Democratic Convention Comment Thread

[SirNitram]

He thinks it is undesirable for certain goods to become more inexpensive, specifically houses.

The atrocity, thinking a bubble that artificially raised prices to absurd levels, then popped, crashing the economy, is BAD?!

[Guardsman Bass]

While artfully written to be what the average voter thinks is great, this illustrates the ineffectiveness of listening to speeches if not swayed by blatant appeals to emotion. Nothing is really learned from it aside from a single numerical figure and what was mostly already obvious. Looking at campaign platforms is a lot more efficient than reading speeches. Most politicians (including McCain too) use countless paragraphs to communicate very little actual information.

No shit. People are simply saying it was a fantastic speech to hear, not that it was a blueprint laying out his specific plans for the next 4 years. Obviously a great deal of rhetoric and vagueness is in order for such things.

[Mr Bean]

No shit. People are simply saying it was a fantastic speech to hear, not that it was a blueprint laying out his specific plans for the next 4 years. Obviously a great deal of rhetoric and vagueness is in order for such things.

Because such a serious speech would be fucking boring to listen to and take five times as long. I hate to say check his website, but his goal was to make a fine inspirational speech which makes him sound like a leader.

Mission accomplished on that

[Duckie]

I'd have to agree. Obama isn't going to become President or be a good Presidential figure if he stands up and reads an internal policy memo. He's got to give a speech with a plan in it, not just give a plan orally.

[Connor MacLeod]

Haven't Republicans done that "high on rhetoric but low on actual data" trick for years now - its one of the reasons Bush has been able to hold on for as long as he hs (by appealing to patriotism, the "support the troops" stchtick, the "War on Terror") why can't Obama do so (and do it far better than GWB?)

Silly as it is, I think this speech is more effective than if he HAD laid out a big boring plan. from how it sounds, if people want MORE information, they have places to look for it, and this way he avoids boring the American people.

Also, if Obama had gone for the "detailed knowledge" approach, I wouldn['t put it past the Republicans to try to twist that to "he's inexpeirenced/out of touch/elitist" again.

[RedImperator]

Acceptance speeches aren't supposed to be 45 minutes of statistics and wonkery. They're supposed to be a candidate's debut in front of a huge national audience, much of which, until that point, wasn't paying attention to the election very closely, if at all. By that measure, the speech was a spectacular success: 30 million people watched Barack Obama deliver a riveting speech where he promised all kinds of things a huge majority of Americans want, relentlessly hammered McSame, and threw an entire summer's worth of attacks back in the Republicans' faces. He gave enough detail; the criticism from the Republicans (and Clinton before that) was that all he had was soaring rhetoric and no plans. He laid out his plans in enough detail to counter that charge without getting bogged down in minutiae.

[Broomstick]

Politicians are verbose. Since many people describe it as the best they've heard, let's look at a transcript of Barack Obama's convention speech:

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest - a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia - I love you so much, and I'm so proud of all of you.

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story - of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

That's why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive.

Summary: Here's nice-sounding rhetoric thanking everybody and trying to make the audience feel good by praising the country, although with no particular information communicated.

It's also required by tradition and there are certain formulaic aspects to it (such as referring to winning as a done deed - i.e. "our future First Lady")

We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet.

Summary: There is more unemployment. He thinks it is undesirable for certain goods to become more inexpensive, specifically houses.

Until recently, houses were costing a very rapidly growing number of years-equivalent of the average employee's income to buy, although that made an exceptional profit opportunity for those who could put a fraction of a million dollars into houses and resell when they became more overpriced later.

That's a simplistic reading - his criticism here is the loss of equity and (to me) a clear reference to the skyrocketing rate of foreclosures. That's not a statement about the price of "some goods" but rather a reference to a situation that has been economically devastating to many people.

More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

Summary: Obama hints at increasing government spending on healthcare, while suggesting he is against outsourcing.

Sorry - do you have trouble reading? Your one sentence summary glosses over quite a bit. It's a list of problems facing the nation. Here are the key points:

* High gas problems are impacting peoples' ability to travel
* People carry too much debt and have trouble paying it.
* Rising cost of tuition is making it more difficult or impossible for young people to go to college.
* These problems are not the fault of government, but government has done nothing to respond to these problems on behalf of the citizens.
* You can work hard all your life and be wiped out financially by a medical crisis, leaving you destitute in old age.
* Outsourcing is depriving Americans of jobs
* We are not adequately supporting our veterans
* The Federal Government fucked up it's response to Katrina and New Orleans.

You totally missed all that?

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land - enough! This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."

Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect. And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisers - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

Summary: He appeals to party loyalty and says that McCain has supported most of Bush's policies.

Of course he's appealing to party loyalty - it's the party convention. Duh!

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Summary: He would support ending or reducing troop deployments in occupying Iraq. He presumably also wants the audience to think he would reduce closing of manufacturing plants, although no specific proposed method is suggested here.

I think it's more a matter of emphasizing the decency of the common man - people who go to work and work conscientiously despite knowing they'll soon be unemployed, as an example. It's an acknowledgment that troop deployments impact more than just the soldier deployed. And it's a direct counter to the statement from the Republican camp that the US is a nation of "whiners". Of course, you did split the quotes between those two points so maybe you failed to grasp they were connected.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans?

Obama opposes lowering the corporate tax rate.

If true, the "one hundred million Americans" may reference the segment of the population not usually subject to further tax cuts due to paying around zero net federal income taxes after rebates in the first place (although social security can be an exception). Children alone amount to tens of millions of such Americans, not filing taxes.

