the fruit of North Korea than the United $tates. And ‘Obamacare’ is NOT a universal, single payer health CARE system. It is a FOR-PROFIT health INSURANCE $ystem… where the Amerikan corn syrup people are MANDATED under ageis of government laws and orders to purchase a product/service (insurance) in the private $ector markets.

    There is also the glorious [sic] invasions and occupations of Iraq-nam, Libya-nam, Afghanistan-nam, Yemen-nam, Western Pak-a-nuke-stan-nam, ad nauseum-nam. And let’s also include Amerikan killer drones… violating the air space of sovereign nations. They horrid weapons of hegemony and warfare have killed thousands of innocent civilians in foreign lands.

    Man! I hate to think of the blowback that’s coming to Amerika. Indeed! The continued policies of EX-President Cheney (and Bush the Lessor) have been accelerated under the leadership of President Obama… making Amerikans the most hated and despised people on Earth. Amerikan foreign policy continues to be delusional, violent and criminally insane.

    Yeah! Mr. Obama gave a fine speech. But actions speak louder than words… or the cult worship of personality.

    R.R.R.

  • Juan Carlos
    Reply

    Obama got ten on delivery and zero on substance.

    As long as you, me, we, participate in the old Obama Romney election; the new will not be born. It is not about ideas, it is about creation in action. Alternatives are never born by “figuring it out.” Alternatives are being born through vision, and evolve through life and experimentation. The Zapatistas, from the very start, called their Autonomy, “an experiment.” What is beautiful about it is that it does not have an
    ism, a dogma, or an ideology and thus it remains open for changes as the people themselves see fit. It does not have a Lenin, a Bakunin, or a Trotsky to determine right and wrong. It has life itself, the necessities of the people and the sustainability of living to determine the path forward.

    There are two quotes that I believe are pertinent to this discussion: first by Antonio Machado, “Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking!” And the second by Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

    Now, this existing model – nation state capitalism – is making itself obsolete as we speak by destroying the planet. It cannot (nor it is interested) to meet the needs of the people. It cannot (nor it is interested) in being sustainable. Thus, it is up to us to WALK and BUILD a new system: sustainable, just, and serving the needs of the people. We cannot “think” a new system into being. We must breath it, live it and walk it into being. We must OCCUPY it, in the deepest sense of this word.

  • westcoastliberal
    Reply

    Obama must account for why he’s done nothing thus far this term to help “Main St” although we’ve blown through 15 Trillion dollars to help Wall St, as well as foreign and multinational central banks. His treasury secretary Geithner even admitted the “HAMP” program, touted as a way to help homeowners through the foreclosure crisis, wasn’t really designed to help homeowners, rather it was designed to “foam the runway” for the banks, so the foreclosures would be happening over time.
    And why are we still in Afghanistan? Why do we have 3 aircraft carriers off the coast of Iran? Why did we shoot & kill Osama bin Laden without first questioning him? We deserve some answers.
    And for a Constitutional scholar to sign the NDAA, asserting the power of the Executive branch of government to detain or murder American citizens without trial, without right to counsel, means to me that this President has violated his oath of office; to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
    All of you here who think Obama is so great are low-information voters and if you follow through and vote for EITHER Obama or Romney, you’ll get what you deserve. As for me, I’m through with the charade of having a “choice” since both the Dems/GOP are serving the same masters.
    I’m going Green with Jill Stein for President, and I invite you to join me!

  • Robert S. Kurtz MD
    Reply

    I agree with you about the many areas left un addressed in the President’s speech, but it would be the sheerest inanity to let those points vitiate our passionate support of this man who is our best hope for ultimate peace and a better life for us all as human beings providided we are not one of the uber ri h

  • Tanja Marcijan
    Reply

    Mes felicitations a M. President. Je veux que il sera relie a noveau. Dieu nous protege a Mitt Rommey!

  • Ken Biggs
    Reply

    I have tried to get answer from the White House and Senator Boxer and Senator Fienstien about why nothing is being done to allow people to donate to a fund to help those who need to have transportation and money to pay for valid photo ID’s and I receive no answer. If the Democrats lose thie 2012 election it will be due to lack of doing something instead of waiting for Republican judges to stop the voter suppression. Why do the Democrats refuse to act instead of waiting till it is to late and the Republicans are able to get elected by suppressing millions of legal voters.

    • Janet Weil (@JanetRWeil)
      Reply

      Just tweeted both senators about this – thanks for bringing it up. @SenatorBoxer & @SenFeinstein, if you’d like to tweet ’em too.

  • WizardG
    Reply

    Mr. Obama is nothing more than a well thought out “surrogate” for the “elite” who actually own and control this, and many other countries, via surrogates and (threatened) complaints!

    Political surrogates say whatever they feel will inspire the people to think and vote, but our votes haven’t counted for anything substantial in decades, and political/government cronies are nothing more than highly paid puppet-like liars and thieves!

    We are made to think in terms of “the best of two evils”, when it comes to the people we think hold positions of power over us, but our conditioned and contrived perceptions and thoughts are just that. The truth of the matter is that most people have no idea what is really going on in this country (secrets and lies make sure of that), and no matter who the “elite” choose to represent them in their sociopathic tyranny, we are going to be screwed royally!

  • ellen becker
    Reply

    I think the democrats should be concentrating on the points of the nun’s speech – that to me is the real issue – the wealthy must pay their fair share, according to their means.

  • Patricia Peters
    Reply

    I thought Barack Obama’s speech was fair. I especially liked his saying that climate change was not a hoax, and toward the end of his speech his words soared a little. What I was sorry to hear at the convention was the focus on the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the cheering of USA, USA. The Democratic party seems to have become as warlike as the Republican party, and that is a big disappointment to me.

  • Thomas baldridge
    Reply

    When I compare Romney’s acceptance speech to Obama’s I find myself ever more convinced that I’ll vote for Obama’s re-election. There is something abut Romney that does not instill confidence in me that he will lead the country in the right direction.

  • Jim Kruger
    Reply

    Talk is cheap. Close Guantanamo (base & prison) Stop drone attacks. Are people aware we overthrew elected gov. in Honduras? Jerusalem statement is inexcusable. Tel Aviv is capital, this statement is pandering to Israeli right wing & Christian apocalypse fanatics. But OF COURSE, Romney is worse. “good cop/bad cop”????

    • - bill
      Reply

      Meant to congratulate you earlier on this insight: “good cop/bad cop” is EXACTLY what we’re seeing here and have been seeing since at least the 2004 general election (when as soon as the primaries were over Kerry rushed to the right to become a ‘kinder, gentler’ Dubya). Democrats honed their failing 2004 effort sufficiently to make the strategy work for them in 2006 and 2008 but couldn’t overcome the disgust with their performance (or more accurately lack thereof) in 2010. However, they seem to think they can use it once again to succeed this year, perhaps because the bad cop is acting SO bad these days (which is, of course, the way the charade works).

  • Mark Albertson
    Reply

    I respect David Myer’s belief in that most Democrats want to eliminate the power of the almighty buck. Won’t happen. As long as Obama is in the White House, the so-called progressives will–for the most part–remain mute. Romney/Ryan ticket gets elected, then they will suddenly show some backbone. But that, too, means little. For both parties have been corrupted by the growing financial power of the moenyed-class and corporate elite. A concerted effort must be made now to vote for 3rd, 4th 5th party candidates. For everytime you vote for a high-profile Democrat and Republican you are increasing your chances of not having a job in 4 years. After all, this nation, since George Bush, Jr took office in 2000, has lost more than 42,000 factories and production facilities. This trend has not reversed under the presidency of Chicago’s favorite son. And it will not, for the rich do not consider America worth investing in. This is why your economy is anemic. And Obama, like Romney, will not reverse this trend. That said, why should we even bother voting for Obama and Romney in the first place. Why not vote for the likes of George Soros and Sheldon Adelson. After all, they write the checks.

  • Janet Weil (@JanetRWeil)
    Reply

    I did not watch the President’s speech but heard some of it today on Democracy Now. I was amused that he put some “Bring Our War $$ Home” language in. But I don’t care what he says – it’s what he DOES, and has done, that counts. I will not vote for him and I discourage others from doing so. No more lesser evilism!

    • John Zwiebel
      Reply

      So when Romney wins and invades Iran, or repeals ObamaCare, or raises taxes on all but the 1%, or cancels Medicare and Medicaid, or cuts Social Security payments in half, what will you do?

      Will you throw your body on the “machine” to stop it?

      • Pam Allee
        Reply

        Yes, I expect that is exactly what we will have to do, regardless of who “wins.”

  • perettipoems
    Reply

    I appreciate the Presidents speech. He’s honest, serious, and for ALL citizens, working hard in increments to improve the economy and job situation. I will vote for him again, of course! He’s already accomplished a great deal.

  • Nathaniel Williams Jr.
    Reply

    It wasn’t nothing to think about because our President stated that he for the people’s and stand by the people’s in America of the US and the world to make it a better place

  • Wilde Thang
    Reply

    It is impossible to credit yoursele for leaving Afghanistan 2-12 years before actually doing it with soldiers and innocent civilians continuing to be killed and injured. It is unseemly to praise the US when democrats under Albrights guidance overwhelmingly approved th Iraq war for disingenuous lies making it a deliberate violation of international law. Sec Rice and Albright have both been quoted that we are above international law because we are right. Were we right invading a defeated 3rd world country on the ropes of ten years of UN sanctions and already destroyed once and showing off shock and awe weapons demos. Then bragging about getting Bin Laden because of the immeasurably smaller damage he supposedly did to us. Plus given our disinformation there is no reason to believe any of it. He may have been a double agent gone into retirement and so might the american taken down in Yemen…. one thing is clear there was no peace contingent at the convention and the party of Vietnam still worships wars.

  • justxena
    Reply

    I don’t know if I was inspired by his speech. I thought it was good. I was on pins and needles, afraid he was going to bring up Iran or Israel and I’m glad he didn’t. We need to stop all the killing, not just move it somewhere else. I’m so ready for some peacemaking. I’m troubled by the fact there is no public debate or mention in the media of all the places we’re using drones. Yemen, Pakistan, Somolia, etc. I guess I’m just disturbed by the fact it seems the wars are not coming to an end, they’re just being spread out with fewer troops in one place, but innocent people are still losing their lives pretty much in silence. I’ll vote for President Obama again, but I’m not excited about it at all. If I vote for a Republican we’ll have a defense budget that’s obscene, Israel will attack Iran and everyone else they hate, and we’ll be in brand new wars to cover their behinds.

  • abdo soliman
    Reply

    new inspiring promises from Pres, Would he fulfill his campaign promises?

  • Bea Kreloff
    Reply

    The speech was brilliantly delivered and will be historically honored but… content is somewhat short. If he gets reelected will he be able to really challenge the republicans about how they have deliberately stopped any real movement for change? It remains to be seen. No one seems to be able to deal with the racism that underlies the determination that underlines every republican party movement. To me it seems that the determination that the republican party’s need to defeat Obama is their primary objective and no one seems to be able to name it. They hate the idea of a black president and will keep working to dishonor him. For that alone I will support him and hope I can get everyone I know to do so. I Hope Obama will recognize this and remember there are those of us who will support him in the hopes that this disgusting racism will be defeated and overcome. Stay on your course Obama there are many of us that hope you can defeat their evil purpose.

  • John W McClure
    Reply

    Neither convention has produced a clear winner. The polls show that Obama and Romney are running neck and neck. How does one win in such a situation? You cheat. It has happened in the past and I expect it to happen again. The Repuplicans are good at it.

  • John Zwiebel
    Reply

    Nothing about Bradley Manning or our 4th amendement rights. Nothing about limiting Fracking. “Clean Coal”??? Nothing about the Military Industrial Complex. Nothing about prosecuting torture. Nothing about prosecuting the banksters. Nothing about -NOT- cutting Social Security. Nothing about the American Empire. I can go on and on and on.

