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(courtesy of methodshop via flickr.com)
I know I’ve been pretty critical of you off and on, Mr. President, but I’ve just been tryin’ to keep you on your toes, ‘holding your feet to the fire’ , ‘making you do it’ and all that doo-rah the Democrats tell the rest of us we have to do. But my goodness, when your email came in on Friday with your suggestions as to how we might help our nation in the spirit of MLK…I was simply staggered by the evidence of your generous nature, and the degree to which you have channeled his visions so magnificently. I’m almost sorry now that I ever doubted you.
In part, your message said:
Join the National Day of Service
On Saturday, January 19, President Obama and the First Lady, the Vice President and Dr. Biden will take part in an event that’s become a tradition — a National Day of Service on the weekend of Martin Luther King Day to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy. [snip]
No matter where you are in America, you have an opportunity to join this effort and serve your community. The Presidential Inaugural Committee has helped to organize events all over the country.
This National Day of Service is about strengthening the communities that we call home, and that’s a goal that we can all share.
So on Saturday, take part in a food drive or help paint a school. Clean up a park or help make care packages for veterans.
There are many ways that all of us can make a difference in our communities and our neighborhoods.
Then you gave some links to service opportunities near us; thank you. What a revolutionary idea that it’s up to us good citizens to take care of each other, not just simply depend on our President or government to find them jobs, extend unemployment benefits retroactively, and make sure none of our brothers and sisters ever go to bed hungry, or not know where their next meals might come from. I’m now convinced that in your heart you care about us, and that if it weren’t for those wicked Republicans, things might be different if you had your way.
Some of us have been wondering, Mr. President, about what legacy you might hope to construct during your next four years in the Oval, but given your suggestion that we should paint a school, it may just be a hint that you really do want to be known as ‘The Education President’ as you’d enunciated long ago. You and Arne have worked so diligently at making our schools better, especially for people of color and the poor. By partnering with our boldest and brightest captains of industry, you’re effecting exactly the change they were after, and for that I know we all thank you. Schools should be palaces, shouldn’t they, and celebrate our natural curiosities, imaginations, and quests for discovery? I’ll grab a brush when it’s warmer outside!
And oh, how very dear it is of you it is to remember our veterans. Some people say that your never-ending military actions and budget would make MLK roll over in his grave; some even say that you have no right to even speak his name. But gosh, what they don’t remember is that in Dr. King’s day, there weren’t so many nations needing our help to bring democracy to them, nor terrorists to kill. He couldn’t have imagined that radical Islamists are on the increase for some reason, and we know that they must be terminated, eh? And so our brave soldiers need all the care packages we can muster.
Still, with all due respect, may I offer a few suggestions for your next year’s MLK Day hints for National Service Day? You might suggest that we pitch in and help build some of the thousands of critically dangerous bridges (I know how you love ‘bridging’ things), and perhaps advise us to send psychoactive pharmaceuticals to our brave soldiers so that they might ease their suffering? Maybe coupons for health clinics? Or…and I’m just spitballin’ here…we could even send bootstraps abroad through the land, maybe toss basketsful of them around town squares, in the ghettoes, barrios, and…who knows? Food kitchens, and see who grabs them up!
But onward and upward, or really… just a mite backward (in time, anyway):
Last week when David Plouffe’s email came from the White House, I was a little baffled that he was so thrilled by the vast amount of evidence that we have your back, Mr. President. But now, with your leadership on the thousand points of light that it is our bounden duty to bring to our brothers and sisters in this country, I see what Mr. Plouffe really meant. And he is goddam right: we do have your back, and we must! Now that I understand the nobility of our citizens’ jobs in aid of our people…May I humbly offer it to you to use in your inaugural address?
“Ask not what your President can do for you…ask what you can do for your President.”
With your principled help, we can achieve the true revolution of values that this nation so desperately requires. Wisdom, justice and love will be your bywords for the next four years.
