He can talk the talk...

[Guest]

There is no doubt he is a great orator but where is the memorable phrase that everyone was waiting for and that will be repeated by many over the years...

Obama should have had a "Mission Accomplished" banner overhead and performed his speech from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

That would have been memorable!

[Guest woxof]

Nice speech as I said earlier but it could have been better. Asking each American to to something to make it better. In their neighbourhood if neede or in another if not.

Especially the black community. This is a once in a lifetime chance for someone to inspire them to improve their overall circumstances. To change from the victim mentality to one that has always been possible and has been proven by Obama himself. That anyone can make it and the only thing really holding back that community is itself. Responsibility, hard work, education, etc. That they can surpass anyone other community in the country. That affirmative action doesn't help but hinders the community.

I was hoping he would address it in general but did not.

[Mitch Cronin]

I thought these lines were pretty meaningful:

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.

a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

[chockalicious]

When he was elected and gave the speach in Chicago,the catch phrase was "Yes, we can"....and I thought he may carry that in his speech but not so.....

"Ask not what your.........."

"We have nothing to fear but......."

I think the lens of history is what makes some of the lines memorable. I was not around for those speeches but I am not sure that the lines were immediately seized upon as historical.

The line that stood out for me was the one about our hands reaching out to you if you unclench your fist.

The "Yes, we can" actually originated in Iowa after the primaries.

As for some of the other comments regarding affirmative action...As a person who would never benefit from it I do not have a problem with it.

If some action can help correct some historical wrongs then I really do not see the harm. The benefit outweighs the negative.

[dagger]

I think the lens of history is what makes some of the lines memorable. I was not around for those speeches but I am not sure that the lines were immediately seized upon as historical.

The line that stood out for me was the one about our hands reaching out to you if you unclench your fist.

The "Yes, we can" actually originated in Iowa after the primaries.

As for some of the other comments regarding affirmative action...As a person who would never benefit from it I do not have a problem with it.

If some action can help correct some historical wrongs then I really do not see the harm. The benefit outweighs the negative.

Actually, nothing to fear but fear itself was not original - it was borrowed from a commercial, believe it or not.

[Guest woxof]

As for some of the other comments regarding affirmative action...As a person who would never benefit from it I do not have a problem with it.

If some action can help correct some historical wrongs then I really do not see the harm. The benefit outweighs the negative.

That is where you are wrong. And has been proven unnecessary.

[Mitch Cronin]

That is where you are wrong. And has been proven unnecessary.

...please explain?

[Guest woxof]

  ...please explain?

Why do people give funny faces of disbelief at the obvious. The treatment of blacks in America (which demands by many of them and left wing types further racism to somehow resolve the past) pales in comparison to the persecution of Jews. Yet Jews are not given any affirmative action, in general are highly educated with good paying jobs. As well they have created a democratic, modern powerful country from virtually nothing while being constantly attacked

Of course there has been help from other countries but they are not the only ones who have received aid. But they have used it wisely. they know that their education is what they need to survive against 2000 years of persecution.

So why the difference. A different culture where the importance of education and working is emphasized in the community in general instead of glorifying the easy money of drug dealing, making it as a sports pro(which is nearly impossible) so an education is unecessary, and criticizing of the smart kids in school as being white among other things such as expecting something for nothing(reparations or affirmative action) or whatever else combined with a lack of responsibility(parenting).

Of course individuals can be used as arguments to make a case but in the end one has to look at the community as a whole. I'm sure there is more that I have not mentioned yet in this post.

So you see.....A persecuted minority can do quite well if they choose as a whole to do so, proving my point.

Affirmative action(racism preference) will never get the black community of America ahead. It has too many roots in the disaster called Africa. Only a culture change can improve things and that I very much hope can come from the president. He really can change America for the better and this is a unique opportunity. I have high hopes for him over 8 years.

[Guest woxof]

HISTORY OF ANTI-SEMITISM

Ancient world

Examples of antipathy to Jews and Judaism during ancient times are easy to find. Statements exhibiting prejudice towards Jews and their religion can be found in the works of many pagan Greek and Roman writers.[23] There are examples of Greek rulers desecrating the Temple and banning Jewish religious practices, such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, study of Jewish religious books, etc. Examples may also be found in anti-Jewish riots in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE. Philo of Alexandria described an attack on Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE in which thousands of Jews died.

