Yes We Can!

[cindianna_jones]

Yes we can!

Hubby and I watched Obama speak at the 2004 Democratic convention.  After Obama finished his speach, we both sat there, with tears in our eys.  Hubby turned to me and barely able to speak, was able to cackle out "He's going to be our next president."  I returned with "yup". That's all I could manage.  We have followed him ever since, doing whatever we could do to help his campaign.

I am so proud of our country tonight. Tonight we stepped up to something much greater than ourselves.

Cindi

[lady amarant]

I was watching that same speech this morning. Wow but the man ... arresting. Charismatic, intelligent, compassionate - if he only achieves half of the things it seems he wants to attempt, wow.

~Simone.

[tekla]

if he only achieves half of the things it seems he wants to attempt, wow

I think - and you Lady A might be one of the few who are not Americans to really understand how deep, how profound and how symbolic and how epic a sea change he has already achieved.

[NicholeW.]

When I recall all the hopes dashed and the time we've spent wandering in the wilderness ... O, this is real, isn't it? O Goddess, I can't stop crying! Over twelve hours now and the tears just keep coming.

Please, Mother, don't let the hope be dashed again, we are so very close. So close I can taste it!

Perhaps, Simone, we can take a lesson from that other USA in Africa. Perhaps Reconsiliation Commissions are not such a bad idea at all, but a way to the future that can be, hopefully, better for us all.

Goddess! This seems so very B-I-G.

Nikki

[lisagurl]

Wow but the man ... arresting. Charismatic,

So was Hitler, we need to be just a vigilant in monitoring his moves we did as Bush.

[deviousxen]

Wow but the man ... arresting. Charismatic,

So was Hitler, we need to be just a vigilant in monitoring his moves we did as Bush.

Well... Thats our job, basically.

I think you should always think that way.

[barbie]

We are all happy.

Barbie~~

[Cyndigurl45]

Wow but the man ... arresting. Charismatic,

So was Hitler, we need to be just a vigilant in monitoring his moves we did as Bush.

I have to agree with Lisa, must be a gurl thiggy LOL we have to watch him as if our life depends on it, cause it does. I wish we could save these post and review them in 4 years.....

[Rachael]

if he only achieves half of the things it seems he wants to attempt, wow

I think - and you Lady A might be one of the few who are not Americans to really understand how deep, how profound and how symbolic and how epic a sea change he has already achieved.

I disagree... a LOT of non americans understand that.... and a fair few americans DONT understand that if you watched Mccain's concession speach....

[barbie]

I disagree... a LOT of non americans understand that.... and a fair few americans DONT understand that if you watched Mccain's concession speach....

Newspapers in my country (S. Korea) reported that many Koreans were moved by MaCain's concession speech. They commented that it is the best among speeches McCain has ever delivered during the campaign.

Barbie~~

[deviousxen]

I disagree... a LOT of non americans understand that.... and a fair few americans DONT understand that if you watched Mccain's concession speach....

Newspapers in my country (S. Korea) reported that many Koreans were moved by MaCain's concession speech. They commented that it is the best among speeches McCain has ever delivered during the campaign.

Barbie~~

Until you see a few skinheads with a pissed off expression and Sarah Palin crying... Then you are moved to fits of intense laughter.

[NicholeW.]

if he only achieves half of the things it seems he wants to attempt, wow

I think - and you Lady A might be one of the few who are not Americans to really understand how deep, how profound and how symbolic and how epic a sea change he has already achieved.

I disagree... a LOT of non americans understand that.... and a fair few americans DONT understand that if you watched Mccain's concession speach....

And I suspect that tekla is right. Simone grew up in a place that experienced very profoundly this change, this movement. For the time and place South Africa showed a brilliant way through, at least so far, that Great Britain would do well to emulate.

Racial divides don't simply exist in South Africa and USA. To ignore or congratulate one's self and one's nation for what has yet to be experienced seems a bit foolhardy to me. Parliament seems filled by a lot of white faces while there's a dwindling percentage of white faces demographically in Britain.

As someone who has grown to despise the rhetoric and means of Mr. McCain during this contest, I found his concession speech was quite different than the crap he's been spouting for the past three months. I thought that he had finally found the better angels of his nature and allowed them to inform his words.

