This Was a Different Barack Obama. A Stick-Swinging, Old-Testament Obama.

[muriel_volestrangler]

Charles Pierce:

It is a rare moment when you think that, damn, Barack Obama’s got a tough act to follow at that pulpit. But this was not the conciliatory, preaching Obama who rose so splendidly to the occasion after the massacre at Mother Emanuel or the Boston Marathon bombing. This wasn’t the we-are-all-the-sun Obama of his 2004 address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. This was a different Obama—a stick-swinging, Old-Testament Obama, who brought not peace but the heat, and who personified in his eulogy the proper method of celebrating John Lewis of which Lawson had spoken earlier.

After reviewing Lewis’ long life of service, and after acknowledging that some people might find what he was about to say inappropriate to the occasion—it wasn't—Obama got down to it.

Bull Connor may be gone, but today, we witnessed with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. We may no longer have to guess the number of jellybeans in the jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that’s gonna be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick...

...[But] once the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, some state legislators unleashed a flood of laws designed specifically to make voting hard, especially by the way, state legislators where there’s a lot of minority turnout and population growth. That’s not necessarily a mystery or an accident. It was an attack on what John fought for, it was an attack on our democratic freedoms, and we should treat it as such. If politicians want to honor John, and I’m so grateful for the legacy and work of all the Congressional leaders who are here, but there’s a better way than a statement calling him a hero. Wanna honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.

Naming it the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, that is a fine tribute. But John wouldn’t want us to stop there, getting back to where we already were. Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching to make it even better, by making sure that every American is automatically registered to vote, including former inmates who’ve earned their second chance, by adding polling places and expanding early voting and making Election Day a national holiday so if you are somebody who’s working in a factory, or you’re a single mom who’s gotta go to her job and then get time off, you can still cast your ballot, by guaranteeing that every American citizen has equal representation in our government, including our American citizens who live in Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. They’re Americans. By ending some of the partisan gerrymandering so that all voters have the power to choose their politicians, not the other way around. If all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do.

I may be forgetting some moment or another, but I don’t think I ever heard a speech like that from Barack Obama—direct, forceful, and utterly uncompromising, taking on the malignancy in the White House, and the party that made that malignancy inevitable, without ever mentioning any names, situating all of them at the wrong end of the bridge across which the country once followed John Lewis, the one that passes through chaos and gets us to the other side.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a33473426/barack-obama-john-lewis-eulogy/

The full eulogy is transcribed here: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/07/john-lewiss-funeral

Damn, it's powerful.

[abqtommy]

1. I woulda liked it more if Barack would have been forceful and uncompromising in 2015 and

laid out the extent of the tRUMP/reTHUG/sPUTIN conspiracy to ratfuck over our whole country...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Thank you so much, my dear muriel_volestrangler, for posting this part of his amazing eulogy.

I could not listen today, but I got to hear it anyway, inside my heart and my head.

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Charles Pierce is a treasure. I love his writing and he nailed my experience of ...

hearing and watching Obama eulogize John Lewis. I have no doubt Lewis would have approved heartily.

[lunasun]

4. Thanks -I couldn't see any of it . Was checking du for some of the eulogies

[tblue37]

5. K&R and thanks. nt

[spanone]

6. K&R...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Obama is making good trouble. . . . nt

[MFGsunny]

11. YESSSSSSS! No doubt John Lewis himself gave him several standing ovations.

"good trouble" is always like that ... even the agree!

[crickets]

14. +1

[Pepsidog]

8. Brilliant speech. Lewis would be so proud.

[LiberalArkie]

9. I almost expected him to say "come with me to Portland"

[Renew Deal]

10. Obama launched the real 2020 platform

If Dems can accomplish this in 2 years, it will be a success. There are a few more things, but DC and PR statehood, election protections, and getting rid of the filibuster would be huge accomplishments. We also need a massive infrastructure modernization act.

[Roy Rolling]

12. Amen

He is great. This was a call to action, in another famous eulogy he sang Amazing Grace.

That is what we love—he’s a genuine human being with a true range of emotions.

[paleotn]

15. Perfect!

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

[warmfeet]

16. Swinging sticks is a good thing.

I would rather swing some sticks than roll over and die from Covid-19.

[H2O Man]

17. Recommended.

[NNadir]

18. I watched the entire speech on CSPAN.

it was very powerful, and seemed delivered without notes.

It was a huge contrast with that tongue tied fool in the White House and his 4th grade vocabulary.