For those who did not get a chance to see the speech, here it is in its entirety. My brief observations:
- I heard the president’s remarks as a hard-nosed discourse on the bleak realities of peace making and peace keeping.
- Comparisons to the Bush Doctrine depend wholly on taking segments of the speech out of context. (Why am I surprised?)
- The two phrases where the audience interrupted the speech to applaud:
“We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend.”
and
“Let us reach for the world that ought to be… that spark of the divine that stirs within each of our souls.” - Part 4 contains Mr. Obama’s trademark uplifting and inspiring vision of hope.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Morning everyone!
Seems like I was just here. Did I really get any sleep or did I just zone out at the keyboard?
Thank you Nellie. There are many things I will learn from hanging out with everyone here; the first two are.
1. Critical thinking
2. Writing skills and
Okay, I lied…the first three are:
3. Technical “how tos” of posting. Heh, heh, I actually thought I posted the ENTIRE speech. Newbie alert, newbie alert!! 🙂
BTW – did I tell everyone how nice it is to be here and I’m soooo glad it’s Friday?
We’re glad you’re here, too. The learning experience is entirely mutual.
Morning boomer…you are far more techno savvy than I and TGIF!!!
I’m clearing my brain for the critical thinking part, so I can brush up on the skills part…the tech part….well you can teach an old dog new tricks, they just don’t jump as high, so I might have to rely on a little help from my friends in that dept.
And dang you people get up early!!!
You’re doing great, Hope! And Kalima’s in Japan, so her day is our night…Mogamboguru’s in Germany… Hence,there’s almost always somebody posting around here!
I keep checking back in after cruising around, I actually got up earlier today to try and jump in with the early birds…I come alive around 5pm and stay up late. I work at home so I have the freedom to work or play at my discretion.
You all are great, I can feel my intelligence level rising already!!!
I’m on EST except when we’re on EDT — then I’m really grumpy.
I have a friend who travels internationally and rely on this link to keep track. Makes it easier, and I don’t have to think quite as much:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
Well that was handy. Thanks.
Another perspective of the President’s speech in Oslo, this one thankfully not besmirched by bias, jealousy or hate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/10/obama-norwegians-nobel-snub-harald
Or this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8405033.stm
Ok, if you keep throwin good links out here I’m never going to go to bed…I only listened to parts of his speech today on NPR, he brought me to tears at one point.
He really sees the bigger picture and was expressing his understanding that war is, at times a necessary means to peace.
I’m going to have to listen to the whole thing soon, I may not always like his decisions, but I support him completely.
I’ll behave and save the next link for Morning Blog.
I support your President and I’m not even an American citizen.
Good night Hpoeington. Take care and see you later.
Completely?
Don’t you think that that is a bit generous?
I mean. I’m with him and all. But he has let me down a few times.
K7,
In a perfect world there would be perfect people. All of us would be running through the streets tossing flowers and giving warm & fuzzy hugs; a global nirvana as it were.
Back to reality…
None of us is perfect, including President Obama. I think he knows this. However, I believe he is the real deal, and with the exception of the RW yahoos, our expectations of another individual are just that — ours.
I know I am not a mind reader; I doubt the President is either. Up until this year, I had never written to the White House or anyone in Congress. I have sent so many “Contact Us” emails in the last twelve months it would make your head swim. If at least one has made a difference, then I believe my voice is finally being heard.
Good points, boomer. I would only ad that in a perfect world there would be no need for complex (or unpopular) decisions.
Darn…you caught me again. It’s that damn critical thinking — I’m definitely challenged 😉
Good. A little dry irony. I like that. It is my stock in trade. Gets me in trouble at times.
However, if I let you think that I was waiting for a saint to get elected president, you have not been reading my comments very closely over the last few years.
I do not think there will ever be a politician for whom I have a blind worship/loyalty. Obama was on track, then he voted yes to Teleco immunity.