(Both parties have certain frequent rhetorical tricks; for example, a common Republican one is to reference how few people are paid minimum wage when that's really mostly because places like McDonalds pay a trivial 5 or 10 cents above it just so they can say they aren't paying minimum wage).

You seem to have ignored his point that his opponent is out of touch with reality.

You are correct - Obama does not want to lower the corporate tax rate, particularly on large corporations. Given that many such enterprises have enjoyed breaks over the past 8 years I don't have issue with that statement (although I might over details of implementation).

I don't think the "one hundred million Americans referenced are "children" or any other segment that pays no or few taxes, I think it was a direct reference to those making under 5 million a year. Obama is clear that he wants to cut taxes for the middle class.

You are correct about "rhetorical tricks", but I think you're dismissing too much here.

How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

Obama wants more federal spending on college tuition assistance. He is against McCain's proposal for workers to have the option of putting 20% of their social security payroll taxes in private accounts.

Why did you skip over the point about healthcare? There have been proposals floated to tax the value of health insurance as a form of income - I happen to think that's a bad idea, too.

Assisting people in paying tuition does not necessarily mean more Federal spending. Two examples: very low interest rate students loans (which we've have for decades), and tuition savings accounts that are not subject to income tax. Would you object to either?

And I, too, am opposed to privatizing social security in whole or in part as well, so yay Obama on that one.

What is that promise?

It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.

That's classic rhetoric but with zero information content in all those paragraphs combined. It's not like any politician is going to say they did *not* aim at providing every child a decent education, keeping water clean, etc.

One learns absolutely nothing from the time spent listening to the standard promises above, but many people love such a speech with its appeals to emotion and ideological tribalism.

Boy, a lot of that sailed right over your head, didn't it?

Here are the major points for you:
* We have the right to live as we choose, but we also have to respect other people and their choices
* Businesses have obligations to the communities they exist in as well as to their shareholders
* Government should protect us from harm - possibly another slam at the Katrina fiasco, but could also be construed as a reference to homeland security
* Support of public education, and aid for college students
* clean water reference - indicates his support for laws such as the Clean Water Act and environmental protection.
* "keep our toys safe" is a reference to the lead in toys recalls of recent years and failure of government oversight to inspect imports for such hazards and prevent them from entering the country.
* "invest in (list of stuff)" - a reference to the lack of maintenance of our infrastructure. Building schools and roads has traditionally been a function of government in this nation, and he's saying the government hasn't been doing enough in this area. Ditto for science and technology, where in the 20th Century the government funded a lot of basic research and this has been cut back in recent years. I read this as areas where Obama wants to increase spending, yes, but we DO need new roads and our schools need to be maintained and that is not free of charge. The funding of basic science is a debatable point, but since I am in favor of government support of such research and I don't' have an issue with that.
* You should be able to succeed based on your own initiative and work, not based on who you know or how much money you have.

You missed all that? Granted, some of this is inferred, but this speech did NOT take place in a vacuum. People halfway around the planet can talk intelligibly about US issues and the US election - very few listening are going to be clueless about the context of this speech.

But maybe you're one of the ignorant ones. Perhaps you slept through your years of primary education.

So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President.

Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Now it's getting a little less vague at least. Obama claims he will change taxes to help workers and small businesses.

Nothing specific is here, although his proposal stated elsewhere to end the social security payroll tax cap would actually greatly raise taxes on the income of a lot of sole proprietorships. With up to 15.3% effectively added to the current max rate of 35%, such would become up to 50.3%, not counting additional state or local taxes. However, probably nearly all of his target audience won't see the contradiction with the claim of reducing taxes on small businesses, since few people know even the basics of the tax system.

First of all, "sole proprietorships" are a but a segment of the "small business" slice. As a former sole proprietor (and it's looking like I might be one again) I am familiar with the "self employment tax" (which is actually what it says at the top of the damn form - honesty in government for once!). For those who are not familiar with this, in most cases the employer pays half the social security tax and the employee pays half. In a sole proprietorship, the employer and employee are one and the same, and thus pays both parts. You are correct this could be a problem for sole proprietorships but since they are legally distinct entities it is also possible that some sort of exception or easement could be made for them.

However, at least in theory, if you live long enough you get that money back. For greater assurance of having SS benefits in later life this might not be such a horrible deal. (I will also remind people that if you don't live long enough your spouse and children as still entitled to SS benefits you earned - it's not like the government collects the money, you die, the government keeps it and makes a Nelson-laugh)

I agree that that would be a serious issue if the tax code was revised as suggested.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

He implicitly suggests he will reduce taxes more than the Republicans do while meanwhile increasing spending on education and healthcare faster than the Republicans do. Like a typical politician, he promises elsewhere that his policies will result in a reduced federal deficit, a reduced gap between government spending and revenues.

He's says he will cut taxes for 95% - he leaves unsaid the potential of raising taxes for the other 5%.

He explicitly says he will "cut tax breaks" to companies that outsource - implying taxes on them will go up.

He talks of eliminating some taxes for small businesses - but leaves open raising them (first by closing loopholes, presumably, before raising actual rates) on large businesses.

This is why big business doesn't like Obama - they are hearing what he's NOT saying as well as what he is.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

America, now is not the time for small plans.

This is the first specific figure in the speech. That would be $15 billion per year for wind power, solar power, and biofuels. While the current Department of Energy budget is $25 billion per year, the vast majority of that is spent on other purposes.

