Kennedy –”I am a Berliner”–King–”I Have A Dream”–Reagan –”Tear Down This Wall!”–Obama–”I’m Going To Play Some Golf!”
“Where there was once only a dark wall, a door suddenly opened and we all walked through it: onto the streets, into the churches, across the borders.”
“Everyone was given the chance to build something new, to make a difference, to venture a new beginning.”
~Angela Merkel, German Chancellor from former East Germany
Germany Invites Obama to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall – Obama says “sorry, too busy“
Kennedy – I am a Berliner – Ich Bin Ein Berliner
Martin Luther King Jr – I Have a Dream
Reagan at Brandenburg Gate – “tear down this wall”
Obama at White House–”I’m Going To Play Some Golf”
Nov. 9, 1989: The Berlin Wall Falls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnCPdLlUgvo
CBC Archives: Berlin Wall Falls, 1989
Why did President Obama turn down an invitation by German Chancellor Merkle to speak at the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Simple.
Golf before Germans.
Me before country.
What event will mark the fall of progressive radical socialism in the United States?
President Obama not being relected for a second term as President!
Tea Party Time.
Background Articles and Videos
Why Obama Won’t Go to Berlin
Obama’s failure to go to Berlin is the most telling nonevent of his presidency.
By Rich Lowry
“…In his first year in office, Barack Obama has visited more foreign countries than any other president. He’s touched ground in 16 countries, easily outpacing Bill Clinton (three) and George W. Bush (eleven). It’s an itinerary befitting a “citizen of the world.”
But there’s one stop Obama won’t make. He has begged off going to Berlin next week to attend ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. His schedule is reportedly too crowded. John F. Kennedy famously told Berliners, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” On the 20th anniversary of the last century’s most stirring triumph of freedom, Obama is telling them, “Ich bin beschäftigt” — i.e., I’m busy.
It doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it? Obama’s failure to go to Berlin is the most telling nonevent of his presidency. It’s hard to imagine any other American president eschewing the occasion. Only Obama — with his dismissive view of the Cold War as a relic distorting our thinking and his attenuated commitment to America’s exceptional role in the world — would spurn German chancellor Angela Merkel’s invitation to attend. …”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzIzYWM4MWRmNTE1NzQ4MGY5ODE0MGRjMmIwYjdmMmQ=#more
Fall fo the Berlin Wall remembered in Berlin on the 20th anniversary of the end of European Communism
Deborah Cole
“…German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will also host leaders including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, recalled that the end of Europe’s postwar division came as an utter surprise.
“The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall should remind us all what incredible luck we had with the reunification of Europe and Germany,” Ms Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, told the Bild newspaper in an interview to be published tomorrow.
On the night of November 9, 1989, following weeks of pro-democracy protests, the Stalinist state’s authorities suddenly opened the border.
After 28 years as prisoners of their own country, euphoric East Germans streamed to checkpoints and rushed past bewildered guards, many falling tearfully into the arms of West Germans welcoming them on the other side.
Germans were already out in force along the former route of the barrier which had cleaved the city in half, inspecting 1000 giant dominoes that will be toppled as part of the ceremony. …”
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26323501-663,00.html
The Berlin Wall
“…The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a concrete barrier erected by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (East Germany) that completely encircled the city of West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, including East Berlin. The Wall included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds” and other defenses.
The separate and much longer inner German Border (the IGB) demarcated the border between East and West Germany. Both borders came to symbolize the Iron Curtain between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc.
Prior to the Wall’s erection, 3.5 million East Germans had avoided Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and escaped into West Germany, many over the border between East and West Berlin. During its existence from 1961 to 1989, the Wall stopped almost all such emigration and separated the GDR from West Berlin for more than a quarter of a century.[1] After its erection, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with estimates of the resulting death toll varying between around 100 and 200.
During a revolutionary wave sweeping across the Eastern Bloc, the East German government announced on November 9, 1989, after several weeks of civil unrest, that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans climbed onto and crossed the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, parts of the wall were chipped away by a euphoric public and by souvenir hunters; industrial equipment was later used to remove almost all of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