    For what he did address, he did ‘ok’. And he certainly does appear to be the lessor of two evils. Still, I can’t help but think that there is some “secret cabal” that is managing a huge cartoon to make us think we have a choice that might actually bring peace to our world.

  • John W McClure
    Reply

    Neither convention has produced a clear winner. The polls show that Obama and Romney are running neck and neck. How does one win in such a situation? You cheat. It has happened in the past and I expect it to happen again. The Republicans are good at it.

    • Pam Allee
      Reply

      John – You’re not a lone stranger – others figure the R’s intend to steal this, as they’ve perfected voter theft since 2000.

  • Robert MacLUskie
    Reply

    The speech was great.There is some spin on some things, but I still trust Obama over that lying, phony two bit hustler Romneyand his brass balls sidekick, “Lyin,Ryan.The 1% wants to get the American people more stupid than what they are.I just turned into a senior Citizen, and if that putz wins, I retire outside the states next year,cause after what the repubs let wallstreet get awat with, I lost alot and won’t be able to stay stateside………

  • Pam Allee
    Reply

    Pretty is as pretty does. Once burnt twice shy.

  • jJon Bjornson, MD/Vietnam Vet
    Reply

    Jon Bjornson, MD/Vietnam Vet
    I am not impressed by foreign policy of either candidate. The Romney plan is outright frightening. O’bama has not closed Guatanomo, remains in Afghanistan, has interfered in Libya, does not support Palestine in a fair way, uses drone killing loosely, killed Osama bin Laden instead of trying him in court, etc. I will still vote for him as Romney will bankrupt the country with already bloated defense spending.

  • melissa hughes
    Reply

    On election night four years ago, I took part in the exit poll in Bangor, Maine. I was so psyched and so were all those voting in the school gym. Four years later, and I heard neither candidate’s speech, I’m not voting for either one. Mr Obama’s love affair with Planned Parenthood is appalling and Mitt Romney? Well…Maybe I’ll write in Alfred E. Neumann.

  • Jim Park
    Reply

    I didn’t listen to either candidates speeches; I know for sure that Obama is a liar, which has been proven many times, and is a total lackey for the international bankers, and never even had a lemonade stand. At least Romney had a business with 40,000 employees, but in the end, the corporations will run the show.

  • Reply

    Fortunately I did not listen to either convention. I did not have to hear Obama to know he was going to pull the same demagoguery as last time & that those who drank the koolaid before would drink it again. I receive the best insight from Truthdig, Amy Goodman, Code Pink & others of conscience and awareness. I am sorry that you are so politically naive. But now I know to exclude you from my much too-long email. Thank you. Wake UP!

    I AM a longtime peace activist

    • Lisbeth Applefield
      Reply

      This is what the GOP stands for: Gonifs of Plutocracy!

      I get my information from all the same places and unfortunately you have already drank the cool-aid and will fulfill the strategies of the right-wing with your cynicism. After all you’ve learned from your reliable sources, you are still asleep and if you’re asleep, you miss the point. And, if you didn’t watch the conventions why are you even commenting on something you know nothing about? A vote for Romney is a vote for perpetual war. Obama isn’t perfect, but at least he’s an esteemed diplomat with a brain.

      P.S. I’ve been a peace activist since the 60’s and marched with Martin Luther King as a teenager. So there! Big whoop!!!!

  • Fred Schaufele
    Reply

    I didn’t watch the acceptance speech. I checked out on Obama after he failed to fully stand up to the war hawks in Washington. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had other things to worry about. But decreasing military spending and disentanglement from foreign adventures certainly should have been part of the discussions about the US economic woes. I expected action three years ago, not the same words today. The opportunity to act was there and not taken. Enough said.

    Amongst the many failed promises of the last election, one that irks me a lot is Guantanamo and the lack of due process it continues to circumvent. Guatanamo represents terror committed by the United States in the name of its citizens, which sadly still shows no remorse. It remains a signal to a disturbingly large and widening American fringe that it is OK to consider others as sub-human. Hope and Change for me was Obama effectively countering that. Didn’t happen. It’s gotten worse and the one glaring symbol of it remains open.

    So, we’ve seen what Obama really stands for. It is not for the peace initiatives that Peace Action members had hoped for in the last election. Are you really left only with the argument that Obama is better than the alternative? How you vote depends on how certain you are of that–many are less certain than they were four years ago.

    The only thing in Obama’s favor is that the alternative has gotten even more brazenly crazy in the past four years. A raped woman can somehow wish away a pregnency??? I know the Republican leadership quickly and correctly denounced that, but it came as a total shock to me that this was, and remains, a wide-spread belief maybe even across parties!! Wasn’t that an eye-opener? America continues to plummet towards the middle-ages together with other fundamentalists throughout the world, including the lunatics who attack America and others thinking God will provide them virgins. Seriously, how sick is all of this??? The Hope and Change of Obama’s election was, in my mind, going to lift the US out of this lunacy and help counteract that world-wide spiral downward. The US received empty words instead of real leadership.

    So, no, I didn’t bother to listen to the speech. Hope is gone until I see someone with a spine stand up and politely lead the discourse with “I hear your concerns. But listen to yourself. Doesn’t that sound just a little unhinged? Let’s talk.”. BTW, didn’t President Clinton sound like he could do this? One can only wonder what could have been over the past four years.

    Full disclosure: I am not a US citizen but am a long-term resident. I care about the US and how it conducts itself within the world. It is up to the US population to make its decisions hopefully after open and thoughtful discourse. I don’t mind adding to the discourse. But my input is as a fellow passenger on this planet.

  • Reply

    During the convention ITSELF Obama & the Democratic Party betrayed the Palestinians by giving Jerusalem (is it theirs to give?) to the Israelis. What a powerful ‘Peace move’! (Something even Republican presidents have not dared to do.) The Emperor without Clothing speaks from one side of his mouth & does from another part of his anatomy. He will do the same to you because he does not have the ethics to refuse the power to do in any US citizens any time he wishes – after spying on you as long as he sees fit, he will scoop you up in the middle of the night & blackhole you until you confess to whatever he wishes, without constitutional (wasn’t he a constitutional ‘scholar’? – or is being president of the Harvard Law Review the equivalent of the Miss Congeniality Award for the Token Black at Harvard?) or legal protection. Who reserves such powers for himself? – but Bush & Obama. And who illegally raids a sovereign country to snatch Osama Bin Laden & throws him in the ocean before anyone can say: ‘Wait a minute! What gave you that right? Who are you listening to? Where are your ethics?’ If you buy this – where are YOUR ethics?

  • Gordon Johnston
    Reply

    Political conventions have deteriorated to beauty contests, and Obama re-visited all of the tired tropes from 2008 because he wants the crown that let’s him out-Bush Bush in amping up the Patriot Act, using assassination and torture because he can, not regulating Wall St. because he needs their money, and the list goes on.

    The guy is a self-aggrandizing blowhard who turns to Clinton like some school kid needing a smarter, tougher upperclassman to protect him from the bullies. He’s not as bright or as capable as he leads us to believe. He’s glib. And Americans suck up glibness like it’s mother’s milk. This life-long Democrat won’t be suckered into voting for him a second time.

  • Anise Aschenbach
    Reply

    Good speech from a good man……………he is simple,honest, brilliant and caring.. He loves American and its’ people. I believe he is bringing out the best in all of us including other Democrats in power……it showed it ALL of the speeches during this three day presentation. ;Hopefully, it will help put the degraded Republican party to shame…they have sunk so low these last few years they are nearly unrecognizable. He gives he hope!

  • Arthur C. Moore
    Reply

    I think the President said what he had to given the historical advantage republicanshave held on military power and its use. ItrustPresident Obama much more than romnry and ryan. The republicans in Congress have provento be unreliable, incapable to compromiseand gover. Has every one forgot how the Credit Rating came to be doubleA instead of triple A? Republicans pledge to grover norquist to never raise taxes , their number one job denyinga second term for Pres Obama, they set up automatic across the board spending cutsand the reduced Credit Rating. Now republicans are trying to ” re nig” on the deal they stubornly insisted on. My queston is, just how stupid are Americans? Will they let republicans finish killing Democrocy, Government By The People, For The People? Will the Fourth Piller of this Democrocy, The Free Press ( Journalest) continu to help the demise on our Constitu.tion? What we need is a Democratic Led House Senet and White House. It is what the World Needs Now!

  • Nellie Steen
    Reply

    Gen Stanley McChrystal made the perfect statement when he said “Bring back the draft”. The military would not be mostly black and latinos as they are now, not a fair representation of this country. If there had been a draft during the past 10 years, we might have seen one of the 5 Romney sons, or one of the twin daughters of George Bush ( the guy who started it all ) serving in one of those dangerous hot countries. I am not in favor of these drone strikes, as Dick Cheney would say, those casualties are just collateral damage. He would have a different opinion on this if he or his family had ever been on the wrong end of a whistling bomb as it fell from the skies. I know what I am talking about, I lived through 6 years of war in England, WW2 1939 to 1945. I wanted Obama to be more positive on bringing our troops home. When I think of the massive mess he took over from bush, ( a deliberate small b ), our President did more than most other men could have accomplished. We must vote him back for a second term.

    • Brad Sherman
      Reply

      I agree with Nellie about conscription. If our representatives had skin in the game they might be less eager to commit to armed conflict. As much as I loathe the prospect of armed intervention I think conscription would at least have some sociological value by forcing all strata of society together for a few years during training and active service – this can only help restore a bit of empathy between the classes.

  • gwenn meltzer
    Reply

    You people want capitalism running this country .. or humanitarianism .. ?? .. you all complain too much .. !!
    if our government was a corporation, the way they don’t work together, the business would go bankrupt .. and we’d be sold out to the highest bidder .. 🙁
    as for the conventions, a lot of money to re-assure each other that we have problems to solve .. and differences to resolve amongst them .. Everybody Has A Job To Do .. Get in there and get IT done .. !! .. Priority: __ NEEDS .. !! .. It can’t be about “money” anymore .. !! .. there is enough Work (operative word) for Everyone restoring, rebuilding, recovering .. OUR Time Is Now .. Generation 21st Century Needs Us .. ~

  • Bill Hessell
    Reply

    Excellent speech, a primer on what effective leadership and good citizenship should be all about. He was right on in highlighting the foreign policy differences, and should continue to do so during the campaign. Promoting peace in all ways possible overseas and fighting for responsible cooperative efforts to improve the economy domestically should be the focus, and calling out the Republicans on their consistent blockage of the latter needs more emphasis.

  • Charles D Hartik
    Reply

    Obama made no mention of prosecution of those who tortured for our country. No mention of a right to kill American citizens without trial by presidential decree. No mention of the right to incarcerate Americans without trial. Can only look, “forward”, forgiving all the war crimes committed by the USA. Blind support to apartheid government in Israel with promise to defend at all costs their theft of Palestinian lands by the humiliation and deaths of non-Jew as a result of Zionism. No mention of Israeli nuclear weapons stockpiles with the means of delivering them worldwide, just billions of more American taxpayer cash to help them build up their military. Insistence of Jerusalem becoming the capital of Israel resulting in even more theft by Israel of Palestinian land, houses, businesses, etc. as part of the Democrat platform. Foreign aid in the billions to countries that provide universal health care to their citizens while Americans die every day from lack of healthcare, and yes, the Affordable Health Care Act, “Obamacare”, still lets them die, I could go on as the list is much longer of things that I think Obama has sold out peace on, but I’ll vote for him anyway just as the, “good”, Germans did for Hitler.

  • Phil Dennany
    Reply

    I enjoyed Elizabeth Warren’s speech. But but the rest was BS. I cannot vote for a war criminal that ‘won’t look back’ and continues in the against humanity and degrades our Constitution. I will vote, but not for Obama or Romney dishonest scumbags..

  • Nancy
    Reply

    Did not watch. Will not listen to the war monger’s lies.

