agapetos

I was just surfing the net tonight and came upon this video. It’s a couple months old and was made by will.i.am after Obama gave his speech in NH. But I thought it perfectly summed up why there has been such a seemingly sweeping infatuation with Obama (although the polls still show that it’s an awfully tight race between him and McCain). I’ll hopefully be able to do something during the RNC too.

Once again, I want to preface this entry by saying that I have not decided yet who my vote is going to be going for. Granted I live in Illinois and my vote is pretty much not going to matter as Obama is gonna win Illinois in a landslide. I still feel it’s important to go out and vote for who I feel would be the better president.

Before show the clip, I wanted to encourage everyone to go out and do a little bit of research to find out what they stand for. This is the guy that’s going to be running our country. Whoever our next president is gonna be, he’s going to be making foreign policies that will affect our relationship with this world. He’s gonna be making social policies that will affect our society. And if you could care less about these things, remember that he’s gonna be making economic policies that will affect your pocketbooks, as well as making healthcare policies that can affect your possible future well-being. So go out and see who you agree with more and base your decision on that, not just the raw emotions that this clip might bring out in you please. I have to say all of this because I do think that this ending of his speech was pretty dang sick.

It doesn’t actually follow the order of how the speech was given, but I’ll give the parts of the transcript according to how they show up on the video.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can…

…We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope…

…the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America’s story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea – Yes. We. Can.

Considering that people in the world already have this terrible image of what American’s are like in their heads, do we really want to do this? If anyone’s seen the show “Sweet Sixteen”, you know that these girls/guys on the show are not the most self-sacrificing, caring, hardworking people in the world (at least on the show… I really don’t know what they’re like in real life… but I’m going with what MTV is editing to show me…) And we really want to send these girls/guy to the world? It just scares me a little bit that they’re gonna in essence be our ambassadors to these people who might not have any other contact with Americans.

If MTV is essentially just using these cultures to “teach these girls a lesson”… wow, really? We look down on these people that much that we’re using how they live as a punishment? I’m a little bit embarrassed. It can all turn out to be better though if these girls learned to embrace these different cultures and showed how amazing it can be. But for some reason I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Who knows though, maybe they will. Hopefully they will and represent our country well. Especially after the olympics and all the athletes represented our country so well these past 2 weeks. Here’s hoping that these girls can pull through, prove me wrong, and quell my fears.

Dear Mr. Keyboard Pounder,

Thumbs down to you for feeling the need to fill the entire room with the sounds of your loud typing. I’m not sure if your fingers are made of titanium metal or if you just have abnormally muscular fingers and are forced to type away as if you were pounding the keyboard with each letter, but thumbs down to you. It’s not usually going to type any better just because you hit the key any harder. I bet you were that person who would just take the controller and smash every key when playing Street Fighter (pre-pressure sensitive button days) or turn the controller (pre-Wii days) when playing Mario Kart. And as far as I’m aware, computer keyboards are not pressure sensitive unless somewhat broken. So please if you could take a break from typing so that my ears don’t become permanantly damaged that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!!

-agapetos

p.s. I will admit that there were times when I would turn the controller when playing Mario Kart, but still that does not make my request any less reasonable.