As Timothy Shriver points out, Obama’s speech would best be
remembered for the words he said than the ideals he promotes. While some
presidents give a quick statement or two about what they wish to accomplish,
Obama made a statement by crafting elegant words around ideals that were too
controversial or had the potential to be. I’m not sure where everyone stands as
oppose to democrats and republicans but I’m pretty sure almost everyone in
class had something positive to say about some part of the speech.
The article was used
to point out the shift in where the power is coming/should be coming from. Mr.
Shriver wanted people to notice that the issues in Obama’s speech were issues
that were not being traditionally fought for (this meaning by politicians and
political parties. So the government didn't attack the issue). This may sound a
little confusing; the point is that these issues where brought up by and fought
for from people who had no part in government or any political organization.
The author would say they are fighting for their cause from the outside in. To
tell you the truth, it sounds like lobbyists or interest groups but I think
they would count as part of the government because of their connection to
politics/politicians. It is believed that issues like: gay rights, disability rights, and
environmental protection were included in the speech for more than just their need
to be improved. The author believes these issues were specifically picked
because they were examples of issues that were fought for by regular people.
The importance of this would be that Obama wants to take over non-government “concerned”
issues and help in their cause or even pay more attention to issues raised by
the people instead just raised by someone in politics.
I would agree with Mr. Shriver that there were hidden
messages or meanings besides the ones intended in Obama’s speech. We tried to
decode some of it ourselves even. In this particular case I’m not quite sure I agree
with this thought. It doesn't seem to add up at times. I mention my thoughts up
above about interest groups. Isn't any group of people that form together to
create change of some kind in society an interest group? They have a lot of
power so his idea of fighting from the outside in would be wrong because they
are just as important as political parties. The other thing that does not make
sense is I don’t remember Obama talking about all of those three issues (these
issues where the ex. in this article). Maybe I didn't focus enough on those
sections to get what he was talking about or I didn't understand his wording. Mr. Shriver would understand his words more
than I would but we all know the media can make mistakes so you can’t take
everything you read to heart.
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