Agreed, this is his most explicit statement. It stands on its own.

Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

Increased spending on education and healthcare is referenced again. (Average current U.S. educational spending is about $200000 per year per 20 students, mostly by local and state governments).

And is that a bad thing to be spending money on?

The WWII GI bill was used by millions, and what followed was a boom in prosperity. Education IS vital to a nation, and should be viewed as an investment in its citizens and not merely a cost. A well-educated citizenry will be able to engage in higher value work AND will make better decisions in life to both avoid expensive bad consequences and maximize things such as investing for their own benefit or making wise purchase choices.

As for healthcare - our current system is fucked. One issue I have is that private insurance is protected from competition with public funded insurance. (see healthcare vent thread) Why is that? If the free market is soooo wonderful then private insurance should not need such protection - making it available to all would throw the gates open AND cover the currently uncovered. I don't want to turn this into a healthcare debate, but the "free market" and the Republicans have failed to cover nearly 50 million citizens - that's 1 in 6 with NO insurance, meaning no government assistance either - and somewhere between 25 and 50 million are inadequately covered. Something needs to be done, other than what we've been doing.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.

And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our "intellectual and moral strength." Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility - that's the essence of America's promise.

No more figures here.

No, because figures here would be mind-crushingly boring. This is a speech, not a financial analysis and report.

The sick days issue is one of public health - workers such as waitstaff in restaurants may have no sick days, so they MUST work or risk losing their jobs, which leads to them coming to work sick - sick food service workers spread things like the cold, the flue, and really charming diseases such as shigella and norovirus (the norovirus infection that put me in the hospital in 2007 occurred during and outbreak associated with restaurant workers). This is an issue of public health. For the common good, these people should not be put in such a situation and it would be of benefit to ALL if they were encouraged/able to take time off work when sick and not spread illness.

Family leave - people ARE penalized for taking time to care for their families and/or themselves, thereby imposing a greater burden on society as a whole by increased or prolonged hospitalizations (if I had not been able to care for my parents in 2006 for two months they would have wound up either in the hospital for that time - paid for by your taxes in the form of Medicare - or in a rehab/nursing facility, which, by the way, would ALSO have been paid from government funds. Thank me, motherfucker, for saving your tax dollars). This is yet another example of how business refuses to make sacrifices for the greater good of society. The focus has been exclusively on the cost with no eye to the benefits either direct or indirect. I could give more examples, but again I don't want to digress too much.

Bankruptcy laws - this is a reference to business bankruptcy, where pension plans stand in line behind everyone else getting money doled out. Why shouldn't pension plans be shielded from bankruptcy? Who deserves a cut of the liquidated business MORE than the workers who actually did the work? HOW can it be justified, as just one example that we've seen a few times, that a CEO of a company in bankruptcy is given a multi-million dollar BONUS at a time when the employee wages and pensions are being slashed? (See: major US airlines).

And the "equal pay for equal work" line is hard to impossible to argue with, but it's a necessary nod at his female constituency.

And just as we keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgment we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

This is where Obama declares his opposition to the war in Iraq, but his support for the one in Afganistan, and points out that the Republicans have not caught bin Laden as they said they would do. Granted, this doesn't involve a discussion of money, but it IS an important trio in regards to where Obama stands on some very important foreign issues. This is important stuff.

You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice - but it is not the change we need.

Again - this Obama on foreign affairs. Of course there won't be numbers here, but this is his view and he will make decisions based upon it. This is enormously important. Not only that, it's important to those abroad as it is the aspect of an Obama presidency most likely to impact them.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe.

This is "don't attack Democrat patriotism or competency in national defense" - for those who are shaky on history, he is, of course, referring to Franklin Roosevelt (not Teddy), who led the US through WWII and the Kennedy reference is to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

A reference to inadequate body armor and hummvee armor in the Iraq war - we had the families of soldiers buying body armor with their own money and shipping it to the soldiers, this is an outrage! The government DOES have an obligation to adequately outfit the troops. And the news has been filled with tragic stories of inadequate care for returning troops. This is pointing out two significant military failures that have to be laid at the feet of the current administration and by extension the Republican party.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

This is his military agenda and more foreign policy, as well as his stance on some global issues like climate change. Of course he does not delve into details. Again, this is a speech, not a lecture, but he is giving an overview.

For the clueless:

* End the war in Iraq
* Return to Afghanistan and finish fighting our enemies there.
* Support and equip the military properly for current and future conflicts
* Emphasize diplomacy, and specifically utilize more in regards to Iran and Russia
* Seek international cooperation in the following areas
-- combating terrorism
-- discouraging nuclear proliferation
-- alleviating global poverty
-- opposing genocide
-- dealing with climate change
-- combating disease and its potential spread

There's also the bit about "restoring our moral standing", which basically means restoring our tarnished international reputation.

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

This is a jab at the Republican "attack dog" style of campaigning. Obama is trying to take the high road here.

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose - our sense of higher purpose. And that's what we have to restore.

Summary: Obama would end the war in Iraq (which would be a good decision).

Boy, you fucking missed a shitload of important stuff, including almost everything to do with foreign policy. Are you stupid by nature or do you just use drugs to lower your IQ?

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

Importing of fully automatic weapons including AK-47s has already been banned for decades by current laws (outside of licenses so restrictive and few as to be irrelevant to criminal usage).

Of course, a lot of the target audience is unlikely to know the difference between semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons.

And...... you missed a bunch of stuff again.

