Forwarding the Conversation

Below are two videos and a newspaper article. The two videos have been produced on behalf of the two Presidential candidates. The first video criticizes Barack Obama for calling the war in Iraq a mistake. The second is a music video created from the Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech. The newspaper article is a New York Times op-ed written by Thomas Friedman. The article speaks to Governor Sarah Palin’s comments about Joe Biden who said that paying taxes is patriotic.  I am sure many of you have already seen or read these videos and article, but take a look at them again and think about them in the context of the following questions.

Please feel free to leave comments.

1. How does patriotism relate to freedom and vice versa?
2. What is freedom?
3. What does Senator Obama’s assertion that the Iraq War was a mistake say about his principles?
4. What does Senator Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech say about Freedom?
5. What role does patriotism play in politics?
6. What does it mean to be patriotic?

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday night. This is taken from the text of his speech, highlighting the 150 most common words (this was produced by Wordle)

Obama Nomination Acceptance Speech Word Cloud

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