The Jewish diaspora on the Nile island Elephantine, which was founded by mercenaries, experienced the destruction of its temple in 410 BCE.[24]

Relationships between the Jewish people and the occupying Roman Empire were at first antagonistic and resulted in several rebellions. According to Suetonius, the emperor Tiberius expelled from Rome, Jews who had gone to live there. The 18th century English historian Edward Gibbon identified a more tolerant period beginning in about 160 CE.

According to James Carroll, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors such as pogroms and conversions had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million."[25][26]

Persecutions in the Middle Ages

From the 9th century CE, the medieval Islamic world classified Jews (and Christians) as dhimmi, and were allowed to practice their religion more freely than they could do in medieval Christian Europe. Under Islamic rule, there was a Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain that lasted until at least the 11th century,[27] when several Muslim pogroms against Jews took place in the Iberian Peninsula; those that occurred in Córdoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.[28][29][30] Several decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were also enacted in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen from the 11th century. Despite the Qur'an's prohibition, Jews were also forced to convert to Islam or face death in some parts of Yemen, Morocco and Baghdad several times between the 12th and 18th centuries.[31] The Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories by 1147,[32] were far more fundamentalist in outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians emigrated.[33][34][35] Some, such as the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands,[33] while some others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms, where Jews were increasingly forced to convert to Christianity from the 13th century.[36][37]

During the Middle Ages in Europe there was persecution against Jews in many places, with blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and massacres. A main justification of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. The persecution hit its first peak during the Crusades. In the First Crusade (1096) flourishing communities on the Rhine and the Danube were destroyed; see German Crusade, 1096. In the Second Crusade (1147) the Jews in Germany were subject to several massacres. The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320. The Crusades were followed by expulsions, including in, 1290, the banishing of all English Jews; in 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France; and, in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of the expelled Jews fled to Poland.[38]

As the Black Death epidemics devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating more than half of the population, Jews were used as scapegoats. Rumors spread that they caused the disease by deliberately poisoning wells. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by violence. Although Pope Clement VI tried to protect them by the July 6, 1348, papal bull and an additional bull in 1348, several months later, 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg, where the plague hadn't yet affected the city.[39]

[edit] Seventeenth century

During the mid-to-late 17th century the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the Commonwealth lost over a third of its population (over 3 million people), and Jewish losses were counted in hundreds of thousands. First, the Chmielnicki Uprising when Bohdan Khmelnytsky's Cossacks massacred tens of thousands of Jews in the eastern and southern areas he controlled (today's Ukraine). The precise number of dead may never be known, but the decrease of the Jewish population during that period is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, which also includes emigration, deaths from diseases and jasyr (captivity in the Ottoman Empire).[40][41]

[edit] Eighteenth century

In 1744, Frederick II of Prussia limited the number of Jews allowed to live in Breslau to only ten so-called "protected" Jewish families and encouraged a similar practice in other Prussian cities. In 1750 he issued the Revidiertes General Privilegium und Reglement vor die Judenschaft: the "protected" Jews had an alternative to "either abstain from marriage or leave Berlin" (quoting Simon Dubnow). In the same year, Archduchess of Austria Maria Theresa ordered Jews out of Bohemia but soon reversed her position, on the condition that Jews pay for their readmission every ten years. This extortion was known as malke-geld (queen's money). In 1752 she introduced the law limiting each Jewish family to one son. In 1782, Joseph II abolished most of these persecution practices in his Toleranzpatent, on the condition that Yiddish and Hebrew were eliminated from public records and that judicial autonomy was annulled. Moses Mendelssohn wrote that "Such a tolerance... is even more dangerous play in tolerance than open persecution."

In 1772, the empress of Russia Catherine II forced the Jews of the Pale of Settlement to stay in their shtetls and forbade them from returning to the towns that they occupied before the partition of Poland.[42]

Nineteenth century

Historian Martin Gilbert writes that it was in the 19th century that the position of Jews worsened in Muslim countries. Benny Morris writes that one symbol of Jewish degradation was the phenomenon of stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children. Morris quotes a 19th century traveler: "I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine. To all this the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was worth to offer to strike a Mahommedan."[43]

In 1850 the German composer Richard Wagner published Das Judenthum in der Musik ("Jewishness in Music") under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. The essay began as an attack on Jewish composers, particularly Wagner's contemporaries (and rivals) Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but expanded to accuse Jews of being a harmful and alien element in German culture.

