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You are here: Home / MLK Memorial Dedication

MLK Memorial Dedication

by Imani Gandy (ABL)|  October 17, 20116:13 pm| 195 Comments

This post is in: Stuff About Black People Written By a Black Person

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Here’s President Obama’s speech.  (It was magnificent.):

Here’s the transcript:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.) Please be seated.

An earthquake and a hurricane may have delayed this day, but this is a day that would not be denied.

For this day, we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s return to the National Mall. In this place, he will stand for all time, among monuments to those who fathered this nation and those who defended it; a black preacher with no official rank or title who somehow gave voice to our deepest dreams and our most lasting ideals, a man who stirred our conscience and thereby helped make our union more perfect.

And Dr. King would be the first to remind us that this memorial is not for him alone. The movement of which he was a part depended on an entire generation of leaders. Many are here today, and for their service and their sacrifice, we owe them our everlasting gratitude. This is a monument to your collective achievement. (Applause.)

Some giants of the civil rights movement — like Rosa Parks and Dorothy Height, Benjamin Hooks, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth — they’ve been taken from us these past few years. This monument attests to their strength and their courage, and while we miss them dearly, we know they rest in a better place.

And finally, there are the multitudes of men and women whose names never appear in the history books — those who marched and those who sang, those who sat in and those who stood firm, those who organized and those who mobilized — all those men and women who through countless acts of quiet heroism helped bring about changes few thought were even possible. “By the thousands,” said Dr. King, “faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, black and white…have taken our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.” To those men and women, to those foot soldiers for justice, know that this monument is yours, as well.

Nearly half a century has passed since that historic March on Washington, a day when thousands upon thousands gathered for jobs and for freedom. That is what our schoolchildren remember best when they think of Dr. King — his booming voice across this Mall, calling on America to make freedom a reality for all of God’s children, prophesizing of a day when the jangling discord of our nation would be transformed into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

It is right that we honor that march, that we lift up Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech — for without that shining moment, without Dr. King’s glorious words, we might not have had the courage to come as far as we have. Because of that hopeful vision, because of Dr. King’s moral imagination, barricades began to fall and bigotry began to fade. New doors of opportunity swung open for an entire generation. Yes, laws changed, but hearts and minds changed, as well.

Look at the faces here around you, and you see an America that is more fair and more free and more just than the one Dr. King addressed that day. We are right to savor that slow but certain progress — progress that’s expressed itself in a million ways, large and small, across this nation every single day, as people of all colors and creeds live together, and work together, and fight alongside one another, and learn together, and build together, and love one another.

So it is right for us to celebrate today Dr. King’s dream and his vision of unity. And yet it is also important on this day to remind ourselves that such progress did not come easily; that Dr. King’s faith was hard-won; that it sprung out of a harsh reality and some bitter disappointments.

It is right for us to celebrate Dr. King’s marvelous oratory, but it is worth remembering that progress did not come from words alone. Progress was hard. Progress was purchased through enduring the smack of billy clubs and the blast of fire hoses. It was bought with days in jail cells and nights of bomb threats. For every victory during the height of the civil rights movement, there were setbacks and there were defeats.

We forget now, but during his life, Dr. King wasn’t always considered a unifying figure. Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many, denounced as a rabble rouser and an agitator, a communist and a radical. He was even attacked by his own people, by those who felt he was going too fast or those who felt he was going too slow; by those who felt he shouldn’t meddle in issues like the Vietnam War or the rights of union workers. We know from his own testimony the doubts and the pain this caused him, and that the controversy that would swirl around his actions would last until the fateful day he died.

I raise all this because nearly 50 years after the March on Washington, our work, Dr. King’s work, is not yet complete. We gather here at a moment of great challenge and great change. In the first decade of this new century, we have been tested by war and by tragedy; by an economic crisis and its aftermath that has left millions out of work, and poverty on the rise, and millions more just struggling to get by. Indeed, even before this crisis struck, we had endured a decade of rising inequality and stagnant wages. In too many troubled neighborhoods across the country, the conditions of our poorest citizens appear little changed from what existed 50 years ago — neighborhoods with underfunded schools and broken-down slums, inadequate health care, constant violence, neighborhoods in which too many young people grow up with little hope and few prospects for the future.

Our work is not done. And so on this day, in which we celebrate a man and a movement that did so much for this country, let us draw strength from those earlier struggles. First and foremost, let us remember that change has never been quick. Change has never been simple, or without controversy. Change depends on persistence. Change requires determination. It took a full decade before the moral guidance of Brown v. Board of Education was translated into the enforcement measures of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, but those 10 long years did not lead Dr. King to give up. He kept on pushing, he kept on speaking, he kept on marching until change finally came. (Applause.)

And then when, even after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed, African Americans still found themselves trapped in pockets of poverty across the country, Dr. King didn’t say those laws were a failure; he didn’t say this is too hard; he didn’t say, let’s settle for what we got and go home. Instead he said, let’s take those victories and broaden our mission to achieve not just civil and political equality but also economic justice; let’s fight for a living wage and better schools and jobs for all who are willing to work. In other words, when met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the “isness” of today. He kept pushing towards the “oughtness” of tomorrow.

And so, as we think about all the work that we must do — rebuilding an economy that can compete on a global stage, and fixing our schools so that every child — not just some, but every child — gets a world-class education, and making sure that our health care system is affordable and accessible to all, and that our economic system is one in which everybody gets a fair shake and everybody does their fair share, let us not be trapped by what is. (Applause.) We can’t be discouraged by what is. We’ve got to keep pushing for what ought to be, the America we ought to leave to our children, mindful that the hardships we face are nothing compared to those Dr. King and his fellow marchers faced 50 years ago, and that if we maintain our faith, in ourselves and in the possibilities of this nation, there is no challenge we cannot surmount.

And just as we draw strength from Dr. King’s struggles, so must we draw inspiration from his constant insistence on the oneness of man; the belief in his words that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” It was that insistence, rooted in his Christian faith, that led him to tell a group of angry young protesters, “I love you as I love my own children,” even as one threw a rock that glanced off his neck.

It was that insistence, that belief that God resides in each of us, from the high to the low, in the oppressor and the oppressed, that convinced him that people and systems could change. It fortified his belief in non-violence. It permitted him to place his faith in a government that had fallen short of its ideals. It led him to see his charge not only as freeing black America from the shackles of discrimination, but also freeing many Americans from their own prejudices, and freeing Americans of every color from the depredations of poverty.

And so at this moment, when our politics appear so sharply polarized, and faith in our institutions so greatly diminished, we need more than ever to take heed of Dr. King’s teachings. He calls on us to stand in the other person’s shoes; to see through their eyes; to understand their pain. He tells us that we have a duty to fight against poverty, even if we are well off; to care about the child in the decrepit school even if our own children are doing fine; to show compassion toward the immigrant family, with the knowledge that most of us are only a few generations removed from similar hardships. (Applause.)

To say that we are bound together as one people, and must constantly strive to see ourselves in one another, is not to argue for a false unity that papers over our differences and ratifies an unjust status quo. As was true 50 years ago, as has been true throughout human history, those with power and privilege will often decry any call for change as “divisive.” They’ll say any challenge to the existing arrangements are unwise and destabilizing. Dr. King understood that peace without justice was no peace at all; that aligning our reality with our ideals often requires the speaking of uncomfortable truths and the creative tension of non-violent protest.

But he also understood that to bring about true and lasting change, there must be the possibility of reconciliation; that any social movement has to channel this tension through the spirit of love and mutuality.

If he were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there; that the businessman can enter tough negotiations with his company’s union without vilifying the right to collectively bargain. He would want us to know we can argue fiercely about the proper size and role of government without questioning each other’s love for this country — (applause) — with the knowledge that in this democracy, government is no distant object but is rather an expression of our common commitments to one another. He would call on us to assume the best in each other rather than the worst, and challenge one another in ways that ultimately heal rather than wound.

In the end, that’s what I hope my daughters take away from this monument. I want them to come away from here with a faith in what they can accomplish when they are determined and working for a righteous cause. I want them to come away from here with a faith in other people and a faith in a benevolent God. This sculpture, massive and iconic as it is, will remind them of Dr. King’s strength, but to see him only as larger than life would do a disservice to what he taught us about ourselves. He would want them to know that he had setbacks, because they will have setbacks. He would want them to know that he had doubts, because they will have doubts. He would want them to know that he was flawed, because all of us have flaws.

It is precisely because Dr. King was a man of flesh and blood and not a figure of stone that he inspires us so. His life, his story, tells us that change can come if you don’t give up. He would not give up, no matter how long it took, because in the smallest hamlets and the darkest slums, he had witnessed the highest reaches of the human spirit; because in those moments when the struggle seemed most hopeless, he had seen men and women and children conquer their fear; because he had seen hills and mountains made low and rough places made plain, and the crooked places made straight and God make a way out of no way.

And that is why we honor this man — because he had faith in us. And that is why he belongs on this Mall — because he saw what we might become. That is why Dr. King was so quintessentially American — because for all the hardships we’ve endured, for all our sometimes tragic history, ours is a story of optimism and achievement and constant striving that is unique upon this Earth. And that is why the rest of the world still looks to us to lead. This is a country where ordinary people find in their hearts the courage to do extraordinary things; the courage to stand up in the face of the fiercest resistance and despair and say this is wrong, and this is right; we will not settle for what the cynics tell us we have to accept and we will reach again and again, no matter the odds, for what we know is possible.

That is the conviction we must carry now in our hearts. (Applause.) As tough as times may be, I know we will overcome. I know there are better days ahead. I know this because of the man towering over us. I know this because all he and his generation endured — we are here today in a country that dedicated a monument to that legacy.

And so with our eyes on the horizon and our faith squarely placed in one another, let us keep striving; let us keep struggling; let us keep climbing toward that promised land of a nation and a world that is more fair, and more just, and more equal for every single child of God.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

There are photos at my blog. WP doesn’t take too kindly to photo galleries over here.  (FYWP etc.)

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Reader Interactions

195Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh34

    October 17, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    Yeah! A whole thread…lol.

    But I said so much in the other threads, now I just ain’t really got much more to add…LOL.

    Thx thought ABL. It was a great speech.

  2. 2.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 6:19 pm

    Interesting piece on African Americans leaving Chicago for the South. MLK once said that people from Mississippi needed to come to Cicero to learn how to hate”.

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 17, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    I thought the speech was terrific — one of his best (and that’s a pretty high bar).

    Also too, I think he and Dr. King and the event and the Occupy movement turned out to be very fortunate that the dedication had to be postponed a couple of months. Whether by design or sheer dumb luck, President Obama’s words had a much stronger resonance against the context of the previous day’s protests, and the messages of the past month, than they probably would have had in August (and before he presented his Jobs Bill, etc.)

    It would be interesting to know if most of the speech was written weeks ago and just tweaked for yesterday, or whether it was essentially rewritten in light of OWS happening.

    Oh, and ARETHA!

    Thanks for posting an MLK thread, ABL.

    It would be interesting to know how much of

  4. 4.

