Friday, August 29, 2008

Obama's Acceptance Speech

First of all, I hated the brown background. I felt it diminished the image of being in a stadium. Why be in a stadium if you can't see the grandiloquence of it in the main shot? It looked, in close-up, like he was standing in front of a Chinese screen or a fake firehouse.

Also, he eschewed the soaring kind of preaching he's known for (and for which McCain's horde of Rovian attack machines have been focused on in their numerous attack ads). Instead, he gave a rather wonky, totally sober and rational speech. Instead of using emotional techniques to maniuplate the listener, he calmly talked about his agenda in very specific terms.

And FINALLY he did a John Kennedy and said we could achieve energy independence with freedom from carbon fuels in 10 years. I've been waiting for three decades for someone to finally make that challenge. It's a superb way to giving us a new economy, new industry, new innovation and a renewed collective goal which will, in his words, be good for economic development and international security. Like the moon shot, we've needed someone to give our country a real and useful goal besides "go shopping and leave the war to the soldiers."

He's exactly what this country needs. A new voice. A new vision. A new sense of purpose and hope.

1 comment:

Dr. Kim said...

Jim! Thanks so much for your thoughts on Barack Obama. I am a white man from a rural Southern town and I was in tears throughout much of Obama's acceptance speech. It wasn't so much Obama himself, but what this means. I never thought I'd see an African American man nominated in my lifetime. Ironically, my partner (now husband) and I got legally hitched the Friday before on AUg. 22nd, another event that I never thought I'd live to see.

Maybe things are looking up?

Thanks Jim.