Famous last words
 |
|
Wreath marks the spot |
On this day, the 40th anniversary of MLK’s assassination:
King’s last words on the balcony were to musician Ben Branch… who was scheduled to perform that night… “Ben, make sure you play ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.” [Link]
Gandhi’s memorial (or Samadhi) at Raj Ghat, New Delhi, bears the epigraph “He Ram”… These are widely believed to be Gandhi’s last words after he was shot… [Link]
Just five years ago, comedian Chris Rock made Head of State. It was seen as a far-fetched comedy about the first black president. Racism was deployed in its fictional campaign:
Klansman: Hi, I’m a Klansman. I hate niggers, Jews, and fags, but I love Bryan Lewis!
Osama Bin Laden: Yo yo wassup I’m Osama Bin Laden. I hate America but I love Bryan Lewis. [Link]
And here we are, seven months from making the first black president happen, and the satire is coming to life. The entire machinery of institutionalized racism is arrayed against the candidate. John McCain claimed today he had no idea MLK was important at the time — years after MLK had won the Nobel and toured India (thanks, AK). He just hired the smear-peddlers who called his Bangla daughter the bastard child of a black ho:
Doug Davenport, a founder of the DCI Group and the head of its lobbying practice, is slated to become one of the McCain campaign’s ten regional campaign managers… McCain allies have long believed that DCI… provided logistical support to the operatives who ran an underground smear campaign against McCain before the South Carolina primary in 2000 — that they they oversaw and participated in push polling that attacked McCain, Cindy McCain for her well-chronicled drug addiction, and McCain’s adopted daughter Bridget. [Link]
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has gone on Fox, thanked Karl Rove and won plaudits from Richard Mellon Scaife. Prominent Republicans are going on TV pretending to confuse Obama with bin Laden, a childish NLP trick about as subtle as Mystery the pickup artist. And yet Obama still leads.
On November 4th, will we be free at last?
on Friday, April 4th, 2008, 2:48 pm in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, History, Issues, John McCain, Politics, Religion › 
Email this
› 
Facebook this
› 
Reddit this
› Link
› Reader links
Leave it to John McCain to try to use his military service, of all things, as an excuse for not being aware of the importance of the civil rights movement and Dr. King’s legacy:
McCain didn’t deploy to Vietnam until March 1967 — it’s pretty implausible that he wouldn’t have been aware of King’s work by then.
But maybe he just misspoke because he was sleep-deprived.
Wow. Classy MLK day post.
Hyperbole, much?
Manish,
Be fair - you know that Scaife has piled onto Hillary viciously in the past .Her act of meeting him one on one is at the very least a brave one - read what he said. When she does not try and bridge differences , she is criticized for being divisive.When she does , it s taken out of context.
Care to refute?
It’s an enemy-of-my-enemy maneuver, and it’s morally empty.
The entire machinery of institutionalized racism is arrayed against…blah blah blah.
Sorry, I don’t have to refute anything. That statement is kind of over the top.
*You might be surprised to know that I’m very ambivalent about McCain, and, to my great shock and surprise, I think I slightly prefer Hillary to Barack. I know. I may vote or I may sit this one out.
**You know who you remind me of when you are in political mode? Ace of Spades, the righty blogger. I mean, it’s the same snark and the same, er, selective eye, just trained in a different direction. I do not mean this as an insult. If I were lefty inclined, I would find Manish-Olbermann hilarious. I’m just in a different place these days politically. I was way over the top last time around, and I’m so over it.
***Admit it, except for the thrill of our first post-racial (except for Wright’s nonsense and excuses for) candidate, they are all problematic in one way or another, aren’t they?
Senator ‘Community Organizer’ versus Senatory ‘35 Years of Experience’ versus Senator ‘Baseball Hearings’. Oh dear.
Manish,
Do you seriously include HRC in your charges of institutionalized racism?
Come on ! I wanted to let you have the last word (” morally empty ” - it is your blog) - but I missed this till MD pointed it out :-)
Fair enough. A refutation in blank verse :)
Runa, are you clicking these links? In the last two months Hillary has tried to enlist the support of some of the pillars of the right-wing noise machine. It’s astonishing, and sad.
This is the hyperbole part of the post.
great post manish, i like how you connect the dots ;-)
Thanks :)
Not with Obama, the equivocator-in-chief. But I’m sure he will make us feel all warm and fuzzy about it. And isn’t that what matters ultimately?
So Rahul, are you voting for McCain in November?
Obama is certainly the better of the two, but let’s not make him out to be anything more than he is - a clever politician who looks out for himself.
… and a waystation on a line of history running through Gandhi and MLK. Which is hardly an original observation.
Ok :)
Seriously though, I understand the value of compromise on the less important stuff to get leverage on things you really care about, but so far, all that Obama has expended his political capital on is his campaign for president.
His ability to articulate what is right is sadly not matched by his ability to do what is right.
Ironically, if Dr. King was alive today he probably would be meeting w/ McCain and would not approve of the jeering. Also, I hope I’m not quibbling but all reports I’ve read have the push-polling in 2000 referring to McCain’s “illegitimate black child” not that he had a child with a prostitute. They also had smears referring to his wife’s “drug addiction”.
As an aside, King was much more popular with white Americans in the 60s before he took on labor issues and his anti-Vietnam stance.
B/c of America’s “original birth defect” one will never win an argument against voting against MLK day. That being said I don’t find it anymore offensive than Obama’s preacher problem…I still haven’t heard a good argument defending his association w/ Wright from either the candidate, his surrogates, the media or real offline people. That being said what Obama has done and been doing is simply amazing. Philosophical precedents notwithstanding, a man who came out of “nowhere” is poised to be the next President with full institutional support. The black Kennedy comparison is so silly, Kennedy was handed a Congressional seat and had his book written for him.