Obama's speech in Cairo - 4/6 '09

What did ya'll think of Obamas speech in Cairo? I thought it was honest and bold. He adressed touchy subjects like womens rights, freedom of speech, the threat of radical muslims to all nations, the need for Israel to stop settlements and the need for Iran to disarm themselves of nuclear weapons. This guy actually wants to bring peace to the world ??? and he is brave enough to speak his mind - without insults - even in the heart of a repressive country like Egypt. My hats off.
I'm not even entirely sure i disagree with the move to try and stop the torture pics from being released anymore. It would actually completely undermine what he's trying to do abroad right now.
It still pisses me off though that W. gets a pass after all he has done to the States and to the world. And apparently nothing is going to happen unless we get a big public uproar. The release of the new torture pics, which apparently shows rape and all kinds of sick shit, would definately create that uproar... but once again it would cool the relations between the States and the rest of the world. I'm torn on that one. Obama is trying to create peace and i still wanna go to war with Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and all those slick lawyers that made torture legal. But hey, maybe Obama is just a bigger person than I am.

obama aint after peace; hes a tool of the elite....nwo, illuminati, bilderberg, skull and bones, whatever you wanna call it.

LOL - whatever dude. Keep up the positive attitude.

I bet you didn't bother to listen to the speech. And as to why you don't like Obama I can only speculate....

Steve wrote:

obama aint after peace; hes a tool of the elite....nwo, illuminati, bilderberg, skull and bones, whatever you wanna call it.

Indeed. Obama would never have chosen Biden if not for his affiliation to the bildebergs.

I see Obama as Steve does, but at the same time I though it was a good speech. At the end of the day a speech doesn't mean as much as actions. In the way of actions he's not changing much if anything regarding foreign policy from what Bush was doing. We need to get the fuck out of the middle east PERIOD. The American empire will come to an end, whether we come to our senses and shut it down, or if it collapses because we can't afford to run it anymore. I wish we'd just stop all this nonsense but I know it ain't happening.

@Steve
Obviously he's part of the elite - he's the president for gods sake. You can't get much more elite than that. About him being a TOOL of the elite is a different matter. I guess you could argue that about every president in history.
I think he has a different agenda than most other presidents though. If anybody is able to change the corruption and lobbying of todays politics it's him. I can't blame you for your pessimism but i think that you'll be surprised in a few years.

Only time will tell...that i'm completely right.

"I think he has a different agenda than most other presidents though. If anybody is able to change the corruption and lobbying of todays politics it's him."

Why do you think that? What makes Obama different than Bush?

Is it really about pessimism, or is it just being realistic? I'm going with the latter on that one. Why do you think his agenda is so different than the other presidents, and what exactly is his agenda? Why do you believe he's immune to corruption and the powers of the special interests? He's taking trillions of our dollars and given it to the powerful and elite right in front of our faces yet he's still this pure "president of the people" to many people like yourself, it's amazing to me. We're still expanding the war in the middle east, nothing signifigant has changed or appears that it will. I don't get how you can be so optimistic and hopeful when we're still doing the wrong things and letting our leadership completely disregard the constitution and the rule of law at every turn. So far the democratic leadership has proven to be neocon-lite with a friendlier face.

I do appreciate the we have a president who doesn't sound like a retard everytime he opens his mouth like the last guy we had to put up with the past 8 years though.

Shon wrote:

"I think he has a different agenda than most other presidents though. If anybody is able to change the corruption and lobbying of todays politics it's him."

Why do you think that? What makes Obama different than Bush?

I can answer that. Obama is DEDICATED to fixing the economy. That's his number one priority right now. Bush didn't give a fuck about the economy. The only things he gave a fuck about were the bullshit War in Iraq, and putting money in his own pockets.

It always seems that when a Democrat is in office, our economy THRIVES, whereas when a Republican is there, it plummets. Right now, we are in the WORST Economic decline since the Great Depression. It's gonna take a Herculean effort for us to recover from that. Over 10 million people are unemployed in the United States right now, people are losing their homes because they cannot pay their rent or mortgage, and auto companies are forced to drop their prices to avoid bankruptcy. It's AWFUL! President Obama is doing the absolute best he can to try and fix these issues. It's gonna take a LONG time, possibly even his entire first term, but AT LEAST he's trying to make a difference, that's more than you could EVER say for Bush. The War in Iraq is LARGELY RESPONSIBLE for our economic struggles right now, and Bush is to blame for that.

