American Prayer

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Written by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. Lyrics:

This is my American Prayer

This is my American Prayer

This is the time to finish what you started

And this is no time to dream

This is the room

We can turn off the dark tonight

Maybe then we might see

American Prayer

American Prayer

And this is the ground

That keeps our feet from getting wet

And this is the sky over our head

And what you see depends on where you stand

And how you jump will tell you where you’re gonna land

American Prayer

American Prayer

My oh my

Couldn’t get much higher

Lets not kick out the darkness

Make the lights brighter

And these are the hands

What are we gonna build with them?

This is the church you can’t see

Give me your tired, your poor and huddled masses

You know they’re yearning to breathe free

This is my American Prayer

American Prayer

American Prayer

When you get to the top of the mountain

Will you tell me what you see

If you get to the top of the mountain

Remember me

h/t COwoman

12 thoughts on “American Prayer”

  2. My oh my – now we are praying to Barack Obama? Scary considering the hate of Reverend Wright’s church that Obama attended over twenty years. Obama is not my savior – mine is bigger than Obama!

  3. Comment #2 — Is there any bottom to the stupidity of wingnuts? The only thing bigger than their idiocy is their hate and resentment of everything beside themselves.

  4. I don’t think anyone’s praying to Obama – I’m certainly not, and I posted this video. What’s sad to me are those folks who miss the point of how America has yet to live up to its promise for so many of its citizens. Of how this country’s potential has been stolen over the years, mainly by the kind of self-serving thugs who presently inhabit its highest offices. Of what a fantastic country this place could be, if people would only act nobly, with genuine concern for their fellow human being, particularly from those in positions of power.

    That’s what’s behind the anger expressed by Reverend Wright and many others – which I happen to believe is a normal and righteous reaction in part to the kind of high crimes we’ve seen committed by said thugs. “American Prayer” is simply a prayer to restore this country to its original promise and high ideals. It’s somewhat coincidental that Barack Obama has campaigned on this kind of platform, but “American Prayer” is much bigger than one individual, and is really not about Obama.

    That I have to even explain this says a lot about how little vision you have for this country, and how poorly you understand how this country’s ideals have been betrayed.

  5. Dave’s old bandmate Annie Lennox has a good one, too:

    This is the sound of the planes in the night
    Coming out of the darkness
    And into the light
    Shining alarmingly
    Curiously bright

    This is the sound of those murderous drums
    The marching of footsteps
    The twisting of thumbs
    Over and over
    Again here it comes

    We’re lost….

    (And no, trolls, this isn’t a song about the TV show Lost.)

  6. Good link and an even better reply to Patricia, moonbat. I hear what your saying and I couldn’t agree more. We need to heal as a nation, and as it stands now Obama is the embodiment of our only hope. For me personally, I just can’t connect emotionally or spiritually to the nation America has become through its political leadership. I have no home in arrogance, self proclaimed superiority, deceit, insincerity, and selfishness. And I can see the qualities of spirit in Obama that I consider worthy of following.

  7. Such a painfully perfect segment from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is what we always thought the US should and would be, not what it has become. Can we get back there, or is it too late?

    w/metta,
    Visakha

  8. Thanks for posting American Prayer, moonbat.The emotions flooded my mind while watching.Since 9/11 we have been saddled with this unsustainable hyper-patriotism along with hyper-consumerism and a corrupt administration. Unsustainable is the keyword.
    Patrica Cole mentions Obama’s minister, well, as a resident of the Orlando area and a secular humanist, I was(and still am) enraged at the comments of Pat Robertson and his partner in fraud Jerry Falwell who blamed people of my “tribe” (non-believers) for 9/11 and called for God to destroy my home.Nothing personal, I’m sure….
    I have several reservations about Obama.I think his stated ideas about Afghanistan and Pakistan are wrong, correction… WRONG!
    I think his plan to admit Georgia and The Ukrane into NATO are beyond stupid. Obama has called the monsterous command center in Iraq “our embassy”, and vowed to protect it, which IS continuing the occupation, which is again, stupid and immoral.All of what I just mentioned are part and parcel of the “Grand Chessboard”. If our country stays on this path, we will not only go bust financially, but will (as the current little soire in the Caucasus demonstrates) end up in a very nasty collision with Russia and China ( after getting a bunch of innocents killed in these provocations).
    The politicians and “team members” of both parties ride on the revolving door of big corporate boardrooms , “think tanks”, and political appointments.Google the names of the biggies of either party and see what pops up, you’ll be fascinated.It’s an ugly system at best, forcing us to choose between the lesser of two evils, but be sure about this: the Neocon movement is every bit as evil as the Nazis or Stalinists.
    I was born in 1954. There has not been one year in my life when my country has not been at war with another country. Armed Madhouse indeed.In God we trust……….

