Author Topic: Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'  (Read 738 times)

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Offline mystery-ak

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Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'
« on: August 06, 2014, 02:10:14 pm »
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=87E3C550-07C3-4D4E-926A-435423396452

 Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'
By: Jonathan Topaz
August 6, 2014 05:57 AM EDT

President Barack Obama’s speech at the U.S.-Africa Summit Dinner late Tuesday hailed the relationship between the United States and the African continent as “deeply personal,” invoking slavery and his own African roots.

Obama toasted to “the new Africa,” a lyric borrowed from a song he said he first heard in Senegal and later quoted as a reference to “the Africa that is rising and so full of promise,” according to White House pool reports.

“I stand before you as the president of the United States and a proud American. I also stand before you as the son of a man from Africa,” the president said at the dinner, to applause. “The blood of Africa runs through our family. And so for us, the bonds between our countries, our continents, are deeply personal.”



The six-minute toast was a marked contrast to the president’s speech earlier Tuesday afternoon, when Obama discussed the growing economic and trade relationship between the U.S. and Africa.

Obama reflected fondly on his family’s trips to Africa, including a trip he took to his father’s hometown in Kenya. The president’s late father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan economist.

In his toast Tuesday, the president also mentioned that the “painful past” of the U.S.-Africa slave trade. “We’ve walked the steps of a painful past — in Ghana, at Cape Coast Castle; in Senegal, at Gorée Island — standing with our daughters in those doors of no return through which so many Africans passed in chains.”



The personal speech was something of a rarity for the president, who has faced criticism throughout his presidency from those in the African-American community for at times failing to talk about and address racial issues.

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Offline mountaineer

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Re: Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2014, 04:02:00 pm »
He could admit to being born on Uranus, and no one would care.
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Offline flowers

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Re: Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2014, 05:00:53 pm »
He could admit to being born on Uranus, and no one would care.
true


Offline flowers

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2718143/Obamas-monsters-ball-How-White-House-opened-doors-Africas-evil-dictators-homophobes-turned-blind-eye-human-rights-record.html

Quote
President Barack Obama drew the diplomatic line somewhere at the first ever U.S-Africa summit at the White House this week by not inviting Zimbabwe’s brutal dictator Robert Mugabe.

But the guest list still included several other African leaders with only slightly better human rights records.

The White House promoted the summit as the largest-ever gathering of African leaders in the United States, with more than 50 countries represented.

The red carpet was rolled out for Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who shot or jailed virtually all his political opponents, Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh, who threatened to ‘cut off the head’ of any homosexuals in the country and for Cameroon’s Paul Biya, who has the dubious honor of ranking 19th on author David Wallechinsky's 2006 list of the world's 20 worst living dictators.

The President's opening speech avoided the prickly issues of homophobia and torture and instead sought out similarities between the two continents.

He opened with: ‘I stand before you as the president of the United States, a proud American. I also stand before you as the son of a man from Africa’.

Before going on to say: ‘Our faith traditions remind us of the inherent dignity of every human being and that our work as nations must be rooted in empathy and compassion for each other, as brothers and as sisters.’

Here we run the rule over nine of the most controversial leaders who enjoyed the lavish affair.


Offline mountaineer

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Re: Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2014, 08:25:40 pm »

Obama’s Unsavory Africa Dinner
by Keith Koffler on August 6, 2014, 1:00 pm


I get the three-day White House conference hosting leaders from all over Africa. China is building lots of ties to the continent, and we’ve got to get in there too. I can’t imagine it’s a huge business bonanza – though it can’t hurt, probably – but there are lots of national security reasons why we need to have an influence in Africa.

Anyway, a prosperous Africa is good for Africa and good for the United States.

What I don’t get is why President Obama needed to stage a sumptuous, red-carpet banquet for so many corrupt African satraps, some of whom run among the most repressive governments in the world.

Sixteen of the honored leaders represented at what was basically a State Dinner in their honor Tuesday evening are listed by Freedom House as lording over “not free” societies.

Among these was, as announced by the White House, “His Excellency Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.” According to Forbes:
Quote
Equatorial Guinea is one of the continent’s largest producers of oil and has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into prosperity for its people. The country ranks very poorly in the United Nations human development index; the vast majority of Equatorial Guineans hardly have access to clean drinking water.

The country also has one of the world’s highest under-5 mortality rates: about 20% of its children die before the age of five. Many of the remaining 80% of the children don’t have access to quality educational and healthcare facilities.

Meanwhile, the first son of the president, Teodorin Obiang (who is in line to succeed his father), spends millions of dollars of state funds financing his lavish lifestyle which includes luxurious property in Malibu, a Gulfstream jet, Michael Jackson memorabilia and a car collection that could easily make billionaires go green with envy.

Yes, his excellency has it pretty excellent.

