What needed to be in the Inaugural Address

January 21, 2008

This is what was missing in the Inaugural Address and here are some of the words I would have liked to have heard. Words that should have been written. Words to reach the women in the world who hold the power of peace in their hands and wombs. We heard about race - we heard nothing about women.

What would Mrs Parks have wanted to hear?

Women were no more included in the Constitution than black men. There is not a single black man alive who was born without the right to vote - but there are black women. Black men have been voting since 1870. More black men - former slaves - held office immediately after they got the right to vote than do so now. But it took anther fifty years for women's suffrage.

Do you know how many people do not know that?

Excerpt from Senator Clinton Madame Secretary Clinton's speech spoken as First Lady on September 5, 1995 in Beijing, China, during the United Nations 4th World Conference on Women. They are just as imperative as they were then. Though it seems not to Mr President. Fortunately for the women of the world, Madame Secretary will be carrying on her mission of true equality - women's equality.

Women's Rights are Human Rights

...These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. But the voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly:

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed -- and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely -- and the right to be heard.

Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries, if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure. It is indefensible that many women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend -- or have been prohibited from fully taking part.

Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions.

Amen.

What was missing in the Inaugural Address?

January 20, 2009

These are the lines I found interesting from the new leader of the free world's Inaugural Address:

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.

Yes. The American People are expecting them to be met and sooner rather than later. Problem being they are not sure what version of promises they are going to get.

At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents.

Have We? We the People have no idea if our new president has been true to The Constitution.

We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

Do those words sound like the same words of the infamous 2002 speech?

The best line of all:

...we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

What was missing?

The exhortation to the oppressed women of the world, including America, and especially China and the Muslim World. No mention that women's rights are human rights. No mention of the need to stop violence against women. No mention of the absolute imperative for women and girls to be given respect and equality in their savage lands.

He needs a woman - a mature woman - to guide his words since his drunken hair-pulling, tit-grabbing pig has no clue and barry himself has shown over and over - by denying his own mother - that he has no clue or interest in getting one. One of his female speechwriters quit after she saw that he was doing nothing to stop the attacks on Gov Palin. Anyone hear about her? I'll have to find that post in the drafts.

This all he found important to say:

And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

...To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

The Muslim World needed to hear outright that that mutual interest and respect includes women. They needed to hear outrage. They needed to hear that the unclenching of the fist includes their own women - sisters, mothers, aunts, nieces and cousins - who they treat as reproductive chattel in the name of "culture". Who they maim or murder in the name of "honor". Who they mutilate in the name of "custom".

They needed to hear that it includes their young daughters - as young as 8 - who they sell to settle a debt - only to be raped by men 2-8 times their age in the name of "religion".

It was an egregious error.

Unforgivable, really.

But not at all surprising.

When is he going to realize that peace hinges on women - not the enslaving husbands and fathers, and human detonator sons and brothers?

He promised to carry on the fight for Senator Clinton?

There has been absolutely no evidence of it. He did not even bother to reach out to her voters (just the donors) - so sure he was that he would get their votes - much the same as he was willing to dis the LGBT community in the name of pandering to Rick Warren's community. How much is his female staff getting paid in comparison to the men?

There were two mentions of his father and absolutely no mention of his white mother "embracing what was right" when his father slunk back to that village to the pregnant "tribal" wife and young child he had abandoned - the woman he continued to have children with after he married another white women.

If barry's white mother hadn't "embraced what was right" after his black father did not, Rev Lowery would not have been up there rhyming words of outdated divisiveness when he was charged with the duty of bringing folks - all folks - black, brown, yellow, white and the redman - together through the benediction.

What would have been the power of Barack Hussein Obama's words about oppressed women to the Arab and African world? To China? To the world in general?

We will never know.

And the resultant power of their absence?

**

What should have been included.

Inaugural Address Video

January 20, 2009

Inaugural Address videos. Transcript

Part 1

Reggiep08v2

Part 2

Reggiep08v2

Eugene Robinson: "tired old argument of the past"

January 20, 2009

This is what Eugene Robinson heard in the speech. He never got around to mentioning that Rev Lowery brought up that tired old argument mired in the sixties.

MATTHEWS: Eugene Robinson - What you heard from the President of the United States.

ROBINSON: What I heard was a fascinating speech in which he did a lot of things. Number one, he wanted to turn the page from what he called the tired old argument of the past that we have been mired in since the sixties. It was the theme of his campaign. He struck that theme again today.

And Reverend Lowery?

What campaign was Robinson watching? barry used that tired old race card at every turn. He finally had to admit to it when he tried it against McCain but he found the "kill him" myth instead.

When are folks going to see reality as it exists?

What is it going to take?

Inaugural Address video & transcript

Rev Lowery Benediction transcript & video