But, if you look at the records, after the Great Depression, we had one of the best economic heights in history. Also, every few years, the nation's economy will decline. It has ALWAYS came back up, regarless of the situation. Even right now, the economy is rising.

"I can answer that. Obama is DEDICATED to fixing the economy. That's his number one priority right now. Bush didn't give a fuck about the economy. The only things he gave a fuck about were the bullshit War in Iraq, and putting money in his own pockets. "

"The War in Iraq is LARGELY RESPONSIBLE for our economic struggles right now, and Bush is to blame for that."

I didn't mean they were exactly the same; I was just exaggerating to make a point. While I agree with the Bush attacks, isn't Obama doing the same thing, though? He still has troops in Iraq, and he hasn't stopped sending them. If Obama's number one concern was the economy, don't you think he would leave Iraq alone for a while?

" It's gonna take a LONG time, possibly even his entire first term, but AT LEAST he's trying to make a difference, that's more than you could EVER say for Bush."

Not true. People tend to forget that Bush wasn't technically a bad president. Everyone's views get overshadowed by the war, and all the other junk he did/said. I don't feel like pulling up statistics, but they're there

Another point about the economy being better with dems in office is that people don't understand our economic structure is different than it's ever been in the past. We've been off the gold standard since like 1973 and we've got a federal reserve playing with people's lives creating boom and bust cycles. Besides, it's not the president's job to "fix the economy", the president doesn't control the economy, or at least he isn't supposed to. When the government gets in the way of the free market they screw it up, look at how he's bailing out bankrupt and failing businesses now, how does that make any sense??? How is pumping money we don't have that future generations are going to have to pay back into failing businesses "fixing" anything???

Shon wrote:

"I didn't mean they were exactly the same; I was just exaggerating to make a point. While I agree with the Bush attacks, isn't Obama doing the same thing, though? He still has troops in Iraq, and he hasn't stopped sending them. If Obama's number one concern was the economy, don't you think he would leave Iraq alone for a while?"

"Not true. People tend to forget that Bush wasn't technically a bad president. Everyone's views get overshadowed by the war, and all the other junk he did/said. I don't feel like pulling up statistics, but they're there"

It sounds like a contradiction when you say that you agree with the Bush attacks, but he technically wasn't a bad president.

The reason why Obama still has troops in Iraq is because he is trying to improve relations between the US and Iraq, but still realizes that there are still terrorist threats out there. He plans on having a phased withdrawal of the troops, rather than taking them out of there altogether. Eventually they'll all be back home though, just not all at the same time.

As for Bush, he was like many Republicans in that he was only looking out for the rich by raising gas prices and property taxes.

Haterex wrote:

When the government gets in the way of the free market they screw it up, look at how he's bailing out bankrupt and failing businesses now, how does that make any sense??? How is pumping money we don't have that future generations are going to have to pay back into failing businesses "fixing" anything???

He had a choice between bad and worse. It's not that he catered to the rich people and the big companies. The situation sadly is, that if he doesn't spend money to save companies/jobs and to stimulate the economy by creating new ones we'll see a depression worse than the last one.

If republicans were in office they would probably just lower taxes, mainly for the rich and they would once again cross fingers and hope for a miracle. They are the ones living in a fantasy world.

I'm sure Obama has already made some mistakes on the economy front. I don't see why GM gets a bailout and then gets declared bancrupct. But i don't think his mistakes are intentional. I do think he trusts people too much. Bailing out AIG just so they could give huge bonuses to the top CEO's was beyond belief. But i don't think he expected that kind of irresponsibility from the people he was trying to help out - especially given the economic situation on a wider scale.

On practically every other front i think he's shown good leadership so far. I actually hope he loses the case on the torture pics, but we'll see how it goes in a month.

On health care, taxes, tax evasion, foreign policy, education, science, and invironment he seems to be going the right way. We'll see if he flip flops on anything else, but my guess is he won't.