Twentieth century

Two common Anti-semitic depictions of Jews during Nazi Germany: on the left is the Capitalist/Communist global parasite depiction; on the right is the Wandering Jew.

In the first half of the twentieth century, in the USA, Jews were discriminated against in employment, access to residential and resort areas, membership in clubs and organizations, and in tightened quotas on Jewish enrollment and teaching positions in colleges and universities. The Leo Frank lynching by a mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia in 1915 turned the spotlight on antisemitism in the United States. The case was also used to build support for the renewal of the Ku Klux Klan which had been inactive since 1870.

Antisemitism in America reached its peak during the interwar period. The pioneer automobile manufacturer Henry Ford propagated antisemitic ideas in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent. The radio speeches of Father Coughlin in the late 1930s attacked Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and promoted the notion of a Jewish financial conspiracy. Such views were also shared by some prominent politicians; Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency, blamed Jews for president Roosevelt's decision to abandon the gold standard, and claimed that "in the United States today, the Gentiles have the slips of paper while the Jews have the lawful money."[44]

In the 1940s the aviator Charles Lindbergh and many prominent Americans led The America First Committee in opposing any involvement in the war against Fascism. During his July 1936 visit he wrote letters saying that there was “more intelligent leadership in Germany than is generally recognized.”

The German American Bund held parades in New York City during the late 1930s where Nazi uniforms were worn and flags featuring swastikas were raised alongside American flags. The US House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) was very active in denying the Bund's ability to operate. With the start of US involvement in World War II most of the Bund's members were placed in internment camps, and some were deported at the end of the war.

Sometimes, during race riots, as in Detroit in 1943, Jewish businesses were targeted for looting and burning.

"Selection" on the Judenrampe, Auschwitz, May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers. This image shows the arrival of Hungarian Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia, many of them from the Berehov ghetto. It was taken by Ernst Hofmann or Bernhard Walter of the SS. Courtesy of Yad Vashem.[45]

In Nazi occupied Europe, oppressive discrimination of the Jews and denial of basic civil rights, escalated into a campaign of mass murder, culminating, from 1941 to 1945, in genocide: the Holocaust.[46] Eleven million Jews were targeted for extermination by the Nazis, and some six million were eventually killed.[47][48][46] This is seen by many as the culmination of generations of antisemitism in Europe.

Antisemitism was commonly used as an instrument for personal conflicts in Soviet Russia, starting from conflict between Stalin and Trotsky ("Jews are trotskists, trotskists are Jews") and continuing through numerous conspiracy theories spread by official propaganda. Departament IV of NKVD was called "Jewsekcia" for its activity in "cleansing" party structures from Jews. Antisemitism in the USSR reached new heights after 1948 during the campaign against the "rootless cosmopolitan" (euphemism for "Jew") in which numerous Yiddish-writing poets, writers, painters and sculptors were killed.[49][50] This culminated in the so-called Doctors' Plot. Similar anti-Jewish propaganda in Poland resulted in the flight of the Polish Jewish survivors out of the country. [50]

After the war, the Kielce pogrom and "March 1968 events" in communist Poland represented further incidents of antisemitism in Europe. The common theme behind the anti-Jewish violence in postwar Poland were blood libel rumours.[51][52]

The cult of Simon of Trent was disbanded in 1965 by Pope Paul VI, and the shrine erected to him was dismantled. He was removed from the calendar, and his future veneration was forbidden, though a handful of extremists still promote the narrative as a fact. In the 20th century, the Beilis Trial in Russia represented incidents of blood libel in Europe. Unproven rumours of Jews killing Christians were used as justification for killing of Jews by Christians.

[chockalicious]

Woxof

you never answered the question.

All you did was make a comparison to back up your point that had nothing to do with anything, building a strawman.

I agree that individual responsibilty in a community is key. However your comparison of blacks to Jews made no sense.

BTW somebody took the time to write what you posted, you could at least credit where you copied and pasted it from.

In your own words, or sourced words that agree with the point you are trying to make how about answering this:

That is where you are wrong. And has been proven unnecessary.

[Guest woxof]

you never answered the question.

All you did was make a comparison to back up your point that had nothing to do with anything, building a strawman.

In your own words, or sourced words that agree with the point you are trying to make how about answering this:

"And has been proven unnecessary."