68 Comments
Well, the president don’t email me no more . . . but I am glad you are keeping up with him over this busy inaugural weekend. I can’t turn on the TV without seeing him and the missus, with her fancy new bangs, doing some wonderful thing or other for some unfortunate. I also happened to see this on TV this morning from Tavis Smiley, who says Barack Obama is not exactly the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream:
Your sarcasm is scathing, scalding, caustic and wielded as a Samurai master wields a sword, Wendy. (standing ovation).
Brilliant. Rec’d.
^What the Barbarian says….
Highly rec’d, of course!
Baseball analogy – GRAND SLAM.
Thank you.
Wendy, somehow your “God . . . in Pencil” diary, which I’ve never read, is back on the rec list too. It’s wonderful. MLK’s voice makes me feel the spirit, every time.
That there’s really holdin’ his feet to the fire, eh? ‘He shouldn’t be boxed in by his blackness’, oy. Doesn’t even to know what’s going on with black stats and people. Thank you, hfc. ;o)
I was trying for under-stated satiric irony, but…I may have strayed a bit toward the end. ;o) Hearing that MLK video…leaves me in tears.
Thanks, Barbarian.
Thank you, T; hope your kids are enjoying life and even school. ;o)
Masterful! Thank you Wendy, I hope he reads it.
And the day after Stan Musial’s death is a good analogy to float, nonquixote. His smile lit up whole stadiums, no? Always see him on an early Topps card with a green background looking a bit over his shoulder at the camera…with that smile.
I had stuck the link into a comment to juliania on my recent Idle No More prayer day post. Guess somebody rec’d it. I kinda liked it too, and the hope for Dems shows its age. ;o)
I was really glad to see Tavis say those things today. It made me think of all the co-opting by Obama of MLK in 2008/2009; that was some heavy duty propaganda. Now we know that Obama’s the type who would have put Martin in jail, or worse.
Norah Jones sported her bangs first, maybe they’re nostalgic for that Ernie Bushmiller Nancy look. In many ways the president reminds me of Sluggo, most of all (as wendydavis reminds us) by always promising to clean up his yard.
Have not followed baseball since the Braves called Milwaukee home, but I remember that Musial fellow and many names from the era. Just liked the way you loaded the bases and then let it rip. Error free at 1st and batted 390 my first two years in high school. Wish my ‘record,’ was still that good. ;^) Bread baking and soup simmering, thanks again.
Tavis was interviewed at Democracy Now last week, guessing much the same message, as I didn’t see today’s show.
Stan always got cheered at Forbes Field, being a hometown hero from Donora, a steel mill town along the Monongahela River. My first and only Rawlings mitt was a Stan Musial three-finger model I bought at Honus Wagner Sporting Goods. Funny, Stan won the NL batting title in 1957, Ted Williams won the AL batting title that year also, both as ancient players.
Thanks for the memories, wendydavis …
Well done, wendydavis. I’m clapping along with that guy @ 2 wearing the cool horned helmet.
The contrast between MLK and BHO couldn’t be greater, as you expertly illustrate.
As jaded as I am, hearing MLK’s voice made me feel sad and teary-eyed. Our loss was incalculable when he was assassinated.
Highly recommended!
Satiric irony much appreciated, wendy.
Fer them what missed it, I offer this “perspective” from Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/don%E2%80%99t-you-dare-conflate-mlk-and-obama
DW
yes, Ouch.
Obama is the opposite of MLK.
Welcome, mtquinn, but…we ain’t on the best of terms, really, so it’s hard to picture. But: your mouth to the goddess’s ears… ;o)
I may have scanned the page too quickly, hfc, and with the few sentences I did see…low-balled his criticism. But: a pretty good Prez he ain’t, imo. Except for banks and multinationals, of course, and in that category: the MICC/Newsotainment crowd.
Love the image, nonquixote. My guess is ya got some pretty decent game, if not as a pitcher. I lost interest in baseball when McMorris fired the Rockies’ manager Don Baylor. Fuck him, I say. ;o)
Good-o on the bread. My Tues. three sourdough loaves sucked, and I have to make more tomorrow. Bugger. Allus somethin’, isn’t there, lol?