    Compound F

    October 17, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    preznit star chamber.

    get real, lady.

    you people are something else. what planet are you coming from?

  5. 5.

    JPL

    October 17, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    I had seen photos of the King Memorial but didn’t understand the impact until the President stood under the statue of Dr. King. It gave me goose bumps because I remember some of those speeches and Dr. King was truly larger than life.
    One thing I remember is the fear that something would happen (i.e. riots) to dilute the impact of the message.
    Whether it is logical or not, I still have the same fear about OWS.

  6. 6.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 17, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    I’m going to be Debbie Downer, I guess.

    I listened to the entire speech live, and most of it was great – another home run by President Obama. Until this:

    because for all the hardships we’ve endured, for all our sometimes tragic history, ours is a story of optimism and achievement and constant striving that is unique upon this Earth.

    Just once I wish he wouldn’t fall into the American Exceptionalism trap. That entire section of the speech:

    And that is why the rest of the world still looks to us to lead. This is a country where ordinary people find in their hearts the courage to do extraordinary things;

    Unlike any other country on earth.

    the courage to stand up in the face of the fiercest resistance and despair and say this is wrong, and this is right; we will not settle for what the cynics tell us we have to accept and we will reach again and again, no matter the odds, for what we know is possible.

    Unlike any other group that has overthrown tyranny or oppression.

    Like I said, mostly great, but that’s just sop for the “America, Fuck Yeah!” contingent, and I wish he hadn’t said it.

  7. 7.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Here’s President Obama’s speech. (It was magnificent.)

    And coming from you, ABL, that objective opinion means so much.

    Seriously though, nice speech.

    The statue, on the other hand, is a Stalinist abortion.

    MLK would be embarrassed.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 17, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    One thing that many forget is that Dr. King wasn’t just addressing Jim Crow, he was addressing the Ferengi and the Klingons (the greedy and warmongering elites) as well.

    Even if the color of your skin totally vanished as an issue, if Dr. King were still alive he’d be working for economic justice and an end to idiotic wars, like Vietnam. Iraq and Afghanistan, also, too, I might add.

    Very much an OWS sort of guy, he’d be.

  9. 9.

    El Cruzado

    October 17, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: It makes me think more that some Sith Lord has frozen the good reverend in carbonite.

  10. 10.

    Peter

    October 17, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    Is it just me, or did he start to get a bit choked up at the end?

    Fantastic speech. One for the ages to be sure.

  11. 11.

    Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill

    October 17, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    that’s just sop for the “America, Fuck Yeah!” contingent, and I wish he hadn’t said it.

    Agreed, and it’s very much Not King — there’s a great bit on YouTube where King talks about how America is not exceptional, and uses an apocalyptic Bible quote to underline his point. It’s chilling.

  12. 12.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    @El Cruzado:

    The Asian vibe given to MLK’s eyes is perhaps the creepiest part. Weird that most MSM outlets and ABL are pretending to not notice.

  13. 13.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    Yea, and the Wall was the “Black Gash of Shame” according to Jim Webb. It’s art. . .

  14. 14.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Meh. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any head of state/head of government of any country who didn’t throw in some “[Our country], fuck yeah!” into a speech like that. As Obama said once, the Brits have British exceptionalism, the French have French exceptionalism, the Japanese have Japanese exceptionalism, etc. etc.

    Plus it felt like a big FU to the Republican mantra that the US can’t make progress anymore and the peasantry just needs to be satisfied with the crumbs thrown to them by their betters. That shit bugs me more than a little “we’re awesome but we can do even better!” from the president.

  15. 15.

    askew

    October 17, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    Thanks for front paging this incredible speech. I found it really telling that the major lefty blogs ignored the event. They seem to have no problem using MLK Jr’s name to push their agenda, but have no interest in this event. The only blogs I saw this event given major coverage was black blogs and Booman Tribune.

  16. 16.

    WereBear

    October 17, 2011 at 6:51 pm

    I think it’s an example if how the Wingnuts have ruined all they touch; the part about the uniqueness of America. Because I don’t see it as a sop to anyone.

    We have done amazing things in the past, and we can do them in the future. Unlike the Republicans who whine that we can’t afford to be special any more, our President reminds us that we can strive for better. And get it.

  17. 17.

    Cat Lady

    October 17, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    To turn that upside down, if blogs were around when Dr. King was marching there’d be a Hamsher type who’d be screaming to ignore him because he’s a pig for cheating on his wife and a Breitbart type who’d be ratfucking the marches dressed like a pimp, and then the Sunday shows would have William F. Buckley on every week to explain how Real Americans (TM) aren’t racists.

  18. 18.

    Yevgraf

    October 17, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    Today I got to view a Teatard in action, and experienced white privilege firsthand.

    The setup – I’m outside court with a client, irritatedly awaiting a docket on a custody matter. Place is packed, as courts were on slowdown the previous week for a judicial conference. I look across, and notice a verbal altercation between a heavyset black woman and an angryfaced later middle aged ante male. They were arguing over the fact that the woman sat in the seat next to him-they were hard to find, and his wife went to the can. Instead of being a gentleman and being ready to give up his seat either for the lady or his wife on return, he violently shoved the black lady.

    The expression on his face was pure hatred and rage. I leaped to the next courtroom and grabbed a bailiff. By the time we got back to the spot, it deteriorated. He’s yelling about saving the chair, she’s getting understandably mouthy. Plus, she’s a contractor with social services. Sadly, the next dumb thing happens – some dumbass deputy strolls up and starts jumping her case about yelling, and I had to intervene on her behalf. Had I not been there, she’d have gotten locked up and the teatard (was just visiting from PA, showing support for.some relative) would have smugly gone through his day.

    Despite the ugliness, there was a happy ending – the teatard gets to come back here to.the Peoples Republic of Louisville to answer charges.

  19. 19.

    ABL

    October 17, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    @lamh34: blame the AIDS walk! i went afternoon boozing and by the time i got home, the blog was jacked and I was too hammered to do anything productive.

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    The Asian vibe given to MLK’s eyes is perhaps the creepiest part. Weird that most MSM outlets and ABL are pretending to not notice.

    What, not notice that the statue looks like the guy?

    Actual picture of MLK

    Picture of memorial statue

    Any “creepy Asian vibe” is strictly in your head. And your delusion couldn’t possibly be influenced by the fact that the sculptor is Chinese, amirite?

  21. 21.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 17, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I thought about doing that compare and contrast too. Good one.

  22. 22.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Everybody’s a critic.

  23. 23.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Idiot.

    No, the statue does NOT look much like MLK at all, particularly in the comparison you offered. The individual purported to represent MLK here looks like an angry, stubborn, Cold War era Stalinist dude of vaguely Asian extraction.

    And of course the Chinese sculptor was obviously influenced by their cultural background in forming the image, you fool. It’s as clear as can be. Your pretense in not noticing this is to be expected, of course.

    Also too: Why the fuck was a Chinese sculptor used to make a humongous monument for the Washington fucking Mall? What? No American sculptors or designers? Fresh out?

  24. 24.

    JPL

    October 17, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    Well I’m not an art critic and I love the memorial. It was long overdue.

  25. 25.

    WereBear

    October 17, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    Once I saw the monument in it’s entirety, I really liked it. Looking forward to visiting it one of the days.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    So, in other words, you don’t only hate black people, you hate all non-white people.

    Good to know.

    ETA: And just to be clear — the reason no one else is noticing the “resemblance” you’re claiming is that it’s not actually there. It doesn’t exist outside of your head.

  27. 27.

    harlana

    October 17, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    @Yevgraf: ha!

  28. 28.

    gbear

    October 17, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    I’m really glad that you posted that speech and that I listened to it. About half way through I was thinking that I need to get my butt down to the Occupy protest at the Minneapolis government center. Obama touched beautifully on the goals of the #OWS movement.

  29. 29.

    harlana

    October 17, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: That’s why I think the timing, while not intentional, was perfect.

  30. 30.

    JPL

    October 17, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    @Yevgraf: Good job.

  31. 31.

    Thymezone

    October 17, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    This is why I voted for him, and will again. It’s why I gave him the legal maximum in both primary and general election cycles, and would again if I could afford to. And it’s why I am pretty sure he is going to win again. He has the right message and there is nobody who can deliver a good message better than he can. Running against the Party of “Wall Street Is Just Like Your Rich Uncle” he wins again.

    I still love the guy, in good clean manly way, mostly. He’s still the best guy for the job I have seen in my lifetime.

  32. 32.

    Anya2

    October 17, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    Thanks ABL for front paging this important speech. I would have thought MLK memorial dedication event was an important event for all Americans, but I guess not.

    My parents attended and they said the memorial looks better in person. I think the way it was chosen did not do justice to Dr. King’s legacy. I don’t think he would have minded if a Chinese artist or French artist did it, but it would have been better if it was done by an American sculptor who understood the significance of Dr. King.

    The speech and the whole event was very moving. The part that hit me was when all the people on the stage linked hands and joined the choir in singing “We Shall Overcome” Michelle Obama was weeping openly. What was she thinking I wonder?

    @arguingwithsignposts: I agree. I feel the same way about “God Bless America” at the end of a speech. It feels so contrived.

  33. 33.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    So, in other words, you don’t only hate black people, you hate all non-white people.

    Wow. You just jumped your own shark. WTF are you babbling about? But yes, you’ve found me out: I hate all people of any color whatsoever, other than Behr’s Bright White Flat Ceiling Paint. That’s it.

    the reason no one else is noticing the “resemblance” you’re claiming is that it’s not actually there.

    You are delusional. If you’d lift your stinky, lazy fingers from your nether regions for just a moment and google something like “MLK statue Asian” you’ll find about a zillion links to stories considering the same resemblance that I’m imagining and NO ONE else sees except racists like me. And no I’m not doing it for you.

    Furthermore, what’s up with not using an African American sculptor and American stone and AA workers to make this monument? WTF?

  34. 34.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: And why was one used to design the Vietnam Memorial. You are one stupid motherfucker.

  35. 35.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    The Asian vibe given to MLK’s eyes is perhaps the creepiest part. Weird that most MSM outlets and ABL are pretending to not notice.

    WTF are you talking about?

    P.S. I’ve removed the #2 from my user name. It was left over from last nights blog mess.

  36. 36.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    “The president of the memorial’s foundation, Harry E. Johnson, who first met Lei in a sculpting workshop in Saint Paul, Minnesota, stated that the final selection was done by a mostly African American design team and was based solely on artistic ability.[74]”

  37. 37.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    I went to the same Wikipedia source you’re using.

    You’re leaving out the interesting facts that the Chinese government donated $25 million to the memorial foundation, just to help out, dontchya know?

    And then there is the inconvenient matter of the King family’s grifting in the form of the $800,000 “licensing” fee they extracted from the memorial foundation for the use of their father’s image and likeness. MLK would be so proud.

    But then, I suppose it would be uncivil of me to bring up these issues…oops!