And then there was “His Majesty King Mswati III, Kingdom of Swaziland:”
Quote
Sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch presides over a country which has one of the world’s highest HIV prevalence rates: ver 35 percent of adults. Its average life expectancy is the lowest in the world at 33 years; nearly 70 percent of the country’s citizens live on less than $1 a day and 40 percent are unemployed.

But for all the suffering of the Swazi people, King Mswati has barely shown concern or interest. He lives lavishly, using his kingdom’s treasury to fund his expensive tastes in German automobiles first-class leisure trips around the world and women ...

Oh, it’s good to be the king.

So glad you, taxpayer, picked up the check last night. Here’s what they ate during dinner on the South Lawn, after being shuttled their via trolleys from the White House, a distance of about 15 feet.

The repast was described as “a largely American-style dinner with hints of Africa sprinkled throughout each of the four courses:”
Quote
Chilled spiced tomato soup and socca crisps, which are made of chick peas;

Chopped farm-stand vegetable salad using produce from the first lady’s garden;

Grilled dry-aged Wagyu beef served with chermoula, a marinade used in North African cooking, sweet potatoes and coconut milk.

Cappuccino fudge cake dressed with papaya scented with vanilla from Madagascar.

American wines.

An eager Lionel Richie sang for the assembled tyrants after they’d finished gorging themselves. He complained that his time onstage had been cut back.

Obama of course waxed deeply poetic:
Quote
Tonight we are making history, and it’s an honor to have all of you here.

And I stand before you as the President of the United States and a proud American.  I also stand before you as the son of a man from Africa (Applause.)  The blood of Africa runs through our family.  And so for us, the bonds between our countries, our continents, are deeply personal . . .

And so I propose a toast to the New Africa — the Africa that is rising and so full of promise — and to our shared task to keep on working for the peace and prosperity and justice that all our people seek and that all our people so richly deserve.
Sad to see the president bonding with so many corrupt jerks. These people are not the true Africa. These are the people who have clawed their way over the corpses of innocent Africans so they could steal their money.

We need to have relations with these people. But a dinner in their honor is sickening. ...

Video at link
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Offline mountaineer

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Re: Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2014, 08:27:31 pm »
Meanwhile, Joe Biden salutes the Nation of Africa.
 :nometalk:
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Offline mystery-ak

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2718143/Obamas-monsters-ball-How-White-House-opened-doors-Africas-evil-dictators-homophobes-turned-blind-eye-human-rights-record.html

Obama’s monsters ball: How the White House opened its doors to some of Africa’s most evil dictators and homophobes and turned blind eye to their human rights record

    Leaders were invited to the White House for the first ever US Africa summit
    Included were dictators and despots with shocking human rights records
    Obama's speech barely acknowledged the oppression rife across Africa

By Corey Charlton and Ted Thornhill

Published: 13:42 EST, 6 August 2014 | Updated: 18:13 EST, 6 August 2014

President Barack Obama drew the diplomatic line somewhere at the first ever U.S-Africa summit at the White House this week by not inviting Zimbabwe’s brutal dictator Robert Mugabe.

But the guest list still included several other African leaders with only slightly better human rights records.

The White House promoted the summit as the largest-ever gathering of African leaders in the United States, with more than 50 countries represented.

The red carpet was rolled out for Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who shot or jailed virtually all his political opponents, Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh, who threatened to ‘cut off the head’ of any homosexuals in the country and for Cameroon’s Paul Biya, who has the dubious honor of ranking 19th on author David Wallechinsky's 2006 list of the world's 20 worst living dictators.

Many of the leaders were later photographed in the White House, posing for individual portraits with Obama and the First Lady.

The President's opening speech avoided the prickly issues of homophobia and torture and instead sought out similarities between the two continents.

He opened with: ‘I stand before you as the president of the United States, a proud American. I also stand before you as the son of a man from Africa’.

Before going on to say: ‘Our faith traditions remind us of the inherent dignity of every human being and that our work as nations must be rooted in empathy and compassion for each other, as brothers and as sisters.’

Here we run the rule over nine of the most controversial leaders who enjoyed the lavish affair.
Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his wife Constancia Mangue De Obiang, pictured arriving for a dinner hosted by President Barack Obama for the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit

continued
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Offline Chieftain

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yah...even the liberals are up in arms over this one.  The only guy missing was Mugabe....

 :smokin:

Offline Fishrrman

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[[ The only guy missing was Mugabe.... ]]

That's because we have our own wannabee version of Mugabe.

Right in the white hut!

Offline musiclady

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Re: Obama's Africa toast gets 'personal'
« Reply #9 on: August 07, 2014, 07:33:26 pm »
Quote
“The blood of Africa runs through our family. And so for us, the bonds between our countries, our continents, are deeply personal.”

IIRC, Obama is descended from slave traders, so what does that do to the "bonds" he feels with the slaves?

In truth, he is more interested in enslaving Americans, including the African Americans with actual 'slave blood' coursing through their veins, most likely so he can actually be more connected to his past.
Character still matters.  It always matters.

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