He was speaking from a German restaurant called Schmidt’s Sausage Haus und Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.

Heh.

whenever i see germans having mass, flag-waving rallies, i get a bad feeling. i think im gonna start clearing out space in my attic to make room for my jewish friends.

Thats a good one Fri! Obama is the best! I love that man!

i live in berlin and obama didnt win anyone or anything here. we get the same bullshit talks from american presidents every 2-4 years. like all his speeches, this one was neither amazing nor inspiring. im reallyseems so politically naive. his rhetoric was the usual crap of how we need peace and blah iraq and blah usa and europe need to be friends and like all ther douchebag americans he comes here and tries to give us a history lesson about how berlin was divided and how the oh so great americans saved us from starvation. nigga please. thats the same politician talk george w. and ALL other people have. all american politicians are sleazebags. obama has skeletons in the closet and a lobby like anyone else.
peoples admiration for obama is mere projection. blackagendareport has very good pieces on this subject.americans, especially minorities are fed up with george w., arguably the least popular president we will have this century, and think that because this other guy is half-black, he MUST be progressive and, in effect, better and more able. also, like fox news slogan "fair and balanced" obamas slogan of "change we can believe in" is the same kind of shenanigans. he will be as inept as president as any other democrat(the lesser evil in our two party nation). its always the same: the president either vs. a marginally stronger or with a marginally stronger congress. either way, the president alone has not enough power to change anything. im sorry, but you are really naive to think that anything will change, let alone get better. the economy is dying and that beyond a presidents power to change. obama is boarding a sinking ship, so to speak. he, like any other president would fail to come up with a miracle to save the economy after either 4 r 8 years and then we'll have one of those infamous conservative backlashes. if the economy gets better (haha) on the other hand, obama will be hailed as a great leader and america will be a step forward in terms of racism. this, of course, would be really great but its against the odds. even though the republicans are notorious when it comes to election fraud, it seems obama can win this thing. my vote will go to cynthia mckinney. call me a spoiler, but i think thats the best way. maybe in 50 years the green party will finally matter and then, lo and behold, we might actually develop into something that resembles a democracy.

@fri: stupid comment really. ignorant and prejudiced. im not going to recount americas crimes, but they outnumber the germans' by far.

@bronze trinity: i apologize for this, but i assume many of the readers and commenters here are perhaps ethnic, much likely black. it really disgusts me, and i mean many other stereohyped readers as well, how blindly ignorant and prejudiced you can be at a forum like this.

@all just to ake things clear: my father is african-american, my mother is german. since i graduated from highschool, ive been living in berlin, the coolest fucking city in the world. the one thing ive learned, besides the fact that the usa is not a democracy and the politcal system is completey screwed is that - and this is the sad truth - (we) americans are a dumb people. we dont know shit about the world. we dont understand politics and we dont understand economics. …and we're religious and superstitious and of course racist and sexist and materialistic etc. you know how we say afghanistan is less advanced than the usa? see, the usa is in a similar way less advanced than say, germany most other central european countries. or japan or argentina.

just proves that obama is the antichrist (tongue firmly in cheek)

loved briefly stopping at glen beck and faux news to hear their biased takes (no matter what obama does, they will find a way to slant it negatively)

who peed in his cheerios?

Obama speaks to many people with different or unique personality. I even tract this side-by-side videos which featured the various ways he (Obama) is able to communicate and get his message across. It's entitled The Obama Musical Clash which attribute the videos of Obama Goes Bollywood and Obama - The South Park Sing-a-long. Does anyone here seen it already?

@Josh - You must live in an insulated part of Frankfurt. In my opinion Germany is neither progressive on social or political issues.

To this day Germany remains extremely racist and hostile towards its immigrant population. For decades, even when Germany recruited millions of "guest worker"; the German government policy was to make it virtually impossible for foreigners and their German born children to become citizens.

Even today, women have a hard time breaking into leadership positions in the corporate world, and unemployment among Germany's youth population is much higher than the average.

With that being said, I think you are very harsh in your criticisms of America yet this is the only country in the world where a man like Obama could rise to the top and possibility become the next president, I don't ever see that happening in Germany.