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    Oh, I Googled some of the complaints. There’s this guy:

    Sadly, the group in charge of finding an artist could not find a reputable black artist in America to create the statue. Why else would it be sculpted in China by the same artist who is renowned for his many sculptures and busts glorifying Mao Zedong. You remember him right? He is the communist dictator responsible for murderering 70 million of his own innocent Chinese subjects. A man who contradicted the philosophy civil rights that MLK gave his very life for.

    This guy’s a real winner, too:

    The massive granite monument to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King has risen on the National Mall and the reviews are in: King looks like an angry black-Asian dictator about to administer a beating to everyone in his path. And that view comes from King supporters and professional black activists.
    __
    Their complaints are many; one of the main concerns of even leftist blacks is that a Chinese communist sculptor, who adores communist mass-murderer Mao Zedong, created the effigy of King.

    Yep, no racism there. Clearly, they’re only concerned about the final design of the statue and not that a dirty Mao-worshipping Chinese sculptor did the job.

    Thanks for the suggestion, by the way — I never would have thought to Google to prove my point that you’re a delusional, Asian-hating asshole whose claim is only backed up by other delusional, Asian-hating assholes.

    Though they seem to hate “leftists,” too. Nice allies you have there.

  39. 39.

    JPL

    October 17, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    Well I feel better, now that I now the sculpture was designed by an asian, I’ll have to look closer to the details.
    BTW..I thought the ceremony was great.

  40. 40.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 17, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    And then there is the inconvenient matter of the King family’s grifting in the form of the $800,000 “licensing” fee they extracted from the memorial foundation for the use of their father’s image and likeness. MLK would be so proud.

    I’m not sure how that is “grifting.” IIRC, they have a legal right to do so. Might seem tacky, but not a grift.

    But then, I suppose it would be uncivil of me to bring up these issues…oops!

    No, it just makes you a douchebag.

  41. 41.

    gwangung

    October 17, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    @Mnemosyne: This guy is trying to troll with racist comments.

    Dime a dozen.

  42. 42.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 17, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    sculpted in China by the same artist who is renowned for his many sculptures and busts glorifying Mao Zedong.

    This is only tangentially related to the topic at hand, but Planet Money had a podcast a while back about how North Korea makes money since its currency is blacklisted around the world. One way? You guessed it – statues.

    And North Korea has one more legal export: monuments. It turns out that giant, ugly statues are one of the few exports of North Korea.
    __
    There’s a whole division of the North Korean government that specializes in building those statues for dictators around the world, according to Curtis Melvin, an econ grad student who runs the blog North Korea Economy Watch.
    __
    “You can go as far back as the 1970s to find monuments the North Koreans have built in Africa and that’s sort of continued to this day,” he says.

  43. 43.

    lacp

    October 17, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    @Mnemosyne: So…it’s like a composite? Rev. Mao Luther King? Sounds like it was designed by Rorschach – everybody sees what he or she wants to see. Though I’m planning to go down a bit later this fall to check it out, frankly I’m glad it’s there whatever it looks like. This is a memorial to someone who really worked to change this country for the better, and largely succeeded. I’m not so concerned with the aesthetics.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    @gwangung:

    Oh, I realize that. Though I have to almost admire the audacity of the attempt to set African-Americans and Asian-Americans against one another by complaining that the statue somehow looks too Asian and was financed by those evil Chi-Coms.

    Almost.

  45. 45.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    And they told me it was Chairman Mao
    Well my telephone was ringing
    And they told me it was Chairman Mao
    You can tell him anything
    ‘Cause I just don’t wanna talk to him now

    I’ve got the apolitical blues
    And that’s the meanest blues of all
    Apolitical blues
    And that’s the meanest blues of all
    I don’t care if it’s John Wayne
    I just don’t wanna talk to him now

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    @lacp:

    I would love to go to DC to see it (and everything else), but I’m stuck on the West Coast. :-( From most accounts, the memorial doesn’t photograph well but looks really amazing in person, which is the important part.

  47. 47.

    PhoenixRising

    October 17, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    re: “Asian” looking MLK features, I’m curious about this.

    I spend a lot of time with Asian-born Asians, Asian-Americans and African-Americans. I think the sculpture looks like the man, as photographed (he died before I was born, so I didn’t get a shot at personal observation of him).

    It doesn’t look like an African face to me, nor like a Chinese face, nor even like a stereotype of ‘blackness’. It does look like the man it depicts.

    So, can someone who thinks the stone face looks “Chinese” expand on both 1) how many Chinese or other Asian folks do you see regularly and 2) do you spend a lot of time around 4th and 5th generation African-Americans, who are all mixed-race people?

    Maybe you do, but I’m thinking you’re seeing what you expect to the exclusion of what’s present.

  48. 48.

    Trurl

    October 17, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    Were he still with us, what would the Reverend Doctor have to say about the President’s global drone bombing campaigns?

    Any guesses, Ms. Angry Black Lady?

  49. 49.

    xian

    October 17, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    the rest of the world does look to the US as a bellwether of progress. of course it’s more complicated than that, and the place has never fully lived up to its ideals, but for many people, the US is like a global do-over.

    imagine being Obama and trying to walk the line between sincere patriotic fervor and jingoism, knowing always that he will be damned as an apologist by reich-wingers and slammed as a blowhard by emoprogs.

    also, too, kolonoscopy’s a douche.

  50. 50.

    xian

    October 17, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: whoa, racist much? what’s so creepy about being Asian, first of all?

    pretty clear this nozzle just revealed his deep-cover orientation.

  51. 51.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    @Trurl: Fuck off you asshole. Using Dr. King to attack President Obama is as despicable as you can be.

  52. 52.

    Chris

    October 17, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Very much an OWS sort of guy, he’d be.

    It’s true.

    That’s why this part of Obama’s speech, “We forget now, but during his life, Dr. King wasn’t always considered a unifying figure. Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many, denounced as a rabble rouser and an agitator, a communist and a radical” makes me a little sad. If anyone in the twentieth century deserved this kind of remembrance, MLK did… but I still feel like a lot of his legacy’s been watered down so that he can be a generic American saint, at the expense of much of his legacy as a left wing activist.

  53. 53.

    boss bitch

    October 17, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    Great Speech! Period. America fuck yeah and all that.

  54. 54.

    boss bitch

    October 17, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Sometimes I really hate you “yeah, but…” people. I really fucking do.

  55. 55.

    Chyron HR

    October 17, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    @Trurl:

    Obviously MLK would call Obama a quote “Nigger” unquote, the way you True Progressives do on Firedoglake.

  56. 56.

    Chris

    October 17, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    Also too: Why the fuck was a Chinese sculptor used to make a humongous monument for the Washington fucking Mall? What? No American sculptors or designers? Fresh out?

    If a French guy could design the entire fucking city of Washington DC, I’m pretty sure the republic will survive a Chinese guy building the MLK memorial.

    The Chinaman is not the issue here, dude.

  57. 57.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Thanks for the suggestion, by the way—I never would have thought to Google to prove my point that you’re a delusional, Asian-hating asshole whose claim is only backed up by other delusional, Asian-hating assholes.

    Typical cherry picking as per usual. You are a freak; a parody of a knee jerk “racist” screamer. As per usual…

    You forgot: I don’t only hate Asians; I hate anyone not the color of Behr’s Flat Latex Ceiling White Paint, available only at Home Depot.

  58. 58.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 17, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    @Chris:

    I still feel like a lot of his legacy’s been watered down so that he can be a generic American saint, at the expense of much of his legacy as a left wing activist.

    Oh, hell yeah. He was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign when he was assassinated.

    His final speech is chilling as well, not just for his premonition of his death, but this, too:

    It’s alright to talk about “long white robes over yonder,” in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It’s alright to talk about “streets flowing with milk and honey,” but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

  59. 59.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I’m not sure how that is “grifting.” IIRC, they have a legal right to do so. Might seem tacky, but not a grift.

    Wow, that is some powerful defense…but not sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities by bringing up the fact of the King family’s “tackiness.”

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    @PhoenixRising:

    I don’t know if you ever saw the fascinating PBS series “Faces of America” with Henry Louis Gates, but they did mention in there that most African-Americans whose families have been here for several generations have a mix of African, European and Native American genes. Given that genetic reality, it wouldn’t be at all unusual for Dr. King to have “Asian-looking” eyes.

  61. 61.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    @gwangung:

    This guy is trying to troll with racist comments.

    Could you SPECIFY some of my “racist” comments, indicating how and in what way they are racist?

    Thanks.

  62. 62.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    October 17, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    .
    .

    (It was magnificent.)

    I did not hear the latest speech, but I feel its eternally fierce magnificence nonetheless.
     
    I propose dedicating the next 44 drone attacks ordered by President Obama to Dr. King, and giving each civilian casualty some sort of posthumous medallion with a portrait of each Nobel Peace Prize winner etched onto opposing sides of the coin, symbolizing the choice between Life and Death.
    .
    .

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    Typical cherry picking as per usual.

    Yep, nothing says “cherry picking” like the first two hits in Google. Great defense there!

    You forgot: I don’t only hate Asians; I hate anyone not the color of Behr’s Flat Latex Ceiling White Paint, available only at Home Depot.

    Hey, you said it, not me. At least you admit that you have a problem with non-white people.

  64. 64.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    @xian:

    whoa, racist much? what’s so creepy about being Asian, first of all?

    Oh fuck off. The creepy part is applying Asian features to a representation of a real person who looked nothing like the statue, despite what the ABLbots “racist” screamers here say, you being one of them.

  65. 65.

    boss bitch

    October 17, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    It is right for us to celebrate Dr. King’s marvelous oratory, but it is worth remembering that progress did not come from words alone. Progress was hard. Progress was purchased through enduring the smack of billy clubs and the blast of fire hoses. It was bought with days in jail cells and nights of bomb threats. For every victory during the height of the civil rights movement, there were setbacks and there were defeats.

    Yep. Progress is hard and slow.

    We forget now, but during his life, Dr. King wasn’t always considered a unifying figure. Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many, denounced as a rabble rouser and an agitator, a communist and a radical. He was even attacked by his own people, by those who felt he was going too fast or those who felt he was going too slow; by those who felt he shouldn’t meddle in issues like the Vietnam War or the rights of union workers. We know from his own testimony the doubts and the pain this caused him, and that the controversy that would swirl around his actions would last until the fateful day he died.

    Why do good people have to wait until death before they are fully appreciated?

    And so at this moment, when our politics appear so sharply polarized, and faith in our institutions so greatly diminished, we need more than ever to take heed of Dr. King’s teachings. He calls on us to stand in the other person’s shoes; to see through their eyes; to understand their pain. He tells us that we have a duty to fight against poverty, even if we are well off; to care about the child in the decrepit school even if our own children are doing fine; to show compassion toward the immigrant family, with the knowledge that most of us are only a few generations removed from similar hardships. (Applause.)

    Republicans hated this part.

    If he were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there; that the businessman can enter tough negotiations with his company’s union without vilifying the right to collectively bargain. He would want us to know we can argue fiercely about the proper size and role of government without questioning each other’s love for this country—(applause)—with the knowledge that in this democracy, government is no distant object but is rather an expression of our common commitments to one another. He would call on us to assume the best in each other rather than the worst, and challenge one another in ways that ultimately heal rather than wound.