  10. Moonbat: I am enjoying reading your site and the comments, particularly those in response to my earlier message (#2). Unfortunately, my message was obviously not communicated well on my part.

    WE THE PEOPLE!

    We the people have chosen to put ourselves first, even over our children. During the sixties and seventies, our hedonistic mantra was “love the one you’re with”, “knock your self out”, “if it feels good do it”, etc. Unfortunately, many Americans stopped committing to one another as we were off “doing our own thing”, though we continued bringing children into the world that we also could not make a strong enough commitment to so they could receive the love and nurturing of a loving mother and father to teach them and make them emotionally strong. Today, we have few committed relationships, and have taught our children to “hook up” with whomever, resulting in 1 in 5 having some form of sexually transmitted disease, and children that have little if any sense of belonging and self worth.

    We the people have allowed this image to spread throughout the airwaves of the world, resulting in others seeing Americans as greedy, decadent and self oriented. Is there any wonder why the nation of Islam views America as evil?

    Have we the people ever acknowledged that our never ending desire for fossil fuels has actually enabled those that see us as decadent to have the financial ability to fund attacks on America starting back in the days of the USS Cole, our embassy in Beirut and the first World Trade Center bombings.

    We the people never took action after the energy crisis of the mid-1970s to develop clean alternative energy though we developed cloning, the internet, organ transplants, etc. Though we the people should have been astute enough to know that politicians need a common goal to get us on board, and should have recognized the “Healthcare” obsession was just that, we naively marched to that mantra even though all Americans have access by law to emergency rooms for care. We the people also never seemed to worry that we have an epidemic of asthma (and other environmentally caused diseases) from breathing all of the combustible engine fossil fuel pollution.

    We the people learned to substitute “things” for loving, caring relationships, so more children were left vulnerable and alone, so we could earn more money to buy the newest, greatest gizmo when we wanted it. Of course, we the people wanted so much, and our land was becoming so polluted from producing and disposing so much, we then moved our production to China so they could live with the pollution caused by our frenzied consumption of poorly made but cheap disposable items.

    We the people then demanded more and more credit so that we could continue buying and buying “things”, even when we did not have the money for them. We the people never gave a thought to saving for a rainy day or selflessly going without. No, we the people spent and spent and spent until nations that would deny us freedom now own our massive debt.

    We the people then became proud because we significantly “cleaned up” our manufacturing pollution, at least in America, though we financially contributed to the massive build up of the Communist China infrastructure, the country that suppresses freedom (we have already forgotten Tiannamen Square). We the people race to buy environmentally friendly recycleable shopping bags and say we are good, though the majority are made in China where the air and the water and the land is filling up with dangerous chemical pollution (which by the way, is ending up in our air as carried over by the wind).

    We the people buy Christmas items (which are mostly made in China) from Communists that suppress freedom of religion. We the people buy animal toys and goods (which are mostly made in China) from a nation that cruelly kills for meat the very same animals we buy for (such as cats).

    We the people have caused all this by our inaction, our greed and our selfishness. No politician, including Obama, can enable the change that is needed to undo what we the people have allowed to happen to our country. Only we the people can “CHANGE”, thereby changing this path we are on by our own actions.

    Thank you Moonbat for providing us a forum to provide our thoughts and discuss our very real issues!

  11. Patricia, dear, don’t blame “We, the People.” Blame authoritarian capitalism, corporatism, and the military-industrial complex. Oh, and the conservatives who sold this swill to We, the People, and enabled this crap.

    “No politician, including Obama, can enable the change that is needed to undo what we the people have allowed to happen to our country.”

    You must be new here. Next time, lurk awhile before you post. (It’s my blog; I’ll snark when I want to.)

    Yes, it’s the people who have to change, but without something resembling progressive leadership it won’t happen. Nobody thinks Obama is the messiah; propaganda about “obamabots” to the contrary. But he has a gift for organizing and inspiring people, meaning he could be a useful instrument for those of us trying to bring about the changes we would like.

    Please note also that I am very quick to get annoyed and ban people, so if you comment here again, do try not to annoy me as much as you have so far.

  12. Patricia, without exception, all the materialistic, pollution-enabling, greed-oriented Americans I know are so-called evangelical (pushy, self-righteous, hypocritical) Christians. Their closets are full of skeletons of hedonism that the rest of us can scarcely imagine. Preach to them. They desperately need it.

    If you actually understood what you hear and read, you’d realize this

    Only we the people can “CHANGE”, thereby changing this path we are on by our own actions

    is Obama’s central message.

    And if you ever voted for George W. Bush, the worst hypocrite of all, you don’t really believe a single word you just wrote.

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