Letters to the Editor
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Compare the two speeches
Obama: The historical background of this crisis goes all the way to the Founding Fathers, illustrating the tension between federalism and state's rights, between an agrarian and industrial economy, between limited government and regulation, demonstrating how these opposing forces, when correctly apprehended, keep the financial system in balance.
Hillary: Those wealthy people are Bad and Mean, and I'm going to Get Them For You. Yay me!
Obama: Regulation reform is necessary and appropriate, but government can't do it all. We've got to look candidly at all sides of the problem, and come up with a reasonable, balanced solution that distributes the well-earned pain as well as the bailouts, and be fiscally responsible while doing it.
Hillary: Those rich corporate interests Screwed You Over, and they need to Pay! Pay! Pay! Let's screw them back! Worse!
Obama: *Insight! Insight! Insight!*
Hillary: *Platitude! Platitude! Platitude!*
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Barack Rocks!!!!!
...but is a country full of Gullible Dummies and the Willfully Ignorant ready for a Smart Guy? I pray these people wake up!
Oh, it would be so nice to respect a president and enjoy the calibre of his speeches...
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Obama is correct
Obama is correct.
I think that to witness the purest form of capitalism, visit a drug infested neighborhood that's controlled by the sale of heroin and cocaine. Now that's capitalism without restraint, and only the strong and most vicious "thrive" day in and day out while everyone else suffers.
Now that so many of us in the US are getting so blatently screwed economically, and the only thing "trickling down" are the belly laughs of the wealthy as gas, food, and the cost of everything else goes through the roof, it's time to set America on a better course of checks and balances.
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To: marcus 225
Your post spoke of a neighborhood that is run by the drug trade and only the most vicious surviving it while everyone else suffers. That's quite a spot-on assessment of what goes on in many businesses all over the country every day. It seems that a sort of siege mentality has gripped our business culture, doesn't it? Instead of being creative and coming up with better products and services that you can't just "offshore", many people are just taking the safe route by hunkering down, controlling costs, and hoping to survive to fight another day.
The boldness and innovation we are or ought to be known for has been replaced by this sort of giving ground in the face of competition. Ironically, the party of entrepreneurship has made it HARDER to be in business just as its mentality has made it harder to be an employee. It's hard to feel motivated to give a job your best when all you are is a disposable "cost item." This is a pernicious and demoralizing attitude that's infiltrated business thinking over the last few years and I believe it's as unAmerican as the "offshoring" that the corporate sector (and the current Administration) now seems to think is good practice. It's not. It's helping to destroy our economy and our way of life. I hope Mr. Obama will speak more to that issue as the campaign progresses. This is another dialogue we really need to have in this country.
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@ independent
I think your analysis is spot-on.
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@ threegoal
"What makes him great is that he sees the interconnectedness of those that are usually divided by the political wedges, and proposes his solutions as wins for all.
The total superiority of that approach to that of the usual "win-lose" mindset so prevalent today is exactly what we need to address our huge national problems. And Obama is whom we need."
Bingo.
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Obama Is My Hero!
Obama's strength is that he enfolds traditional convervative values and philosophy into his own -- utterly erasing the us/them mindset. Something Hillary can't even understand let alone accomplish.
Obama takes all the highlights of current conservative "values" regarding capitalism and expertly incorporates them into his own blended philosophy.
He praises free markets and acknowledges their awesome power to create products and jobs -- a nod to conservatives -- but then carefully helps those "I Hate All Government!" conservatives find their way back to the mainstream by explaining how total freedom, total secrecy and total capitalistic chaos is actually counter productive.
He does this so expertly that the conservatives are left supporting Obama and thinking he makes excellent sense.
And I love how he explained that the bubble/burst cycles aren't inevitable but rather a byproduct of a faulty economy. Obama is all about steady, responsible growth as opposed to Wild West capitalism with a boom/bust all or nothing mentality.
Hillary just screams that those bastards need to die (paraphrasing) and all that accomplishes is getting their hackles up and putting them into a fighting stance.
"She hates us, eh" they sneer. "Well we'll make sure that little girl NEVER gets any legislation passed! Ever! Get ready for 4 years of gridlock!"
This is was Obama is so superior to Hillary.
He has resonable, intelligent common sense solutions and also the oratorical and interpersonal skills necessary to get both sides to agree to those solutions.
A Congress not utterly paralyzed in hopeless gridlock between to warring factions that hate each other?
Never thought I'd live to see the day -- but if Obama gets the nomination I think we'll all see it happen.
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Dangerous territory
This speech and it's propositions are more dangerous and risky for Obama than his 'Perfect Union' speech, in that the Market Drivers would rather you kill their mothers than fundamentally overhaul our monetary system of checks and balances.
Thanks to 'threegoal' for nailing what makes Senator Obama the intriguing candidate he is:
"..He actually treats the audience, and America as intelligent. I hope he gets away on that risk..."
Unfortunately he may not. America is a "short-division" nation; intellectually lazy and gullible. How did Bush get to be President? People saw him as Regis and Gore as Alex Trebek. Sad parallel, but darn close.