Darius

Barack Obama spoke a few weeks ago in West Virginia, and this is an excerpt of the speech where he addresses Veteran issues:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Obama08AudioPodcast/~3/298555412/20080512_CharlestonWVfull-podcast.mp3

Personally, I lost an uncle to suicide largely stemming from his tour in Vietnam. I also watched the effects of PTSD on another uncle, of the WWII generation, grow worse as he slipped into dementia in the years before he passed in his 80’s. I feel very strongly that our service men and women are heroes, whether or not I agree with the policies of our civilian leadership who put them in the fight.

Obama’s speech in this podcast is worth listening to. For that matter, subscribe to the podcast series and listen to what he says on a variety of issues.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/podcast

Everyone has been making much of the Obama speech on race and racism in america. David S. Broder of the Washington Post has written well on the subject and why it will continue to be a controversy. But he suggests that Obama’s immediate objective was to “douse the controversy” surrounding his relationship with Reverend Wright.

I don’t believe that this was Obama’s objective. Most politicians seek to push away from controversy, but Obama seems to want to use it rather than to simple make the controversy go away.

This is one of the things I find impressive about Obama. I hope he continues to push us all to confront these difficult issues of race and class, so we can make America the place we all believe it can be.

Original Washington Post article

Shel Israel wrote a powerful post a couple days ago. I just saw it. It’s in the general theme of social networks, but really it’s about bigotry. A Must-Read:

http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2008/02/its-them.html

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