I am listening to the Democracy Now interview that nonquixote linked to. Tavis is being pretty upfront about how he feels. Perhaps not to the degree of Glen Ford, but still . . . he and Cornel West are two people who might get Obama’s attention on the poverty issue. Of course I won’t hold my breath.
Wow, a three-fingered glove; don’t reckon I’ve ever seen one in person.
Mr. wd reminded me that Stan was super-supportive of Jackie Robinson, too, but…his kindness easily would have meant extending his hand.
Glad you sailed into baseball memory land, AitchD. I sure loved the ‘Eight Men Out’ you sent me. I love horse-racing and baseball movies and books (well, not that one with Susan Sarandon so much, but the rest). ‘Boys of Summer’: ooh la la, ‘The Natural’: same.
Wow, Obama writes quite a bona fide supplicatory letter – I guess he’s learned something from the truckloads of mail piling up in the White House basement.
Too bad he didn’t return to the role of citizen advocate. He’s so good at it.
The fact that this fascist bastard who plays a black American President on TV is using Dr King’s Bible as a prop for his second coronation is reason enough for some good ol’ fashioned sarcasm.
Since the Spanish Inquisition isn’t around when we need them, that’s the best we can do.
We cried, too, amigo. And he’s sincerely emblematic of what I wish Christians (or any religious) were. He was so tuned into the ether or the creator…that he forecast his own death, and gave us these literally timeless speeches. Change a few weapons, a few nations…and it rings the bell of truth for today.
We have to stop all this stuff; we’re the only ones who can, at least from these shores.
So glad you liked it.
@DWBartoo The Glen Ford piece says it all.
Well, I admit Glen’s was one of the ones I was referring to above, lol. But really, when that email came in I was reading the Dec. drone report from Stanford I linked to in the post, and a few other Obomba dastardly doin’, and I literally was frozen by it. Once I turned into a stone gargoyle and could see the smoke comin’ out of ears in my peripheral vision…I knew I couldn’t let it go beggin’.
The man has some brass balls to make those suggestions. Did you picture someone takin’ a can of green beans to a food bank? It’s always the poorest that give the most.
So glad you liked it, DW; you are a fan of scathing satire. ;o)
Can we stick a pin in that hope, dear one? Yeah, Mr. wd heard it, too.
It’s just that…Cornell voted for him!
He (or his writers) do know the people-pleasing language, alright. But if he’d even been *half* a citizens’ advocate…my stars.
The WH emails are always lessons in glib hypocrisy, but this one and Plouffes’: ‘he knows you’ve got his back’…pissed me purple.
And a second one; a Jefferson bible is it? But speaking of coronation, you may like the art and the poem from Nat Turner, year by year. Part of 2013:
Whoosh.
Suprise and Fear and Fear and Surprise, and ruthless efficiency.
Amazing and deft slice-and-dice of what is a pretty perfunctory annual event.
President Obama (and his delegatees) don’t e-mail me anymore. I guess I didn’t do enough whitehouse.gov petitions.
This sort of “pretend to be social” one-way communication from Washington is at the top of my list for what has to be changed about the place. It runs counter to the technological direction of social media, which two-way authentic political communication. And even third parties adopt this dysfunctional method.
To try to seem all chummy in addition to that is well worth the sacarsm.
I feel like such a fool falling for the bullshit in ’08. Such hope we had. Now all I can do is wait the 3 loooong yrs. for early retirement. Survival of the fittest,I guess. I just might retire this spring instead and take up residence in D.C. I’m hoping for 1-2 million fellow citizens to join me. In their face is our only chance for recognition. I really believe this is an emergency situation. PEACE
Maybe just a wee bit more about Stan – a man i have deeply admired since I was a fourth grade Little Leaguer. Not only was he respected by many in Brooklyn for his support of Jackie in 1947 but the great Willie Mays had this to say about The Man.
