Instead of focusing on improving our relations in other countries, we wave our flags and say america is the greatest. instead of improving education, we talk about immigrants destroying our education system. After all, if there weren't any immigrants then we'd have the finest educational system around.
It goes on and on and on. We're so easily distracted from the things that matter because it's easier to blame someone else for our problems than actually do the work and fix them.
In Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech he said "not this time" but we got lost in damning pastor wright. Ironically, racism has caused the "Budweiser" class to vote against the person who could help them the most.
nyt: Racial prejudice, ignorance, hostility — whatever — has caused millions of Americans to vote against their own economic interests, and for policies that have damaged the country.
“It’s hard to address big issues,” Mr. Obama told me, “if we’re easily diverted or distracted by racial antagonism.”
Far more people will see the endless loop of Senator Obama’s frenzied former pastor than will ever read or hear the sober, thoughtful, constructive words of the senator himself.
This story, now one of my all-time favorites, by Gary Kamiya in Salon illustrates our predicament. it says "stupid patriotism," the kind that says America is always innocent and always good has left us doomed to repeat past failures.
It starts out like this:
Maybe we really are doomed to elect John McCain, remain in Iraq forever and nuke Iran. Nations that forget history may not be doomed to repeat it, but those that never even recognize reality in the first place definitely are. Last week's ridiculous uproar over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons proves yet again that America has still not come to terms with the most rudimentary facts about race, 9/11 -- or itself.
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Obama: the Un-Beholden President