    Liberals hated this part. We have a president that behaves exactly like this and is called a pussy for it.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    October 17, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    thanks for this post, ABL.

    I loved seeing the First Family with the King Family.

    Ms. Aretha.

    Stevie at the end.

    and, I enjoyed the speech. POTUS is a student of history; he knows that MLK was the most hated man in America when he was alive.

  67. 67.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @Anya:

    Fuck off you asshole. Using Dr. King to attack President Obama is as despicable as you can be.

    Anya, the speech police, in action!

    Why, exactly though, is the application of King’s legacy of nonviolence to the violent early legacy of Barack Obama somehow despicable?

    Truth is painful.

  68. 68.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    @boss bitch:

    Sometimes I really hate you “yeah, but…” people. I really fucking do.

    Is someone disturbing your Obot unicorns?

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    Here’s another picture of MLK looking “non-Asian.”

    And another.

    And another.

    I think the problem here is that Kola has apparently never actually seen more than one picture of Dr. King and isn’t quite sure what he looked like. Either that, or he’s a racist fool who sees scary Asian and black people behind every tree just waiting to oppress him.

  70. 70.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    @rikyrah:

    I loved seeing the First Family with the King Family.

    What? Did the First Family get $800,000 out of this deal too?

    Awesome.

  71. 71.

    Anne Laurie

    October 17, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    @askew:

    I found it really telling that the major lefty blogs ignored the event. They seem to have no problem using MLK Jr’s name to push their agenda, but have no interest in this event. The only blogs I saw this event given major coverage was black blogs and Booman Tribune.

    To be fair, when one of the non-AA bloggers here wrote about the rescheduling of the monument’s commemoration, we were reminded that white people should not attempt to co-opt Dr. King. It can be tough for those of us in the ‘majority’ to walk the line between ‘commemorating an important event’ and ‘stealing someone else’s story’, especially when one knows there are better-qualified individuals within the group.

  72. 72.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:35 pm

    I think where the sculptor screwed up is mainly in the shape of the lower contour of the eyes. They are much too straight across, resulting in a stereotypically almond shape that regardless of Mem’s hysterical link posting, do not match those of Dr. King.

    Also, the more I look at it, the more I realize that the nose is too bulbous as well. King’s was flatter, let fleshy in the center.

    Faces are very difficult to render. All are made of the same few basic components, and yet all are so distinctive from one another. Subtle, tiny variations in a likeness make for a huge discrepancy between subject and image.

    This, the face of the statue, looks like some unidentified Asian/African man. It does not capture Dr. King’s likeness, no matter what Mem pretends to believe.

  73. 73.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    Why are you people still talking to this jerk?

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    I’m stuck at home with a nasty cold and don’t have anything better to do than to feed the trolls, but you’re probably right. There’s only so many times I can make Kola look like a jackass in public before I get bored.

  75. 75.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    Why are you people still talking to this jerk?

    Always amuses when a stupid Bot tries to control discussion thru cross-Bot peer pressure. Revealing.

  76. 76.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    @Mnemosyne: He doesn’t need any help.

  77. 77.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: What bothers me is that people like you who don’t care about MLK’s legacy using his name and legacy to bludgeon it with President Obama. I feel the same way about assholes like you using high UE in the African Americans.

    Why don’t you join your brethrens’ at Red State or Free Republic. I think you might find some kindred spirits; after all you share a strong dislike of our President and I am guessing from your comments, the source of the dislike is the same.

  78. 78.

    xian

    October 17, 2011 at 9:01 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: then you should have said that, instead of qualifying the word Asian with the adjective creepy, creep.

    As many have noted from photos, MLK, like many other folks, has a bit of the epicanthic fold in his eyelids.

    Also, too, of course people project their own mental frame of reference into their artworks… There’s plenty of room for interpretation about whether the eyes on the statue, and the relative hue of the rock, gives a more “east Asian” look to King’s eyes than he had in real life (or in the eyes of another beholder), but the idea that this is creepy or some sort of indictment of the artist based on his or her ethnic or racial background is reaching, bigoted, and pathetic.

  79. 79.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    You just keep digging, sweetie. I’m sure there’s a pony somewhere in that pile of bullshit you’re up to your elbows in.

  80. 80.

    PhoenixRising

    October 17, 2011 at 9:10 pm

    Mnem, if there is a damn pony in here I want it!!!

    Home recovering from surgery. Which trumps a cold AND trollery for sheer pitifulness.

    Going to check the tubes for Skip Gates ‘splaining the racial blend that is American-ness for the PBS viewers, because I needed something to listen to quietly. Thanks.

  81. 81.

    Trurl

    October 17, 2011 at 9:11 pm

    What bothers me is that people like you who don’t care about MLK’s legacy using his name and legacy to bludgeon it with President Obama.

    King’s legacy was non-violence. Which means that he would abhor Obama’s warmongering.

    Of course, you already know that. But since you don’t have the intellectual integrity to admit it, all you can do is spit at the people who remind you of the facts.

    Sad.

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    October 17, 2011 at 9:13 pm

    @Mnemosyne: You know who else had fatty tissue below the eyebrows? This guy. This particular feature used to be called a ‘Nordic fold’, because it’s very common among those of Scandinavian descent, who inherited it from the Sami, and whose Viking forebears passed it to the Irish & their Celtic neighbors. Dr. King probably inherited the gene set from one or more of Kennedy’s “Scotch-Irish” distant cousins, passed on the same way the Vikings passed their genes, ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo. We’re all mongrels on this bus; I once saw a (supposedly)contemporaneous silk painting of Kublai Khan with ice-grey, hooded eyes and a turnip-shaped head (wide forehead, narrow jaw, pointed chin) whose owner would pass without comment on any street in Dublin or Glasgow… or Boston.

  83. 83.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 9:13 pm

    @PhoenixRising: I hope your surgery went well. My sincere wishes for a speedy recovery.

  84. 84.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    @PhoenixRising:

    Yeowch! You have better stamina than I do — when I was recovering from knee surgery lo these several years ago, the most I could keep up with was wedding message boards and Food Network shows. I salute your superior fortitude!

  85. 85.

    IL JimP

    October 17, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:

    You all realize he’s President of the United States, so a little cheerleading is to be expected

  86. 86.

    IL JimP

    October 17, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:

    You all realize he’s President of the United States, so a little cheerleading is to be expected

  87. 87.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 9:21 pm

    @Trurl: Legacy WAS? Keep trying.

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 9:22 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    That’s kind of the point: you have to be a particular kind of person to look at that statue, look at pictures of Dr. King, and decide that the Chinese sculptor was trying to make Dr. King look Asian (or that he was incompetent and can only do portraits of his fellow Asians, so King accidentally looks Asian).

    The face of the statue doesn’t look all that different than the pictures I’ve seen of Dr. King, and it’s head-scratchingly confusing to me that anyone would look at it and decide that he looks too Asian because the sculptor was Chinese.

  89. 89.

    askew

    October 17, 2011 at 9:25 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Wow, that is a pathetic excuse for ignoring an important event. But, in all honesty, with your history on race issues it was best that you didn’t post about the speech.

  90. 90.

    doofus

    October 17, 2011 at 9:25 pm

    I feel kinda slow, cause I only now realized that Kola Noscopy, Trurl, and Uncle Clarence Thomas are the same person.

  91. 91.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:25 pm

    @Anya:

    What bothers me is that people like you who don’t care about MLK’s legacy

    You know what? Fuck you, you brainless, self righteous twit. You know nothing about me, except that I’m not an Obot like you.

  92. 92.

    PhoenixRising

    October 17, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I wouldn’t have brought it up but you went first with the cold. This hurts too much to sleep, get work done or adequately parent my child, so passive educational TV is perfect for about 18 hours of the day right now.

    The good news is that I’m malignancy-free. OTOH, “cured” and “healed” are two very different things. I’m not complaining now, though–I plan to bury the oncologist, and complain to her bereaved family in some future decade. Gotta have goals.

  93. 93.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    @xian:

    some sort of indictment of the artist based on his or her ethnic or racial background is reaching, bigoted, and pathetic.

    More intentional misreading of comments, as per usual. One of my points is that the sculptor should have been African American, not fucking Chinese. YOu know, China the communist country, not Chinese the ethnicity, you race obsessed weirdo.

  94. 94.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 17, 2011 at 9:30 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: And that you are a loud mouth shit eatin dog fucker. The kind we used to throw a blanket over and beat the shit out of in the barracks. punk

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 9:33 pm

    @PhoenixRising:

    No, I was being serious — if you can keep up with Balloon Juice, you’re a much better post-surgery patient than me. :-) I totally fell apart and made G wait on me hand and foot. I am not proud of it.

    Glad to hear it went well, and we’ll all send good vibes for a full recovery in all senses of the word.

  96. 96.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 9:34 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: Haven’t you noticed how we’re all in a twit about the way your true self is revealed.

  97. 97.

    ABL

    October 17, 2011 at 9:34 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Oh come the fuck on. my cross-post of hamden rice’s post was not a response to your “Sunday Morning Open Thread.”

    This may come as a surprise to you, Anne, but I no longer read your posts after your little Cornerstone is my bro, quit acting like Joe McCarthy ABL Sucksathon which was, as you may recall, entirely meritless and based on bullshit. Moreover, I didn’t respond to your “are you going to post about Shuttlesworth, you might be a better person to do so,” email because (a) we’re not pen pals; and (b) Emily Hauser (who isn’t black, by the way) had already posted quite eloquently about it at my blog.

    Your racial hang-ups are your own, and I request that you keep me out of it. I’m not interested in whatever crisis you seem to be in the throes of.

  98. 98.

    TooManyJens

    October 17, 2011 at 9:34 pm

    @Cat Lady: That is easily the most depressing thing I’ve read today. Because it’s so true.

  99. 99.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:36 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    And that you are a loud mouth shit eatin dog fucker. The kind we used to throw a blanket over and beat the shit out of in the barracks. punk

    Oh jesus, more faux butch macho military horse shit from the former and current warmonger. Still sucking that ever bountiful government teet with your never ending military retirement slush fund, blood sucker? Do you become erect when you think about beating people up? I bet you achieve completion when you think about killing.

    Psycho. Time to go back on the meds.

  100. 100.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:38 pm

    @ABL:

    ABL, Ever classy. Ever RACIST!

  101. 101.

    gogol's wife

    October 17, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    I am very proud to have this man as our president. Best one of my lifetime (agreeing with Thymezone). Yes, I’m an Obot and glad to be one.
    ETA: Sorry the thread has been highjacked.

  102. 102.

    Trurl

    October 17, 2011 at 9:43 pm

    Oh, hi, Ms. Angry Black Lady.

    Ready to address the drone bombing question?

  103. 103.

    TooManyJens

    October 17, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    @Anne Laurie: What? The Hamden Rice article was obviously about people using distorted visions of MLK to bash Obama, not white people saying anything about him at all.

