Originally Posted by daisym

I am no Obamabot - to be perfectly honest I'm not too sure that he would be my preferred canditate.

I just take an outsider's POV.

So you don't like Blacks whining about racism in the US? so what are YOU doing to make sure that blacks are not disadvantaged?

I've seen enough of US history to know that even today the scars of institutionalised racism continue to disadvantage black US citizens.

I've also seen enough about the US to know that what the Rev may well be criticising is reasonable.

I often ask myself how the richest country in the world has a lower life expectancy than other western nations, how it has a higher infant mortality rate, how come, despite the best quality hospitals and top medical researchers, so many US citizens can't afford decent health care, why your average educational standards are below those of other OECD nations, how it has the highest per capita rate of imprisonment in the world, how come it is second only to China in terms in the number of executions, how the justice system appears to make so many mistakes, (I've seen/heard two programmes in the last couple of says where survivors of your justice system's injustice were sentenced to long perids of solitary confinement, and then found innocent,or sentenced to death, and then found innocent), how 8 people under 18 get killed by guns every day in the US (ie in a year thats more than the total number killed on 911), and people just gloss over this as if its not an issue, how come the richest nation has the greatest income differential of any OECD nation (something the rest of us associate with the third world) .... and thats BEFORE we start looking at your relationships with other nations ...

Seems to me if the Rev was saying God Damn America twasn't a bad thing - because it might make people sit up and take notice and ask what the fuck is wrong with "the greatest nation on earth."