Obama Hears Echoes of Gandhi in Egypt
by anytimesnews -- Feb 11, 2011
Washington, Feb 12 (IANS) US President Barack Obama heard echoes of history in the way Egyptians brought about change through the ‘moral force of nonviolence’ like India’s Mahatma Gandhi ‘leading his people down the path of justice.’
‘Egyptians have inspired us, and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence,’ he said in praise of the Egyptian revolution hours after President Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down Friday.
‘For in Egypt, it was the moral force of nonviolence -- not terrorism, not mindless killing – but nonviolence, moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice once more,’ Obama said in a six-minute speech from the White House.
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‘Today belongs to the people of Egypt, and the American people are moved by these scenes in Cairo and across Egypt because of who we are as a people and the kind of world that we want our children to grow up in,’ Obama said.
Obama's speech on Libya sparks off wave of Republican rhetoric
by International Business Times, Staff Reporter -- Mar 29, 2011
As the world listened, U.S. President Barack Obama made a strong statement on Libya and the military intervention. The President defended U.S. involvement as a responsibility after launching a scathing attack on the Libyan dictator Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.
"For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant -- Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world -- including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents," he said.
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Obama Middle East Speech Covers Arab Spring, Need For Reform In Region
by Ben Feller, AP - The Huffington Post -- May 19, 2011
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The comments came in Obama's most comprehensive response to date to the uprisings sweeping the Arab world. Speaking at the State Department, he called for the first time for the leader of Syria to embrace democracy or move aside, though without specifically demanding his ouster.
As he addressed audiences abroad and at home, Obama sought to leave no doubt that the U.S. stands behind the protesters who have swelled from nation to nation across the Middle East and North Africa, while also trying to convince American viewers that U.S. involvement in unstable countries halfway around the world is in their interest, too.
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Obama said that while each country in the region is unique, there are shared values in the push for political change that will define the U.S. approach.
"Our message is simple: If you take the risks that reform entails, you will have the full support of the United States," he said.
Biden Sympathetic To Occupy Wall Street Protesters, Slams Bank Of America
by Zeke Miller, BusinessInsider.com -- Oct 06, 2011
Vice President Joe Biden struck a sympathetic tone when asked about the Occupy Wall Street protests at The Atlantic's Washington Ideas Forum.
"The core is the bargain has been breached with the American people...The banks are not paying their fair share," he said.
Asked if he was worried about being perceived as anti-business, Biden said "99% of the American people won't believe that," adding he's not too concerned with what the banks think.
Obama White House parrots “99 percent” line
by Justin Elliott, salon.com -- Oct 17, 2011
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Here’s Press Secretary Jay Carney being quizzed on the same issue during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One this morning:
Q[uestion:] How explicitly do you expect the President to embrace or echo some of the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street protest? We heard Josh yesterday actually use the phrase, “the 99 percent of Americans.” Might we expect to see the President move in that direction?
MR. CARNEY: Well, I want you to listen carefully to what the President does say, so I won’t preview his remarks in any detail. But I think we have expressed, and the President has expressed, an understanding of the frustration that the demonstrations manifest and represent. There is a link between two things: One, the frustrations that regular folks -- middle-class Americans feel about the state of the economy, the need for growth to improve, and certainly the need for job creation to improve. And there is a related frustration that a lot of Americans feel about the idea that Wall Street in the past played by different rules than Main Street, and now we have a situation where -- and yet was, for good reasons, was assisted by the federal government to prevent the financial sector from collapsing.
Following on that, there is frustration now I believe with the efforts by some to roll back the protections the President fought so hard to put into place through the Wall Street reform act that was passed and signed into law. It is -- I don’t have to imply or insinuate that it is the objective of the Republicans, including contenders for president, to roll back those reforms because they say so themselves. And it’s just inconceivable to us that an economic plan for the future would contain within it the elimination of reforms that would prevent the kind of financial protector collapse that we saw that created the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Just doesn’t make sense to us. Doesn’t make sense to the President.
Obama: Occupy Wall Street ‘Not That Different’ From Tea Party Protests
by Devin Dwyer, ABCNews, Nightline -- Oct 18, 2011
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I understand the frustrations being expressed in those protests,” Obama told ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper in the interview to air this evening on ABC News “Nightline” from Jamestown, N.C.
“In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party. Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them,” he said.
Obama said the most important thing he can do as president is express solidarity with the protesters and redouble his commitment to achieving what he described as a more egalitarian society.
“The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded,” Obama said. “And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.”
Obama: Each city must decide how to handle Occupy Wall Street demonstrations
by Associated Press, reported on WashingtonPost -- Nov 15, 2011
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Spokesman Jay Carney also says Obama hopes the right balance can be reached between protecting freedom of assembly and speech with the need to uphold order and safeguard public health and safety.
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Carney said the president was “aware of it.” [the early-morning police raid on Zuccotti Park]
He said the administration’s position is that each municipality has to make its own decisions about how to handle these issues.
And what will those Executive views be -- during the upcoming reflective week of Nov 21, 2011 ...... ??????
Only time, and the internal strategists' calculations, will tell ...
Afterall America thankfully -- is NOT some foreign land in economic turmoil and distress, controlled by oppressive forces ... is it, now?
I guess, that depends on, who you ask ...