  • sadie
    Reply

    Unimpressed! Same old double-talk!!!

  • Susie Allison-Litton
    Reply

    I thought it was a good speech. I have of course been disappointed in Obama in a number of areas, including the hawkishness he has displayed since taking office, but the speech reminded me why I voted for him in 2008 and why I will vote for him again. I fell for the “Democrat, Republican, it makes no difference” lie in 2000 and voted for Nader as the Green Party candidate. I completely underestimated the harm Bush would be able and willing to do. I think our country and our world would look a lot different had Gore been seated as President in 2000. I believe Romney would be far worse than Bush. In spite of his failings, I believe Obama seeks to govern for the benefit of all, not just the rich, and he works from facts and science. No protest or wishful-thinking-we-can-build-a-viable-third party votes from this discouraged peace activist. The Supreme Court appointments alone are worth an Obama vote to me.

  • Reply

    Make your vote count! Make the ethical choice – and feel good about yourself! Vote for Jill Stein on the Green Party ticket or for Rocky Anderson on the Justice Party ticket. Your soul will feel good!
    I wrote in MLK and Malcolm X way back when JFK ran. And I have voted for what I actually believe in ever since. I have also felt good ever since!

    (and you can also vote for Tammy Baldwin, Anne McKuster Lane, Jennifer Warren or whatever woman you think will really try to do what she says she will. Then go home & join an Occupy movement, help Bradley Mannning and think about how social justice & peace movements have actually changed societies on our planet – think the women’s movement, the civil rights movement.)
    That will keep your thinking clear and your soul clean! And it might even change the world.
    And your life.

  • D. Bubb
    Reply

    Obama’s a war president: war inside against the rights of Americans, war outside all over the world.
    He doesn’t deserve four more years nor does Romney. However, if Romney gets in, we’ll have no
    doubt about who our enemy is and our need to bring him down. With Obama, he pretends to be
    our friend and he’s anything but and certainly not the leader we desperately need.

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      Simple answer…don’t LET Romney get in.

  • danny
    Reply

    The Democratic National Convention speeches were more concrete, complete and reality. I watched the GOP convention speeches but there were tons of lies repeated, hatred lines and they offered no realistic solutions or comments. It makes no sense at all to rob the 99% just to give to the wealthy %. Who will fight all those wars the GOP spoke about creating and I wonder how all those countries felt about the sarcastic remarks of war. It’s really sad to even think about fake vouchers, no medicare, thousands of disabled seniors and children off medicaid, social security on wall street steroids, thousands cut from SNAP, taking away the home deduction, increasing taxes, foreclosure take-overs, no regulations, sky high finances and more cooperate profits! The President has done well and he gets my vote without question.

  • Carolyn Barrett
    Reply

    I was inspired by President Obama speech he’s honest,serious and he for all citizens,he working hard to fix the economy and healthcare.he needs a second term to finish what he started getting America back on her feet.

  • Sarah Kemp
    Reply

    It was a great, well-thought out, deeply felt, movingly delivered speech. The perfect speech for this time, by our caring President.

  • Jean Marie Naples
    Reply

    President Obama gave a detailed plan on how to continue to help the USA to fully recover, He supports diversity in our country and is bringing our troops home while still supporting them. I was very happy and supportive of the president and hope we can see him back in the White House for another 4 years, The Republicans will only bring disaster to this country. I support President Obama and the democrats.

  • somanyjens
    Reply

    I’m a registered Independent, I voted for President Obama in 2008. I watched both the RNC and the DNC and was one of many of us deeply concerned about military spending. I identify very strongly with another comment on this thread: there can be no doubt President Obama was elected to his office by a majority of Americans. I expect that fact to be honored by both parties. I expect that both parties will attend to the business of the American people. I’m disgusted by the obstructionist partisanship that repeatedly addresses resolved issues, such as health care, at the expense of other important issues like jobs, domestic violence and stripping women of their right to think for themselves. “We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party. The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.” -Thomas Mann & Norm Ornstein. Much of what is said during the conventions is framed with the intention of appealing to the largest number of voters. Seen through that lens, there isn’t anything the President said that set off any alarm bells for me. Based on his record, and the feeling of revulsion engendered by Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney’s stance on women’s rights, Citizen’s United/the Supreme Court, the deficit, healthcare, Medicaid, the war in Afghanistan, and education; President Obama is, without a doubt, the best man for the job. There is no contest.

  • archie1954
    Reply

    The President and the former president both set out the choices for Americans clearly and concisely and I’m proud of both of them for doing it.

  • William A Wheaton
    Reply

    Obama sure ain’t perfect, but anyone who thinks it does not matter who wins this election is very very foolish. In a democracy (we believe in democracy, right?) the President’s powers are strictly limited, first by what he can actually do, second by what he can get away with. He can try to lead, but it is up to us to support him, or he can do nothing. We have a smart, able guy playing an incredibly complex multi-dimensional chess/poker game, trying to steer as close to the edge of the cliff (of being out of power and irrelevant) as he can, without losing everything. Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt were hardly flawless, but we needed them in 1940-1942. (Anyone prefer Hitler?) Do remember that Lincoln was despised by many in the North until Vicksburg and Atlanta (and some purists despise him still….) We can complain about the stupidity and cupidity of the people, but that is what we have to deal with, that is what we are given, and we better save them if we want to save ourselves. This is a classic case where Obama’s self-interest and the national (and world) interests are very accurately aligned. If Obama fails, people who carp and rail against him will bear a good deal of the responsibility — for the new Supreme Court, and the fascists waiting down the line. We have to do the best we can for the world we are given.

  • Sharon M
    Reply

    Thank you for your fine article here Rebecca Griffin. I’ve learned not to give any credibility to what a politician says. What is more important is their track record. That reveals more accurate information than anything that comes out their mouths.

    I have just gotten to the point that I can look at Barack Obama’s face and not get ill. I’m grateful that I can now look at him and see past this guy covered in innocent blood and actually listen to him. Mitt Romney runs neck in neck in my cringe reaction also. That said:

    I’ve watched both party’s acceptance speeches now, and I will follow through to the bitter end. Simply because I believe the majority of American voters think there are only 2 individuals running for office, and the odds will probably result in one of these 2 winning the election.

    Well I do my darndest not to be anybody’s fool but once is more than enough with this current President to trust he will do what he states. You know the saying…’first time it happens shame on you. Second time it happens, shame on me’.

    I’ll continue hammering away at our elected officials and make my voice heard. Regardless if the only people who hear it are their staff scanning through it.

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      So, out with it. Are you suggesting you’d vote for Romney? Put away your proverb. Do you want to give this country to Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, the US Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street banks, BIG OIL, etc.? Surely you jest. Even if you feel like you’ll have to hold your nose, a vote for anyone but Obama this year fundamentally diminishes our democracy, which is already under attack. They’re already pouring massive amounts of money anonymously into the anti-democracy cause, and if you thinks it’s bad that the phony anti-voter-fraud laws are trying to suppress the vote of minorities and students, just wait til they find a way to steal YOUR vote. The Republican agenda is extreme, and if they have just one more vote than the minimum they need to pass it, and have the White House, they’ll SHOVE IT DOWN OUR THROATS. If you don’t understand that, inform yourself. Before it’s too late. Stop obsessing over what you perceive as Obama’s faults. Pay attention to Romney and Ryan. People for the American Way, among others, has covered them extensively. Be careful who you vote for.

  • Dolores Welty
    Reply

    Obama is inspirational, but will he allow an attack upon Iran? What is his plan for employment as he brings servicemen and women home?

    My friends who listened to Joe Biden’s speech found it praised our military strength too much. Peace is not yet an American Dream.

  • thomas wiley
    Reply

    Same ol same ol . Bottom line is he cannot get anything done with the Party of NO running the Congress. The speech was good but i have heard it all before. As Ralph Nader said they ( the Dems and Rethugs ) get thier milk from the SAME COW. I do not expect much from either one. Thanks for letting mre have my say .

  • Wayne Daniel
    Reply

    President Obama’s convention speech struck all the right chords, emotionally. But some said it was lacking in content. What’s he actually going to DO during his second term? Rebecca Griffin’s message, above, shows otherwise by listing some very concrete examples. Some of them are: cut military spending; use that money instead to pay down debt and put people to work rebuilding roads, bridges; schools, etc. Just hope our President has a more cooperative Congress than he has had recently.

  • nstewart
    Reply

    I thought his speech fell a little flat. For a man who is capable of great inspiration and rousing hope, I felt he is worn down and less idealistic than I wanted him to be. For swing voters, I don’t think he was able to give the impression that he believed what he was saying. There was too much pat and predictable rhetoric that was not sincere. It was as if someone wrote that speech for him and he was too tired to question it. There wasn’t enough heart. I’m still voting for him because a Romney presidency is just not acceptable.

  • Jamesfcorson
    Reply

    I like what he said about Vet’s coming home , and have a plan to help them back G-I Bill 21st. Centry.

  • krystal roach
    Reply

    i feel like his speeches gets more deep, concerning, and better over time.

  • Lee Anglin
    Reply

    President Obama makes sense, is real, cares for U. S. citizens all, is a respected leader in the world, understands the middle class and is for the poor and dispossessed, and gave a great speech last night. Lee Anglin

  • Mahuleia Kealualei (@Leialadi)
    Reply

    The differences between the two presidential candidates could not be more clear. On the one hand one wants power for power’s sake, no matter what happens to the people of this country. He touts “small government” so small it can fit into a woman’s womb! In the meantime, his taxes are a mystery, he’s in bed with Big Oil, and his party would cheat the vote. The other candidate is human. I mean REALLY Human! He’s not perfect by any means, but his eyes show signs of life, not blankness. Yes, I know the second candidate has drones and the DHS. But there were also within the last 24 hrs two threats to his life, one by a sixteen-yr-old white teen, the other by a young black man. People, this second candidate, the incumbent, has been doing the best he can given horrendous circumstances. The hatred, the vitriol, the threats on his life, the painfully slow climb upward for the economy, the crises that pop up suddenly, things that would overwhelm any one of us, were we in his shoes!

    I know there are those among you who are impatient, impetuous, and have been led to believe the blaring fear-mongering by paranoid (mostly right-wing libertarian) media blowhards. Without the DHS and vigilance of fellow citizens, these threats could have actually been carried out and the Right Wing would have been jubilant.

    I’ve lived over six decades and have seen 12 presidents come and go. I haven’t seen a clearer choice between two contrasting polarities. The first candidate is Mittens the Etch-a-sketch Lying Machine, who will take my Social Security, throw me out to the wolves, and let me die alone of natural causes I cannot afford and never will be able to afford to pay for. He will force women to bear their rapist’ babies or die trying to abort the glob of cells themselves in a back alley with a coat hanger, like they did when I was young. Yes! Women DID that! He would force the right wing brand of hard Christianity gown everyone’s throat. Yes, even atheists and other Christians who actually followed Jesus rather than Satan’s Right Flank! We ALL would be forced into falling in line just like good nazis and all our civil rights would be stripped as the GOP party rips The Constitution to shreds causing the Founding Fathers to roll in their graves!

    The incumbent may not be perfect, and yes, he may have drones. Ever stop to think those drones might one day PROTECT him or us? Or have you really bought into Fox News, Alex Jones, David Eike, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck’s fear-mongering? Are we getting too damm paranoid to make our choice for the human being, and not the minion of Evil (whom Fox has told you is “the good guy”)? Did anyone not remember the words of the Real Jesus, who 2000 yrs ago told us that we would be divided even in our own houses, brother and brother, sister and mother? Did we forget that he warned us that good would be touted as evil and vice versa? Well, those days are here now! Does anyone else recognize these days? Change is here, and the direction it takes is utterly UP TO US.

