U.S. Again Hailed as 'Country of Dreams'

[BurtWorm]

What were those assholes on the right saying on Monday about what a dangerous signal electing Obama would send to the world? I can't hear them, the world's shouts of joy are drowing them out.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR2008110502053_pf.html



Around the World, Obama's Victory Is Seen as a Renewal of American Ideals and Aspirations

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 6, 2008; A26

LONDON, Nov. 5 -- Through tears and whoops of joy, in celebrations that spilled onto the streets, people around the globe called Barack Obama's election Tuesday a victory for the world and a renewal of America's ability to inspire.

From Paris to New Delhi to the beaches of Brazil, revelers said that his victory made them feel more connected to America and that America seemed suddenly more connected to the rest of the world.

"As a black British woman, I can't believe that America has voted in a black president," said Jackie Humphries, 49, a librarian who was among 1,500 people partying at the U.S. Embassy in London on Tuesday night.

"It makes me feel like there is a future that includes all of us," she said, wrapping her arm around a life-size cardboard likeness of the new U.S. president-elect.

"Americans overcame the racial divide and elected Obama because they wanted the real thing: a candidate who spoke from the bottom of his heart," said Terumi Hino, a photographer and painter in Tokyo. "I think this means the United States can go back to being admired as the country of dreams."

Kenya, where Obama's father was raised as a goatherd, declared Thursday a national holiday, and in Obama's ancestral village of Kogelo, people danced in the streets wrapped in the American flag.

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela, the civil rights icon who helped bring down his country's apartheid regime, released a letter to Obama in which he said, "Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place."

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