Obama's visit To Prague

[Peter Lemkin]

Barack stayed just a stone's throw from me at the [CIA connected] Hilton. Sewer caps were welded; police were everywhere; the central part of the city was a no fly and no drive zone; 30,000 or more came to hear him - me not. To even get near the part of the Castle grounds one had to go through airport-type security. One American friend was upset at me for NOT going. His wording was 'now I'm not ashamed to be American anymore'. Well, I'm glad Bush is gone too, but not yet fully proud to be American, sadly. People were seen in Obama T-shirts and waving American flags. His speech drew lots of applause and was cleverly written to include many Czech historical notes....even one word in Czech. What I haven't heard yet is if he spoke to Vaclav Havel and what they said. Havel may have had some good advice for him. Things are back to normal and the economy is slowly collapsing following the lead of American system 'superiority' - but everyone has new cell phones [greatest % of their use in the world] and shops at trendy malls for Western clothes [made in third world sweathops], etc. Starbucks just pulled into town with coffee at 3-5x the most expensive Czech equivalents. Sad to say, Obama didn't take up my offer for a beer [still just a little over half a dollar per pint here, very good, and legal to drink in the street or anywhere.]