Yes, America might have its flaws but I would much rather live here than anywhere else in the world

Africa4Ever

Yes, America might have its flaws but I would much rather live here than anywhere else in the world

no offense, but why not chang your name to America4ever.

@Chic Noir - Africa is my heart and I am proud to be from there, but lets face it I would not have the opportunities afforded to me that I have today (especially as a female) had I lived there my whole life.

So just like Obama's father and the countless other Africans who came here and were able to pursue their dreams, I believe in this country even though I might not always agree with its politics.

@Africa4Ever I don't know where you get your ridiculous information from, but had you read my entire post, you would know that i live in Berlin. In comparison to the US, Germany is not only progressive, it's revolutionary. Have you ever been here? In Germany you can go to see a doctor as many times you want and only pay 60$ the entire year. The poor people here are much better off compared with poor people in the States. There are no ghettos or gun violence here. The US is like a 3rd world country in that respect.

Your points abut racism are completely wrong. It seems you're making things up. The guest workers that came here during the time of the Wall, as well as their kids have dual citizenship. I don't know what your view of Germany being extremely racist is based on, but, especially when compared to the US, this is a peaceful country. After all, this is one of the few nations that didn't embark on an Anti-Muslim-Anti-Arab-Campaign like so many others. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know how racist America is. This kind of blog doesn't even exist in Germany because we don't have racial profiling, segregation etc. here.

Once again, I have to say you're making things up. Women have a hard time here? We have a female leader (wrong party but still a woman) and Germany allowed women to vote before the US did. Youth unemployment higher than where? You're just making totally random, based on nothing statement that are so general that they can be applied to any place in the world.

"With that being said, I think you are very harsh in your criticisms of America yet this is the only country in the world where a man like Obama could rise to the top and possibility become the next president, I don’t ever see that happening in Germany."

That's just plain fucking stupid. "A man like Obama." Actors like Reagan, drunk like George W. become president in the States. What's special about Obama? You have either not read or not understood the main gist of my post anyway. I'm basically saying that you Obama fans are simple-minded fools to believe that he will bring change. What's he gonna do? You project your hopes and wishes onto him because he's different than other politicians: He's biracial and you guys who believe that that makes him a better politician are…well, kinda racist, as you seem to make a connection between his quality as a leader and his ethnic background. If he becomes president he will be a man of the middle, like Clinton. That's the best we can hope for.

As I was saying in my first post, America is a right-wing country where people who would be the middle in a normal country, are called liberals. You know, those environmentalist hippies that dont believe in boundless capitalism and are probably atheists. For Christ's sake, America has the death penalty!

It's pointless to discuss this anyway. If he makes it, we will see in 8 years that the rich have still been getting richer, the poor poorer, there will be less middle class, prisons will still be stuffed with minorities, gas will be becoming a luxury, we will still be stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, the environment is gonna be more dead and abortion is probably going to be illegal in 48 States by then. And you know what's gonna happen then? Conservative backlash. People will be unhappy that the man didn't deliver the change they all believed in, so they're gonna try the Republicans again and then it's gonna get real bad.

Go Cynthia McKinney!

@Josh by the way I grew up in Mannheim, so please if you want to paint a rosy image of Germany go ahead and do so, but don't tell me I am the one making things up.

The tendency to downplay racism directed at blacks and other people are all to common here, and the bad situation is compounded by the fact that Germans or people like you, in general, seem unwilling to accept the depth of racism in their society.

During the Fifa games Uwe-Karsten Heye, a former government minister, commented in a radio interview that people with dark skin "might not make it out alive" if they traveled or visited certain towns, especially places such as Bradenburg around the Berlin area.

Around the same time an African-German organization offered to publish a list of "no-go" areas for the benefit of World Cup visitors. Public response, both to Heye's statement and the African organization offer, was highly critical to say the least.

Also, did you forget that whole fiasco with the Unicef Germany campaign promoting the plight of African children by painting the faces of German children in mud …its 2008 and Germans still don't get it. Unicef Germany only gave a half ass appology when it became an international outrage.

As for your comment about there not being racial profiling and segregation in Germany, I guess many immigrants in Germany just enjoy living in government set up ghettos.