Yes I did....you just didn't read or comprehend it. It was a long post.

I said "A persecuted minority can do quite well if they choose as a whole to do so, proving my point."

Those are the Jews. Probably the most persecuted group in history. Their community as a whole in the countries where they were persecuted and in the countries where they have not been persecuted do quite well without affirmative action.

It is unnecessary as I originally said. What is necessary is the will power to make it in general.

Some may need an inspirational figure. I hope it is Obama.

[chockalicious]

Well...I guess there is the traditional definition of a reasoned arguement and the other version where a person convinces themselves they are right regardless of whether or not they make sense.

It is probably not worth the time but I figure I will give it a shot.

How exactly does a group, in this case, blacks in the US, get past institutional racism that took place in the past?

Blacks were not allowed into some schools, jobs, etc until some affirmative action took place. Was it a failing of will power that they could not get these jobs?

[Guest woxof]

Well...I guess there is the traditional definition of a reasoned arguement and the other version where a person convinces themselves they are right regardless of whether or not they make sense.

It is probably not worth the time but I figure I will give it a shot.

How exactly does a group, in this case, blacks in the US, get past institutional racism that took place in the past?

Blacks were not allowed into some schools, jobs, etc until some affirmative action took place.  Was it a failing of will power that they could not get these jobs?

How does a group that has been persecuted for the last 2000 years in forced conversions, massacres and gas chambers get past the institutional racism that took place in the past?

They become responsible fathers, they get a post secondary education working toward high paying doctor and lawyer jobs. They don't fall for the foolishness of easy dangerous money. They don't glorify the Gansta'. They don't blame others for their ills and use it as an excuse not to be able to get ahead and that the only way to get ahead by the same racism they complain about as so terrible.

As I have said, there are always good and bad individuals in a community. But when enough individuals create virtual war zones and a culture of defeat, it infects the whole area.

If the most persecuted group can become the elite without affirmative action, then so can any group. As I have basically stated in three posts now. I see that you have difficulty understanding my posts. It happened on Olympic thread as well where I showed how ridiculously expensive they are.....but unfortunately I don't think things can be made more obvious than I already have.

Three cheers for Obama and his potential. By the way....does he have dandruff on his shoulders in your emoticon picture?

[chockalicious]

I will give you the courtesy of answering your question even though you refuse to answer mine.

In the pic he is doing a brush off the shoulders sorta "no worries" type thing.

How do identify a Jew? If a Jew comes up to me, how do I know if he is a Jew or not?

Like the Olympic thread you are parsing some arguement that has nothing to do with the what is being talked about to advance what is in your own world view.

Some facts, see if you can wrap your head around them.

For almost 400 years in the US there was institutionalized racism, it was part of govt policy and the culture to deny blacks the rights afforded everyone else.

If you want to show the signs from the 50's that say jew water fountain or school policies that did not allow jews, I will stand by.

Affirmative action tried to bring along a people that had historically been put at a disadvantage.

As it is you have shifted the goal posts of the original question that was put to you based on point you made.

That is where you are wrong. And has been proven unnecessary.

Tell us again why it has been proven unecessary.

[DEFCON]

What about the Irish?

What about the native Indians?

What about the Ukrainians?

What about, what about, what about......

Get past the history, move forward and make an honest life for yourself.

[Trader]

I don't know if it has been proven to be uneccessary but it certainly has failed!!! Asians and Latinos have come from equal poverty and discriminiation and yet after one generation are better off then their parents. The latest stats prove this and beg the question--WHY???

Why does a young Asian or Latino make it while young Blacks continue to languish??

Could it be that their cultural backgrounds (parents) push for hard work and education and 'making it'!!???

Woxof's point I believe is that the Black community does not seem to foster these ideals and so stay behind. If other minorities can do it (despite racism) why can the Black community not seem to?

[Kip Powick]

Woxof's point I believe is that the Black community does not seem to foster these ideals and so stay behind. If other minorities can do it (despite racism) why can the Black community not seem to?

Exactly !!!!!

A great example of parents pushing...perhaps on a different tangent but trying to slip out of the mainstream Canadian education system .....is the group that has lauded the All Black school that is supposed to start in YZ. A small group made enough waves that they managed to bully their way into having the School Board grant permission to facilitate that type of school.

