I don't get why people say Obama is a great speaker. He isn't. A great speaker is someone who makes a speech that everybody can appreciate and who can make the audience feel like he understands or at least empathizes with them. Obama doesn't do that. Obama's speeches are halting, staccato, and bland. Every time he tries to sound 'fired up' he comes across as cringe-worthily unconvincing. The speeches are filled with catch phrases, nothing-isms, and vapidity. He isn't a 'great orator' at all. He is - in fact - flat, uninspiring, and weak. I was no fan of Bill Clinton, but Clinton was 10X the 'orator' that Obama is. If I was to make a rhetorical comparison, I would say that Obama is more like George Bush (I) than anyone else. Can we please stop with the 'great speech' and 'what a speaker' crap? I've heard great speakers, and Obummer is no great speaker.

And again he proves that this man is a master orator.

>> ^Krupo:
I think the "big guns" and "lightweights" comment is more revealing than just calling this an "as usual" situation. I've heard MUCH better orators who would've turn H&F's points to shreds much more efficiently.


It could be the case that a better orator might better persuade the audience that the Catholic church is a force for good, but I doubt it would be strongly sustained by facts and reason.

Even at its best, the Church does great damage to freedom of thought and human dignity. In the 20th century alone, it has been responsible for tremendous damage in perpetuating colonial oppression. Where it spreads, it breaks apart or perverts traditional social structures and--by its teachings of exclusivity and damnation to Hell--splits societies apart. The Rwandan genocide, as Hitchens pointed out, was at least in part caused by the Church.

And this has been the case throughout its entire history, going back to the destruction of temples and lynching of Pagans by angry Christian mobs from the moment it attained political power. Before then, the twisted passive-aggression of voluntary martyrs--a not insubstantial proportion of Christian martyrs--and aggressive, even militant rhetoric of its leaders made it clear how they might act if given power.

>> ^Krupo:
one side offering up solid points but not really engaging the audience, the other simply resorting to hysterics and demagoguery.

Funny thing about bias, I watched the same video as you but perceived the exact opposite. Unfortunately it's too long to be bothered watching the whole thing over again to see what you saw that I didn't.

I would be interested in seeing some of these better orators that you mentioned though.

>> ^Samaelsmith:
I also found it infuriating that the religious side didn't address a number of points brought against them, especially Fry's point that the reason child abuse and condoms and homosexuality are constantly brought up is that they are important issues that do need to be dealt with.
Overall, I may be biased, but I thought the "against" side (and a few of the audience members) made very good points. Well done and kudos to Mr. Fry. And I'm afraid the "for" side was a tad weak and hollow, as usual.


I think the "big guns" and "lightweights" comment is more revealing than just calling this an "as usual" situation. I've heard MUCH better orators who would've turn H&F's points to shreds much more efficiently.

Sadly the Archbishop and MP expressed disappointment about the one-track-mind of their opponents without doing a better job of enumerating the benefits the Church bestows upon the world and instead said going after select topics is pretty narrow-minded for supposedly "enlightened people."

I wonder if it's a byproduct of the hostile anti-Catholic country they find themselves operating in? Were they afraid of their host country being hostile and anti-Catholic - after all, Sir Thomas More, who the cons cite, was executed for not supporting the British state's machinations -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More#Trial_and_execution

By H&F's standards, the UK and the USA are both great forces against good than most other states - check out the histories of perjury, assassinations, executions and other moral evils they've engaged in. So should they renounce their citizenship and flee to Switzerland or something?

Hypocrisy and lazy debating permeated the video.

Quick link to the full speech: http://fora.tv/2009/09/29/Republican_Gomorrah_Max_Blumenthal

He's not a very good orator but he's a clever and very well documented bugger. Worth a watch.

Embarrassed by history.

Here is a link to the full text and English translation of "The Road to Resurgence" written by Hitler, at the request of wealthy far right industrialist Emil Kirdorf.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1878145

It costs. (I had a print copy stashed away somewhere. Can't seem to find it, sry.)