"The situation sadly is, that if he doesn't spend money to save companies/jobs and to stimulate the economy by creating new ones we'll see a depression worse than the last one."


This is just a short term solution, delaying the inevitable, and actually it's going to make things worse in the long term. You have to let these business' fail, liquidate the assets and learn from the mistakes, that's how a truly free economy works. It may sting for a while, but you recover and you stop digging the hole and go back up.


"If republicans were in office they would probably just lower taxes, mainly for the rich and they would once again cross fingers and hope for a miracle. They are the ones living in a fantasy world."

I think the federal government needs to stop taking so much money from all of us, rich and poor, but I think you're living in a fantasy world if you think wealth redistribution is going to save the country. I don't defend the republicans when they preach fiscal conservatism, lower taxes while they turn around and spend us into oblivion like the democrats do. I think both parties are equally guilty of ignoring the power of a truly free market and a low tax burden on all people. To me it's like you're defending one evil over another. Both sides are screwing us.


I want to add that I don't claim to know all the answers, but I get most of my information from people who saw all this ecomonic pressure coming long ago, people warning about it who were ignored. These same people are predicting very confidently that the worst has yet to come. You seem to be putting all your faith in people who got us here and didn't see the problems coming.

Haterex wrote:

This is just a short term solution, delaying the inevitable, and actually it's going to make things worse in the long term. You have to let these business' fail, liquidate the assets and learn from the mistakes, that's how a truly free economy works. It may sting for a while, but you recover and you stop digging the hole and go back up.

I disagree. Many business' fail cause people aren't spending. People aren't spending because they are losing jobs or are afraid of losing their jobs. That's just a bad cycle. What would you gain from closing down more shops then?
The answer is to kick-start the economy in certain places and to get some credit flowing. Some businesses should be saved so people can stay in their jobs and keep spending. Then the shops keep running, and eventually the stock-market rises again.

Quote :

I think the federal government needs to stop taking so much money from all of us, rich and poor, but I think you're living in a fantasy world if you think wealth redistribution is going to save the country.

I think the idea of Obama "spreading the wealth" is a propaganda scheme from the right-wing. He's not spreading any wealth. He is cleaning up the mess left by the last adminstration.
Were not going to agree on this one. Let's see in a few years how it's going. Remember it took ten years to create this mess in the first place. Exactly because there were no regulation or oversight. The free market can only run loose for so long untill it falls apart because of greedy rich people. That's my take on it anyway. Those subprime loans and all the golden parachutes didn't exactly help the world economy did they? But i think they helped a few rich guys out quite a bit.

Propaganda? Obama and the federal government produce nothing, they have to take money from one person and give it to someone else. That's redistributing wealth and it's wrong. We haven't had true capitalism in this country in almost 40 years, we've been dealing with crony capitalism and this is where our troubles comes from. You're buying into a plan that's more or less treating the symtoms and not the problem.

Haterex wrote:

Obama and the federal government produce nothing, they have to take money from one person and give it to someone else. That's redistributing wealth and it's wrong.

Well it's better than giving lower taxes for the rich and higher taxes for the poor. How on earth can you justify this brilliant idea?
And right now the system is exactly that - capitalism gone terribly wrong. Dragging down the entire world economy. You don't see that kindda stuff going on in "socialist" countries like Sweden or Holland, where the government actually has something to say. It's not like those countries are imploding because of it. If you look into it there might actually be a few things to learn from these countries.

lol @ anyone believing in the system and kool john thinking obama cares about the economy, lol. want to fix the economy? easy, pull all our troops out of foreign countries, downsize the military, and spend all that money at home instead. all fixed.


plus, the president doesnt control the economy, stupid.

Steve wrote:

want to fix the economy? easy, pull all our troops out of foreign countries, downsize the military, and spend all that money at home instead. all fixed.
plus, the president doesnt control the economy, stupid.

Are you deliberately trying to contradict yourself here?

no, stupid. who controls wars, stupid? when i need input on denmark politics ill ask you, stupid.

Alright, calm down Steve. I never talked about my own country.
This conversation took a wrong turn long ago...