Obama clearly desires to seek a middle ground on the abortion debate (as impossible as that may be) by emphasizing preventing unwanted pregnancy... and if you have any clue at all you'd realize that is ALSO an implication to undo the horseshit barriers to sex education and contraception that have been put in place these past 8 years.

And you blew it on the gun issue, which you did mention. I have friends who actually do own AK-47's legally (I've even fired one of them) those, of course, they are semi-automatic variants and not full auto. He is NOT talking about keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, he specifies criminals - and even the NRA is opposed to use of guns in crime. This is a call for reasonable and practical gun laws that recognize that there IS a difference between city and rural environments.

And, by the way, how nice to imply Obama supporters are gun virgins - I'm sure that will thrill our Obama-supporting arsenal-owners here on SD.net. I'm sure it's a shock to you, but lots of Democrats own guns, too, both for target and hunting purposes and are conversant with applicable laws and the difference between semi and full automatic. Even many of us who don't own guns personally are supporters of gun rights and have some clue as to the difference.

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

He wants to prevent those in the country illegally from being employed.

Although a president and his enforcement capabilities have too limited power to fully cause this in reality, it would be "interesting" in one sense to see what would happen. Imagine if the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants currently in the U.S. could not get money to eat and survive by work, only by crime. Most of the U.S. agricultural workforce is based on them, since fewer native-born citizens have any real interest in putting up with the extremely hard labor involved.

There can be justification to tighten border control or even sometimes to deport people. However, if they are in the country, in the real world they will either work productively or turn to crime to survive rather than die of starvation or freeze on the streets, so it is best not to discourage employment too effectively.

You totally missed his statement on the issue of gay rights and gay marriage, didn't you?

As for the immigration issue - those illegals are not trapped in the US. If they can't find work they might well opt to go home, since the only reason they're here in the first place is to find work, and the US will give them a free ticket to the border (so to speak) so getting home isn't a huge problem is it? In fact, there is some indication that under the current economic problems some of them HAVE gone home.

Nor is this merely a statement of "deport all those people" - he makes clear reference to deportation splitting up families that that there is something wrong with this. Admittedly, he does not specify how to rectify such a situation. The emphasis is not so much on the illegals, but on the employers breaking the law by hiring them. One of the reasons citizens don't want to take some of those jobs is that the pay is too low and, sometimes, too hazardous from lack of enforcement of employee protections. Well - if the cost of X is Y, then we should pay Y and not Y-Z for them. Americans are not in opposition to "extremely hard labor" - there are many who are quite willing to bust their ass for a day's pay in work both hard AND hazardous - but they insist on silly things like getting paid a fair wage, expect employers to follow the law on worker protections, and if hurt want worker's compensation (which illegals don't get, saving their criminal employers a shitload of money at the expense of other human beings)

But, again, we're getting off track here. The point is, Obama acknowledges we have some problems in these areas and they need to be addressed. In a way, I'm glad he doesn't outline a detailed plan because it indicates he is open to alternative solutions and is willing to compromise. I realize the Republicans have tried to make "compromise" a dirty word, but in the real world it can be a necessary tool for problem resolution.

This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

Another jab at Republicans, basically saying we tried it your way and it didn't succeed, that's why people should vote for me, because I won't use the same tired "solutions" while expecting a different result. He's saying the Republicans have nothing new and that's why they use scare tactics.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what - it's worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

"I'm a black man and an outsider - get over it"

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I've seen it. Because I've lived it. I've seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more families from welfare to work. I've seen it in Washington, when we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

I have an earlier post in this thread substantiating much of this, which I found in a 10 minute google search. Hell, the wikipedia article on Obama mentions a lot of his work in these areas. At a certain point, people have to do some research on their own, and it's trivially easy to check this out.

And I've seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they'd pick up a Democratic ballot, but did. I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

Again, for those who are shaky on history, here's the the text of the speech (scroll down past the background info) he's referencing and the speech itself on YouTube

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.

From here.

Summary: Here's more nice-sounding rhetoric although with nothing specific.

While artfully written to be what the average voter thinks is great, this illustrates the ineffectiveness of listening to speeches if not swayed by blatant appeals to emotion. Nothing is really learned from it aside from a single numerical figure and what was mostly already obvious. Looking at campaign platforms is a lot more efficient than reading speeches. Most politicians (including McCain too) use countless paragraphs to communicate very little actual information.

Right, let's just ignore the historical references to
* one of the greatest and most significant speeches in American history
* the fact that 45 years ago, when he was 2 years old, Barak Obama would not have been permitted to even set foot in most hotels, restaurants, and rest rooms in Washington DC, and now there is a very real chance he will be running the country.

That's not "nice sounding rhetoric", that's an amazing social leap in one man's lifetime. If that does not inspire some sort of emotion in you, you are dead inside.

And, needless to say, you totally missed the point that if we have come all that way, and made all those changes, and solved some real problems then we can also tackle the problems of today.

Absolutely there is an appeal to emotion in this sort of speech - he's trying to sell himself as the best man for the job. Good salesmen appeal to emotions, which should warm the heart of any free-market capitalist. But remember that he is also preaching to the choir here for the most part. The people in that stadium are his supporters. He needs to inspire them to keep working, to motivate them. That can not be done by dry facts and figures, he must whip up their emotions for the next leg of the campaign marathon. There is an audience outside the stadium, he is aware of that, of course, but as I said this speech does not take place in a vacuum. There shouldn't be an American old enough to vote who doesn't catch references to both recent events and the "I Have a Dream Speech". At a certain point, the listening public has to get off their collective ass and do a little research on the details which, by the way, occupy many pages on his official website. But a stump speech is not, as I said, a financial analysis and report.