  104. 104.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    Oddly, the African-Americans who actually chose the design and the sculptor disagree with you. But I guess you know what’s best for Those People, don’t you? Silly African-Americans, thinking they can make their own decisions without requiring your clearly superior input.

  105. 105.

    doofus

    October 17, 2011 at 9:47 pm

    @Trurl: Trying to remember the handle of the guy on Free Republic you remind me of.

  106. 106.

    David Fud

    October 17, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    I love Cleek’s pie filter. This thread is so full of yummy pie, and almost all of it came from Kola Noscopy. I recommend everyone feeding that troll get a helping of Cleek’s pie filter, and then you too could serenely note how much Kola Noscopy loves pie. I really love pie when Kola Noscopy talks about it.

  107. 107.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: You’re beyond redemption. What a horrible human being. You no longer deserve any reply.

  108. 108.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 17, 2011 at 9:49 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    Not sure if Obama’s the best in my lifetime, but he’s far, far better than his predecessor, the guy who gives Buchanan a run for the money in the “shitiest Preznit ever” competition.

    Don’t get me started on the shitty movie star, either.

  109. 109.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:50 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Again, with the view of African Americans as having ONE UNIVERSAL HIVE MIND, all thinking alike.

    Your racism is showing.

  110. 110.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    @Anya:

    You’re beyond redemption. What a horrible human being. You no longer deserve any reply.

    Oh good, Lord, now she’s Jesus Christ himself, dispensing redemption and condemnation from her toilet throne. Coming from you, ass-brain, your words of hatred are a source of comfort.

    I take it you condone threats and fantasies of violence, as long as they are dispensed by an alleged former U.S. military murderer in uniform. I’m sure Dr. King would be proud of the fact that you are in charge of husbanding his legacy of nonviolence.

  111. 111.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    October 17, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    @David Fud: Either the pie filter, or the site’s spam filter.

  112. 112.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 9:55 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    Yes, because I’m the one complaining that they didn’t pick the “right kind” of sculptor, ifyouknowwhatImean.

  113. 113.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    @David Fud:

    I really love pie when Kola Noscopy talks about it.

    Anyone who needs an alleged digital filter to protect themselves from words on a screen is indeed pathetic and weak.

    Oh that’s right…ABL claims to use it too. That makes sense.

  114. 114.

    mclaren

    October 17, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    BARACK OBAMA: “I have a dream. I dream that someday, all people, black and white, will be able to be murdered by the president of the united states of America without being charged with a crime or even indicted.”

    Not quite what MLK had in mind, methinks.

  115. 115.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 9:58 pm

    @mclaren:

    First and foremost, and the most important thing to consider in assessing the validity of your comment; nay, even the RIGHT of you to MAKE this comment is…what color is your skin?

  116. 116.

    Peter

    October 17, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    As of this comment, we have officially entered the Twilight Zone.

  117. 117.

    mclaren

    October 17, 2011 at 10:00 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Not sure if Obama’s the best in my lifetime…

    Depends how old you are. Twelve?

    Barack Obama is certainly the most eloquest and most inspiring speaker and writer to occupy the White House since John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, for all his eloquence, JFK was a shitty president. He got us into Vietnam (remember Vietnam?) and he nearly blew up the goddamn world by foolishly agreeing to place short-range missiles in Turkey, setting off the Cuban Missile Crisis.

    As a president, Obama has trashed the constitution and mostly continued the policies of his no-neck sociopathic predecessor, so it’s hard to distinguish twixt the drunk-driving C student and Obama, except on style.

  118. 118.

    Mnemosyne

    October 17, 2011 at 10:00 pm

    @mclaren:

    Trurl covered that way back in #43. Try to keep up.

  119. 119.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 10:06 pm

    @mclaren:

    Oh my dear…how intemperate.

  120. 120.

    Trurl

    October 17, 2011 at 10:10 pm

    ABL claims to use it too.

    That makes sense. The intellectual cowardice of the Obot would crave a “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” solution of that kind.

  121. 121.

    hildebrand

    October 17, 2011 at 10:10 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: Why is it that your default is rage and bitterness? Ok, you don’t like the sculpture, and you disagree with the President. Perfectly legitimate. Why is it though that you feel it necessary to state these positions (and respond to others) with the greatest amount of vituperation and scorn?

    You (and Mclaren and Trurl), theoretically voicing concern for the way in which King’s message has been lost by this President, turn on everyone else with tremendous viciousness – does this not seem at least somewhat hypocritical? If you are the standard bearers of King’s message, why do you only tear down? Why is it that you only use your words to wound? Can you not see the way in which your methods are counterproductive? Should we not be trying to find a better way?

    Responding to a post that is grounded in King’s dream by tearing ourselves apart hardly seems appropriate or productive. It hardly honors what King did. It creates an opportunity for the other side to get cheap, easy victories, because we are spending far too much time destroying each other. We don’t have time for such nonsense. We have work to do. (And yes, I shall now step down from my soapbox – but honestly, we don’t have any time to waste.)

  122. 122.

    Peter

    October 17, 2011 at 10:13 pm

    There’s nothing ‘cowardly’ about not subjecting yourself to the chatterings of the unhinged, the vicious, the nonsensical, and the offensive. Listening to them is just not a productive use of your time. I’d use the Pie Filter myself, except that my sense of morbid curiosity is too strong. I keep turning it off to see what crazy-ass thing mclaren or FourLoko’s come up with now.

  123. 123.

    Allan

    October 17, 2011 at 10:21 pm

    @hildebrand: Troll’s gotta troll.

  124. 124.

    jeff

    October 17, 2011 at 10:25 pm

    It’s a great speech, and a great moment. The memorial may seem superfluous to many in my generations, but I think it is very important, and Obama’s speech may gain weight in a few decades.

  125. 125.

    Anne Laurie

    October 17, 2011 at 10:26 pm

    @ABL:

    my cross-post of hamden rice’s post was not a response to your “Sunday Morning Open Thread.”

    I’m glad to hear that, because I didn’t think it was. However, it was a reminder that it’s easy for us white people to offend even without meaning to, by assuming our opinions deserve priority. (And it was actually Derrick Bell’s obituary I emailed to you, because I admired his work from a feminist perspective but I haven’t read his legal texts.)

  126. 126.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 10:29 pm

    Very Interesting: Marlon Brando, James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Charlton Heston, Joseph Minklelwitz, and Sidney Poitier, talk about the Civil Rights and their participation in the March to Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

  127. 127.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    October 17, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    .
    .
    @doofus:

    I feel kinda slow, cause I only now realized that Kola Noscopy, Trurl, and Uncle Clarence Thomas are the same person.

    I believe you meant to say, in a time-honored balloonbagger tradition, that any commenter who you don’t agree with is literally every other commenter you don’t agree with – which is not slow, but, rather, insane. (Not that you aren’t slow.) As for myself, I post here only under one name. Also too, you forgot to include Corner Stone in your multitudinous error, so troll better, racist troll.
    .
    .

  128. 128.

    ABL

    October 17, 2011 at 10:35 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Emily wrote about Mr. Bell as well — in the same post.

    And on that note, it looks like the pie to comment ratio is working in favor of the ABL Deranged, and as much fun as this has been, I think I’m going to go stick a fork in my eye and see if that’s even more fun. Not sure how to top this, but I’m sure going to try.

  129. 129.

    ABL

    October 17, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    There’s nothing ‘cowardly’ about not subjecting yourself to the chatterings of the unhinged, the vicious, the nonsensical, and the offensive. Listening to them is just not a productive use of your time. I’d use the Pie Filter myself, except that my sense of morbid curiosity is too strong. I keep turning it off to see what crazy-ass thing mclaren or FourLoko’s come up with now.

    Don’t you just love how the lunatics who repeat the same shit in my threads ad nauseum actually feel like they are intellectual giants for spewing said shit as compared to us mental little people who would rather not have to read that shit and have therefore used the pie filter?

    Makes one wonder just how empty their lives must be.

  130. 130.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    October 17, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    .
    .
    @Anne Laurie:

    Excuse me, but you are trying to reason with ABL, which is not her strong suit. Anger is her strong suit, followed closely by grifting when money is trump. Try reasoning with Reasonable Black Lady in future for better results (meaning, any results at all).
    .
    .

  131. 131.

    Shade Tail

    October 17, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    @Peter:

    Personally, I find that kind of odd. I don’t see why even morbid curiosity would drive anyone to view their posts. They’re such blithering dimwits, with one-note trolling that’s so predictable and boring that it’s impossible to feel upset about it. When I see one of their names at the top of a box, my eyes quite effortlessly jump to the next one. I don’t even need the pie filter to ignore them.

    The only time I pay any attention to them is when I counter-troll them for fun. They’re so stupid and uncreative with their own trolling that they fall for it every time.

  132. 132.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 10:39 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    I’m glad to hear that, because I didn’t think it was. However, it was a reminder that it’s easy for us white people to offend even without meaning to, by assuming our opinions deserve priority.

    I am sure you can differentiate between assuming that ones “opinions deserve priority” because you’re white, and talking about a true American hero. MLK belongs to all of us. All of us benifited from his legacy, so celebrating that legecy is not co-opting.

  133. 133.

    Allan

    October 17, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    @Kola Noscopy:

    I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

    In that case, it sucks to be you.

  134. 134.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 10:50 pm

    @Allan:

    If your inane comment made any sense, I’d respond in kind. Thanks for sparing me the time and trouble.

    Don’t you have some influential, locally famous, older gay daddy to be giving it up to tonight?

  135. 135.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    October 17, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    .
    .
    @Trurl:

    Oh, hi, Ms. Angry Black Lady. Ready to address the drone bombing question?

    Of course not. She checked out after you busted her on it, which is the perp’s standard modus operandi for answer avoidance.
    .
    .

  136. 136.

    Allan

    October 17, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: The prosecution rests.

  137. 137.

    clayton

    October 17, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    PUMA Anne Laurie comes out again.

    Give it a rest. Remember when you went off on the Christians captured by the pirates? I do.

    You have got some fucked up values. I guess Cole keeps you on for the pet and flowers show. That’s pretty insulting that he’s got you convinced to do that.

    Get over your hurt white feelings and join the rest of us in the 21st C why don’t cha?

  138. 138.

    Anne Laurie

    October 17, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    @ABL:

    Emily wrote about Mr. Bell as well—in the same post.

    … which did not appear on Balloon Juice. I am, hand to goddess, sorry that I offended you by forwarding Professor Bell’s obituary. His passing was rather overshadowed by Steve Job’s, and I believed it deserved at least a mention here, preferably by someone experienced enough to discuss the legal textbook for which he became famous.

  139. 139.

    eemom

    October 17, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    late to the, um, party — but fer fux sake, people. How could a thread about the dedication of the MLK memorial devolve into this mess?

  140. 140.

    clayton

    October 17, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Why is it that you have to deal with email here? What is you point?