His rancor seemed gone as I listened to him.

In other words, I find your critique unconvincing given the realities I saw displayed last night. But, as has been pointed out, there is the task now of walking into the future and we shall see. Can we bind the nation's wounds.

Nichole

[tekla]

I think the racial divide, as it existed in the US, was something unique in the modern world, born, as it was, from the brutal nature of slavery, of the Civil War, and of Jim Crow.  Brittan never has faced that, and SA only had the big time Jim Crow deal.  SA is close in both its Civil Rights movement and the eventual liberation, though I hope our maturity will pull us through this in a different manner that has happened in SA.

[Cyndigurl45]

I think the racial divide, as it existed in the US, was something unique in the modern world, born, as it was, from the brutal nature of slavery, of the Civil War, and of Jim Crow.  Brittan never has faced that, and SA only had the big time Jim Crow deal.  SA is close in both its Civil Rights movement and the eventual liberation, though I hope our maturity will pull us through this in a different manner that has happened in SA.

I must have missed that one, If I recall history correctly didn't slavery begin in African, by Africans against there own people? seems I remember reading about how African slave ships brought there African slaves and sold them to the white man, the racial divide was around long before the civil war and all that, the civil war was just a continuance of what had already occured by there own people in there own country.

[soldierjane]

I think the racial divide, as it existed in the US, was something unique in the modern world, born, as it was, from the brutal nature of slavery, of the Civil War, and of Jim Crow.  Brittan never has faced that, and SA only had the big time Jim Crow deal.  SA is close in both its Civil Rights movement and the eventual liberation, though I hope our maturity will pull us through this in a different manner that has happened in SA.

I must have missed that one, If I recall history correctly didn't slavery begin in African, by Africans against there own people? seems I remember reading about how African slave ships brought there African slaves and sold them to the white man, the racial divide was around long before the civil war and all that, the civil war was just a continuance of what had already occured by there own people in there own country.

So the african tribes had not just slave ships but a country? Color me impressed.
It's true that some tribes captured people from other tribes and sold them to the white slavers, but I fail to see how that has any relevance to the US racial divide or the Civil War. 

Slavery didn't start in Africa, you don't actually recall history correctly, it's a human vice practiced by pretty much all old cultures; although yes, I guess that if Homo Sapiens came from Africa, then slavery started in Africa (as well as democracy, art, and donuts).

[NicholeW.]

Actually, the "African tribes" didn't simply have countries but had empires like Mali, Songhai, Benin & Soninke that were in existence well before there was any real political unity in Europe.

But, yes, the slave trade in Africa reached back at least to 700 BCE and in terms of human history has been part of us since before the Stone Age, I imagine.

Were there "African" slave ships hauling African-slaves to the Americas and the Caribbean? No, those were Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, Dutch barques. The slave-trade running to Asia from Africa was facilitated by Arab traders.

Those African empires were not primarily sea-faring at all. Thought they did a remarkable slave-trade in land-routes across the Sahara, up to Morocco and down to Benin and "the Guinea Coast."

Slavery was and has been endemic to human populations. However, it's rise to the level of a "world leader," economically, was made by European traders.

If you read-up a bit on "indentured servitude" you'll discover that black slavery was not the only variety of slavery practiced in the New World. Whites were in fact subjected to it as well. The major difference was that whites could and did escape by running away and our skin color didn't mark us out as being "slaves," or in fact "indentured servants."

Nichole

[lady amarant]

Slavery was and has been endemic to human populations. However, it's rise to the level of a "world leader," economically, was made by European traders.

Ah, all hail the Dutch East India Trading Company and their contemporaries.

~Simone.

[NicholeW.]

All of those "global economic corporations" took part in that aspect of "the global economy" of the time though, Simone, not just the DEITC.

Nichole

[lady amarant]

Yeah, but I especially like to pick on them since they started all the crap down here in my neck of the woods.

~Simone.

[soldierjane]

Actually, the "African tribes" didn't simply have countries but had empires like Mali, Songhai, Benin & Soninke that were in existence well before there was any real political unity in Europe.

I was objecting to the use of "there own people in there own country", which implies black slaves all belonged to the same people and came from one single "country".