I do not support Barack Obama MLK...
I do not work for him. I do not owe him my allegiance, my servitude, my unquestioning loyalty. I do not worship him. He is not my king, my pope, or my savior.
sigh, he did not say anything...
I know everyone many in this community are split. Those Some believe everything Obama MLK says is gold and those some that criticize him for being lackluster. But tonight. I expected some specifics, I wanted a WIN, but got an inspiring, la-de-da speech. Nothing of specifics.
I have lost all faith in Obama MLK to actually change any aspect of our corporate controlled government... Obama MLK could put Cheney Nixon in charge of an energy task force and there would still be those who would support him "He's making Cheney Nixon make up for his past transgressions!"
Bullshit.
If Keith Olbermann, rips Barack Obama MLK, you know he doesn't get it. Words will not save him, not after this. Until his behavior changes, until some asses get kicked..., he still won't get it.
If we seek on marginalizing people just because they don't show "sufficient loyalty" to the President MLK simply by voicing concerns on policy issues, then this site will become smaller and smaller, and we're all inside our own bubbles with people we choose to speak with and to listen from. That sort of ideological bubble does not sit well with me, because what good is hiding from criticism?
And yet, basically what we got, in spades, was sentiment. To be sure, it was no doubt deeply felt.
Fake President Maddow Malcolm X NAILS it.
...
I saw posts here all day asking me what I wanted to hear from the President MLK last night.
I have an answer for you right now:
I wanted to hear exactly what Rachel Maddow Malcolm X said tonight.
NOT ONE WORD DIFFERENT.
If I can understand people's frustration with seeing a speech by a Democratic president MLK criticized in a venue such as mine, why is it impossible for some people here to accept my frustration about the speech? You don't agree with me, fine. You don't want to watch because you don't agree with me, fine...
You want Cheerleaders? Hire the Buffalo Jills. You want diaries with conspiracy theories, go nuts. If you want this site the way it was even a year ago, let me know and I'll be back.
Look people. If liberals had been busy tearing down MLK like they are with Obama, there quite possibly wouldn't have been a Civil Rights movement as successful as what we saw. We needed a leader, and yes to some degree we had to overlook his failings at the time in order for him to have the moral mandate to lead. That's just part of winning.
MLK wasn't perfect. Barack Obama isn't perfect. But both of them are leaders and if the progressive agenda is going to be realized in policy as we all want, they need to be seen by the public in the best light possible.
We can go on tearing down our own leaders in some sort of "search for purity and truth," but it's not going to do anything but hurt our own cause. Let the Richard Nixons of the world tear down our guys. They're happy to do it and there's no shortage of them.
MLK wasn't the most liberal leader of his time. Back then a lot of liberals preferred Malcolm X's approach. Where MLK took a more moderate path, Malcolm X wanted to kick asses. And I get it. I understand why many liberals preferred Malcolm X's techniques and the way he delivered his message. I get the frustration and the desire to vent everything you're thinking.
But when you start attacking men like MLK or Obama because of this frustration, you start hurting your own cause.
If blogs existed in 1964, MLK would have been criticized loudly by many liberals as a pretty bad family man, a moderate wimp who wasn't doing all he should to advance his cause, and a failure. They'd have said he was colluding with Republicans in order to keep blacks from getting everything they deserved.
So just stop it. Get on board and start playing the game. Many of you may value exposing every last grain of truth over actually winning on our policy agenda, but there's far too many people who are actually suffering both in this country and overseas for us to miss the forest for the trees.
Our agenda rises and falls on the back of Barack Obama. Progressives elected him. We own him. If we tear him down after putting him in office, why would the rest of the country trust us to choose the next leader? They won't. The more we tear him down, the more we hurt our own agenda. We can go on shouting about how we want Rachel Maddow to be the voice of our movement, just like many liberals would have and did shout about how they wanted Malcolm X to be the voice of their movement. But if those people gain too much of a podium and they tear down guys like MLK or Obama enough, our agenda will fail, and fail tragically. Count on it.