“I knew Stan very well. He used to take care of me at All-Star games, 24 of them. He was a true gentleman who understood the race thing and did all he could. Again, a true gentleman on and off the field — I never heard anybody say a bad word about him, ever.”
Bob Gibson,one of Stan’s teamates and a Cardinal pitching great has said that Stan always did all he could to “establish a warm atmosphere between blacks and whites on the team.”
Not only that but he was possibly the greatest pure hitter of all time.
Dodgers pitcher Preacher Roe once joked about how to handle Musial: “I throw him four wide ones and then I try to pick him off first base.”
Rest in peace, Stan
Yeah, I know. Glen Ford’s take is certainly the one I agree with. My expectations could not possibly be lowered; I expect Bronco Bama’s second term to be worse than his first.
Either yer two middle fingers went into the middle glove finger or ya kept yer forefinger outside, like some pitchers. You liked the movie The Natural? Malamud has Roy striking out in the end, damn prophetic work about the destruction of the working-class, very dark. The Boys Of Summer is the best sports book I ever read, maybe the best non-fiction book also. Finally Sarandon’s first movie showed up on YouTube — Joe — with Peter Boyle (“Goddam hippies, they even fucked up the music”), and I dl’d it last night. I loved the horse race in The Right Stuff. ;o)
To you and nonquixote: made my first European artisan bread earlier in the week baking it in a 4-quart Dutch oven (removed lid after 30 mins), proofed it in a brotform basket, made a 14-hour poolish to start. It came out yielding everything y’all have ever heard, read, seen or experienced about great bread.
Nice to know you approve, and are irked by the bullshit one-way stuff. I reckoned I’d stay on the email list just to see what they were cookin’ up. And I never care for it much, lol, but these two…took me over the moon, seriously.
Thanks for the comment, THD.
Wendy, tears here also. Wonderful post of yours.
I get grumpy about life so often, but I guess we need to realize how very much we were blessed to have Martin, John, Bobby. And also, all the nameless thousands who were trampled on, water hosed, bombed in churches, crushed by KKK, beaten in the streets, to offer to our nation a chance to become a better place.
Today is a day, for me anyway, to try and see things as a glass half full. At one point, MLK Jr was about to give up. His colleagues in the ministry had a message for him: he was being viewed as too uppity by white people. So for a few weeks, MLK Jr sat back. And then he took his message into High Schools and colleges, and the rest is history. He didn’t give up, and neither should we.
Now Wendy, please keep in mind how one solitary woman in the CIA took out Bin Laden. If she could do that, then why is it so impossible to believe that a few of us women couldn’t get those hundreds of decaying bridges built!
Dunno, mtquinn. If your favorite candidate got knocked out early, and it was down to Hillary or Barack, *and* if ya really loathed Bill Clinton and grokked who he really served…ya probably either voted O or third party. Then…once it was Obomba v. Palin/McCain…yikers, he looked at least better. But his bullshit did have some resonance to a nation watching the meltdown, the pensions disappearing, and the bank bailouts, no people bailouts.
Once he appointed his cabinet, it was fairly clear who he was. Then his security and wiretapping expansions past Bush levels…and…uh-oh, we’re in the soup now.
The folks that bother me now are those who voted for him, see what he’s done, and still can’t be honest about it, and voted for him a fucking second time. Stunning disconnect.
It will be interesting to see where any of the resistance movements head in the spring. Idle may prove to be the extra juice OWS needs, and if labor can join in, who knows? Interesting times.
I’d forgotten that part of his life, elisemattu. He knew his phone was being tapped, and his friends watched and questioned, I remember. Were the stories about his infidelity being leaked by the Fibbies yet? I forget.
But yes: woman power for building bridges!!!
Thank you, dear one, for the smiles. Half-full. ;o)
Pay no attention to that Ring of Power on my finger, move along hobbits, there’s nothing to see here in Mordor . . . uh . . . umh . . . take part in a food drive or help Gollum paint a school! Clean up the slopes of Mount Doom or help make care packages for the Elves!