    A third party vote or a non-vote IS a vote for the REAL bad guy, the guy who straps dogs onto the roof of his car and drives 1200 miles. The guy who bullies a young teen boy suspected of being different, with long hair he cut because he didn’t like it. The guy who would do Karl Rove’s and the Koch Bros bidding, who will put even more money in the wealthiest pockets while taxing the rest of us…yes, me and YOU! : Mitt Romney.

    So if you are really a right winger, go ahead and vote for Romney, the economy will get even worse! You will be even MORE broke! And there will be no planet for your children to grow up on, because he wants war with Iran, which will start WW3, which will turn nasty and nuclear, and will lay this planet waste more surely than just a failing economy!!! And you who voted for him will choke on the fumes of his fallout just as sure as those you hate as your enemies!

    But if you are independent, or on the Left, and are not certain that the human will “come to get you with a drone in the night” let me tell you something: the GOP candidate will SURELY will come for you because you are NOT a Right Winger, and you will be persecuted either slowly, for lack of proper health care and education, or quickly if you are seen to any GOP as a threat to their imperial power.

    The choice is yours in November. Please, for the sake of all life on Earth, choose WISELY!

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      I missed your contribution the first time through. Thank you for helping to steer this discussion toward an adult consideration of the issues. I would add that we also have to consider Romney’s infatuation with Robert Bork, which I detail in a post at the 10:58pm mark. He was rejected from the Supreme Court. He should STAY rejected.

  • Ted Voth Jr
    Reply

    ‘GOOD King Obama! He is wise and just and GOOD.’ I don’t believe all the adulation. I don’t see it but he may be the ultimate example of that great American hero, the flim-flam man, right up there, the young Augustus restoring the Republic, with the deified Caesar Ronald Reagan. We deserve to lose our democracy.

  • - bill
    Reply

    As was the case in 2008, all style and virtually no substance. It’s understandable why people could hold onto hope back then based on the inspiring style, but now, with a clear 4-year record of abandoned and often actively broken promises to look at, not so much.

    So he pledges not to let Medicare turn into a voucher system, but not a word about whether he’ll allow it to be significantly weakened or morphed into the kind of corporate feeding trough that he actively turned health-care ‘reform’ into. He won’t let Social Security be turned over to private investment, but not a word about whether he’ll ‘keep it strong’ by raising the retirement age and reducing benefits (as promoted by the Simpson-Bowles commission which he created and whose findings he repeatedly praises) rather than by returning to the FICA tax structure (covering 90% of national income, plus some redress for having allowed it to fall below that level) that the Greenspan Commission established in the mid-’80s and which would fund it fully as far out as we can project. I suspect he’s heard of the idea of civil liberties but he didn’t bother mentioning them (guess he doesn’t see any problems there). He says he believes in climate change but save for modest near-term increases in CAFE standards (the rest if they take place at all will occur long after he has left office) has a record of obstructing both domestic and international moves to curb it. And not a word about the need to make efforts to avoid creating enemies rather than pledging to maintain a military that can easily crush those we seem intent on continuing to make.

    I paid close attention to his policy statements in 2008 and voted for someone whose positions were far closer to my own – but still hoped that Obama would turn out to govern in a manner more aligned with his inspiring rhetoric. Given that instead he governed significantly to the right even of those stated positions (as national Democrats have done repeatedly, starting when they took control of both houses of Congress in 2007 and continuing even after further strengthening their control in 2009 plus taking the White House as well) there’s no way I’ll be supporting Obama or other Democratic incumbents this year: as long as people support them despite such perfidy, why would they ever be motivated to clean up their act?

  • Matt
    Reply

    Two things really bothered me about his speech. This had to do with the portion on energy. One, his use of the term “clean coal”?! I consider myself somewhat well informed and maybe I’m wrong but I thought there was no such thing? Second he referenced “the 100 years of natural gas under or feet”. Now we all know that means fracking! If earthquakes and flammable tap water aren’t enough to put a moratorium on this funny business until they can figure out how to do it safely, well maybe there isn’t any hope for the future……..

  • Margie Gilbert
    Reply

    I’m voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. President Obama is a great orater. I just wish he would put his money where his mouth is. I often wonder if each of us who vote for the lessor evil would instead vote for a third party candidate they really believed in if then that person would have a chance of winning.

    • Gordon Johnston
      Reply

      Jill Stein is an excellent choice. So is Howard Dean (Obama kicked him to the curb) or Ralph Nader. In a two-party system which is actually a doppleganger system where you can’t tell one party from the other in D.C., the public has little choice. And let’s not get gulled by convention party planks. They sound good theoretically, but they don’t happen actually most of the time. We need three parties at least, or a system like France, England or Germany have where the public has more power to dump their government than we do.

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        Well, Gordon…we have TWO viable parties at this time, the Democratic Party and…let’s face it…the TEA PARTY. If you don’t vote for the Democratic Party, you’ll get the TEA PARTY, because they now own the GOP. A vote for anyone but Obama this year is a vote for Romney. It’s that simple. Is that what you want? Don’t pretend the parties are identical. If the Dems aren’t perfect, they are more responsive than the GOP, who only looks out for the 1%, and you KNOW it.

        • Gordon Johnston
          Reply

          Don’t hyperventilate, Robert. We’re between the rock and the hard place, given the Dems and the GOP. When Obama had a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, he did nothing substantive to lead legislative reform. Both he and the Dems made a lackluster showing, or have you missed the low approval numbers for Congress, which includes both sides of the aisle?

          I’m not eager to embrace the Tea Party dominated GOP as an alternative to Obama and the do-nothing Dems. But let’s not pretend that Obama and Company are going to lead us into the Promised Land if we give him one more chance. This country is seriously screwed up because the American public, in its various affinity groups, keeps enabling the Obamas and Bidens by tolerating what they do (expanded wars, torture, reduced civil rights, etc), and by also enabling Congress to continue on in mediocrity, because we can’t think outside of the box of the two-party system.

      • Paul Troyano
        Reply

        I will also probably vote for Jill Stein, arrested protesting foreclosures, it’s a start for pointing to what we need to fix. How does one get folks to vote green party most are convinced they need to vote to keep out Republicans? Since Louisiana is a red state my vote just gives Obama one less popular vote.

        • Robert Mihaly
          Reply

          We Do need to vote to keep out Republicans. You’re probably right that your vote won’t count in Louisiana, but not everyone proposing to throw away their vote lives in a red state. Do ANY of those folks really understand the depths to which this nation will sink under Romney/Ryan? And if they get in, their policies will be ensconced for a generation, because Robert Bork will be picking Supreme Court and other Federal judge nominees.

  • Stephen Brockmann
    Reply

    Excellent speech!

    • Gordon Johnston
      Reply

      It was an “excellent speech” because it told us in soothing tones what we wanted to hear. More hope and change in the wake of his first term’s hopeless and changeless minor accomplishments. We’re so used to the selling of products through language, that we are easily suckered into embracing the selling of a presidential hopeful. Romney isn’t my first choice as an alternative to Obama, but let’s stop swallowing Obama’s rhetoric whole and recognize him for the phoney he is.

  • Martin Kellerman
    Reply

    I won’t ever support a war-mongerer such as both Obama & Romney…..I learned a long time ago that there are a lot more choices than the 2 major parties….I’m supporting Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party.

  • James Murray
    Reply

    I avoided his speech because he is a liar par excellence, an enabler of the worst corporate agenda for the planet.

  • M. K. Brussel
    Reply

    What Obama says is hardly worth considering. What he has done is worth considering. He has continued our imperial war policies, thereby killing innumerable innocents, has protected former war criminals, has violated international codes of behavior and cherished civil rights (Think Bradley Manning, Guantanamo), and has been close to the corporate structure of our present system. His military/national security budget is the highest ever and his slavish backing of Israel is a disgrace. His war on terror is a war of terror. In my mind he is a war criminal.
    But if I were a woman, and alI cared about were women’s issues, I might vote for him.

    • tibetsun
      Reply

      M…my sentiments, exactly!

  • K. K. Kumaroo
    Reply

    Obama’s speech…just another American President’s speech – the speech of the President of the greatest (Terrorist ?) country on earth. Nothing more……The might of the American imperial military-industrial-complex is deployed all around the world to protect the holiest American “security”, and its inhuman military machine is hunting down and murdering any and all around the world supposedly to safeguard the American “security” at home. It is only a coincidence that it is carried out by Obama. It could have been done by any other President of the Dollarcratic US of A. This is in keeping with the century-old traditions of colonial America which exterminated 5+ million native Americans for the loot. Ending the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan or starting many more wars, big and small, elsewhere are all in keeping with the violence-tainted colonial America. A nation born in violence, thrived in violences of all sorts (from slavery, segregation, violence of economic inequalty, environmental violence etc. etc) and perpetuated violence at home and abroad has nothing but pride in enjoying Obama’s speech of self-adulation. If Obama had the courage and conviction to renounce violence of all sorts and had pledged to dismantle all weapons of distruction, and lead America to live in peace with the peoples of the world – Peaceful Coexistence – I would have applauded his speech. His speech was a political and self-serving opprtunistic speech…it did not move me…..

  • Brad Sherman
    Reply

    Obama’s speech was not as compelling for me as his earlier speeches (especially pre-2008) whereas I found Clinton’s speech to be outstanding. I share the profound disappointment expressed by others here with the prolonged existence of Guantanamo and US military intervention in the Middle East. But, if one is realistic, nothing can happen in the US political system if you don’t carry 60% of the senate and the sheer bloody-minded obstinence of the GOP placed an insurmountable obstacle in the road since 2008. It was never going to be possible for the President, on his own, to push through the closure of Guantanamo – the public blowback amplified by our good friends at Faux News would have seen to that.

    I can understand the temptation to vote independent but, the reality is that by doing that a voter is effectively preferencing the Romney/Ryan ticket by splitting the democratic vote. I will be voting for Obama and doing my best to ensure a more sympathetic Senate and House of Reps. No party can govern without 60% of the Senate. And that is a profound weakness of the American political system these days.

  • Ginny NiCarthy
    Reply

    Obama said a number of positive things in his speech, and many responders here took note of them, so I’ll just speak to the side of his statements mentioned by fewer people. He is praised because he doesn’t “saber rattle,” threatening to drag us into war? Perhaps. Instead, he assassinates whomever he judges to be a threat, so paradoxically, we are at war with the Yemen and Pakistani people – at least that’s what used to be called “war”: targetting citizens of another nation, violating their borders destroying villages. Obama does not even let the public know on what basis he makes decisions to kill. In his speech he blatantly referred to “bringing bin laden to justice,” a disgraceful Orwellian turn of phrase. “Bringing to justice” used to mean arresting, taking to court and trying an alleged criminal. Obama, the supposed talented word-smith, the champion orator, the constitutional scholar and teacher, has to know better than to use that phrase to characterize assassination. And as we speak, billions of dollars are going into drone manufacture and training. Our atomic weapons are being “updated.” We have troops deployed in many African countries, Latin America, notably in Honduras, where we are propping up an illegal government…. The list of our president’s hugely accelerated militarization is long and disheartening. Please, those of you who have only praised his fine words, do take another look and let him know that you have not been tricked by is words.

  • Robert Mihaly
    Reply

    I’ve read more than enough of these comments to recognize that I’ve more than had my fill of cynicism and negativity. As I said in another post, I’m sure my politics are left of President Obama’s. In this country, however, most of the population is in the center. The far right just THINKS they’re in the majority as they become more extreme. But writing off the whole system and the whole country as you crawl further left is a useless response. Obama is a pragmatist, and that is indicated by the healthcare law he signed. That bill, like pretty much everything that’s on his plate needs to be accepted by the center, or nothing will be accomplished.

    Not voting or voting for a fringe candidate like a Libertarian or a Green only makes it more likely that Romney and Lyin’ Ryan will take the White House. Why would you want to risk that? If you’re upset that Obama is too accommodating to big business, do you not think Romney would be all in?