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http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERkirdorf.htm

Kirdorf, who held extreme right-wing political views, first heard Adolf Hitler speak in 1927. He was so impressed that he arranged to meet Hitler at the home of Elsa Buckmann in Munich. Although Kirdorf supported most of Hitler's beliefs he was concerned about some of the policies of the Nazi Party. He was particularly worried about the views of some people in the party such as Gregor Strasser who talked about the need to redistribute wealth in Germany.

Adolf Hitler tried to reassure Kirdorf that these policies were just an attempt to gain the support of the working-class in Germany and would not be implemented once he gained power. Kirdorf suggested that Hitler should write a pamphlet for private distribution amongst Germany's leading industrialists that clearly expressed his views on economic policy.

Hitler agreed and The Road to Resurgence was published in the summer of 1927. In the pamphlet distributed by Kirdorf to Germany's leading industrialists, Hitler tried to reassure his readers that he was a supporter of private enterprise and was opposed to any real transformation of Germany's economic and social structure.

Kirdorf was particularly attracted to Hitler's idea of winning the working class away from left-wing political parties such as the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party. Kirdorf and other business leaders were also impressed with the news that Hitler planned to suppress the trade union movement once he gained power. Kirdorf joined the Nazi Party and immediately began to try and persuade other leading industrialists to supply Hitler with the necessary funds to win control of the Reichstag.

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http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERhitler.htm

It was not until May, 1919 that the German Army entered Munich and overthrew the Bavarian Socialist Republic. Hitler was arrested with other soldiers in Munich and was accused of being a socialist. Hundreds of socialists were executed without trial but Hitler was able to convince them that he had been an opponent of the regime. To prove this he volunteered to help to identify soldiers who had supported the Socialist Republic. The authorities agreed to this proposal and Hitler was transferred to the commission investigating the revolution.

Information supplied by Hitler helped to track down several soldiers involved in the uprising. His officers were impressed by his hostility to left-wing ideas and he was recruited as a political officer. Hitler's new job was to lecture soldiers on politics. The main aim was to promote his political philosophy favoured by the army and help to combat the influence of the Russian Revolution on the German soldiers.

...

Hitler's reputation as an orator grew and it soon became clear that he was the main reason why people were joining the party. This gave Hitler tremendous power within the organization as they knew they could not afford to lose him. One change suggested by Hitler concerned adding "Socialist" to the name of the party. Hitler had always been hostile to socialist ideas, especially those that involved racial or sexual equality. However, socialism was a popular political philosophy in Germany after the First World War. This was reflected in the growth in the German Social Democrat Party (SDP), the largest political party in Germany.

Hitler, therefore redefined socialism by placing the word 'National' before it. He claimed he was only in favour of equality for those who had "German blood". Jews and other "aliens" would lose their rights of citizenship, and immigration of non-Germans should be brought to an end.

In February 1920, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) published its first programme which became known as the "25 Points". In the programme the party refused to accept the terms of the Versailles Treaty and called for the reunification of all German people. To reinforce their ideas on nationalism, equal rights were only to be given to German citizens. "Foreigners" and "aliens" would be denied these rights.

To appeal to the working class and socialists, the programme included several measures that would redistribute income and war profits, profit-sharing in large industries, nationalization of trusts, increases in old-age pensions and free education.

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^ It's like sports.
My team is better! We beat you 2 games in a row!
Oh yeah, well we'll be back to beat you guys in the next one! We got a skilled new orator!
And yet, both teams are sponsored by the same corporations and influential elites.
It is a show, through and through, designed to make you feel a part of it.

siaiaia (or whatever your name is), you are in dire need of an education in both religion and epistemology. Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge. One can have historical knowledge, knowledge of art theory, the knowledge of the human condition which has informed so many poets and novelists, musicology... The list goes on and on. Which is to say that there is no reason why one should expect that a religious truth (if such a beast exists) should be classified as scientific.