We’re a long way from the Shire, wendydavis. But the ships are coming, they’re coming to carry us home . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsDji3Z7t3s
Lovely, lovely, Isaiah. Annie makes the song live, doesn’t she? The calling of the gulls…mmmm…you’re always an inspiration, amigo. Thank you.
‘The center cannot hold…’ The People’s day will come because it’s in the air, no?
Were they instead directed to send care packages to the orcs? And have Sauron’s back? ;o) You’re a treat!
Bill Cosby’s grandmother told him whether the glass was half-full or half-empty, it meant she was already drunk.
The Fixer hooked me for certain, and The Natural was so fine. In the film, I loved Robert Redford with Bobby; just think what being their bat boy would have meant to a chubby kid who prolly didn’t even get picked until last when they chose up teams in the sandlot, or at recess.
No, I meant a baseball film with Sarandon; can’t quite see the male lead, but methinks I dinnae like him. ;o(
Yummy-sounding bread; I’m kinda stuck on sourdough dill.
And: funny on the Cosby; boy, do I loathe that man, and I do know people who worked with him and knew about his womanizing, arg.
He wants us to send care packages to the Elves because (DELETED BY THE ORCS), which would further his agenda of (DELETED BY THE ORCS) and convince everyone at the (DELETED BY THE ORCS) that what’s going to happen next week will actually be a (DELETED BY THE ORCS) and result in a complete and total takeover of MyFDL by the (DELETED BY THE ORCS).
Wonderful baseball memories, sadavis. I see you have the framed montage of baseball cards out, too…and lookie! There are two of Stan featured, lol! That funny little Babe Ruth card is nice, too.
It’s just really appropriate to speak of Musial on this post given his cordial relationships with the black players. And goddam, that Preacher Roe quote is one of the best I’ve ever heard. You can see the devil gleam in his eye even now. ;o)
Thanks for all of them, darlin’.
ROTFLMAO, Isaiah. You must have an hysterical crystal ball! Too much fun, thanks for letting me see it through the security state deletions. Good thing the Eagles will on our side, no?
Ask not what your Great Lawn Mower can do for you but what you can do for your Great Lawn Mower.
Poor MLK. The Lawn Mowed coopted by the Lawn Mower. Can’t match that cynicism, OP.
How Beautiful on the Mountain, Tom Paxton from Comedians and Angels
you will need to download and play the mp3.
Argh, I can’t help but think you’re referencing the John Brennan lawnmower metaphor. Yes, it’s very cynical, but also very true. It’s just that these days, the enemies of the state are captured, rendited, murdered in plain sight, or at least plain to those of us paying close attention, Bindo.
And: nice to virtually meet you. ;o)
” stunning disconnect ”
… just walking by wd … a quick ” pop in and say hello” ..liked how you said what you said up top and in this comment … :-)
The stunning disconnections. Made despite what was/is known/knowable.
… yep … stunning
….stay with it wd
Ah, that was so great I stayed and played it a few times while I started building some dinner, nonquixote. Great instrumentation, and so fun to hear piano in there, too. I swear I’d never heard it. Funny, a few months ago I downloaded some Tom Rush tunes onto my RealPlayer.
Thank you for that *and* for the Monty Python, oy veh. ;o) Hope the Barbarian comes back and sees it; he loves MP.
Do ya reckon that verse is what caused Isaiah88 to choose his screen name? Might just be, as there IS no 88th chapter in the book of Isaiah, mmm, hmmm. ;o)
Peter Boyle the clown of Marlon Brando.