As it is, there is far more detail there than you implied. Go back to school, moron, you fail at reading comprehension.

[Shroom Man 777]

Beautiful.

After fawning on Maverick McCain and his new Veep, CNN goes to analyze the DNC and Obama.

Guess how they're doing so?

They're interviewing a senator...

From Nigeria.

So we have a split screen with Obama stock footage, and on the tiny split screen on the upper corner is the head of this Nigerian senator - who is of rather dark pigmented skin, by the way.

Man.

NIGERIA.

CNN is totally... wow. Seriously. That is some bullshit propaganda.

Why don't we interview retirement home people for their thoughts on the Republican's new Vice President?

CNN: "What do you think of John McCain's maverick decision for a Vice President candidate?"

(Nigerian?) Retirement home person: "I don' like 'er! Whipper snapper reminds me of my grandaughter, little rascal stole my false teeth and buried them in the septic tank!"

[General Zod]

>snip<

While artfully written to be what the average voter thinks is great, this illustrates the ineffectiveness of listening to speeches if not swayed by blatant appeals to emotion. Nothing is really learned from it aside from a single numerical figure and what was mostly already obvious. Looking at campaign platforms is a lot more efficient than reading speeches. Most politicians (including McCain too) use countless paragraphs to communicate very little actual information.

So fucking what? If you want content and details you listen to debates, not speeches. Criticizing a speech for not containing a step by step plan is retarded. Or are you saying you're too lazy to look up the information yourself on Obama's campaign site or listen to the actual debates?

[Ender]

Heh, roomie has Fox on; Fox is going after Obama for not getting ready to assist in cleaning up the hurricane.

[Mr Bean]

By that measure, the speech was a spectacular success: 30 million people watched Barack Obama deliver a riveting speech where he promised all kinds of things a huge majority of Americans want, relentlessly hammered McSame, and threw an entire summer's worth of attacks back in the Republicans' faces. He gave enough detail; the criticism from the Republicans (and Clinton before that) was that all he had was soaring rhetoric and no plans. He laid out his plans in enough detail to counter that charge without getting bogged down in minutiae.

Only one thing Red, your off by about ten million people. All the major networks plus the CNN/MSNBC/Faux Newsand the BBC International Service adds up to about 38 million and change, add in PBS's numbers and you get roughly 40.2 million people who watched it live.

Just wanted to point out you missed ten million people there.

[The Original Nex]

By that measure, the speech was a spectacular success: 30 million people watched Barack Obama deliver a riveting speech where he promised all kinds of things a huge majority of Americans want, relentlessly hammered McSame, and threw an entire summer's worth of attacks back in the Republicans' faces. He gave enough detail; the criticism from the Republicans (and Clinton before that) was that all he had was soaring rhetoric and no plans. He laid out his plans in enough detail to counter that charge without getting bogged down in minutiae.

Only one thing Red, your off by about ten million people. All the major networks plus the CNN/MSNBC/Faux Newsand the BBC International Service adds up to about 38 million and change, add in PBS's numbers and you get roughly 40.2 million people who watched it live.

Just wanted to point out you missed ten million people there.

Not to mention those who watched on C-SPAN - like me - and those who watch it live streaming online, and those who watched it online after the fact. My guess is ultimately, over 45 million people will have seen this speech in its entirety.

[ray245]

Beautiful.

After fawning on Maverick McCain and his new Veep, CNN goes to analyze the DNC and Obama.

Guess how they're doing so?

They're interviewing a senator...

From Nigeria.

So we have a split screen with Obama stock footage, and on the tiny split screen on the upper corner is the head of this Nigerian senator - who is of rather dark pigmented skin, by the way.

Man.

NIGERIA.

CNN is totally... wow. Seriously. That is some bullshit propaganda.

Why don't we interview retirement home people for their thoughts on the Republican's new Vice President?

CNN: "What do you think of John McCain's maverick decision for a Vice President candidate?"

(Nigerian?) Retirement home person: "I don' like 'er! Whipper snapper reminds me of my grandaughter, little rascal stole my false teeth and buried them in the septic tank!"

Is it just me...or there seems to be a trend where more and more media station are following what fox News is doing?

[Ariphaos]

The media is actively fighting for a close race, I think, though I'm pretty sure it's almost entirely out of their hands now - the debates are going to seal this for Obama whether they want to or not.

[Broomstick]

The media want a close race because it helps them sell cornflakes and dental floss, not because it's in the best interests of the nation.

[ray245]

The media want a close race because it helps them sell cornflakes and dental floss, not because it's in the best interests of the nation.

Well...if their audience is getting poorer...how is this going to help them?

[SirNitram]

The media want a close race because it helps them sell cornflakes and dental floss, not because it's in the best interests of the nation.

Well...if their audience is getting poorer...how is this going to help them?

Their employers get richer.

[ray245]

The media want a close race because it helps them sell cornflakes and dental floss, not because it's in the best interests of the nation.

Well...if their audience is getting poorer...how is this going to help them?

Their employers get richer.

In the long run, everyone is going to get poorer...well msot of them.

A weak market means there is a higher chance of failure for your bussiness.

[SirNitram]

Offload it to an offshore account, retire to a private island when the market starts to fall.