  141. 141.

    clayton

    October 17, 2011 at 11:13 pm

    @eemom: Uhmm race is still a problem with some people, like some front pagers here? And some who think their number of posts equal something?

    I’m white and I am SO VERY TIRED OF WHITE PEOPLE WHINING.

    Do something about the poverty and illegitimacy in your own group instead of picking on the group that at least recognizes there is a problem.

    Makes me sick. AL is tip-toeing through this comments section trying to make her point, which could have been handled in an email. She started it.

  142. 142.

    suzanne

    October 17, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    I haven’t been all that impressed with the memorial from the photos I’ve seen, but I’ve decided to go see it in person next summer, and so I’m reserving judgment until then.

    Personally, I’m a bit over figurative statues in memorials. I prefer the spatial creation of mood, and a semi-illusionistic likeness invariably creates an almost idolatrous position between the viewer and the statue itself, which I generally find not very interesting. That paradigm has been done for hundreds is not thousands of years, and it’s boring, and we should invent a modern paradigm for the typology of the memorial. Not to mention, there’s always someone who thinks it doesn’t look enough like the subject, or that it’s too tall, or what have you, and that always ends up harshing the mellow, as it were.

    Someone always has to come in and piss on the floor.

  143. 143.

    mclaren

    October 17, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    @Peter:

    I keep turning it off to see what crazy-ass thing mclaren or FourLoko’s come up with now.

    It cannot possibly have escaped your notice that this defeats the entire purpose of the pie filter, can it?

  144. 144.

    Anya

    October 17, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    @eemom: I hate to admit it, but some of us were provoked by some assholes without a single redeemable quality.

  145. 145.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    October 17, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    Don’t you have some influential, locally famous, older gay daddy to be giving it up to tonight?

    And I wonder why I don’t comment here anymore.

    Kola, you are a wonder to behold.

  146. 146.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    October 17, 2011 at 11:25 pm

    @Anne Laurie: If I’m not mistaken, ABL mentioned my post as evidence that — oh hey now! She’s not a reverse, double-flip, triple-axle racist and a censoring despot after all! Because lo: I was able to write about Shuttlesworth and Bell [without so much as a by-your-leave!] and lived to tell the tale, my shiny-white skin notwithstanding. She shouldn’t have to point such things out, but in this crowd, she clearly does.

    It has been my impression that if we listen to people and treat them with respect, rather than attempting to tell them who they are and what they’re doing and why they’re doing it? Those people are more than likely to respect us in return. Revolutionary, I know, but there it is.

  147. 147.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    October 17, 2011 at 11:27 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Oops! This was supposed to be in reply to @Kola Noscopy. I cannot imagine why my subconscious might have chosen to forget to call old Kola by name.

  148. 148.

    mclaren

    October 17, 2011 at 11:28 pm

    @eemom:

    fer fux sake, people. How could a thread about the dedication of the MLK memorial devolve into this mess?

    Easy. Sociopaths like you open their mouths. For people determined to scream mindless insults and ignore the facts on the ground (Obama’s assassination order against an American citizen without even charging him with a crime; Obama’s continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich; Obama’s expansion of the murderous illegal drone program killing who-knows-how-many-hundreds of innocent women and children per month in Pakistan; Obama’s savagely predatory campaign against whistelblowers which far exceeds in brutality and scope that of any previous president; Obama’s assault against the constitutional rights of Bradlee Manning, who has now been imprisoned in solitary confinement without even being arraigned or charged with a crime in a court of law; Obama’s announced decision to cut medicare and social security in order to provide yet more funding for lawless military adventurism in third-world hellholes; Obama’s continuation and expansion of the Bush-era illegal surveillance of Americans never suspected of having committed any crimes…the list goes on), any opportunity to attack people who assert that the president of the united states has to obey the law seems to be a good one.

    I for one am tired of hearing honeyed words from people who order the murder of U.S. citizens without even charging them with a crime. I’m sick of listening to inspiring platitudes by powerful officials who then go on to tear up the constitution of the united states and wipe their asses with it.

    Maybe you and other equally gullible dupes think that mouthing some inspirational boilerplate makes up for cranking the throttle full-forward until America enters a supersonic powerdive into barbarism and collapse. I don’t. I evaluate people by their actions, not their words. On the basis of his actions, Barack Obama rates around a D+.

  149. 149.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 11:29 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:

    Kola, you are a wonder to behold.

    Gosh…thank you!

  150. 150.

    suzanne

    October 17, 2011 at 11:29 pm

    Kola reminds me of mclaren. Any, uh, relation?

    I think the face of the statue is carved as if to look like the subject is squinting into the sun. The furrows between the eyebrows and the lower eyelids don’t “look Asian”, but they do look as if the subject was squinting a bit. As the statue is positioned outside, this seems entirely sensible to me, as opposed to an entirely passive expression, a la Honest Abe.

  151. 151.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    October 17, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    For those of you wondering about the Pie Filter, it’s available here.

  152. 152.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 17, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:

    It has been my impression that if we listen to people and treat them with respect, rather than attempting to tell them who they are and what they’re doing and why they’re doing it? Those people are more than likely to respect us in return.

    Hmmmm…are you implying that the above is ABL’s mode of communication? Because if it is your implication, you are on drugs.

  153. 153.

    clayton

    October 17, 2011 at 11:38 pm

    @mclaren: But dude/dudette could you please pay attention to you homeys here at home who are poorer and more pregnant and weighing down our system more than any other minority?

    Could you worry about and DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM like now? Please?

    You fellow white people drag our system down more than any other group. Do you have any solutions?

  154. 154.

    clayton

    October 17, 2011 at 11:40 pm

    @Kola Noscopy: See my comment at #153.

  155. 155.

    Peter

    October 17, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    @mclaren: Which is why I said I don’t use it. Because my own personal morbid fascination is too great. It’s a fantastically useful tool for those who don’t share my failings.

    @Shade Tail: My life would probably be enriched by Pieing them and never thinking twice, but I just can’t help it. I’m built to trainwreckspot, I suppose.

  156. 156.

    LTMidnight

    October 17, 2011 at 11:47 pm

    I swear, if people like Kola, Trurl, mclaren, and Uncle Clarence Thomas didn’t have this blog site to troll at, they would’ve years ago either blown their goddamn brains out or be found sitting in a car with the tailpipe clogged up.

    Can someone help convince me those would be bad things?

  157. 157.

    suzanne

    October 17, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Please come back. I miss.

  158. 158.

    mclaren

    October 17, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    @ABL:

    Don’t you just love how the lunatics who repeat the same shit in my threads ad nauseum actually feel like they are intellectual giants for spewing said shit…

    Why does saying that the president of the united states has to obey the law make a person into a “lunatic”?

    Why is pointing out that persisting in a policy of illegal drone murders of innocent women and children “shit”?

    These seem like substantive arguments to me. Do you have some evidence or logic to show that these aren’t substantive arguments?

    If you want a really blockbuster argument, though, I’ll give you one, and it’s devastating. It deals directly with Barack Obama.

    The entire War on Terror is nothing but a War on Dusky People, and everyone recognizes it — and by perpetuating and expanding that illegal misbegotten War on Terror, Barack Obama has betrayed his own blackness in the most heinous and culpable way imaginable.

    The War on Terror is racist from top to bottom, and Barack Obama seems to be just fine with it. And the U.S. law enforcement goons are so racist and so ignorant that they don’t seem to make a distinction between what kind of innocent dusky people they brutalize in their crazy War on Terror. Our Terror Warriors are so panicky and so stupid and so brainfried with racist hate that they don’t even distinguish between middle eastern dusky people and black African-American dusky people.

    So by signing off on and participating in the hopelessly racist War on Terror, Barack Obama has become one of the main perpetrators of racism in America today.

    Consider this story about Vance Gilbert, a harmless black guy who got arrested and hauled off a plane because…well, basically, because he was black.

    This is where the misbegotten War on Terror is headed folks, and by partitipating in it and expanding it, Obama is casting his lot with the racists.

    Moreover, Obama has expanded and enhanced the War on Drugs, which is also a war on black people. If you don’t believe that, look at the stats: 4/5 of the people who use drugs in America are white, while 4/5 of the people who go to prison for drugs in America are black. The War on Drugs is pure racism from top to bottom, a barely-disguised Final Solution to the Negro Problem in America by racist law enforcement thugs who find it more convenient to gun down black people than lynch ’em.

    By partipating in and expanding the War on Drugs, Barack Obama has also cast his lot with some of the most racist policies in America.

    If you want to talk about racist public policy, let’s talk about the War on Terror and the War on Drugs and how Obama has shamefully betrayed his own blackness by signing on with both of those insane racist destructive policies.

  159. 159.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 17, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    @mclaren:

    Geeze, who peed in your Cheerios this morning?

    I am slightly older than 12. For example, when I was 11, my family got their first color TV. During the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Baby blue helmets ftw!

    It’s terribly early to pronounce judgement on Obama, given that he’s got pluses and minuses, and, for his entire term to date, and the rest of the current term, the opposition party has made it their business to attempt to block every damn thing he’s tried to do, almost to the point of stealing the eggs off the White House lawn the night before the Easter Egg Roll.

    Except for that Vietnam thing, LBJ wasn’t a bad President. He did, after all, shepherd through the Civil Rights laws of the 60’s in the face of a great deal of opposition, knowing that he’d write off the South for the Democrats for a generation, at least. Still written off, best I can tell.

    Nixon lied about Vietnam, but domestically did a lot of good things that would cause him to be labeled a “soshulist” by the modern GOP. Of course, he was a lying asshat about Watergate, which is a big plus for the modern GOP.

    Ford? Asshole gave the criminal Nixon a free pass. No soup for him. Also, WIN buttons were a joke.

    Carter had some good ideas, too, but poor skills with Congress, a penchant for micromanagement, and cultural issues that turned the MSM against him didn’t help any.

    Don’t get me started on the shitty movie star.

    Bush Sr. at least had the sense to stop the Gulf War when the stated objective was met and not go into the Imperial overreach mode. However, domestically, he was a vile liar for putting the entire shitty movie star S&L mess “off budget” and for covering for his bankrobber piece of shit 3rd son who should have been put in prison for life for bank robbing.

    Clinton? Best Republican President since Eisenhower. Ended “Welfare as we know it”. NAFTA. Oh, and the ultimate act of cowardice, signing the repeal of the most important parts of Glass–Steagall and thus directly giving us the financial mess of the first decade of the 21st Century.

    The deserting coward has already been mentioned as a leading contender for “worst Preznit evah.”

    So Obama, for all his flaws, and given he was given the keys to the Bush-Cheney designed Augean Stables as an inauguration gift, isn’t doing that bad. It would be helpful if McConnel’s head were put on a pike three years ago, though…

  160. 160.

    eemom

    October 17, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    @mclaren:

    pssst. Your Thorazine drip is empty again. Better call the nurse.

  161. 161.

    Anne Laurie

    October 17, 2011 at 11:56 pm

    @clayton:

    AL is tip-toeing through this comments section trying to make her point, which could have been handled in an email. She started it.

