Aw Geeze
Uh-bama’s sophisticated, nuanced, worldly Berlin speech:
Full Text Here: excerpts below
I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.
The Senator from the US UN.
I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city.
[was that a chicken joke?!? raacist remark?!?]
The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father – my grandfather – was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.
At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning – his dream – required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.
That is why I’m here.
No, Uh-bambam; you’re here performing a cheezy campaign stunt.
And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.
Interesting interpretation of the History of the 20th Century....
Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof.
On that day, much of this continent still lay in ruin.
Diplomacy. Judgement.
The rubble of this city had yet to be built into a wall. The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe, while in the West, America, Britain, and France took stock of their losses, and pondered how the world might be remade.
This is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off food and supplies to more than two million Germans in an effort to extinguish the last flame of freedom in Berlin.
...would have allowed Communism to march across Europe… All that stood in the way was Berlin.
And that’s when the airlift began
More nuanced diplomacy.
...on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. “There is only one possibility,” he said. “For us to stand together united until this battle is won…The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty…People of the world, look at Berlin!”
People of the world – look at Berlin!
Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.
Germany - where we have stationed how many troops since? Not all of them were put there to guard against the Soviets, pal.
Look at Berlin, where the determination of a people met the generosity of the Marshall Plan and created a German miracle;
That’ll go over well....
While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny,
rly? What destiny would that be, Mr UN?
the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope. But that very closeness has given rise to new dangers – dangers that cannot be contained within the borders of a country or by the distance of an ocean.
The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.
As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.
A: alliteration comes in threes, amateur.
B: Horse Hockey.
...The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all....
Yet you voted to surrender to the genocide in Iraq.
Dork.
...we cannot afford to be divided ...in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth
Splodey-dopes ain’t enough of a reminder he?
if we’re honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny.
What is this—a freakin’ pre-teen Hallmark Friendship card?
Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future.
Yeah—America wasn’t on the Saddam Oil for Food dole, for one.
But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more – not less.
Duck! Here it comes.
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
Reagan Rip-Off—UN Version 2.0
That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Everybody sing!
It was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads, and people to assemble where we stand today.
erm… not so much.
This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.
We didn’t “win the battle of ideas against the communists,” Pal—check your own economic policies [eg: tax ‘em cuz it’s fair]
This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success.
Marshall Plan for Afghanistan? Are ya saying ya want to bomb them back into the Stone Age, [about 20 minutes loss] and rebuild ‘em into an capitalist economic power with too much to lose to re-welcome the Tally-ban?
America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation.
Oh. You want EU to do that.
*settles in to wait*
This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.
Too late, Chump. That cat’s not only out of the bag, it’s got kittens littered all over the planet.
...This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably.
By taxing them into non-existence, like the EU and your own suggestions?
This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations – including my own – will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future.
Let’s cripple our economies based on a scam and leave our children grubbing in the dirt just to find enough food for the day.
And this is the moment when we must give hope to those left behind in a globalized world. We must remember that the Cold War born in this city was not a battle for land or treasure. Sixty years ago, the planes that flew over Berlin did not drop bombs; instead they delivered food, and coal, and candy to grateful children.
erm… that’s, what? nuance?
...Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don’t look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?
People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time.
something tells me I’ve heard that before, somewhere?
I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived – at great cost and great sacrifice – to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom – indeed, every language is spoken in our country;
Well, yeah—it was...
What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.
These are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. These aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart.
We shall see.
It is in pursuit of these aspirations that a new generation – our generation – must make our mark on the world.
People of Berlin – and people of the world – the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.
For all his attempted historical references, Uh-bama has failed to realize that Freedom, Liberty and Prosperity are earned. They cannot be bestowed by on some by a “benevolent” force which has taken them from someone else.
Well, we shall see how the sophisticated, worldly Euros receive this mishmash of restated History, conjecture and call to sacrifice.
“... drought from Kansas to Kenya”:
Maybe he was thinking of the 1930s, the Dust Bowl years.
“... the burdens of global citizenship...”
Obama can be President of the EU if he wants, but I’ve always been a citizen of this country.
“... it was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads ...”
Magically, I suppose. And as long as we’re grading his grammar ("alliterations come in 3’s” (2 is OK, but 3 is better(read some of Chesterton - a writer almost addicted to alliteration))), < volume up> where else do you think the sky is, dolt?< volume normal>
“... the Cold War born in this city ...”
My history is a little spotty, but I don’t think the Cold War was “born in Berlin”. Moscow, perhaps. But then again, maybe he’s confusing WW II with the Cold War.
We need to find out who his speechwriter is. (Like Kennedy and Clinton, they all had speechwriters. Except the early ones, like Jefferson, who really didn’t need one.)
Posted by ZZMike on 07/25/08 at 10:11 AMZZMike, His speechwriter is David Axelrod.
more on that in a leedle while.
Posted by Claire on 07/25/08 at 07:33 PM
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