Furthermore, your understanding of religions as primarily sets of doctrines--systems beliefs--is profoundly inadequate. Let's ignore the Eastern religions, for all of which that's not clearly not true, and look at an example from Western history. In the first century BCE, Roman orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote a book entitled De Natura Deorum, or On the Nature of the Gods. In it, he portrays a fictional but plausible conversation between himself, a Stoic philosopher, and an Epicurean philosopher. Throughout the dialogue, it becomes starkly clear that, though all three follow the Roman religion, they can barely find a single belief about the gods that they hold in common. This detachment of doctrine and religion--of dogma and religious practice--was the norm throughout the ancient Mediterranean world.

Only with the rise of Christianity does anything like your criticism of religion become even coherent, let alone plausible.




With regards to the palestinian bomber - why did the IRA not do suicide bombing?? Eh? Because the palestinian bomber believes he is doing something in the name of God, and doing a righteous thing before he dies.

Or maybe because it's one of the few acts that a Palestinian can take with any effectiveness against Israeli oppression.

Suicide bombing was not invented by Muslims, but by Hindu Tamils. And not for religious reasons--both murder and suicide are strongly enjoined every Hindu tradition I'm familiar with. The problem was that one group--the native Sinhalese (primarily Buddhist--a pacifistic religion)--was oppressing the Tamil minority. They invented the suicide bomb as a technique by which a minority could strike at a militarily powerful oppressor.

There are strong parallels between the Palestinians and the Tamils. In both cases, the rulers speak a different language than the oppressed minority, having a different culture right down to religion. In both cases, the majority overwhelmingly outguns the minority. In both cases, oppression of the minority is acceptable to the populace of the majority group.

It is unsurprising, then, that the Palestinians should have adopted the suicide bomb--no matter what their religion. There was a complex set of circumstances replicated in both circumstances which produced the kind of attitude which gives rise to a suicide bomber.



This does not, of course, apply to the 9/11 hijackers, the Taliban, or a number of other groups. Nonetheless, I think my point is clear: fixating on a single aspect of a society, like religion, to explain complex social phenomena is a huge mistake.

Now that's an oration.

rgroom1:
Kanye West's brilliant oration. Mike Myers sounds intelligible, Kanye sounds like a moron.


You sound like a moron. Must be nice not to feel empathy. It seems a lot of people only recall the final comment, that 'GW hates black people.' Is this statement so over-the-top that it negates the very real observations made prior? Kanye is literally heartbroken, you can hear it in his voice and you can see it in his eyes. This moment had as much impact on me during the catastrophe as the 911 audio recordings of people trapped in their homes drowning as the water level rose.

>> ^Offsajdh:
Ouch, I think Halloway hit a nerve at around 4.10. Just watch as Weinstein tries to look around the room in search of an answer and only manages to fall back upon some ridiculous "proxy agent of hamas" claim. It sounds so familiar to US republican tactics of making up bullshit terms whose only purpose is to be inflamatory and fear-inciting.
Watch out! Galloway is a Hamas (proxy) agent!


It's not so funny when it is in fact true.

Galloway is a skilled debater and orator, winning this debate does NOT make him right. He exerts enormous effort to rally support and defense of all manner of the worst organizations and criminals in the world.

I think it is accurate to describe a dedicated propagandist who supports Hamas both with his own finances and every word he speaks an agent for Hamas.

Not a smooth talker??? He's a better orator than any of the network news anchors, but this particular video is meh.

Memory tricks like these have been around a long time. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famous Roman orator and philosopher, was supposedly so skilled in using them that he was able to memorize hour-long speeches and repeat them verbatim.

News? Most of Keith Olbermann's oration, particularly his "special comments" don't even qualify as "news". Not any more than Bill Oreilly's, at any rate.