    Uhhmmm, a commentor here on Balloon Juice wondered why “only the black blogs and Booman” had posted about the MLK Memorial dedication. I said, for general attribution, that after an earlier post mentioning the rescheduling, there had been a post reprinting a very eloquent defense of Dr. King’s superior importance to African-Americans. Which I thought might have expressed a reason as to why some white bloggers would “hang back” and wait to see what African-American bloggers had to say before rushing in.

    As for the email, ABL was the one who brought it up, not me. I just wanted to make it clear that I didn’t intend to offend, in this instance. Derrick Bell was an important legal scholar & teacher, but I’m not a lawyer and have never read Race, Racism & American Law. Since it was easy to overlook the notice of Professor Bell’s death (especially given the simultaneous death of Steve Jobs, and even — to a lesser degree — Rev. Shuttlesworth), I thought that I should pass the NYT link to ABL… who, as an African-American lawyer, would be much more capable of properly assessing Prof. Bell’s contributions.

  162. 162.

    mclaren

    October 18, 2011 at 12:03 am

    @clayton:

    Do you have any solutions?

    We could start by ending the War on Terror and ending the War on Drugs and treating terrorism as a police matter, and treating drug addiction as a public health issue.

    Then we could move on to slash U.S. military spending from its current 1.2 trillion dollar level down to, oh, say, 200 billion dollars a year. That would eliminate most of our current deficit and as a result, the U.S. government would no longer have to cut social security and medicare, wouldn’t have to cut aid for K-12 and higher education, wouldn’t have to end unemployment benefits, and could actually afford retraining and education money for people who’ve been laid off in this devastating Great Recession.

    Moving on, we could primary Obama hard with a far-left candidate. Since the Republican presidential field is a collection of fringe lunatics who couldn’t get hired to run a 7-11, much less get elected, this is the perfect time to primary Obama. That would snap him to attention about his need to obey the constitution and stop pursuing the demented and sociopathic policies of his predecessor, the Drunk-Driving C Student and his torturer sidekick.

    Along the way, how about amping up these Occupy Wall Street protests until bankers can’t even get in the doors to steal money and congressmen can’t get into the offices to take bribes and senators can’t cross the street to the senate building where they can sign off on more illegal torture and murder and illegal aggressive foreign wars?

    Let congress and Wall Street that they don’t get into their goddamn offices until the basic problems of this country are addressed. If that means congress and Wall Street go berserk and call out the National Guard, well, that’s what you expect thugs like that to do. If it takes another Kent State to change America, so be it. The Vietnam war wasn’t ended by people sitting around on their asses sneering at everyone who disagreed with the war and screaming that people who called for ending the war were “talking shit.” The Vietnam war was ended when people go out on the street en masse and shut the goddamn government down until it paid attention to their demands.

    That’s a start. Those are at least some solutions.

    Where are the solutions offered by the people who describe any criticism of Barack Obama as “shit”?

    I’m not hearing any, buckaroo.

  163. 163.

    mclaren

    October 18, 2011 at 12:05 am

    @eemom:

    pssst. Your Thorazine drip is empty again. Better call the nurse.

    Why is saying that the president of the united states must obey the law a sign that I’m mentally ill?

    Do you have anything substantive to offer? Anything at all?

  164. 164.

    suzanne

    October 18, 2011 at 12:11 am

    @mclaren:

    Since the Republican presidential field is a collection of fringe lunatics who couldn’t get hired to run a 7-11

    And yet, those people got hired to run states, represent constituents in the federal government, and run large companies.

    You’re much less afraid of them than you should be, in my opinion.

  165. 165.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    October 18, 2011 at 12:14 am

    .
    .
    @mclaren:

    Why is saying that the president of the united states must obey the law a sign that I’m mentally ill?

    Because saying so may result in a conversation on the back nine among President Obama, John Brennan and other high-ranking members of the Judiciary, the result of which will put your name on a secret American citizen assassination list, and balloonbaggers are concerned that you will be taken out that way instead of their preferred method of dying in a fire that they would personally be willing to set since they’re all such good people like the bestest president ever.
    .
    .

  166. 166.

    Q.Q. Moar

    October 18, 2011 at 12:21 am

    @Trurl: “Were he still with us, what would the Reverend Doctor have to say about the President’s global drone bombing campaigns?” He’d probably be like, “aw dude, you’re harshin’ my mellow with your downer killer robot shit, man” because all re-animated people talk like Jeff Spicoli in my head because I’ve just smoked a substantial amount of hashish.

  167. 167.

    Mnemosyne

    October 18, 2011 at 12:22 am

    @mclaren:

    Obama’s assault against the constitutional rights of Bradlee Manning, who has now been imprisoned in solitary confinement without even being arraigned or charged with a crime in a court of law

    Perhaps if you could spell his name right, you’d know that Manning was, in fact, charged and has been out of solitary since he was moved to Ft. Leavenworth in April.

    But I realize that time means nothing to you and Bradley Manning will always and forever be held in solitary confinement without charges by the beastly Obama administration regardless of the actual, you know, facts.

  168. 168.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    October 18, 2011 at 12:26 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    I didn’t intend to offend, in this instance.

    Fascinating sentence there.

  169. 169.

    mclaren

    October 18, 2011 at 12:29 am

    @suzanne:

    At least we’re getting some sensible discussion, rather than vacuous name-calling.

    The “fear Republicans” card has been played too often by obots, methinks. The Republican party is demographically on its way out, and given the size of the backlash against the Republican governors and the Tea Party loons in congress, it looks like the Republican party is on its last gasp and fading fast.

    If we look at potential match-ups against Obama, the only Republican presidential candidate who scores reasonably well is Romney — and he can’t get nominated, since he’s a Mormon.

    Perry has crashed and burned, Ron Paul is such a lunatic (“Abolish the IRS!” Yeah. Right.) that even the Republican base won’t vote for him. Michelle Bachmann has had her 15 minutes and is headed for well-deserved obscurity.

    The numbers just don’t show Obama having much trouble with anyone other than Romney, who will never be the nominee (the fundamentalist Christian evangelicals would rather vote for the corpse of Stalin than Romney).

    In my opinion, all this “Be afraid! BE AFRAID OF THE OOGA-BOOGA TERRIBLE TERRIBLE REPUBLICANS!” talk is a scam used by Obama supporters in a failed and futile effort to portray their man as “the lesser of two evils” rather than as a guy who conducted the biggest bait-and-switch in the history of the American presidency and passed up one of the greatest opportunities for genuine change ever handed any president since FDR.

    Consider this Rasmussen poll showing that Obama wins by the same percentage against Perry as he would against Palin.

    The endless scare tactics of the War on Terror have gotten worn out and people no longer believe those lies. In the same way, the endless scare tactics of the obots are now wearing out, and I for one don’t buy the scam.

  170. 170.

    Allan

    October 18, 2011 at 12:29 am

    @mclaren:

    We could start by ending the War on Terror and ending the War on Drugs and treating terrorism as a police matter, and treating drug addiction as a public health issue.

    Explain how you’re going to pass legislation with this effect through Congress. Be specific.

    Then we could move on to slash U.S. military spending from its current 1.2 trillion dollar level down to, oh, say, 200 billion dollars a year. That would eliminate most of our current deficit and as a result, the U.S. government would no longer have to cut social security and medicare, wouldn’t have to cut aid for K-12 and higher education, wouldn’t have to end unemployment benefits, and could actually afford retraining and education money for people who’ve been laid off in this devastating Great Recession.

    Explain how you’re going to reduce the military budget to that level through the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives. Be specific. Also explain how the millions of American workers whose jobs are related to the defense industry will be re-deployed without worsening the unemployment situation, again by passing legislation through Congress.

    Moving on, we could primary Obama hard with a far-left candidate. Since the Republican presidential field is a collection of fringe lunatics who couldn’t get hired to run a 7-11, much less get elected, this is the perfect time to primary Obama. That would snap him to attention about his need to obey the constitution and stop pursuing the demented and sociopathic policies of his predecessor, the Drunk-Driving C Student and his torturer sidekick.

    Knock yourself out. Will you be joining forces with the New Progressive Alliance, who shares your goal, and has attracted a staggering 97 people to join their cause via Twitter and an even more overwhelming 415 on Facebook?

    Oh wait. Continuing to read your screed, I see that your solution is for unnamed other people to obstruct the government and prevent it from operating, then get themselves killed for their efforts.

    Will you be sitting back and watching all this bloodshed unfold on your flat-panel TV, with a bottle of lotion and box of tissues at your side to enhance your masturbation?

    You’re really living King’s dream, dude.
    Keep sticking it to The Man, dude. You are righteous.

  171. 171.

    eemom

    October 18, 2011 at 12:39 am

    @mclaren:

    That’s a start. Those are at least some solutions.

    cool. Why don’t you get busy implementing those instead of, you know, harassing random strangers on a blog.

    If you put your ass where your plentiful mouth is, maybe we all wouldn’t think you’re just a babbling lunatic.

  172. 172.

    mclaren

    October 18, 2011 at 12:39 am

    @Allan:

    Explain how you’re going to pass legislation with this effect through Congress. Be specific.

    The president of the united states, you may have noticed, is the head of the executive branch. That means he oversees the execution of policy.

    Obama has it within his power to order troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow. Congress has nothing to say about that. Obama has it within his power to propose a lower military budget, and if congress tries to pass a higher military budget, Obama can veto it, and if necessary sequester the funds. Don’t tell me it’s impossible. Republican presidents have sequestered funds.

    When you point out that congress is besotted with war and drunk on military spending, that’s an important point — but not nearly as important as the fact that the American people are besotted with war and drunk on military spending. The president has to start weaning congress and the American people off endless war and infinite increases in military spending. That’s the real key to reducing military spending in the long run, but proposing much lower military budgets is the way to do in the short run.

    Also explain how the millions of American workers whose jobs are related to the defense industry will be re-deployed without worsening the unemployment situation, again by passing legislation through Congress.

    It turns out that every dollar spent for the U.S. military actually generates far fewer jobs than any other expenditures, including domestic expenditures. In the short term, massive infrastructure spending could and should absorb displaced defense workers.

    America could use a second parallel rail system designed exclusively for passngers. America’s cities need to be redesigned for mass transit, an immense job. It involves knocking down lots of buildings and putting up lots of new ones. Along the way, Detroit needs to be completely retooled for sustainable electic vehicles.

    We need trillions of dollars worth of new sewer lines and new water mains and repaved roads and new schools. Do those projects sound like they could absord millions of displaced defense workers? They do to me.

    If your argument is “we’re so hopelessly addicted to military spending that if we tried to shift to a non-perpetual-war economy America’s GDP would collapse,” then you deny any possibility of change and you’re not living in the real world. Other countries have shifted away from a war footing. America can too.

    Will you be joining forces with the New Progressive Alliance…

    You’ve just committed the fallacy of the excluded middle. You’re telling us, in effect, that the only alternatives are Obama (a third Bush term) or some hopeless losers.

