TruthOut10
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- Dec 3, 2012
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With its elegant rendering of the liberal agenda before the eyes of the American people, President Barack Obama's second inaugural address was music to the ears of many a progressive. But to the ears of Tea Partiers and the Republican right, this inauguration speech, as well as the ceremony that surrounded it, was war -- not just a war of words, but a war of prayer, a war of poetry and even, perhaps, a war of song.
Driving the message home were the hands of the Fates, who conspired to see the second inauguration of the nations first African American president fall on Martin Luther King Day, the national holiday whose very creation was opposed by so many who still today comprise the Republican Partys right wing.
Here we recount a dozen ways in which the president brought his fight to the right, in no uncertain terms, at his second inauguration.
1. Reminding the nation who won the Civil War. On the eve of Obamas second inauguration, civil rights leader Julian Bond addressed a crowd of progressives gathered in Washington, D.C., at the Peace Ball convened by the activist restauranter Andy Shallal, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, and a host of progressive entities. Bond spelled out the statistics of Obamas 2012 victory for the crowd, noting that Mitt Romneys voters were almost entirely white, and that the only states won by the Republican presidential candidate belonged to the old Confederacy.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the anthem of Union troops in the Civil War, long ago passed into the songbook of patriotic themes, and has been played during the inaugural parades of other presidents, sung on several different occasions by the very white Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But when the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, in all its multicultural glory, was tapped to sing the anthem not from a parade stand, but from the ceremonial podium, a different chord was struck, thanks to its context: the invocation that preceded it, and the president's speech, which followed it.
12 Ways Obama Smacked Down the Tea Party and the Right in Inauguration Speech | Alternet
Driving the message home were the hands of the Fates, who conspired to see the second inauguration of the nations first African American president fall on Martin Luther King Day, the national holiday whose very creation was opposed by so many who still today comprise the Republican Partys right wing.
Here we recount a dozen ways in which the president brought his fight to the right, in no uncertain terms, at his second inauguration.
1. Reminding the nation who won the Civil War. On the eve of Obamas second inauguration, civil rights leader Julian Bond addressed a crowd of progressives gathered in Washington, D.C., at the Peace Ball convened by the activist restauranter Andy Shallal, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, and a host of progressive entities. Bond spelled out the statistics of Obamas 2012 victory for the crowd, noting that Mitt Romneys voters were almost entirely white, and that the only states won by the Republican presidential candidate belonged to the old Confederacy.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the anthem of Union troops in the Civil War, long ago passed into the songbook of patriotic themes, and has been played during the inaugural parades of other presidents, sung on several different occasions by the very white Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But when the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, in all its multicultural glory, was tapped to sing the anthem not from a parade stand, but from the ceremonial podium, a different chord was struck, thanks to its context: the invocation that preceded it, and the president's speech, which followed it.
12 Ways Obama Smacked Down the Tea Party and the Right in Inauguration Speech | Alternet