What a great step backward in the melding the masses, in my opinion......and the other day CTV news indicated that they only have 10 students enrolled and they must have 40 before the school is a go.

Perhaps the other black parents are having second thoughts about segregating their childs education, (to a degree), and moving forward with the rest of the population.

Perhaps the election of Obama may actually make some of these people see the light....but how many generations, if it happens, will it take

[Mitch Cronin]

Oh my... I don't think you folks are being fair.

To say the "Black community" can't - anything at all, is pure BS.

"Black" isn't a culture! It's nothing more than a skin colour and just as there are many different cultures that have white skin, so it is with dark skin.

The culture doesn't own the colour, and the colour doesn't own the culture. Get it?

[UpperDeck]

Oh my... I don't think you folks are being fair.

To say the "Black community" can't - anything at all, is pure BS.

"Black" isn't a culture! It's nothing more than a skin colour and just as there are many different cultures that have white skin, so it is with dark skin.

The culture doesn't own the colour, and the colour doesn't own the culture. Get it?

"That’s why I have long promoted Black culture and history. I support the Chair on Canadian Black Studies at Dalhousie University, served on the Advisory Board for the Indigenous Black and Mik’Maq Program at Dalhousie Law School, and act as the Patron on the National Council of Black Educators of Canada. In addition, I make it a point to talk to young people at schools, especially during Black History Month in February, about the legacy of Black Canadians and their deep and enduring impact on our society."

Mitch---I'm sympathetic to your intent. I think it is beyond dispute that there are differences between peoples of colour based upon their country of birth and residency just as there differences between people in different communities. A black in Detroit is NOT the "same" as a black born and raised on Farmer's Cay in the Exumas. And, of course, the same is true of whites. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that there is a "black culture". The quote above is from Senator David Oliver, a black Canadian Senator from Nova Scotia. What is "black culture"? No idea.

[Canus Chinookus]

What is "black culture"? No idea.

What? Isn't J-Rock from Trailer Park Boys representative of black culture? Gnome Sane? Sim Sane? Gnome Sane?

[DEFCON]

From Wikipedia;

"The Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s followed in the wake of the non-violent American Civil Rights Movement. The movement promoted racial pride and ethnic cohesion in contrast to the focus on integration of the Civil Rights Movement, and adopted a more militant posture in the face of racism."

I thought the quote above was quite interesting? It might be suggesting, the change of "themes", "integration" to "Black Power", may have inadvertently gone a long way in contributing or continuing to foster racism on both sides of the fence?

[AME]

I have a question

Is an immigrant from Egypt or Libya considered an "African American"??

Hmmmmmm

[Airband]

"In addition, I make it a point to talk to young people at schools, especially during Black History Month in February, about the legacy of Black Canadians and their deep and enduring impact on our society."

Then again, some of the impacts only last half a day.

Man shot on subway platform in downtown Toronto

Thursday, January 22, 2009 - CBC News

A shooting in Toronto's subway system sent a man to hospital Thursday morning and shut down a key section of the city's public transportation system.

A plan was being worked out early in the afternoon to allow most of the subway system to start up in time for the afternoon rush hour.

Supt. Hugh Ferguson told reporters the shooting occurred after a dispute among a group of men who exited a train together at the platform.

"At 10:47 this morning, a group of young males got off the subway at Osgoode station involved in some sort of dispute," Ferguson said. "We're still trying to determine the nature of the dispute. During the course of that dispute on the platform, some shots were fired. We have one male who has been hit .… We are searching the area for the rest of the group that was arguing on the platform."

The TTC Shutdown

The following subway stations are closed until further notice:

* Museum

* Queen's Park

* St. Patrick

* Osgoode

Shuttle buses, running northbound and southbound, are taking passengers from St. George station to Union station, making stops at the following stations:

* St. George

* Museum

* Queen's Park

* St. Patrick

* Osgoode

* Union

[DEFCON]

We (society) do appear to have a way of sticking our head in the sand and ignoring the facts.

Will this event lead to another call to "ban the guns", or does that only happen when bad guys aren't exclusively engaged in killing each other?

[Fido]

Initially police closed a portion of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line, closing all stations between St. George and Union stations.

Police in this country have been watching too many CSI shows. A problem at one station and they close everything in sight?

Traffic accidents are the same thing. It is nothing now to close a major highway or intersection for 8 or 12 hours to do án investigation'.