    Here’s something that ought to wake some of you folks up. Romney has indicated that he will use Robert Bork to pick candidates for the Federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. Robert bleepin’ Bork, who was considered too extreme for the Supreme Court, who would overturn Roe v. Wade and empower states to prosecute women and doctors who violate criminal abortion laws, who believes an employer may require its female workers to be sterilized in order to reduce employer liability for harm to the potential children, who rejected desegregation by law as a violation of the “freedom” of business owners to associate only with the people they choose to,” and who also believes that people should be jailed for advocating civil disobedience, mocks the concept of “one person, one vote,” and has defended poll taxes and literacy tests in state elections. Also, Bork rejects the separation of church and state, and thinks the First Amendment only applies to explicitly political speech. And, if you’re a woman, Robert Bork thinks it was a mistake to give you the vote.

    So, had enough? I have. If this doesn’t convince you that voting for Obama is, at the very least, the lesser of two evils (and I’m not of that opinion), then you must be a masochist, because the alternative is to see America Borked by Romney.

    • - bill
      Reply

      People who complain about cynicism and negativity often simply turn out to be uninformed rather than active shills. If the former is the case, that’s something I can help you with.

      First, though it wasn’t your own comment let’s get the “it takes a 60-vote majority in the Senate for Democrats to get anything done” claim out of the way – since Obama had 60 Democratic votes in the Senate (including the two Independents who caucused with the Democrats) for his first full year in office (and Republicans hadn’t begun voting in lock-step for that year either, for that matter). To call that year an incompetently wasted opportunity is the most charitable characterization one might come up with (my own is considerably more scathing).

      As for the political center, the national Democratic establishment (most certainly including Obama) has been significantly to the right of the nation’s political center for much of the past decade. Polls consistently demonstrated majority desire to get out of Iraq long before Obama took office (that’s a major reason the Democrats took over both houses of Congress in 2006) – yet it took until the end of 2011 for that to occur. For most of Obama’s tenure in the White House polls have consistently demonstrated majority desire to get out of Afghanistan, yet we instead ‘surged’ there and are currently doing no more than bringing the surge home, with no indication of when the other 68,000 troops will return (some apparently may be there until 2024). Majorities supported expanding Medicare to cover everyone as a means to reform health care and even stronger majorities demanded at the least a robust ‘public option’ to help keep insurers reasonably competitive, but Obama took the first completely off the table from the beginning and traded away the second in back-room deals with the industry in July 2009 – well before the political brouhaha had even begun (he traded away allowing Medicare to negotiate Part D prescription drug prices with providers even earlier – another of his campaign positions which enjoyed majority support). Then in March, 2010, when it would have taken only 50 votes in the Senate (plus Biden’s as a tie-breaker) to amend the already-passed bill via reconciliation to include either a public option or significantly-extended Medicare as an alternative, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid actively squashed efforts to do either – despite the fact that a) the House had already passed a version including a public option (and hence likely could again), b) over 50 Senators were already on record as supporting a public option, c) the main bill had already passed so this would not have endangered it (i.e., if the reconciliation version that included a public option failed, they could just redo it without one), and d) major pieces of health-care legislation (e.g., COBRA) had already passed muster in prior years as being allowed via reconciliation rules (since they clearly do affect budgetary matters). Strong remedies for the woes which Wall Street brought on us certainly enjoyed strong majority support, and yet here we are 4 years later with only the most anemic of restored regulation (and not even a slap on the wrist for the perpetrators). Returning the income tax structure (at least for the wealthy) to even the slightly greater progressivity it had under Clinton? That enjoys strong majority support and would have occurred automatically at the end of 2010 if the still-Democratic-controlled House and Senate hadn’t explicitly extended it (no need for super-majorities there: they could simply have done nothing and then restored the cuts for middle- and lower-income people afterward).

      The list of abandoned and actively broken campaign promises THAT THE MAJORITY OF THE COUNTRY SUPPORTED goes on and on. Had Obama used that support to shame political opposition into silence after moving into the White House he could have accomplished wonders. Instead, he depended upon people like you to create excuses for him, and upon many others to accept such excuses out of fear rather than acknowledge that they had been mislead and needed to roll up their sleeves and find another way to get the country back on track.

      Because (as has been said before) such a lesser evil is still evil. Just slowing down our progress toward disaster really doesn’t accomplish much: we need to CHANGE that course, and if the Democratic party won’t do that (which they seem to have proven quite conclusively over the past half-dozen years) then we need to desert them and create something that will (or prove to them that they’ll only get enough support to be elected if they clean up their act, not just their rhetoric). Frankly, given the Democratic perfidy of the past 6 years (some would say far longer) the down-side of some temporary Republican governance in the hope that something better can occur on the other side of it just doesn’t seem great a risk to take, at least to people with a longer-than-4-year horizon.

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        I’m neither uninformed, a shill, or naive. I can’t say the same for you regarding the latter after reading your diatribe. Clearly you’re not as well informed as you think. You need 60 votes in the Senate to end a filibuster. With the 60 votes you claim, there were at least half a dozen “blue dog” conservative Democrats and a two-faced Joe Lieberman. So there were NOT 60 Democrats + independents at any time. At no time has the populace been even slightly left of center. There may be a few issues where it looks otherwise to you, but it’s the toll of too many needless deaths in war and the huge monetary costs that turned the populace against Iraq and Afghanistan.

        Your suggestion that “…the down-side of some temporary Republican governance in the hope that something better can occur on the other side of it just doesn’t seem great a risk to take, at least to people with a longer-than-4-year horizon….” is nonsense. Romney and Ryan, if given the chance, with a slim majority in the House and the Senate, will turn this country around so fast it will make your head spin. They have no shame, and they will be no holds barred to repeal the New Deal, the Great Society, and all the other beneficial programs that have been undertaken in the past century.

        So keep your head buried in the sand until Nov. 7th if you will. Hopefully your one vote won’t make the difference anywhere. I’ll be voting for Obama and Sherrod Brown, because I don’t want to live in the United States of Exxon.

        • Patricia
          Reply

          OMG your intelligence is showing………unfortunately some just don’t get the truth.

  • Dave Moffit
    Reply

    Empire is….as Empire does

  • carolyn mccrady
    Reply

    I was disappointed at the references to Jersusalem remaining the capital of Israel and saddened at no mention of syria and iran. it makes me think as some have hypothesized that right after he “wins,” it wil be no holds barred on iran and syria. also, i take issue with the idea that we are out of iraq, not when we are still paying for thousands of mecenaries there and are supporting 5 air bases. but i agree that afghanistan looks murky and unsettled just like iraq is today. i heard nothing about diplomacy, regional that is, or anything like a mature approach to living together on this globe.

  • Rosette M. Bagley
    Reply

    I would have liked to hear President Obama congratulate Rep. Gabbie Gifford on her courageous walk to the podium and delivery of the pledge of allegiance. He could have followed this by an appeal for more regulation of guns in this country – and thus rile the NRA a bit. Thank you.

  • Maryriver
    Reply

    I have watched conventions on TV for as long as there has been TV and I have never seen the diversity of speekers that the DNC lifted up this year! I loved that, the drama was so well produced and directed that they deserve an Academy award! Smooth operation indeed. Well acted hazzzah!!!

    As for reality I guess we have to wait and see who wins and then how they walk their talk.

    • Gordon Johnston
      Reply

      You captured the convention in a nut shell–it was well acted. I didn’t believe most of it, since it’s a re-run of 2008. Obama is a chameleon who will say and be anything you want him to say and be, and after he’s elected, he’ll do fun stuff like expand the Patriot Act, add more victims to his kill list, send out more drones, cuddle up to Wall St…..do you get my drift?

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        I get that you’re adrift in your own little world, Gordon. I guess you can’t wait to see a President Romney, so you can REALLY get your hackles up. But why risk the devastation to the Middle Class that Romney/Ryan would surely bring. Time to get real folks. It could be MUCH WORSE and WILL BE if you throw away your vote on fringe candidates. I thought this was called Peace Action West. It sounds more like you all want to surrender to the TEA PARTY. How revolting!

  • tibetsun
    Reply

    Obama is great at giving speeches! He, “talks-the-talk; but, he doesn’t, “walk-the-walk”!! It’s not what he says that people should be paying attention to, because he wants our votes–it’s what he does! He’s been another Bush in too many ways that should matter to the people–but, obviously don’t to many!!

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      …so you’ll let Romney in, so you can feel even MORE self righteous? get real.

  • STEVE TRUJILLO
    Reply

    i cant imagine or remember a president more determined to bring peace to our world but more surrounded by a war lobby that continues in place adminstration after administration. what Tibetsun doesnt seem to understand is that the Pentagon is filled with people who are NOT elected and predate Bush 1 , Bush 2 and Clinton. GET A CLUE! read books on how the pentagon is run. Obama did not create the Dr. Strangeloves in the Pentagon, and it will take us to elect a congress brave enough and strong enough to dismantle it.

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      Another term for Obama will give him and us a chance to undo some of this mess. A vote for anyone else and a win for Romney will guarantee that it all gets worse. Romney wants to reopen the COLD WAR, for Crissakes!

  • Arthur Daniels
    Reply

    Obama ordered assassins to invade a foreign country and kill Bin Laden in the presence of his family, while he watched this vicious killing from the safety of his den in Washington. To invade a foreign country is an act of war, a violation of international law, and Obama’s actions have defined himself as a war criminal, Thousands of innocent civilians have been slaughtered on his orders, their mangled bodies, once characterized as “collateral damage” are now called “guilty by proximity.” The degree to which fascism has been consolidated in the USA can be measured by our acceptance of a mass murderer in our White House and the pride this “Christian’ killer takes in his war crimes.

    • mike1hag
      Reply

      Bravo for speaking out! I couldn’t agree more. “Might makes right” seems to be the governing principle, whether Republican or Democrat sits in the White House. Alas, we are becoming a lawless society.

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      When you decide to rejoin the real world, we’ll welcome you, Arthur…if you GET real. You see Obama as Voldemort. Clint Eastwood sees him as an empty chair. I’d say they’re equally off base.

  • Sarah M. Hamilton
    Reply

    Excellent speech, as always. Made Rommney and his so called ideas look stupid.

  • mike1hag
    Reply

    The President failed to put forward a strategy for achieving his goals. He didn’t tell us how he would handle the looming fiscal cliff crisis and the ongoing legislative gridlock. Nor did he address the important issues of Guantanamo detainees, FBI repression of antiwar activists, drone strikes and political assassinations. He didn’t try to justify the $3.1 billion in military aid to the apartheid regime in Israel. In extolling his brave decision to rub out Osama bin Laden, he endorsed the dangerous principle of “Might makes Right.”

    He could have, but didn’t, blow the whistle on the ever expanding might of the military/industrial/security complex that thrives on war and robs from our citizens at home.

    On balance it was a fair rebuttal to the “sink or swim” Republicans on economic issues, but a terrible statement of US foreign policy.

  • Eve
    Reply

    I loved the speech and what he said – with reservations. I never thought he was the Messiah, and voted for Dennis Kucinich in the primary. He told us he’d get out of Iraq (not fast enough for me) and that he’d up the ante in Afghanistan (again, shouldn’t have). He did and is doing what he said he’d do, and so we shouldn’t expect anything else. He has used drones – killing civilians in the process of trying to “get” suspected terrorists, and has changed the way US intervention is done.

    He’s no Dennis Kucinich (the country will miss him in the House, but he’ll undoubtedly do good in other ways), but then again, Obama is no John McCain/Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan, so we unfortunately have no choice, in my opinion, but to support him, re-elect him, and then try like heck to push him leftward during his second term where he can do what he believes and/or what the people want him to do.

    • Robert Mihaly
      Reply

      You are more aware of what’s going on than most who have posted since last night. No candidate’s perfect, but most were seriously more flawed than Obama. He wasn’t the Messiah that so many people wanted him to be. There will be no Messiah. But in this imperfect world, he’s the best we can get this year.

