A U.S. president chairing a meeting of the Security Council;
if you're into the United Nations and its history, in itself, this is no small thing, no matter what the topic.
To me it's refreshing to see a president actually use the U.N. (outside rhetoricals on its assembly podium,) rather than treat it as a pain in the butt.
I am expecting an uptick in the foreseeable future in ye olde conspiracy theories about one world orders and black helicopters and such. It's possible some of those left out of the "G-20" will be joining federalist wingers on that front this time.
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Thank you. I did not know this.
And I am in agreement that THIS MEANS SOMETHING and could mean even more.
However much people hate Moamar, he said some truths yesterday only he sounds more like w only longer.
I mean, the US sets the standards. What is democracy? What is freedom? When we hold more prisoners than the rest of the world, when we hold more nukes than the rest of the world, when we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. Yet he is mimicked like some throw away line by a comic at a third rate bar.
But HE LIKES OBAMA.
That stupid bush said after the 2004 election: Now I have sum capital, political capital and I'm gonna spend it.
ha!!
Obama has some political capital on the world stage and I think anyway, the best minds in this country to direct how best to spend that capital.
Thank you for this.
September 25, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's very helpful to know that someone else had a similar reaction to mine.
Other presidents have given great speeches at the U.N. (my personal favorite was Bill Clinton's in 1998
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1998/09/980921-wh1.htm
which few in the U.S. paid attention to because Monica Lewinsky and Ken Starr were deemed far more interesting.)
But this action of Obama's really struck me as something special, almost revolutionary--maybe I'm being silly, but coming on the heels of G-20 global economic cooperation, it really does seem like a sign of a new day dawning.
Go back to the days of Gulf War I for an example. Bush Sr. did all the organizing there, not through the U.N., but basically on the frigging phone, from the White House, with U.N. approval a nicety that one just had to deal with.
That this president chose to sit down at the head of the table in a U.N. Security Council meeting to try to accomplish something he wanted to do, following their rules of order, and submitting to their power structure, instead of plotting from the White House, just strikes me as a very big change indeed.
September 26, 2009 12:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
p.s. I did a google search to find the Times article, which I had read in the print edition (I do that because it's faster than the Times' search engine--btw, tis a pity that they didn't put the print edition photo of Obama at head of the table on the website, mho, because it really had impact.) When I did that, I noticed a lot of freeper type sites had postings on this in advance of it happening--they certainly noticed it and thought it of, um, a different kind of import, shall we say?
September 26, 2009 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I too thought of fresh cries of 'one world order' coming from the right-wing when reading Laura Rozen's article on the advance copies of the nuclear resolution that were distributed. Confirmed in the comments.
Have also seen the predictions of future horrors that will rain down on us all that comes to us courtesy of this part of the speech:
September 26, 2009 5:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I also enoyed the President announcing that we will walk back from American Exceptionalism, and retreat on our policy of interference and dominance of other nations.
That Obama chaired the nuclear disarmament panel was a boost for my soul, too. Also, according to Steve Clemmons at the washington note, he invited former Sec. State George Schultz to attend the session; he was a staunch advocate of reducing nukes, and a strong proponent of the UN.
September 26, 2009 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
he invited former Sec. State George Schultz to attend the session; he was a staunch advocate of reducing nukes, and a strong proponent of the UN
that's interesting, it's a another sign of the intent, that we are not imagining it.
September 26, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html
October 9, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink