As inauguration day in the US draws nearer and nearer, my already heavy political heart grows heavier and heavier. I saw two videos today that mirror my sentiments pretty much exactly on that front.
The first video is from one of my favourite actors ever, Meryl Streep. It’s probably all over the news in the US, I haven’t watched actual TV news coverage here yet, but did come across it in a news feed on my phone. While accepting her Cecil B. DeMille award for acting at the Golden Globes last night, Meryl’s speech was heartfelt and very political, criticising Donald Trump without actually naming him…
Maybe it wasn’t the right platform to make things political but I loved this nonetheless! It touched me deeply and I love the sentiments expressed in her speech.
Another video that touched me deeply was this one called “Yes we can” with people, famous and not so famous, summing up their favourite Obama moment.
For me, my fave Obama moments were about him embracing diversity – religious diversity including reaching out to the Muslim world, sexual diversity or cultural diversity. He talked about diversity when he first became president and it has become a theme in his whole presidency which is also a theme very close to my own heart!
Now, after 8 years, a change is coming. I always thought it couldn’t get worse than George W. Bush in the White House, but it has gotten worse – Donald Trump is almost president! That will affect the whole world in what I expect will be a very negative way. Absolutely nothing Trump has done since the election has calmed my fears in this respect. So, I mourn Obama leaving and I take heart in people like Meryl Streep who stand up to inhumanity, injustice and intolerance. She says at the end of her speech, quoting her friend Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia: “Take your broken heart, make it into art”.
My heart is broken for the state of the Western world, where isolationism is starting to take over, where tolerance and humanity are being pushed aside. I’m not sure blogging is art, but it certainly is expression and when my heart breaks like this, even over politics, I just need to express myself and create… blog posts! I really don’t want this blog to become all political but sometimes the heart overrules it all and a post like this happens…
Thank you Meryl Streep for your heartfelt speech. It makes my heart heal a little when I know there are people like you out there.
And thank you Barack Obama for being the most awesome US president in my lifetime.
I wish you could have achieved even more!
Just saw the Meryl Streep speech on FB before I read your post and I have to say, it brought tears to my eyes. She expressed everything I’ve been feeling so beautifully. Great post – thank you!
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Yes, it brought tears to my eyes as well. I already loved this woman, I think I maybe now love her even more…
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Same! She’s great! And Trump’s tweets about her – the man is a moron.
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It’s interesting to me that no one is saying Hiddleston shouldn’t have been political / mentioned South Sudan. Possibly b/c almost no one watching int he US knows what he was talking about. But in general I find people very few people saying “don’t talk about politics” as long as it’s politics they agree with. Streep’s speech will probably be remembered in a category with Lin Miguel Miranda’s Tony acceptance speech responding to the Orlando shootings and the Hamilton cast’s talkback to Mike Pence.
The Obamas are a class act. I’m sure that whatever they do next will be equally uplifting, because they just are that way. The contrast to Donald Trump is going to be jarring. If we were going to choose another political dynasty (along the lines of the Kennedys or Bushes), just on sheer grounds of taste this was an astoundingly bad choice.
I’ve been pondering a mildly political post in response to Armitage’s Xmas message, but I haven’t gotten together the energy.
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I’ve seen very little Globes coverage so far so don’t even know about Hiddleston’s speech yet. I do know he has been to South Sudan for Unicef, so I can imagine him wanting to speak of that! https://www.unicef.org/media/media_93460.html
Obamas = class act: YES!!
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He was apparently on that trip when some people from MSF broke curfew and came up to him to say that they’d recently bingewatched The Night Manager as distraction from their troubles and he dedicated the award to them and said he was grateful to be able to do something to support their work. It was a nice speech. Just nobody in the US has a clue about the South Sudan.
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Very cool!
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Just found a clip:
Lovely!!!
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Ich habe gerade beide Reden von Meryl Streep und Tom auf facebook gehört. Ich finde beide bemerkenswert. Meryl ist bitter böse komisch,ich liebe diese Frau ❤ und ich finde es gut, dass Hiddles den Blick weg von all dem Glamour auf die für ihn wichtigen Dinge des Lebens lenkt, ich glaube ihn liebe ich auch 🙂 ❤ Offensichtlich sind dies für ihn Herzensangelegenheiten, ein wunderbarer Botschafter für Unicef und die Ärzte ohne Grenzen.
mögen beide noch lange weiter so ihre Meinung kundtun 🙂
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Meryl und Hiddles forever! ❤ :).
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I’m going to miss the Obamas like nobody’s business. And it’s true, we all thought George W. Bush (an actual war criminal) was bad. We didn’t know the half of it. Here’s to all of us taking care of each other during this scary time.
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Thank you for commenting and YES!
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Meryl streep is so brave that she inspired me to write down my heart and my first post on my blog having the same title is all in praise of her !👌
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Thanks for commenting and I’m glad Meryl was able to inspire you!
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