      Dennis is my Representative, and I’ll be sorry to see him leave the House. Marcy Kaptur is no Dennis Kucinich. However, I never voted for Dennis to be President. He had no chance, but what he did was to speak truth to power, as he has done all his life.

      • Patricia
        Reply

        Was so hoping that Dennis would run here in Washington for Jay Inslee’s seat. That would have been so perfect for that district. I won’t be satisfied until I see his Department of Peace come to life…….in my lifetime. Jay will make a great Governor here in the Washington State and hopefully Darcy Burner will become a new rep.

      • - bill
        Reply

        Dear me, Robert (I’m replying to you here because the reply-depth limit above apparently was reached): you appear to be not only uninformed but also incapable of reading competently.

        But, again, I can help you out with that. I never claimed that 60 votes for a public option were available in the Senate, as you’ll see if you read my previous post somewhat more carefully than you did earlier: I claimed that there were more than *50* Senators on record as supporting the public option, and if you knew anything about the budget reconciliation process (which you really ought to before commenting on it so incompetently) you’d know that 50 votes (plus Biden as a tie-breaker) is all it takes to pass reconciliation bills (filibustering them is not allowed: it’s a special case, and in fact the reconciliation package that DID pass amending the ACA passed by a vote of 56 – 43 in the Senate – without, of course, any filibuster).

        If the American public were actually as conservative as you claim then they’d have been far more skeptical of Obama in 2008 and would be far happier with him now (since he’s proven to be far more conservative – though ‘corporatist’ is probably a more accurate term – than he appeared to be then). I’m not sure what alternative universe you live in, but it doesn’t appear to be fact-based – an attribute I’m much more used to associating with neocons than with nominal progressives, but perhaps that’s just one more casualty of the level of polarization and resulting blind loyalty which both major parties so avidly promote..

        You also don’t appear to be able to wrap what passes for your mind around the fact that Democratic governance has by and large been taking us in the same direction as Republican governance – often a bit more slowly but sometimes even faster (funny how Democrats in Congress will put up with behavior from Obama which they would have raised Cain about under Bush, isn’t it?). That’s why people looking for real change are looking elsewhere than the Democratic party (at least on the national level) and why your fear-mongering about the greater evil just doesn’t cause the same knee-jerk reactions among many progressives that it used to (that, and the fact that after a full 8 years of constant bombardment with it it’s getting rather stale).

        Dennis unfortunately participated in this during the health-care fiasco, though it took a ride on Air Force One to turn him around and he still was publicly unhappy about it. Nonetheless, he reneged on his written pledge not to support a ‘reform’ package which lacked a public option (as did EVERY ONE of the other 60+ Congressional Progressive Caucus members who had signed that pledge) and it’s difficult to believe that this betrayal of his principles (and those of many of his supporters) did not affect his subsequent primary race. It’s also why the Democrats fared so poorly in 2010 – seems like many people really don’t like having their hopes very deliberately and calculatingly raised so high and then so casually dashed, and the fact that the Democratic party failed to recognize the portents of the incredible election of Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat at the beginning of 2010 indicates just how completely unconcerned with the wishes of their constituents they have become when they conflict with their corporate allegiances (Rahm Emanuel and others who had been dismissing any worries over this with the observation “after all, where else can they go?” got their answer first with Brown and then with the general election 10 months later: ‘they’ could, and did, just stay home).

        As for the importance of my vote, living in New Hampshire gives me some hope that it won’t be quite as much an exercise in futility as it otherwise might be (as an apparent Ohio resident you may feel similarly). I’ll also observe that ANY vote for something other than the two major parties has more potential impact in helping to change the status quo over the longer term than just one more ‘go along, get along’ party-line check-mark.

        • Ted Voth Jr
          Reply

          I’m with you Bill. As to State-level ‘democrats,’ all but one of the alleged Wisconsin ‘democrats’ are sitting on their hands watching Tea-Bag Gov Walker’s new chief of Capitol Police walking all over– or trying to– those of us who for more than 450 days now have sung in the Solidarity Sing along in the Capitol Rotunda, hassling us with spurious arrests for infringing administrative rule which are obviously anti-Constitutional, in violation of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution and Article 1 of the State Constitution. Come visit us in Wisconsin and join the Sing-along every weekday in the Rotunda or on the State St corner of the Capitol Square. As to disappointment in Oreobama’s (non-)performance, I sometimes wonder if that wasn’t why the Corporate Overlords permitted Oreobama to win, and if he isn’t just faithfully fulfilling their orders, in order to discourage any hope in democracy

      • - bill
        Reply

        Whoops – while my initial and largely off-hand comment about the Democratic super-majority in the Senate (including the two Independents who caucused with them) was not a response to you (but rather to another poster who had bemoaned the fact that the Democrats had not enjoyed such a super-majority), Robert, perhaps you were referring to that in your response rather than to my more extensive explanation (which WAS in response to you) of why only 50 Senate votes were required to pass far better health-care reform. So while that part of your response would still have been rather beside the point, it may not have been as manifestly incompetent at it appeared to be.

        My other comments stand.

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        Bill, your smugness might be warranted if you were as well informed as you think you are. Your screeds are so long-winded that I couldn’t force myself to wade through any of them from start to finish. Your air of superiority appears to be all HOT AIR. But if you want to argue, save it for a conservative…or…if you choose…punch him out. I don’t care. I’m not your enemy. I want to see Obama win, because the only other candidate who COULD win is Romney. Might as well have President Satan.

        BTW, why are you afraid to post under your full name? I wonder if you would feel so free to trash talk like you have without the cover of anonymity. I doubt it.

      • - bill
        Reply

        You really do seem to be functionally incompetent, Robert: no only are you unable to understand what you read, not only have you just admitted that you don’t even bother to read much of it at all before responding to it, not only do you blithely wave away any factual information that doesn’t fit your preconceptions, not only do you keep saying that you’re going to shut up and leave because this place is such a waste of your time (but of course never actually do), but now it seems that you feel free to make baseless assumptions about other people you don’t know at all.

        My name is Bill Todd, but since I’ve been posting as – bill for most of the past 35 years I’m not about to change to accommodate you. I’ve never had a high tolerance for incompetent blowhards and never hesitated to call them on it publicly (nor to let them know exactly who I am if they asked). Fortunately, their prevalence was much lower for much of those 3.5 decades: email and later the Web used to attract a higher class of clientele.

        Had you been more circumspect in your denigration of those who didn’t share your views (an attitude which you had already made clear before our own interchanges began) I would have cut you a bit more slack – something you might benefit from thinking about (but probably won’t).

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        KMA, Swill Bill.

      • - bill
        Reply

        That would certainly be easy to do if I were at all inclined to, since yet again you’ve failed to leave this thread as you’ve so often suggested you would. However, my taste doesn’t run to your variety of persistent on-line flatulence (except to apply some intellectual Febreze to it when I run across it), so I’m afraid you’re out of luck.

  • Ronn Rosen
    Reply

    Obama omits preventive detention of American citizens,drone warfare,targeted assasinations, release of Guantanamo prisoners. etc. His policy is even more hawkish than G. Bush. The ACLU says we have a crisis of erosion of democratic civil and individual rights.Obama takes massive campaign money from military industries. Thus his foriegn policy is massively too slow on military budget reduction over the last 4 years and he himself supported/promoted a surge in Afghanistan and mass bombing deaths thru u.s. led NATO in Libya and is poised to make war on Syria and Iran. Massively failed Foriegn Politics [as usual.]!!!!

    • Idajane Dalpino
      Reply

      One thing Obama said I can’t agree with is this business of rewarding illegals with citizenship, scholarships and licenses ( in California an illegal wants to practice law).
      I see what has happened to our health system and our educational system and our welfare system, and it makes me angry that lawbreakers think they have rights. What
      does that make the rest of us? Fools. Our country has been overburdened with immigrants . The cost is too much. My cup of empathy and charity has run dry and I wish they would all be sent home to make THEIR lawful homes better places – with the benefit of the education and healthcare we have given them. To hear them talk, no one built this country , no one took care of this country till they came along. That part of his program smells to me.
      However, I would rather chop off my fingers than vote Republican. My mother lived through the Great Depression and I am convinced their party is on the same course as the one in power then.

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        Idajane, you are 100% right with your comments on the Great Depression. Romney would follow the EU into a double dip recession or worse by instituting Ryan’s austerity measures. But I have to question your immigration comments. We are a nation of immigrants. Some were brought here by their undocumented parents. Is it just to deport them to a country they never knew? Think about all the immigrants and their offspring who have contributed to our way of life, our system of government, and our economy…that would account for most of the progress we’ve made as a nation. Would we have gotten to the moon without Werner von Braun? Would we have a search engine as effective as Google without Sergey Brin? I could go on, but I’m sure you get it.

        As to what has happened to our health system, our educational system, and our welfare system, would you be disinclined to attribute those to the Republican plan to shrink government until it’s small enough to be drowned in a bathtub? That’s why the GOP is using immigration as a wedge issue…to divide us.

        • Patricia
          Reply

          Here Here and Bravo!

          • Robert Mihaly

            Thank you. I’m glad some people in this forum haven’t self-righteously crawled off to their imagined safe spots on the far left…as if that counteracts the very real activism of the EXTREME far right. This forum is SO negative that I’m afraid I will soon bow out. You can’t win an argument with a stone or a conservative. They don’t listen and can’t or choose not to think for themselves. I fear that’s true of the other extreme, as well. Have a nice day, and don’t forget to vote for Obama.

          • tedvothjrt

            I’ve found I can’t argue with a devoté of the Centrist Corporatist Wall-St-Owned Good King Obama

          • Robert Mihaly

            You can’t argue when you don’t know who you’re arguing with. But more importantly, you can’t argue when you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

          • Ted Voth Jr

            Robert, I was saying I can’t argue with a True Believer, any True Believer, left, right or extreme center, even when I do know who I’m trying to argue with and what’s truly going down. If you can do this, please come to Madison Wisconsin and teach me how. You can sing with our State Capitol Solidarity Sing-Along every weekday and see the most beautiful city in the world, as I Truly Believe…

      • Robert Mihaly
        Reply

        tedvothjrt, I have NO idea what you were trying to convey when you wrote:
        “I’ve found I can’t argue with a devoté of the Centrist Corporatist Wall-St-Owned Good King Obama.” If that was intended to describe me, it’s far off. I distrust Wall Street as much as anyone, but I recognize that participation in 401(k)s and IRAs is a fact of contemporary life, and if you have neither, you will fall behind and be unable to retire someday. And Obama is anything but a king. I think you got way too carried away with that one.

        Then you wrote, “…I can’t argue with a True Believer, any True Believer, left, right or extreme center….” “Extreme center” is a new one for me. Maybe you can even explain it, but it doesn’t seem to fit anybody I know. I’ve found that most people are liberal in some things and conservative in others, until you approach the extremes right or left. Those are the people who are more likely to be True Believers, and they can’t or won’t respond to reason, because their ideological rigidity doesn’t permit it.

        I won’t be coming to Madison, Wisconsin, but we in Ohio were in solidarity with your attempt to kick the beast out of the governor’s mansion. In Ohio, all we could do under our state constitution was to put an initiative on last November’s ballot to overturn the attack on the rights of public employees. We were successful, while your recall fell short. In the next election, we will be voting on an initiative to change the redistricting of state and US congressional districts and take it out of the hands of the Republican-dominated state politicians who warped the process last time around. All I can say to you is that it’s a stupid waste of time to argue over who’s more liberal, as has been too much the case in this forum. We all need to take every legal action we can to fight the forces of darkness residing in today’s Republican Party. If you’re going to quibble about THAT, then you ARE part of the problem. If you’re to the left of center, no matter how far, you have to work together with others of like mind, or we will see a President Romney.