You seem to have this bizarre idea that they'll be looking long term.

[Uraniun235]

The media want a close race because it helps them sell cornflakes and dental floss, not because it's in the best interests of the nation.

Well...if their audience is getting poorer...how is this going to help them?

Barring a total collapse of the American economy, people will still buy things, and companies will still compete for consumer dollars, and they will do this through advertising, and advertisers will pay TV networks money.

Now, if things get sufficiently bad, advertisers may not be able to pay as much and TV networks may not make as much money, but there will still be money changing hands and there will still be crap flowing over the airwaves attempting to grab as many viewers as possible for the insipid advertisements of corporate America.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The media want a close race because it helps them sell cornflakes and dental floss, not because it's in the best interests of the nation.

Well...if their audience is getting poorer...how is this going to help them?

Barring a total collapse of the American economy, people will still buy things, and companies will still compete for consumer dollars, and they will do this through advertising, and advertisers will pay TV networks money.

Now, if things get sufficiently bad, advertisers may not be able to pay as much and TV networks may not make as much money, but there will still be money changing hands and there will still be crap flowing over the airwaves attempting to grab as many viewers as possible for the insipid advertisements of corporate America.

And off course, all this makes the assumption that total consumer spending will drop, and that total GDP will drop in all of the advertising companies, as well as tv/media viewers. In other words, a total economic drop or recession if McCain wins, which of course will not happen if Obama wins.
Is that the underlying assumption here, or am I missing something

[ray245]

It is funny to see how delusional people can be. ALOT of people is saying Palin has more experience than Obama...

[RedImperator]

It is funny to see how delusional people can be. ALOT of people is saying Palin has more experience than Obama...

Probably they mean executive experience, which is technically true, since she has 18 months or so as a state governor and four years as a mayor under her belt, whereas the last time Obama was the big boss of anything (other than his exceptionally well-run campaign) was in law school. Of course, in law school, he was the president of the Harvard Law Review, which is not small potatoes.

[sketerpot]

Dennis Kucinich gave an amazing speech. He sounded like the result of a threesome between a shouting baptist preacher, a rapper, and a good orator. His voice reminded me of the drumming at some Taoist ceremonies I've been to.

I had no idea he was capable of something like that.

[Sikon]

He gave enough detail; the criticism from the Republicans (and Clinton before that) was that all he had was soaring rhetoric and no plans. He laid out his plans in enough detail to counter that charge without getting bogged down in minutiae.

This is where I'm unusual, but, for example, I'd rather see more than a grand total of one spending and cost figure fit into quite that many pages. Obviously, no public speech can be like a textbook, like the old joke that the number of readers a book has is inversely proportional to the number of equations in it. However, most of this speech hardly even tried for almost any detail whatsoever.

More specifics are available if one researches elsewhere, but the tens of millions of viewers sure wouldn't learn them from this. (For example, on social security, random illustrations include Obama's plan to end the payroll tax cap, McCain's 20% private investment option, etc).

******************
******************

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

He wants to prevent those in the country illegally from being employed.

Although a president and his enforcement capabilities have too limited power to fully cause this in reality, it would be "interesting" in one sense to see what would happen. Imagine if the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants currently in the U.S. could not get money to eat and survive by work, only by crime. Most of the U.S. agricultural workforce is based on them, since fewer native-born citizens have any real interest in putting up with the extremely hard labor involved.

There can be justification to tighten border control or even sometimes to deport people. However, if they are in the country, in the real world they will either work productively or turn to crime to survive rather than die of starvation or freeze on the streets, so it is best not to discourage employment too effectively.

You totally missed his statement on the issue of gay rights and gay marriage, didn't you?

Practically all Democrats (and many of other parties) would not support particular discrimination against gays; I agree with that, but there was no particular reason for adding comment there. Too much commenting on the utterly obvious would bore away readers anyway.

As for the immigration issue - those illegals are not trapped in the US. If they can't find work they might well opt to go home, since the only reason they're here in the first place is to find work, and the US will give them a free ticket to the border (so to speak) so getting home isn't a huge problem is it? In fact, there is some indication that under the current economic problems some of them HAVE gone home.

Nor is this merely a statement of "deport all those people" - he makes clear reference to deportation splitting up families that that there is something wrong with this. Admittedly, he does not specify how to rectify such a situation. The emphasis is not so much on the illegals, but on the employers breaking the law by hiring them. One of the reasons citizens don't want to take some of those jobs is that the pay is too low and, sometimes, too hazardous from lack of enforcement of employee protections. Well - if the cost of X is Y, then we should pay Y and not Y-Z for them. Americans are not in opposition to "extremely hard labor" - there are many who are quite willing to bust their ass for a day's pay in work both hard AND hazardous - but they insist on silly things like getting paid a fair wage, expect employers to follow the law on worker protections, and if hurt want worker's compensation (which illegals don't get, saving their criminal employers a shitload of money at the expense of other human beings)

Historically, a policy trying to prevent employment of illegals hasn't been a disaster only because of relatively haphazard and ineffective "underfunded" enforcement, like an occasional raid stopping a company employing a few hundred illegals can make the news despite millions more being unaffected.

Actually manage to get the bulk of the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants fired from productive employment, and an astronomical crime wave out of desperation would be the very start of the country's resulting problems. It takes thousands of dollars in pre-existing savings (or other circumstances held only by some, such as helpful relatives) for relocation to another country to be a relatively practical option.