And yes, Angela Merkel, the first female chancellor, spearheading approval of the “naturalization tests”, an exam for immigrants that was regarded as hostile by Muslims. The test includes questions such as: "In your eyes, were the perpetrators of 9/11 and the 2004 Madrid attacks terrorists or freedom fighters?" Why go fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when you can wage wars against them in your own backyard.

Have you read the recent economic reports on Germany - the German middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate and yet the rich keep getting richer, so again this is not solely an American phenomenon, but an international issue.

@Africa4Ever First off, this is originally a post about Obamaism, not racism, but I suppose if this is where you want to make it a battle of which country is better..okay. Mannheim is a medium sized town in southern Germany and like in the States, small Southern towns tend to be more hostile towards foreigners, though, of course, hardly as many hate crimes happen in all of Germany, compared with what goes on in the Southern US. Not to mention the police in those Southern States that will taser any minority if they don't get out of the car immediately.

Regarding people like me who don't understand the depth of Germany's racism: I'm (mainly) half German and half African-American and I've spent most of my growing up in the States, but have been living here for a while. I think I have a good understanding of racism. Who exactly are you to claim that, not only racism here is deep but that hardly anyone, but your excellency understands that? And what scale are you using anyway? Are you really telling me that there aren't No-Go areas for blacks in the States? At least people here admit that it's a problem. In the States people, idiotically, believe in absolute freedom of speech, so not only do we have the Klan, Aryan Nations, the WCOTC and those guys, but they're allowed to have public meetings. But this is small scale racism.

In America segregation was institutionalized for a long time and there still are gated communities that only accept whites. In Germany, there are no ghettos or ghetto-like areas. German gangster rappers like to pretend there are, but the most ghetto it gets anywhere here is in immigrant homes where they have to stay while their applications get processed. The government does not make ghettos, like they do with housing projects in the States. There is social housing here, but it's not on a mass scale like in the States and they are not isolated.

Again, what is the scale here for racism? Germany is only starting this year with naturalization tests, how long have they been used in the States? Remember how American immigration policy labelled some Asian nations as undesirable immigrants? How the Japanese were interned and how it was easy to randomly go to war with Vietnam because people with slanted eyes were "the enemy." Just like it was easy to go to war in Iraq because at the moment "the enemy" is brown and wear a turban, even though Afghans and Iraqis are two entirely different cultures. They're not even Arabs, but to the ignorant American, who generally has a very low level of education, it's all the same.

The reason people are so thrilled about Obama is because it's so revolutionary to have a dark-skinned man running for office. That in itself is an indicator for racism. The fact that half of the democratic primaries were spent debating the "race issue" shows how important skin color is. I really think it's absurd to discuss this with you because anyone in their right mind knows that America is one of the top-most racist places in the world. Turkish people here don't fear cops the way my fully black cousins and Mexican friends fear them. That's because they're not overrepresented in prison here, like minorities are in the States. Did I mention that America has the death penalty in my old post? Because, in my gay European opinion the death penalty (like religion) is an indicator for a primitive society. It's medieval and some people on death row are fucking teenagers! Have you any idea what the ration whites/people of color is? And you're telling me that racism here runs deep? Seriously, this is retarded. People, like the creator of this blog, the Anti-Defamation League etc. dedicate their lives to fight racism because it's such a huge problem.

P.S.: "As for your comment about there not being racial profiling and segregation in Germany, I guess many immigrants in Germany just enjoy living in government set up ghettos." Do you even read what you write? Is this something you would dignify with an intelligible response? You're 1) making up those government set up ghettos and 2) making an arbitrary connection to made-up racial profiling. This is not how you make a point.

"So just like Obama’s father and the countless other Africans who came here and were able to pursue their dreams, I believe in this country even though I might not always agree with its politics." LMAO! The rhetoric Americans love: "We live in the Land of Opportunities and we have a dream that's not only different from other people's dreams, but it's also better! The American Dream!"