        If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

        • Ted Voth Jr
          Reply

          Sorry, Robert; I was expanding from my experience of talking to Obama loyalists ‘on the Left’. I am voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Every time we vote for the lesser of two evils we set ourselves up to vote for the lesser of two evils again. And again. Wasn’t it Einstein who said ‘Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Do you know what NDAA was?

  • David McKeever
    Reply

    Vote for Obama so we can impeach Mitch McConnel. He has taken $696,000 in pay to block Obama and done nothing else to help this Country. His pledge is a violation of his Oath of Office, (IMPEACH HIM!!). I think Bush had one fillibuster during his eight years in office. Obama had 69 in 2009 alone!!! Republicans have all signed a pledge not to raise taxes. Bush/Cheny put us into debt. They even collatarized all our National Parks to the Chinese to be able to borrow money for two unfunded wars. No President in the history of this Country has gone to war without raising taxes! WW2 =94% top bracket!!!!
    Republicans are obstrutionists! They won’t confirm judges well qualified and many other cabinet postions.
    HOW CAN YOU EXPECT CHANGE WHEN YOU HAVE A DISHONEST HOUSE OF (REPUBLICANS) CONGRESS. They don’t like SSI but Congress stole our money and owes something like 4.5 TRILLION to them! Sounds pretty solvent except they stole our money!
    Now they are trying to supress our votes so they can steal the election just like Bush did in 2004! (Yes they counted the votes and Gore won by something like 600 votes). Supreme Court should not be allowed to pick a President!
    If we want any chance for change then vote for Obama. Half or Democrats don’t vote already. Many can’t afford cable T.V. so uninformed how unfair our political system is becomming. LET’S PUT IT UP FOR VOTE! NO MORE LOBBYIST MONEY TO CONGRESS! Then maybe we can get a semi-honest Congress.
    What President in his right mind would send 16 BILLION DOLLARS in small $100 bills on a plane to Iraq, (third world country). It disappeared and now Iraq is suing the U.S.A. saying it was owed them, (food for oil)! What a Country!!! What a President!!! What a Congress!!!
    WHAT A BUNCH OF CROOKS!!!
    We are the only industrialized Nation not to have health care for all! Except Congress!!!
    Make them pay just like we do! I didn’t like giving Cheney a new heart! I pay $700 a month, live in pain because my insurance company told me my operation was $250,000 and they are not willing to give that to me!
    Maybe it is time to move to a civilized Country!

  • Jon
    Reply

    I was impressed with; ;the president’s rhetoric – as I was in 2008. This time I know enough not to believe it.

    The Obama foreign policy is that of Bush minus some bluster and plus some illegal drone strides.

    His domestic policy favors Wall Street over t;he public. (Why were mortgage adjustments and loan availability not conditions for bank bailout funds?)

    The President finally mentioned global warming! This must surely be the most serious problem mankind has faced, and he’s done little to mitigate it. The Obama administration has been a major impediment to international agreements at two climate conferences. The proliferation of oil wells adds to the problem and does nothing for domestic supply or prices, as oil is sold on commodity exchanges.

    The natural gas jobs from fracking threaten water supplies – which promise to be more valuable soon than natural gas.

  • Paula Starr Bourgeois
    Reply

    I think we all think we know everything that is going on. NOT! I would not presume to make statements without knowing the facts and all the facts are not at hand for me. I think President Obama is a good man trying to do the best he can with the atmosphere he is in and with the negative attitude of the repugnants. I think the President makes the best statements for the public that he can without crossing lines that he can’t.

    In the circumstances that we find this country there is no way I would want the Presidents job. I will have faith in his decisions and give him my support because I believe whole heartedly that he is……..The Best Man Standing

  • Robert Mihaly
    Reply

    Bill, you’ve proven once-and-for-all that this forum has become a total waste of time. It has been dominated by a bunch of starry-eyed dreamers and pompous asses. You decide which label best fits you. By writing an interminably long screed, you’ve proven that your sense of self-importance is unlimited. That same interminably long screed, while it contains some verifiable fact, is rendered moot by the half-baked conclusions you reach. Returning this nation to sanity will be much harder if we have to undo the damage that Romney and the Tea Party want to do. If you want to argue with a conservative, try the opinion pages of the Washington Post or the New York Times, or any other major city newspaper. There you will find true conservatives. You are obviously living on the fringe if you think me a conservative. You’re as far off as the Tea Party idiots who think Obama is a socialist. Maybe you’re more liberal than I am. So what? You also have a tenuous grip on the real world. I wish Obama were at least a bit more liberal, but he is what he is. He’s a bit left of center. What are you? That’s a rhetorical question, because I couldn’t care less what you think. One can’t reason with a stone or a closed mind.

    • - bill
      Reply

      Hmmm – I guess my assessment of your deficiencies in reading comprehension was correct after all: I never in any way implied that you’re a conservative (let alone actually called you one), just observed that you happen to share the cheerful disregard for factual data that they so often do (especially in their current Tea Party incarnations).

      I’ve lost track now of how many times you’ve indicated that you were leaving this discussion, but after each one you’ve popped back up like a Whack-A-Mole so I’m not holding my breath. You should at least try to vary your phrasing a bit more to attempt to make up for the dreary repetition of your narrative (that anyone who doesn’t toe the line and vote for Obama must not be in complete possession of their faculties): while countering such drivel is a sort of civic duty, it would be nice if it were more entertaining.

    • Brad
      Reply

      Given the tenor of this discussion I have concluded that it’s a pity the US doesn’t have a preferential voting system like Australia, as I understand it. In Australia, one has the option of ‘sending a message’ without self-immolating. It’s possible to give your first preference to your best ideological fit, allocate your 2nd preference to the ‘real-politik’ least objectionable candidate with a statistically significant chance of victory, and make bloody sure that you preference the obviously worst candidate dead last. When your first choice doesn’t cross the finish line in time your vote will be allocated to your 2nd pref and so on.

      • - bill
        Reply

        While that would certainly be an improvement over our current system, you should not assume that everyone who votes third-party is torn between that and voting for the least-bad ‘electable’ candidate. For example, some people feel that by so successfully blocking the rise of a real progressive alternative on the left the Democratic party has become the ‘greater’ evil even though over the short term they offer a somewhat less obnoxious set of policy options than the Republicans do – or, to put it another way, even if we drove ALL Republicans out of national office we’d be left with something we didn’t want and which would have absolutely no incentive to reform itself, whereas if we drove a sufficient number of Democrats out of national office we’d at least create a vacuum which other, more deserving candidates could then fill and perhaps get elected from.

        That’s a sufficiently daunting prospect that the majority of progressives still shy away from it and cling to ‘hope’ regardless of how little real basis for that hope may remain. For the rest, there’s a subtle distinction between believing that things will probably have to get worse (to wake such people up) before they get better (hence not being all that scared by the specter of Republican governance for a bit) and HOPING that things will get worse (to wake such people up) rather than muddle along just sufficiently acceptably to keep them asleep while the overall situation continues to decline (like the proverbial frog that never jumps out of the pot of heating water as long as they temperature increases slowly enough): I place myself in the former camp, but understand why some people would fall into the latter.

  • Donald Wyatt
    Reply

    Subject: Fwd: An Open Letter To Republicans and Conservative

    I meet them all the time. They hate Obama. They hate gay people. They hate black people, immigrants, Muslims, labor unions, women who want the right to make choices concerning their bodies, they hate em all. They hate being called racist. They hate being called a bigot. Maybe if they talked about creating jobs more than they talked about why they hate gay people we wouldn’t call them bigots. Maybe if they talked about black people without automatically assuming they are on food stamps while demanding their birth certificates we wouldn’t call them racist. They hate socialism and social justice. They hate regulations and taxes and spending and the Government. They just hate.
    They like war. They like torture. They like Jesus. I don’t know how in the hell any of that is compatible, but no one ever accused haters of being over-committed to ideological consistency. They like people who look like them or at least hate most of the things that they hate. They hate everything else.
    Now, I know that they profess to love this country and the founding fathers (unless they are reminded that they believed in the separation of church and state), but I need to remind them that America is NOT what Fox News says it is. America is a melting pot, it always has been. We are a multi-cultural amalgamation of all kinds of people, and yet they still demonize everyone who is not a rich, white, heterosexual christian male or his submissive and obedient wife.
    They hate liberals, moderates, hell, anyone who disagrees with Conservative dogma as espoused by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. They hate em.Well, here are the facts, Jack. If they hate the Government then they are unqualified to manage it. If they hate gay people more than they love America than they should take their own advice and get the hell out. There are several countries that are openly hostile to gay people, but they are full of brown people and they don’t like them much either from what I understand. It looks like they are screwed, but that’s not what I am here to say.
    Now that they have thrown everything including kitchen sink at President Obama and it still hasn’t worked they are panicking. Obama’s approval ratings are still near 50% despite the best efforts to undermine the economy and America’s recovery at every step that the Republicans could. Republicans tried to hold the American economy hostage to force America into default on its’ debts, debts that REPUBLICANS rang up under Bush, so they could blame it on Obama and it failed. Republicans used the filibuster more than any other Congress ever, going so far as to vote against providing health care access to 9/11 first responders. You remember 9/11, don’t you, it’s that thing Republicans used to lie us into a war in Iraq, and then when Obama killed Bin Laden and ended the war in Iraq they told people that he hates America and wants the troops to fail. Republicans hate Obama with a passion, despite the fact that he is a tax cutting, deficit reducing war President who undermines civil rights and delivers corporate friendly watered down reforms that benefit special interests just like a Republican. They call him a Kenyan. They call him a socialist. They dance with hatred singing it proudly in the rain like it was a 1950’s musical.
    Frankly, Republicans disgust me. Their hatred nauseates me. Their bigotry offends me. Their racism revolts me.
    Dear haters, I am openly questioning your patriotism.
    I think they hate gays, Obama, black people, poor people, all of us, women, atheists and agnostics, Latinos, Muslims, Liberals, all of us, I think they hate every one who isn’t exactly like them, and I think they hate us more than they love this country.
    I think they hate gay soldiers more than they want America to win its wars.
    I don’t even think they want America to win wars, they just want America to have wars, never ending wars and the war profiteering it generates. They love that kind of spending, they love spending on faith based initiatives and abstinence based sex education, they love spending on subsidies for profitable oil corporations, they spend like drunken sailors when they are in the White House, but if it is a Democrat then suddenly they cheer when America doesn’t get the Olympics because it might make the black President look bad. But oooh they love their country, they say, and they want it back. Well listen here skippy, they don’t own it, it is my country to, and America is NOT the religiously extremist Foxbots who hate science, elitist professors and having a vibrant and meaningful sex life with someone we love if Rick Santorum doesn’t approve of it. Rick Santorum isn’t running for America’s high school dance chaperone, he should probably just shut the hell up about sex, but he can’t because he had nothing else to run on.
    Republicans can NOT win on the issues. They’ve got NOTHING. All they have is a divide and conquer class war ( they only call it class war when the Democrats fight back ) that pits ignorant racist and bigoted people against the rest of us in a meaningless battle of wedge issues and the already proven to fail George W. Bush agenda of tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization and war profiteering and nothing else, so all they can do is blame black people, gays, the government, anybody and everyone else for their own failings. The party of personal responsibility, my ass.
    But they love multi-national corporations, just ask a gay hating and racist religious extremist, if they think Corporations are people and they will gladly agree, but if you ask them if gay people are people they aren’t so sure.
    Dear haters, Republicans are the cruel, heartless misinformed assholes who would sell America out to Haliburton in a heartbeat, they would rather pay ZERO taxes than they would see a newly born baby get access to quality health care, they cheer when we discuss denying health care to young people with preventable diseases, and they boo when we discuss the First Ladies plan to cut back on childhood obesity. They are a cross to carry and a flag to wrap themselves in, away from being the people who Sinclair Lewis warned us about, but I guarantee that if Fox News told them to dress that way they would, because they are the same blind, ignorant and closed minded dunces who drove this country into a civil war years ago because they are bound to the notion that some men are more equal than others. In short, the reason I proudly wear my hat, is because of seditious sell outs like them who constantly screw over working class Americans so a foreign entrepreneur like Rupert Murdoch can get a bigger tax break. If corporations are people, they are neither American patriots nor capable of love. Just like a Republican.
    So Republicans need to stop wearing their hate with pride. And stop celebrating anti-science, anti-math ignorance. Stop using code words to mask their bigotry like “family values”, especially when they hate my family and when they stand on the same stage as a guy who has had three marriages or if they share a seat in the Senate with a guy who cheated on his wife with hookers while wearing diapers. They should be ashamed. I know that they are just doing this to motivate their misinformed hate cult base because if they actually knew that thier ideas will make them poorer than what they are now. They are doing their best to impoverish our countrymen so that rich people can get bigger tax breaks and they can keep on delivering corporate welfare to the special interests who have bribed them, and I am disgusted by the way they gleefully parade their hatred with aplomb. I don’t think they do love America. At least, not as much as they hate everyone in America who isn’t exactly like them.
    They should think about that, and maybe get some help.
    And for the record, I do not hate them. I am embarrassed by them and nauseated by their cruel and thoughtless behavior and their all consuming greed, but I do not hate them. I forgive them and I hope that they can change someday, but I don’t hate them. They have enough hate in them for the rest of us as it is.
    Forward This Letter On To All Americans

    • - bill
      Reply

      In the future you should exercise considerably more discretion when someone asks you to “Forward This Letter On To All Americans”. For example, in the context of the specific question “What did you think of Obama’s speech?”being posed here it has no relevance whatsoever and is simply spam.