Outside of this immigration context, I doubt you would think highly if someone said local unemployment doesn't matter, by implicitly incorrectly assuming that someone with little or no money could always easily get transportation to the right city of a different state with more jobs, then afford the opening deposit for a new apartment and all the other details involved.

It's not like one would just see millions of people at once quietly and easily depart this country back to what was often a dirt-poor life of suffering from which they struggled to escape. Poor employment conditions often occur when the workers are afraid of tipping off authorities to anything since their very employment is illegal, but none of your statements change the utter impracticality of forcing millions of people out of current productive employment. It's a foolish goal in the real world, lousy groupthink.

For all its faults and imperfections, the status quo is better than the preceding. The ideal policy would be aimed at having the productive, non-criminal, hard-working majority of the many millions of total past illegal immigrants eventually obtain legal amnesty, learn english, pay all taxes, etc. Expand legal immigration beyond today's semi-arbitrary annual quotas currently amounting to a rather small portion of 0.1% of the population of some nations. At the same time, discourage crossing the border illegally with more funds allocated in that particular area, so instead of the vast majority of total immigrants crossing the Mexican border illegally without screening, it could become more like the other way around.

Focus on that rather than on shutting down companies employing those who are in the country already anyway and often unable to really practically leave ... not that the U.S. itself could handle loss of more than a fraction of that workforce anyway, especially in agriculture. Ideally, perhaps forbid some agencies like the Occupational Health and Safety Administration from reporting on illegal workers, so they could report workplace regulatory violations to the OSHA without fear of retribution.

Of course, I don't expect Obama to drastically change or harm the situation with employment of illegals even if elected, since influence of any one man, even the President, over the bureaucracy and apparatus of thousands of people working in government enforcement has some limits. But a policy not causing enormous harm simply because the policy would continue to be incompletely executed isn't something in that policy's favor.

While I'm no fan of Bush and oppose many of his other decisions, the following had some good ideas: Let's quote a random article from 2004 about giving a path for applying to be considered for eventual legal status:

President Bush called for a major overhaul of America’s immigration system Wednesday to grant legal status to millions of undocumented workers in the United States, saying the current program was not working. [...]

Critics of the plan said it amounted to an amnesty for illegal immigrants. [...]

“As a nation that values immigrants and depends on immigrants, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud,” the president said. “Yet today we do not. Instead we see many employers turning to the illegal labor market. We see millions of hard-working men and women condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive undocumented economy." [...]

The plan would, he said:

* Make America safer by giving the government a better idea of who was crossing U.S. borders.
* Bolster the economy by meeting employers’ needs for willing low-wage workers.
* Fulfill a mandate for compassion by guaranteeing the rights and legitimacy of illegal workers. Employers would have to pay them the minimum wage and their Social Security taxes.
* Provide incentives to entice those workers to go back to their homelands — a nod to conservatives who oppose any reward to those who enter the United States illegally. The incentives include allowing them to collect retirement benefits in their home countries based on Social Security taxes paid in the United States. [...]

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for its part, supports providing more stability for illegal immigrants.

“We have 10.5 million illegal workers in the United States right now," Chamber President Thomas Donohue said. "If they went home, we’d have to shut down the country.” [...]

Polls have shown support for allowing illegal immigrants to obtain legal status. In a 2002 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 69 percent of all respondents and 90 percent of Latinos said they would favor such a program

From here.

******************

What is that promise?

It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.

That's classic rhetoric but with zero information content in all those paragraphs combined. It's not like any politician is going to say they did *not* aim at providing every child a decent education, keeping water clean, etc.

One learns absolutely nothing from the time spent listening to the standard promises above, but many people love such a speech with its appeals to emotion and ideological tribalism.

Boy, a lot of that sailed right over your head, didn't it?

Here are the major points for you:
* We have the right to live as we choose, but we also have to respect other people and their choices
* Businesses have obligations to the communities they exist in as well as to their shareholders
* Government should protect us from harm - possibly another slam at the Katrina fiasco, but could also be construed as a reference to homeland security
* Support of public education, and aid for college students
* clean water reference - indicates his support for laws such as the Clean Water Act and environmental protection.
* "keep our toys safe" is a reference to the lead in toys recalls of recent years and failure of government oversight to inspect imports for such hazards and prevent them from entering the country.
* "invest in (list of stuff)" - a reference to the lack of maintenance of our infrastructure. Building schools and roads has traditionally been a function of government in this nation, and he's saying the government hasn't been doing enough in this area. Ditto for science and technology, where in the 20th Century the government funded a lot of basic research and this has been cut back in recent years. I read this as areas where Obama wants to increase spending, yes, but we DO need new roads and our schools need to be maintained and that is not free of charge. The funding of basic science is a debatable point, but since I am in favor of government support of such research and I don't' have an issue with that.
* You should be able to succeed based on your own initiative and work, not based on who you know or how much money you have.

You missed all that? Granted, some of this is inferred, but this speech did NOT take place in a vacuum. People halfway around the planet can talk intelligibly about US issues and the US election - very few listening are going to be clueless about the context of this speech.

But maybe you're one of the ignorant ones. Perhaps you slept through your years of primary education.

Your idea of a summary and commentary is as long as the original speech segment, and you practically might as well have just repeated it.

A segment of a speech vaguely stating support of clean water is not very valuable information worth listening to in itself when all politicians say likewise. As another example, a candidate saying the government should "protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education" is again part of the standard promises made by politicians. There's nothing specific in that, and it isn't even possible to imagine any politician saying the opposite like "the government should not protect us from harm and should give children a lousy education."