This is what I mean when I say Americans are stupid and ignorant. If you knew anything about the world, you'd know that there are not only much more pleasant places in the world, but places where it's a lot easier for immigrants to make a living legally. All those Mexicans flocking to Cali to pick strawberries…is that the American Dream? Does it ever occur to any of you that those South and Central Americans only come to the USA because it's the only non-third world country they can reach? Goddamn, this is why I can't stand living in the USA. Everybody's a nationalist and if you don't run around talking about loving your country (I, for instance, love my mother. I don't have the same emotion for where I was born and grew up) the funding fathers this, the constitution that. -.- The Great American Paradox: A country based on and torn by racism finds strength and unity in its nationalism, its collective assumption of being superior to others, even in the face of utter domestic chaos. LOL, it's like Americans are a religion: They all fight of how to interpret their scripture (the constitution) and are hostile towards another, but they have blind love, faith and admiration for their cross (the bird shit spangled banner).

@Josh

Aside from living in Germany, I also grew up in Asia, Africa and N. America, and my work with refugees gives me insight on world issues, so thank you very much, but I know enough about the world.

You are the one who shifted the post from Obama to racism by stating the following:"(we) americans are a dumb people. we dont know shit about the world. we dont understand politics and we dont understand economics. …and we’re religious and superstitious and of course racist and sexist and materialistic etc."

As I am sure you are conveniently ignorant to the fact that since the fall of the Berlin wall there has been an alarming rise in Nationalism. Today two separate nationalist parties exist in Germany; the Nazi party and that of the mainstream conservative Right, embodied in the ruling Christian Democratic Union (which Angela Merkel belongs to) and its even more Right-wing counterpart, the Christian Social Union, in Bavaria.

Since reunification, Germany has been receiving numerous protests and complaints about racism, antisemitism, fascism and state-inspired nationalist activities from, the Russian, Polish, Danish, Czech, Nigerian, Turkish, American, Ethiopian, Angolan, Portuguese and Israeli government, as well as organizations such as the UNCHR, Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International and Jewish Congress to mention a few.

I already stated that America has its flaws, but to say that Germany is a far superior place to live in is at the very least laughable.

Keep it coming Josh

@Africa4Ever dude, you're off, and i'm kinda tired of this convo. the cdu is not a nazi party. youre saying that germany is run by a nazi party, man, thats retarded. you're really making up stupid shit, man. why?

nationalism and racism have been declining since the wall has come down. i dont care what you claim to do and where you claim to have been, but your information is totally off. you gotta change your sources or something. i really dont understand how you can call germans nationalists, when not only do americans sing the anthem before literally every sports game and many still say the pledge of allegiance in school.

also, and this is why im tired of talking to you, you dont reply to my points, you only make accusations about how supposedly the entire world is criticizing germany for state-inspired racism. (seriously, who is the most unpopular country in the world?) youre not discussing, youre hurling accusations. you ignore anything i say regarding racism in the states, as well as when i point out all your errors. what about the fact that the usa is not a democracy? insane prison population and (violent) crime rates? police brutality and the constant acquittal of the perps in blue? a history of waging war against innocent countries? the fact that there are countless people in the states that feel its necessary to dedicate their life to fighting racism? the fact that goddamn actors and drunks are voted into high public offices and that education levels are loooow? most of americans are religious (yes, thats a problem) and we were pretty much the last country to admit that global warming is a problem caused by mankind. one-sided media, kids being stuffed with pharmaceuticals, highschool shootings, minimum wage is a joke, hardly any social services and health care, we use illegal chemical and nuclear weapons in iraq and most major serial killers and major religious sects (jehovas, scientologists, mormons) were produced in this society. the list of problems is endless. you ignore all that and simply say, "well, i said america has its flaws. but germans are all nazis." this is not a discussion.

honestly, i dont have the impression you are who/what you claim to be. you dont make the impression on me that youve lived in different places of the world and you dont seem to be very mature in your way of arguing. your knowledge is superficial at best, but mostly plain erroneous. do you even speak german? but then again, i do believe that most americans are a little dumb and that they cant handle the slightest criticism and that they firmly believe that they are better than others, so what was i expecting? i might as well try to tell a christian about the benefits of buddhism. you cant argue against blind faith, arrogance and ignorance.

"keep it coming josh". you dont seem to be here for communicating an exchange of thoughts and opinions, but rather to fight. i resign.

@Josh: As for your impression of me I could care less, I know who I am and I don't have to justify myself to you. I have been speaking German prior to to speaking English, but what would it matter if I didn't - that would not make my points any less valid. You are the one who hasn't replied to any of my points…so lets respectfully agree to disagree.

thanks for clearing that up africa4ever.