      • Donald Wyatt
        Reply

        It is time that racists and bigets are called out. No more spam than yours.

      • Patricia
        Reply

        It obviously evoked the response given. If you don’t want to read it – don’t. He was moved by something he read here and responded from the head and the heart so who cares…..really.

      • - bill
        Reply

        You appear to be confused about what constitutes spam: it’s not the content per se but its relevance to the venue. His post had no relevance whatsoever to the subject here, which is what people thought of Obama’s speech and why. A certain degree of latitude may be appropriate in discussing the background behind those reactions, but Wyatt’s post said nothing about Obama at all: it was simply a diatribe against people who aren’t even in the same party.

        Saying “if you don’t like it, don’t read it” completely misses the point: you could just as easily say the same thing about someone plastering this thread with ads. It also makes a completely unwarranted assumption (perhaps you picked that up from Robert: incompetence is often catching) about why I bothered to comment. I wouldn’t dislike Wyatt’s comments at all in an appropriate setting, though I do consider them somewhat naive and in such a setting would be happy to explain why.

    • Patricia
      Reply

      Bravo – only critique is that you put them all in one barrel. We should all know that everyone has the freedom of choice, regardless of their political party. We can only pray that those less ignorant will use that choice wisely.

  • Robert Gabriel
    Reply

    In truth, I was not interested in listening to President Obama’s speech. I will vote for him AGAIN, altho I’ve been disappointed again & again by his not living up to so much of what he promised in his speeches. As it says in the bible, “by their works you shall know them,” f.y.i. I am not a christian ‘tho Jesus is a personal hero of mine. I will vote to reelect the president, hoping in his 2nd term his works will more fully conform to his promises.

  • Glen Stassen
    Reply

    President Obama is negotiating with Iran and acknowledging they have a right to enrich uranium to 3.5% for energy production, both unlike previous presidents, so has a chance to a peaceful solution, unlike them. He endorsed all ten practices of Just Peacemaking in his Nobel Peace Award speech. Not perfect, but so much better than the alternative! Glen Stassen

    • Patricia
      Reply

      I did not know this – but it has given me new found hope in seeing a peaceful outcome versus the fear-mongering against Iran and their desired right for nuclear energy production. It doesn’t surprise me one bit – with President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton – there is hope for peace and a possible end to the cry for war against Iran.

  • Robert Gabriel
    Reply

    Donald Wyatt, thank you for your elegantly phrased letter, and thank you to whom ever was responsible for it being forwarded.

    • Donald
      Reply

      I wrote the letter with the help of a friend. It took us about 3 days to put it together. We would like to forward it on to all Americans. I have sent it on to my representives in congress and have never gotten a reply from them. They are all Republicans. Thank You Very Much.

  • Donna Schall
    Reply

    The speech was excellent. Re-election should be easy, but will it be? Will the election be stolen again? What will we do if it is? Nothing like last time it happened? I’m worried.
    If Romney is elected, we’re doomed.

  • shirley jones
    Reply

    I want this WAR to end NOW not tomorrow or 2014,I have seen enough of our soldiers die
    for nothing, I have cried to many tear’s in the last 10 years.I hope with GOD ‘s help we will be out of there before 2013.just pick them up move them out -like we moved in.

    • Patricia
      Reply

      Yes Please!!!!!!

  • Donald
    Reply

    I read this article because I knew nothing about Mityt Romney. But immediately there came the killer impression with that Irish Setter episode. A guy who is going to drive from Boston to Ontario 12 hours on the highway and places his dog in a dog carrier on the roof of his car is a STUPID MORON!
    Please anyone who’d have the stupid idea to do this: take less material junk with you, or put the junk in a carrier on the roof of your car but let the dog in the car with the familly where he belongs (article says he had a station wagon, the trunk would have been fine). Apparently Harvard doesn’t teach common sense!!!!!
    Enough said for me, I hope America will keep Obama, he seems smarter than th

    • Gordon Johnston
      Reply

      What fascinates me is the number of liberals who weep and wail over Romney’s dog riding on the car roof, which makes him out to be an evil monster. And yet, they swoon over Obama, who devises death lists, sends more drones than even Bush which wind up killing more civilians than they do targeted individuals, and relishes expanding wars in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. And don’t try to sell us on troop reductions as Obama’s good faith effort to end war. He’s a power junkie, fascinated with being Commander in Chief, or King of the World in his interpretation. So, one Romney dog or thousands of innocent civilians? Done the moral math yet?

      Gordon Johnston

  • Gertrude
    Reply

    Two issues that concern me:
    Really denouncing torture, with an investigation, and ending it as a foreign policy tool.
    Actually decreasing the Pentagon budget and solving problems like homelessness & the high school dropout rate.

  • Paulhaider74
    Reply

    I thought that President Obama’s speech was inspirational, relevant, and honest. President Obama gave a much better speech than Mittwit Romney; Clint Eastwood’s empty chair was more dynamic, charismatic, and like-like than Mitt. After a minute or two of Romney’s speech, I was really hoping that he would be replaced with the chair!
    Paul Haider, Chicago

  • Grace Adams
    Reply

    I don’t hear political speeches because I get what news I get over the internet with computers that lack sound. For what you sqaid he said, I say what we need to spend money on is mitigating global warming–NOT the military. In Afghanistan, we should just claim that since our Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laben, that means we won, and then just get our troops out and let the Afghans settle their own problem their own way. We need to capture and store carbon, both CO2 and CH4, because we have waited so long to even admit that global warming is a problem that we need to solve. We also need to replace fossil fuel with sustainable energy, both at home and help poorer nations develop their economies with sustainable energy instead of fossil fuel. And we need to buy fossil fuel reserves to be held in the ground for posterity–both to keep them from being burned and to make the whole project politically feasible. It will be horribly expensive–but a lesser evil than losing agriculture to global warming.

  • Bruce Linton
    Reply

    Many of us are unaware of what Bill Moyers calls “the secret government”. As few as those aware [of it] are, even fewer have really taken time to question the “official” accounts of 9/11 recently, and the assassinations of the 1960’s. Truth be known, back in November 1963, the “secret government” did a coup right out of “seven days in May”, and went on to do some more assassinations [Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, to solidify their control of the government. Ever since then, elected officials have either been in league with the rogue elements in our FBI and CIA, or running scared of them. President Obama would probably fall in the latter category.

    The crisis in this nation has reached a point that only a third party or independent candidate, and a massive “truth and reconciliation commission” can humanly hope to fix the problem, and then only with some real Divine intervention – the goons are running our government. Suggested readings – just a few – “Family of Secrets” by Russ Baker, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins, “Armed Madhouse” by Greg Palast, “The Shock Doctrine [the rise of disaster capitalism]” by Naomi Klein.

  • Crabtree
    Reply

    The usual pack of lies and doubletalk. Even the delivery has become mechanical and stale.
    Obama is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the military/corporate complex in office to do their bidding with the Democratic Party taking the blame. Have we forgotten that “Obamacare” is actually Romneycare formulated by big insurance and pharma? A good bit of the speech was flat out Republican propaganda.
    I recommend exactly the books cited above by Bruce Linton. Then go to http://www.movetoamend.org to read up on a possible solution and sign the petition.

  • lucia shorts
    Reply

    I think that this is all a bunch of hogwash. . He maybe brillant to some and i voted for this person what a big mistake. Do i want him in office again NOT. He does his speech from a telepromter and knows exactually how to manipulate and get what he wants. And no i did not watch the speech he does nothing for me its like talking to a wall.

  • Andy Schoenberg
    Reply

    I liked that he at least alluded to cutting military spending. What struck me was that in mentioning his accomplishments, he never mentioned that he got the Nobel Peace Prize because he seemed to change the US foreign policy away from “preemptive” warfare and a more cooperative direction with the rest of the world. I fear the reason he did not mention the Nobel prize, is because his political handlers think that he would have lost some votes from the American public if he is not considered a strong military “commander in chief”.
    Is it the belligerent “patriotism” of the majority which prevents all Presidential aspirants from talking about global peace and justice or mention Universal Human Rights? Andy in Salt Lake City

    • Ted Voth Jr
      Reply

      The Nobel Peace Prize people dropped to the bottom of my esteem when they gave Obama the prize; the prize is now meaningless. They could’ve/should’ve been able to tell what a wuss he was gonna be…

  • Connie Rena Vhilds
    Reply

    I thought the speech was very good though I would have liked some minutes worth of how the President would work with the GOP to stop them from blocking every move. But I loved all the convention and I was proud to be a Democrat.

    • Gordon Johnston
      Reply

      Recycled pablum is comfort food to people who suck up the same old lines that Obama has perfected. The conventions are an anachronism, on par with Disney World and a dog show. So, platitudes filled the air and pageantry attracted the eye, and once again, the sideshow that democracy has become in America appeals to those who have lost the ability to critically think for themselves. Good going, Connie. You’re a good Democrat and you scare me.

      • - bill
        Reply

        Well said. I noticed from one of your earlier comments above that you appreciate Howard Dean, who while he was campaigning 8 – 9 years ago was a very refreshing departure from that ‘same-old, same-old’ rhetoric. Even after his campaign ended and he joined the rest of the party in supporting Kerry (just as he always said he would), he left his supporters with the encouragement to continue to think for themselves rather than attempted to bring them along with him (and while he’s been a solid party supporter ever since he still refuses to support it blindly, and I still enjoy listening to him as a result).

        You’re a good exemplar of the old Deaniac spirit of serious but polite engagement and when necessary confrontation. Me, I’m more the ‘bigger hammer’ type, though do try to remain polite as long as those with whom I’m talking do.

        • Gordon Johnston
          Reply

          Bill,

          Sometimes a bigger hammer is a better hammer, so don’t apologize for your style or intent. Diplomacy is good to a point; it hopefully creates a context marked by civility. But our national style is to dump diplomacy too often in favor of an embargo, a drone, an invasion, an assassination, etc. We’re hardly civil anymore if we don’t get our way on how we want it and when we want it.

          I don’t favor either candidate. Romney is trying to appease too many contradictory factions in the GOP. Obama is not as gifted as he convinces us he is, thanks to good rhetorical skills, a sleeping dog press, and few competitors in the Democratic Party. He was a mediocre senator and is a mediocre President, in my opinion. This November won’t be pretty.

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