BS: Full circle.

Subject: RE: BS: Full circle.
From: gnu
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 05:09 PM

Very moving. But, I was taken aback by the last few comments as slavery and subjugation goes on today, some within Africa. Specifically, "... to abolish slavery and ultimately win civil rights for all people."

I know what he KINDA meant, MAYBE, but the statement, sadly, is far from the truth.

I can only hope he leads the way to being able to make that statement as an unencumbered, worldwide truth, though it may take another thousand years.

Subject: RE: BS: Full circle.
From: SharonA
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 05:00 PM

Bill: I understand his wanting to use a teleprompter to get the phrasing just right in formal speeches. It's that head movement of his I can't stand -- regular as clockwork -- as if he's watching a slow tennis match. Arrrgh.

Subject: RE: BS: Full circle.
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:55 PM

He speaks extemporaneously quite well, but when giving a formal speech, he likes the phrasing to be 'just right', so he (and Gibbs) doesn't have to field all the picky questions about "did you really mean 'X', 'Y' and 'Z'?"

Subject: RE: BS: Full circle.
From: SharonA
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:41 PM

Wow. Yes, very moving indeed. Thanks, Lox, for the insight into the conditions at the fortress even in its present state.

Agreed that this is a poignant reminder of the reasons that Obama was the best choice in the 2008 election. Could you imagine John McCain speaking s eloquently about that tour? Noooo, he would have been making comparisons to his imprisonment as a POW and indulging in self-aggrandizementthrough his clenched teeth. (...and Lord help us if it had been Sarah Palin on that podium!)

Even so, I can see why he's known as No-Drama Obama. Such a tour would leave most of us struggling to speak through the trembling of our voices, but Obama looks just as calm, cool and collected as usual in the video. An incredibly disciplined man.

I find it interesting that, in the YouTube clip, we see Obama moving his head back and forth in much the same way he does when reading from a teleprompter (from head position A to head position B to A to B to A, etc.). Yet he was speaking extemporaneously, was he not? Guess I'll have to try to cut him some slack next time I watch him read from a teleprompter, if it's just a (bad) habit of his to move his head so mechanically...

Subject: RE: BS: Full circle.
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 11:33 PM

Thank you. That is very moving and just reminds me of why I *knew* he was the best choice, actually the only one for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Full circle.
From: Lox
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 05:45 AM

Here's a youtube clip

Subject: BS: Full circle.
From: Lox
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 05:42 AM

The day Barack Obama was elected president of the USA was a significant day in American history.

However this moment is one I find to be much more touching.

Some of you in the USA might not be able to get this link as it is a BBC webpage, but I hope you do find a way to watch the embedded video.

It features Obama visiting the fortress at Cape Coast in Ghana where slaves were held before they were loaded onto boats to be transported to America.

I have been to this exact fortress and been down into the dungeons to see for myself what the conditions were like.

I don't think I need to tell you that it is an horrific experience.

The accumulated sweat of 200 years of nearly continuous imprisonment of men women and children packed so close they couldn't sit down is on the walls of the cells.

You can smell them as they wait in fear for the terrible journey ahead.


Seeing Obama and his kids visit it as tourists, and simultaneously saying to the locals that the USA is a different place today that Africans can be less fearful of is somehow very comfortng to me and has made me feel very calm and put a smile on my face.

Peace