Obama’s speech in Berlin was the worst one I’ve ever seen him give. Bland, lifeless, with barely a memorable moment. I guess we’re going to see a lot more speeches like this till the Inauguration. Apparently Obama has to do foto ops to show us he’s capable of being a Commander in Chief, and at the same time not be so overweening as to try and upstage JFK and Reagan. Having won me and my progressive friends with his inspiring oratory, he’s now dropped it to try and capture the torpid center. He won’t take a risk between now and November. (By the way: I don’t understand why McCain doesn’t concede now. He’s about to get steamrolled by history. As Hillary was.)
The speech had one great moment, when Obama talked about all the walls falling around the world. I loved that. “The walls between Jews and Muslims,” he said in there. This man is a secret universalist. A patchwork himself, he’s going to lift us past tribe. His walls line had a specific and obvious resonance to the hateful separation wall that jogs through Palestine. What other wall is there right now? That’s the one. Some day, I pray, Obama will give that speech.
"I thought Obama's speech in Berlin was the worst one I've ever seen him give."
Appalling. Horrifying — the naked appeal to trans-Atlantic militarism, to a crowd of 200,000 cheering citizens of occupied Germany.
At least der Führer had the eminent good sense to invade and occupy neighboring states with overland supply routes. The Kenyan-Hawaiian Pied Piper invites the youth of Europe to die on the distant barren steppes of the narco-state of Afghanistan, communing with the bleached bones of former Russian, British and earlier, long-forgotten defeated invaders from time immemorial.
How can it be? Germans, like Americans, appear on the surface to be sensible, disciplined, moderate, educated. But once again, just two generations since the last mass bloodletting, they are getting suckered into suicidal aggression by the flattering, mindless, empty, manipulative rhetoric of the presumptive president-elect of the world's pre-eminent nuclear-armed banana republic.
How do say WASS in German? (We are so screwed.)
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"people of the world – this is our moment, this is our time"
"The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time."
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By the way, he said something like walls will fall when there are no more extremists. The whole thing was in the LeaNder level of meaningless verborragy.
"He's about to get steamrolled by history. As Hillary was."
Get a grip. Hillary won most of the primaries at the end … was it 10 of the last 11? If McCain wasn't such a dud, he would be winning. Obama is only up by 6 points.
This country is in bad shape, the Dem nominee should be up by 10+.
What is the deal with the Jew's love for black folks? My Jewish friend is ga ga for Obama – hardly even sees him as a human being. I read the most idiotic piece in the New Yorker recently about some black HS basketball star in New York, it was very representative of Jewish feeling, in my experience.
It was the most condescending thing I have read in a long time, and included for good measure a bit of gentile bashing. Phil you know what I am talking about as you said you read the New Yorker cover to cover.
Obama is the frankenstien's monster of the Jewish, anti-establishment, subversive culture, and it is clear from what I heard of his speech today that he has nothing more to offer than empty platitudes about overcoming history.
It is not that he is not talented, intelligent, or a probably a better person to be in the office than Bush. It is that he is such a visible manifestation of the contempt of the ruling cabal for the gentile majority.
Nothing but platitudes in the public square about race. The problem is that Gen X is not about to accept responsibilty for the plight of the american black, or the african black for that matter. They know damn well that the guilt trip is bullshit. That goes for most Gen X folks, across the spectrum of race. Except it seems for the Jews.
The entire thing is starting to go bad and go off, the fact that todays speech was in Germany of all places is another powerful indicator that lies are going to come to light in a big way. Germany post WWII is Orwell's 1984 realized.
Why did Obama look and sound so stunned today on the airplane when interviewed? He could hardly manage to cough up the internationalist lie that he was trying to access in his brain. Was he just shell shocked from what must have been a surreal trip to Israel?
"How do say WASS in German? (We are so screwed.)"
We don't have your many acronyms.
I can't think of anything that expresses exactly that. All that comes to mind are transitive and intransitive slang idioms for screwed.
This is the stuff, we loved to translate literally into English as kids, since then it doesn't make sense anymore. Watch for yourself:
to be screwed by something: To fall badly on your nose (auf die Nase fallen)
to be screwed by someone: to be beaten over the ear (uebers Ohr gehauen werden)
(to take someone for a ride, to take someone to the cleaners)
to get screwed: to be laid on your back, (auf's Kreuz gelegt werden), "Kreuz" being an slang term for back, it may be older slang usage that is something, I had to look up. I love etymology.
pain in the back = "Kreuz"schmerzen (older and slightly more slangy), "Ruecken"schmerzen.
You must realize that German is pretty Anglicized by now. To give you a small example. Many places around me have a sign saying:
"coffee to go". This may partly be, since there is no German term that denotes exactly what the English does. You had to coin one and make sure that it is will be accepted (neologism). But most people in marketing are lazy. And the new coinage could fail. Thus, Why invent something when already an English coinage exists? Feels slightly more safe, from a marketing point of view.
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I haven't listed to Obama's speech to the end by now (I don't like simultaneous translation on top of the voice), but I may have if it was better (or the translator?) was better.
Strictly it felt as if the "incipit" imagery leading to the American dream connected to the "world citizen" Obama could have been made more to the point. It would have gained a lot from precision and shortening: As an "I" leading to the "you" and "us" vs "we" and "them".
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"This is the stuff, we loved to translate literally into English as kids, since then it doesn't make sense anymore."
The Japanese (and Asians generally) have raised fractured English to a fine art. It's omnipresent … "I love bicycle" … "I feel Coke" … "Let's hole" … etc.
A site called engrish.com has a great collection:
http://www.engrish.com/category_index.php?category=Clothing
Early on, psychiatrist Justin Franck diagnosed President Bush as "a paranoid megalomaniac who confuses himself and America with God." Minus the "paranoid" his diagnosis fits Barack Obama. I don't blame Obama. He's a seller. I blame the buyers. As did the Greek historian Thucydides who wrote in "The Histories," a few millenia ago, "I do not blame those who yearn for power, but those who are willing to submit to them."
"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," Obama told the Germans in Berlin.
The audacity of hope, no?
Should we have less aspiration, more realpolitic verbiage, from a human aware he's not in the driver seat at this juncture? M L King's speech was more powerful because it was more limiting (as were Kennedy and Reagan's speeches). King's speech was most pointed: end segregation.
Omama isn't dealing with merely the USSR or USA segregation; he tried to cover with a figure of speech ("walls") what Martin Buber meant with his I-Thou.
Terrorism is the enemy Obama named, the means. But also economic slavery.
Perhaps he tried to include too much and did so trying hard not to step on anyone's toes.
He started out by admitting his own nation was not perfect.
Considering America's position in the world today, and the fact in many ways we live in a global village, he gave it a good shot despite his loss of eloquence. I think if he had a few more weeks to prepare we would have seen a much more stirring speech–but he didn't trip, and that says a lot.
The krauts love a good speech maker.
And the Zionists love a good moneybags. Because, they support one who can dream up something like "The Axis of Evil" to feed the American public. We always need more serfs.