That was political cowardice. He could have voted no. It would have cost him votes in Nov, and that was why he voted yes. He did not vote yes because he thought it was the right thing to do for the nation.
I’m happy as a clam that he is president. I am not under the delusion that he is perfect.
An interesting distinction — should our support be proportional to the degree we’re in accord with someone’s decisions, or is support based on something else?
I’ll have to ponder that one.
Well! I certainly feel honored to have posed a question that you of all people could not answer in a wink of an eye.
I really don’t know either. I don’t know if we should get out of Afghanistan tomorrow or institute a draft and sent two million men to pacify the nation.
Etc.
whoops, I replied to myself, when I meant to reply to Keven….I’ll catch on, I just found you all last night.
Ok, Completely is a bit over board, I ‘m still not used to having to defend him at every turn from every move he makes.
I’ve been feeling the the weight of continually Obama bashing,
I try to look at things, like say the escalation of troops, and support him because I believe his decision was made on things I may have no comprehension about. And, just withdrawing immediately, didn’t seem like a viable reality.
I also want to give him a bit more breathing room to clean up a mess that is overwhelming in scope and is historic in magnitude. Not everything he does will work the first time, and I don’t like some of the things he’s done. Too much Wall St, patriot act extensions, no looking back on the Cheney Cabal’s crimes, no Afghan nation building as laid out say, in the book Three Cups of Tea, to name a few, but over all I have to give my complete support to him, if only because we need, so desperately, for him to succeed and I can’t possibly assume I have answers he hasn’t already considered.
I probably need to clear my head from the bombardment of spin messaging I’ve been experiencing for too long at another well known destination for ruminations that I am fleeing from, before I can think for myself again and realize it’s safe to freely criticize President Obama and not get 10 nasty “I told you he was a Nazi” responses, and, instead, get actual dialog about where to go from here.
I was beginning to feel like my opinions were being shaped by the negativity I was encountering. I guess I’m still a little wobbly from all the spinning I’ve been subjected to…but at least it spun me over here……Big sigh of relief from me.
At your own pace.
Thank you.
I can relate. My latest project is going to every progressive blog and media website I know of and posting fiery rants against the endless, emotional, factless bashing. I need to compose a more sanguine paragraph to spread around.
While browsing about, I found this little gem that put it into perspective.
Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free?
http://www.counterpunch.org/levine12042009.html
Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book is Surviving America
That’s a brilliant article, Hope. Thank you! It’s going straight to facebook.
Boomer left a link for me on her post, it was a guy who was claiming the President didn’t know how to give good speeches. I was both annoyed and amused. Annoyed because he’s talking out of the back of his hairnet and probably firmly believes Georgie was the great speech giver, sorry that’s amusing too I believe. Amused because it takes a lot to get us Europeans to appreciate and applaud a speech by another leader and in some cases it might just be our good mannered nature, in this case and in his previous speeches around the globe, it was because they believed his words, a world of difference. We Europeans don’t like it when idiotic, so called journalists think that we are naive or stupid, I can assure you that we are neither.
Thanks for the videos nellie, I missed it on CNN international this morning.
Americans are so easily shnockered, Kalima, I think we have a tendency to believe the same of everyone else. Maybe after a few more centuries of digging holes for ourselves, we’ll finally become sophisticated enough to be suspicious of anyone trying to tell us how to think.
It’s raining and cold in Los Angeles — perfect weather for curling up under the comforter. So I’m off to dreamland.
Have a beautiful day. Perhaps I’ll see you at Stupid O’Clock….
Yes but thankfully not all Americans or I wouldn’t have spent over 2 years and a half blogging on American blogs.
Good night nellie, sleep well. I will be around at Stupid O’Clock, so might see you but hope you can get a little more rest tonight.
When is Stupid O’Clock? I’ve probably been there, but it’s been awhile. However when I was? I thought it was just me.
Just asking in case I need someone to talk to when I’m there.
It’s the time I wake up when I have insomnia — usually 4 am. (I borrowed the phrase from Stephanie MIller,)