    Try again. The fallacy of the excluded middle doesn’t play now anymore than it played back in late 2006, when people like you assured us in terms of derogatory condescension, that our only alternatives were Hillary or Rudy Giuliani.

  173. 173.

    mclaren

    October 18, 2011 at 12:44 am

    @eemom:

    You first.

    I love the way people noted for their intemperate hysterical name-calling harrass anyone who makes a comment online because they’re not out there on the hustings, working for change in the street.

    Oh yeah?

    What about you?

    Why are you still here?

  174. 174.

    Allan

    October 18, 2011 at 12:51 am

    @mclaren:

    Obama has it within his power to order troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow.

    He also ordered the closing of Guantanamo. And Congress, which controls the actual pursestrings, told him to go piss up a rope.

    I’m sorry that Obama failed to turn out to be Hugo Chavez, but those of us who actually read his writings and his position papers never expected him to rule as a dictator, but instead to work within the representative democracy to move our country in a better direction. Which is why people like me ignored those who claimed in 2006 that our only alternatives were Hillary or Rudy Giuliani, and backed Senator Obama, the calm, consensus-oriented pragmatist, and continue to be extremely pleased with what he has been able to accomplish.

    My reference to the NPA was in response to a paragraph you wrote that virtually replicates the NPA’s platform. You are indeed hopeless losers.

  175. 175.

    Allan

    October 18, 2011 at 12:52 am

    @mclaren: Umm, because it was you, not eemom, calling for unnamed others to go and throw their bodies into the gears of government and martyr themselves?

  176. 176.

    mclaren

    October 18, 2011 at 12:57 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    Thanks for screaming your usual sociopathic lies. The government has zero case against Bradley Manning because, as you know, Wikileaks is specifically set up to make it impossible to prove that any particular person uploaded information to Wikileaks. No record is kept in the Wikileaks system that would make it possible to backtrack to the i.p. address from which the information was allegedly uploaded. Even Julian Assange can’t tell who uploads info to Wikileaks. The sysadmins have no way of telling who uploaded info to the system. (Courts in RIAA cases have repeatedly held that an i.p. address is not an identity, by the way, since anyone can log into and someone a computer.)
    Therefore the only “evidence” against Pvt. Manning is his uncorroborated claim that he uploaded the information. But anyone can say that. I could say I uploaded the information to Wikileaks — that doesn’t make it true.

    Obviously you think 500 days of detention without trial is entirely reasonable. Apparently you’ve never read the fifth or sixth or eighth or fourteenth amendments of the constitution, Mnemosyne. But since you seem more concerned about attacking people who point out that the government can’t ignore the constitution than criticizing the U.S. government’s lawless and unconstitutional behaviour, clearly you have bigger fish to fry than the abandonment of due process and the rule of law with respect to Bradley Manning.

    Does anyone on this thread spend their time doing anything but screaming insults at the people who are pointing out that the government is behaving in a lawless and unconstitutional manner, and that America is today abandoning the basic fundaments of the rule of law which have underpinned civil society in the West since the Magna Carta?

  177. 177.

    mclaren

    October 18, 2011 at 1:02 am

    @Allan:

    Thanks for telling that deliberate lie. I have repeatedly called for non-violent demonstrations. How the authorities react to non-violent mass demonstrations is their business. Neither I nor the demonstrators can control that.

    By once again blaming the victim, you once again offer us an argument intellectually bankrupt and morally void: “Ooohhh, ooohh, we can’t go and protest en masse because if we did, the government might shoot people, and then, ooohhh, ooohhh, WE’D BE RESPONSIBLE for all those deaths!”

    Horseshit.

    Get some spine, kiddo. To effect change, people must take the chance of possible over-reaction by the authorities. If you don’t like that, emigrate to some other country where democracy is not an option.

  178. 178.

    LTMidnight

    October 18, 2011 at 1:05 am

    @mclaren:

    Moving on, we could primary Obama hard with a far-left candidate. Since the Republican presidential field is a collection of fringe lunatics who couldn’t get hired to run a 7-11, much less get elected, this is the perfect time to primary Obama. That would snap him to attention about his need to obey the constitution and stop pursuing the demented and sociopathic policies of his predecessor, the Drunk-Driving C Student and his torturer sidekick.

    Please define “primary HARD”. Because whether you want to admit this or not, Obama has racked up a substantial progressive record in 3 short years. And your fantasy moonbat candidate would have to explain how he would top that.

    Not to mention that “primary HARD’ means that fantasy moonbat candidate would actually be trying to win. Since the vast majority of African Americans are going nowhere as far as Obama is concerned, this guy would have to cater to getting the white vote, which means it would make the racial issues that happened during the Obama-Clinton primary look like Disneyland.

  179. 179.

    Allan

    October 18, 2011 at 1:06 am

    @mclaren:

    Get some spine, kiddo. To effect change, people must take the chance of possible over-reaction by the authorities. If you don’t like that, emigrate to some other country where democracy is not an option.

    You first.

  180. 180.

    Allan

    October 18, 2011 at 1:10 am

    @mclaren:

    Let congress and Wall Street that they don’t get into their goddamn offices until the basic problems of this country are addressed. If that means congress and Wall Street go berserk and call out the National Guard, well, that’s what you expect thugs like that to do. If it takes another Kent State to change America, so be it. The Vietnam war wasn’t ended by people sitting around on their asses sneering at everyone who disagreed with the war and screaming that people who called for ending the war were “talking shit.” The Vietnam war was ended when people go out on the street en masse and shut the goddamn government down until it paid attention to their demands.

    Confused. You call me a deliberate liar for pointing to this paragraph, in which you mistakenly claim that the martyrdom of some college kids at Kent State, along with some other unnamed actions that I must have slept through that “shut the goddamn government down”.

    PS the Vietnam War ended via the Paris Peace accords, and the actions of… wait for it… Congress.

  181. 181.

    No one of importance

    October 18, 2011 at 1:16 am

    For fuck’s sake – will all you morons stop talking about pie?

    It’s bad enough that resident bigot eemom hates us fat people, but now there are dozens and dozens of comments here all talking about delicious food!

    Even the resident bigot does it. Mind you, maybe eating pie is her secret vice.

  182. 182.

    LTMidnight

    October 18, 2011 at 1:18 am

    @mclaren:

    Along the way, how about amping up these Occupy Wall Street protests until bankers can’t even get in the doors to steal money and congressmen can’t get into the offices to take bribes and senators can’t cross the street to the senate building where they can sign off on more illegal torture and murder and illegal aggressive foreign wars?
    Let congress and Wall Street that they don’t get into their goddamn offices until the basic problems of this country are addressed. If that means congress and Wall Street go berserk and call out the National Guard, well, that’s what you expect thugs like that to do. If it takes another Kent State to change America, so be it.

    Real brave with other people’s lives, aren’t you kid?

    You wanna impress me, make sure it’s YOUR head getting bashed in for the cause.

  183. 183.

    eemom

    October 18, 2011 at 1:28 am

    @LTMidnight:

    Please define “primary HARD”.

    omg, are you sure you want to go there? Cuz I’m pretty sure that mcpsycho’s very own personal concept of “primary hard” involves sex toys.

  184. 184.

    Mnemosyne

    October 18, 2011 at 1:31 am

    @mclaren:

    Therefore the only “evidence” against Pvt. Manning is his uncorroborated claim that he uploaded the information. But anyone can say that. I could say I uploaded the information to Wikileaks—that doesn’t make it true.

    You said he was being held “without charges.” That is 100 percent false, but I’m not surprised you tried to lie your way out of it and claim you said something else even though your previous post is right here on the page.

    Manning is not being held without charges. That is a lie. A lie that you told right here on this page.

    Apparently you’ve never read the fifth or sixth or eighth or fourteenth amendments of the constitution, Mnemosyne.

    Clearly, neither have you:

    No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

    Cpl. Manning is not a civilian. He’s in the military. The Fifth Amendment very clearly says that it does not apply to him.

    But you keep on with your crazy paranoid rants despite, you know, the actual facts. It does amuse me to watch you say one thing and then immediately claim that you said the opposite right in the very same thread.

    Oh, and don’t forget to tell me that I fuck the corpse of Pol Pot while watching Holocaust films. That’s always your most rational argument.

  185. 185.

    AxelFoley

    October 18, 2011 at 2:05 am

    @askew:

    Thanks for front paging this incredible speech. I found it really telling that the major lefty blogs ignored the event. They seem to have no problem using MLK Jr’s name to push their agenda, but have no interest in this event. The only blogs I saw this event given major coverage was black blogs and Booman Tribune.

    Interesting, ain’t it?

  186. 186.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    October 18, 2011 at 2:11 am

    @AxelFoley: I was not aware of the speech either. As much as they would deny it, an awful lot of the lefty blogosphere take their cues from the MSM, who also ignored it.

    ETA: I saw stories about it on several local news broadcasts yesterday, and none of them mentioned the President being there.

  187. 187.

    suzanne

    October 18, 2011 at 2:28 am

    Good Lord. This thread is like driving a long way to get shot.

  188. 188.

    AxelFoley

    October 18, 2011 at 2:29 am

    @suzanne:

    Kola reminds me of mclaren. Any, uh, relation?

    Kola, mclaren, Uncle Clarence, Trurl–they’re all the same kind of asshole.

  189. 189.

    Thymezone

    October 18, 2011 at 2:40 am

    @ABL:

    Suggestion: Thread top poster gets to top-pie commenters who just use whatever thread you start as a platform for the same tired crap day in and day out. Just pie them with the AutoPie feature that I hope is built into WordSuppress, or whatever they call the Dollar Store software used here.

    Call it the Herman Cain Memorial Electrified Posting Fence.

  190. 190.

    Uriel

    October 18, 2011 at 2:41 am

    @suzanne: That’s pretty awesome, what you said there.

  191. 191.

    Suffern ACE

    October 18, 2011 at 4:19 am

    Criminies. Objections to the memorial perhaps were aired a earlier than today, but I’m sensing that today is a bit late to be bitching. Although, I admit, I’ve always thought Mount Rushmore would look better if Jefferson and Roosevelt were swapped…

  192. 192.

    Miranda

    October 18, 2011 at 7:04 am

    The same ole emoprogs trying to demean the MLK Memorial huh? Why don’t they put the sheets on already and claim those feelings outright?

  193. 193.

    HeartlandLiberal

    October 18, 2011 at 7:51 am

    On a curved black granite wall behind the table is engraved Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s well-known paraphrase of Amos 5:24 – We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

    Civil Rights Memorial, Montgomery Alabama City Profile

    Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial

  194. 194.

    Paul in KY

    October 18, 2011 at 9:22 am

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Has he ever walked that back or does he still stand by those comments?

  195. 195.

    Kola Noscopy

    October 18, 2011 at 11:11 am

    @Thymezone:

    Suggestion: Thread top poster gets to top-pie commenters who just use whatever thread you start as a platform for the same tired crap day in and day out. Just pie them with the AutoPie feature that I hope is built into WordSuppress, or whatever they call the Dollar Store software used here.

    You have the censorious urges typical of fearful intellects.

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