President Obama's Address at Human Rights Campaign Dinner

[jefferson_dem]

Run time: 10:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-FlZqB9dE   Posted on YouTube: October 11, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 11, 2009 By DU Member: jefferson_dem Views on DU: 1143

 
PT 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_n2CN6HN-k

PT 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAYBiLNM25Q

[GivePeaceAchance]

1. That is serious rock star ovaition. Great days are ahead every lemon has become lemonade.

:toast: Another lemonade brewski anyone?

[Cha]

2. I can see why everyone was raving

about the context of PO's speech at the HRC Dinner! WHEW!..was that ever an emotional 30 Minutes!

Bless Obama's Heart!

[BlooInBloo]

3. Wow. That ovation reminded me of the end of live version Everything Counts from 101 album...

The crowd just wouldn't let it go. :)

[johnnypneumatic]

4. great speech, now it is clear

anyone who is anti-gay is against the President and against America.
They are against equality, they are against equal rights for all, they are against freedom and justice for all.

[ThomCat]

5. FINALLY, he has made an unequivical committment.

It is still just words so far. But finally, the words are strong enough, direct enough that I am willing to give him credit for those words and believe that he really is committed to LGBT rights.

I still don't understand why, despite military law experts telling him exactly how and why he can suspend DADT with an executive order, he is waiting for legislation. But at least he is advocating for that legislation publicly and vocally.

We have not seen any efforts yet to overturn DOMA, but finally he is making a public commitment to get rid of DOMA. I hope, very strongly, that we see some action soon to back this up.

This speech was amazing. It was great! I hope he lives up to this. He is famous for his wonderful speeches. But he is also, unfortunately, famous for not living up to his speeches. Even Feingold has recently criticized him for saying one thing in public while doing another thing behind closed doors. In this case I really hope we won't see that unfortunate dichotomy. I really hope he will live up to this speech. I really hope he will finally be the ally he claims to be.

[vaberella]

6. Someone had explained that.

It's the way that can be taken by some Congressmen. Some think, and it was implied by the WH, that if he puts in the executive order, it's first off too weak and secondly, it could be seen as a slap in the face to Congress that the President is going over their head. REmember this President likes to play bipartisan. If it looks like he's over reaching and working apart from Congress as the Repubs will surely spin it, then things won't get done.

Take health care for instance. Most people were screaming at WH and the Pres to fuck the Blue Dog Dems and Repubs. Even if we screw the REpubs in the Senate, Blue Dog dems still make up 13 people and if we fuck them over they will fuck us when it comes time to vote. That's the whole point. Now when the President ignored many of us and didn't "fuck them" so to speak, we now have Repubs joining the bandwagon---maybe not in the Senate but in Congress and former Congressional Repubs speaking out FOR health reform. Even when the country was going mad.

The idea is that we don't want to step on toes but get things done. The executive order could be read that way and that was one of the concerns. To detail on the first part, is that I heard, if the President pushes the Executive order Congress would forgo on directly working on legislation and voting on legislation to repeal DADT and DOMA under him. They could use the executive order effectively to push back on a vote. Like the way they did on Single payer for several years. They could do that until he leaves---since they could say he could use the Executive order. Then if another President is voted in, he could over right the executive order easily, and DOMA and DADT was never repealed.

This was discussed in the GDP thread several times. Plus the WH's statements in the past on the issue sort of imply the same route of thinking. Some people think it's easy, but he's basically working what he can to get things done. It's slow for some but overall it will be effective. In the mean time to that, when he was first in power he made sure to have pentagon and his GD reading the books to see what he can extend for the LGBT during his time...which he did and stated in his speech.

[ThomCat]

9. The commander in chief writing and executive order controling

policy in the military doesn't step on anyone's toes. He is in charge of the military, not congress.

Writing an executive order would not be preventing or interfering with the legislative process at all. That is congress's prerogative.

I'm sorry, this idea that Obama refused to use his own authority because it would offend congress is a very shallow and ridiculous excuse.

If anything, writing the executive order would have signaled to congress that the issue was important to him, and that he then wanted and needed them to use their authority to act and make the decision permanent. It would have been a way to unify the democratic party behind the head of the party, the President, behind one goal with everyone doing their part.

The healthcare situation is an entirely different situation because there isn't anything that can be done by executive order. Obama HAS to work with the blue dogs because the only step that can be taken is legislative.

I really don't know why certain people at DU keep insisting that they know so much more than the military law experts that published the report on exactly how and why Obama CAN do stop DADT with an executive order. Everything since then has been rationalizations to try to defend and protect Obama's decision, even though the decision was clearly wrong.

It would be really nice if occasionally we had unified support at DU for LGBT rights, but we keep finding that our rights get pushed aside for the shallowest of reasons. "We need to make up an excuse to justify why Obama isn't doing anything, so let's push LGBT rights aside and stonewall the issue so we can defend Obama!" Do people not realize how obvious and offensive this is?

[vaberella]

14. We have a Commander-in-Chief who's undermined regularly. n/t

[RollWithIt]

11. It has always been a matter of timing....

With all the problems we face the idea that he was going to immediately make gay rights his centerpiece was always short sighted. He knows. These things are close.

[ThomCat]

12. In matters of civil rights, never, ever tell people to be patient and wait.

Either you are working on civil rights or you aren't. Telling some other group of people to wait for their rights is very rude, and at the very least thoughtless.

You just said that our rights aren't important enough to be on the agenda yet, but maybe someday the important stuff will be done and he'll be able to get around to us. :eyes:

LGBT people are really sick of hearing shit like that from straight people.

[vaberella]

7. Thanks for the post JD. n/t

[quiet.american]

8. "I love you back!" Can't get enough of this stuff. Just can't. :) nt

[ClayZ]

10. Yay! K and R

He makes me proud to be an AMERICAN! (finally again)

[Swede Atlanta]

13. My concern is about political capital.........

Our President has now made very clear unwavering statements about his plans with respect to the GLBT community. And while I agree each of the pressing issues from ENDA to DADT to DOMA are a matter of timing, my concern is the longer these get pushed out the greater risk there is that Obama will have spent most or all of his political capital. I would like to see at least one of these issues squarely on the domestic agenda with urgency to pass legislation by the end of the year.

It is one thing to talk about the values we cherish but another to take demonstrable action. I would like to be able to say that within his first year he passed something meaningful to the GLBT community that fought very hard for his election.