Grind, you've been brainwashed beyond belief. How you can blame capitalism for today's economic woes is amazing. Capitalism works best when it is allowed to fail. When you start bailing out every failing organization and business then you no longer have a free market, and you get a domino effect. Capitalism is healthy when it is market driven by the private sector, not the government. Some industries should be allowed to die a natural death and that's the truth. We've had government interference in our market for years and years, so we've not had true capitalism in this country for a long long time now, and when it starts falling apart they start telling us it's the fault of capitalism, that's completely ridiculous.


"Well it's better than giving lower taxes for the rich and higher taxes for the poor. How on earth can you justify this brilliant idea?"

I never said it's a good idea to put a heavy tax burden on the poor and/or middle class. I personally believe we should completely get rid of the federal income tax. I think the income tax fraud is unconstitutional, but that's a whole different discussion.

Haterex wrote:

Capitalism is healthy when it is market driven by the private sector, not the government. Some industries should be allowed to die a natural death and that's the truth.

Look, basically i agree with you, and i know that a lot of our progress stems from capitalism.
I'm just saying that we have a situation which nobody dealt with for eight decades. As to how to solve all the complex set of problems ... actually i don't really know. Maybe the solution lies somewhere between liberal and conservative ideas. Let's just say i hope the new president's got it figured out cause it's definately effecting a lot of countries.

Obama gives a hell of a speech, and thats all. Like Ganksta NIP said ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. Hey, I can give a speech about how porn degrades women but will I stop watching it? Hell No! Whats Obama doing? The war in Iraq dont seem to be resolving anytime soon. And where is he getting all this money for these bailouts? From the Federal Reserve Bank, the people who really control this country, and we're just more indebted to them.

On another note, Im tired of the Obama haters saying "our fore-fathers wouldn't have done
that". Please, our fore-fathers were power mad imperialist who killed Indians, had slaves, and fucked 15 year old servant girls.

"plus, the president doesnt control the economy, stupid."

!!!

"We might even get a black president but he's useless, cause he does not control the economy, stupid"

Immortal Technique - I love that song, that line cracks me up. The way he says it is priceless.

It's the way I call people stupid. He stole it from me, damnit!

Also I can give a daam about him apologizing to the Arabs. Hell, the Arabs were thr major culprits in the transatlantic slave trade so they OWE me an apology.

Dang! Trotter: "Also I can give a damn about him apologizing to the Arabs"

- Stop it already. That kind of hatred-shit makes med feel sick to my stomach. Turn off the Fox news please. Nasir told you so many months ago...

Ya'll just need a new brainstorm. The world is yours if you want it to be.

I doubt trotter or anyone else here watches fox news. Sounds like you get all your information from an equally biased source from the other side though.

Well, yes. I watch "The young turks" every day. Thats why i'm brainwashed. It's brilliant, honest , fun, and fair. It's progressesive, but any wrong move by anybody from any party will be judged on the spot when it happens. Even Obama and Pelosi gets the rough end of the stick ( is that a saying?) -Whoever wanna fuck around with common sense and the rights of ordinary citizens.

...anyway, look it up or don't bother. I really could'nt give a fuck.

I watch TYT sometimes. I agree with a good portion of what's said on their show, I wouldn't say everything that would be crazy, but yeah they put together a cool show.

Haterex wrote:

I watch TYT sometimes.

You've got some respect already...

(And it's not about going for a certain party, a certain view, race or sex, It's about being real and a descent human being. (and no it's not a religious thing you fucking geek (Just talking to the doubters)).

grind88 you seem not to understand. Im simply making a statement. Most people dont even know the Arabs were even involved in the slave trade unless they actually read a book. Nope, the movie Roots dont talk about it. But Im completely opposed to war with anybody. But the US sending someone named Obama to apologize to Muslims is more of an insult. The Arabs see right through it. Its like when Reagan wanted James Brown to talk and to calm a frustrated Black race. (true fact). I'm a cabbie and today I picked up a flight crew from a hotel to the International Arrivals Airport which is a small airport not to be confused with the main one. There was a bunch of soldiers there waiting to board a plane to Iraq. So Obama is just tryna smooth them over cause we're still gonna give them hell!