my reaction to Obama's speech

My buddy Steve sent an email (below) asking for reaction to the big Obama speech that everyone's so worked up about. The link to the speech is also below in his email.
Here's my response:

Great speech. I don't think I disagreed with any of it.

Thanks for the link, Steve.

Obama will be 100x better than Bush.

I like how he gives people the benefit of the doubt, he has faith in ordinary people's goodness. Which is the best way to encourage a fuller expression of that goodness (as opposed to presuming its absence).

But he, like any casual observer of history, can't pretend not to know the facts of what has happened in this country.

I agree with Obama. For all its faults, slavery (which continues to this day as I'm sure we are all aware both in terms of pittance wages and literal, actual human bondage) empire, war mongering (mass murder), I can't deny that I'm an American. I can't deny that I love this country that I've lived in all my life. This is the situation I find myself in. To illustrate, rather than being born in a place like Saudi Arabia, here I am in a country with a semblance of democracy, the guarantee of free speech, lofty and noble words in its founding documents, a history of effective popular organization which has led to real social changes, and indeed, the goodness and kindness of people I meet. Of course I love my country. (Of course, We've still got a lot of "perfecting" to do yet...)

Having said this, Obama mentioned corporate domination in Washington. Can you blame me for simply taking the fact that his campaign is taking in $50M in a month and starting to question if he's really going to challenge corporate rule ala Ralph Nader? Will the revolving door cease and desist with Obama? Has he ever uttered the phrase "single payer health care" as something he's for? Is he really beholden to ALL the people or are there some who are "more equal than others"? Or is he holding his cards close until he wins the office at which point he will lead us to a radically better world? Maybe I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but these are fair questions, IMHO.

If we had instant runoff voting Obama would be number two on my ballot. I still can't decide between McKinney and Nader. (I don't agree with D. Korten on that point)




Steve wrote:

... with all of the discussions that we have had about RACE, I would enjoy hearing people's thoughts on Obama's "race" speech.

If you have NOT seen it in its entirety, you can find it here:

Barack Obama | "A More Perfect Union"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031808A.shtml


steve
The legacy of Capitalism: The unleashing of a predacious, pathological, & parasitic entity
(the Corporation) that has embedded itself in the culture in such a way that if it dies
we ALL die, and if it does NOT die humanity still dies !!