I could go on for each for each of the above but have no interest in wasting time and many words on the obvious.

More specific statements and policies are what really matters. I doubt you would describe Bush as having your preferred specific environmental policies, but, in this kind of vagueness, he talks about supporting clean water too (as well as supporting everything else under the sun, from good infrastructure to quality education).

More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

Summary: Obama hints at increasing government spending on healthcare, while suggesting he is against outsourcing.

Sorry - do you have trouble reading? Your one sentence summary glosses over quite a bit. It's a list of problems facing the nation. Here are the key points:

* High gas problems are impacting peoples' ability to travel
* People carry too much debt and have trouble paying it.
* Rising cost of tuition is making it more difficult or impossible for young people to go to college.
* These problems are not the fault of government, but government has done nothing to respond to these problems on behalf of the citizens.
* You can work hard all your life and be wiped out financially by a medical crisis, leaving you destitute in old age.
* Outsourcing is depriving Americans of jobs
* We are not adequately supporting our veterans
* The Federal Government fucked up it's response to Katrina and New Orleans.

You totally missed all that?

No, my one sentence of commentary focused on what was most relevant there, what that particular speech segment suggested the candidate would do if elected.

For example, I'm not particularly focused on a candidate's statement that gas prices are higher now than they used to be before. Everyone knows that and mentioned it. I'm far more interested in what would someone do against it, since I don't vote for someone based on whether they know gas prices increased (everyone does) but rather upon other factors including evaluation of their specific plan. (For that example, elsewhere, Obama does talk about his alternative energy plans, but it wasn't in my comment or summary above since it was not in that particular speech segment).

One could even put in some sample random vague quotations from politicians here, and, without doing an internet search, readers couldn't tell who was saying what, aside from by indirect means like observing a different sentence structure style. Here's one example:

The right change recognizes that many of the policies and institutions of our government have failed. They have failed to keep up with the challenges of our time because many of these policies were designed for the problems and opportunities of the mid to late 20th Century, before the end of the Cold War; before the revolution in information technology and rise of the global economy. The right kind of change will initiate widespread and innovative reforms in almost every area of government policy — health care, energy, the environment, the tax code, our public schools, our transportation system, disaster relief, government spending and regulation, diplomacy, the military and intelligence services. Serious and far-reaching reforms are needed in so many areas of government to meet our own challenges in our own time.

The irony is that Americans have been experiencing a lot of change in their lives attributable to these historic events, and some of those changes have distressed many American families — job loss, failing schools, prohibitively expensive health care, pensions at risk, entitlement programs approaching bankruptcy, rising gas and food prices, to name a few.

Random example from here.

That mentions rising gas prices, sometimes prohibitively expensive health care, etc. too. And it's by his opponent. It's in the specifics of their policies that one can choose how to vote, not from where they both have vague speech segments.

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In the old days, I would put more time into arguments on this board, but responding paragraph-by-paragraph to absolutely all the many pages you wrote in response to my brief comments would barely be beneficial anyway. This is already a long post. I'll skip the rest, since most of the few readers looking at all of it would likely end up distracted from the primary theme:

If deciding based on logical analysis rather than appeals to emotion or ideological tribalism, it's more worthwhile to look at campaign platforms and other sources of more real information, rather than speeches.

Many voters who will spend loads of time listening to speeches like this, yet far fewer will look for specifics (like quantitative reconciliation of promising to reduce the deficit with simultaneously vastly accelerating growth in spending and simultaneously reducing many taxes ... not that the Republicans are immune to such criticism either but as an example of part of what matters).

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For that matter, even the answers to a questionnaire mentioned in a recent thread are better than the convention speeches for suggestions of policies on the topics covered, e.g.

Topic: Nuclear Energy
Candidate: McCain

According to an article in The New York Times, Senator McCain set a goal of establishing 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030. He mentioned that China, Russia, and India will be developing new reactors, and several countries in Europe derive a larger percentage of their electricity from nuclear power than the United States. While his ultimate goal is 100 power plants, his chief domestic policy advisor said that 45 is consistent with McCain’s desire to expand nuclear power, and with restraining factors such as permits and construction times.

Quotation: “We have in use today a zero emission energy that could provide electricity for millions more homes and businesses than it currently does. Yet it has been over twenty-five years since a nuclear power plant has been constructed. The barriers to nuclear energy are political not technological. We’ve let the fears of thirty years ago, and an endless political squabble over the storage of nuclear spent fuel make it virtually impossible to build a single new plant that produces a form of energy that is safe and non-polluting. If France can produce 80% of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we? Is France a more secure, advanced and innovative country than we are? Are France’s scientists and entrepreneurs more capable than we are? I need no answer to that rhetorical question. I know my country well enough to know otherwise.”

John McCain’s speech on Energy Policy, johnmccain.com, April 23, 2007

Topic: Nuclear Energy
Candidate: Obama

According to Obama’s energy policy, he believes nuclear energy is likely necessary to meet climate change goals, but that key issues of public awareness and security must be resolved before expanding nuclear energy.While in the Senate, Obama, along with Senator Richard Lugar, introduced the Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act of 2006 (S. 2566), which called for tracking and accounting for spent fuel from nuclear power plants.

Quotation: “It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table. However, there is no future for expanded nuclear without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation. Barack Obama introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to establish guidelines for tracking, controlling and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants.”

Barack Obama’s Plan to Make America A Global Energy Leader, barackobama.com

From here.