I was blinded in ’08 by the disasters you mentioned. Palin made Obama look downright saintly. I think all clear thinkers were in shock at that moment in time. So right about the cabinet choices. Being a sort of late blooming serious self teacher, everything became clear. Trying these last 4+ yrs. to educate friends and family to the fraud is extremely difficult. I promise I will not give up. Some people just refuse to believe this can be happening in America. I will be on the street soon when he (they) come for what I thought was the only sure thing after 40 yrs. of labor. HA! WHAT FOOLS! PEACE
Obviously I made my point badly, wendy. Not that it really needs a rework, but it was that Obama is doing what citizens have been doing for four years, that is, telling the person with the power to do something to do it – only he is pretending that we have the power when we don’t. He is reversing any meaningful citizen advocacy, and I definitely do not think he does this well, since he is not a citizen but the one for whom the buck is supposed to stop.
I really don’t think there is anything good about that, agree with the point of your diary completely, and I recommended it.
Sorry, my snark isn’t as well honed as that of others. (Needs more practise, which I’m sure I’ll get.)
Poor Cosby, didn’t die young. I loathe the term ‘womanize’: It turns guys like Roberto Clemente and Martin Luther King, Jr into things.
S’called sadism.
Whew wendydavis. I think we can all feel the righteous anger and burning disgust that fueled the creation of this well crafted diary. And for very good reason. That this President would think that he can fool us into thinking that he has ANY concept of what Martin was telling us is enough to make any thoughtful person angry and disgusted.
I was also touched by the beautifully edited video you posted with your piece. As with others here, it made me weep to hear such strongly delivered words of truth . Something that is now so rare on our tattered planet. A “revolution of values” is certainly what is needed right now to save us from the “spiritual death” that these fools are trying to bring to us.
Martin was a Dog Soldier of the first order and thank you for being the Dog Soldier that you are when you remind us of the greatneess of this wonderful human being.
Highly Rec’d
I know that you’ll never give up, including educating your friends and neighbors, though relatives are often even harder. With your coming decisions about retirement, I wish you well…and wisdom. For a person of conscience, each day presents choices to test our principles, I find, and those bits are the ones we will (possibly) remember as we die. For me, I try to keep Don Juan’s admonitions in the front of my mind (failing often): ‘Always be aware that Death sits just out of sight over your left shoulder, and consider if your next act might be the one just before the moment of your death.
As we review the choices we’ve made in life, scrupulous moral inventories are healthy. But…forgiving ourselves, if it includes lessons learned, and moving on to The Light, or at least ‘the lighter‘, is also an art. And it’s one that I find hardest; far easier to forgive others than ourselves sometimes. Then we…can get stuck, and not allow ourselves to proceed further on ‘the road less traveled’. And peace to you, mtquinn. Such a hard state to attain for so many of us neurotic travelers. ;o)
I know, arrow; sometimes I think to write up some of the psychological and maybe philosophical models of this tendency, but folks are so used to the crap neuroscience memes like: ‘This is what a Republican brain fMRI looks like’ v. (the other guys), and all the triumphalist bullshit…I keep that word document where it is.
I’ll keep on, as you do , my friend. Love to you, and I hope you and your partner are well. Some day I’ll get you my contact info…just in case. ;o)
That I didn’t get your meaning is all mine, juliania. I can only claim that RL today has been…challenging, and I’ve run from pillar to post to even answer all these great comments.
But I’m so glad that you expanded your meaning so that all of us could be more aware of what you’d meant. Snark isn’t always recognizable at first glance. As in: Mr. wd asked me after I published this post if some folks might…not get it, especially if they didn’t (as usual) click into the very few links (as in: trails of breadcrumbs) I’d left.
I told him I reckoned it was fine as is. ;o) My best to you, ww.
Was I being sexist? I dunno, nor do I grok your reference to Roberto, but…I dinnae believe Hoover about MLK, nor care. That said, I guess I might have said more directly that my actress friend and *her* friends said he would fondle women’s tits and asses, and promise favors from the *acting couch*. That more clear? I wasn’t a fan of his ‘tough love’ lessons to black youth from his vantage point in the latte librul 5% stratosphere. For all of me, he can eat some Jello pudding pops.
;o)
He was indeed a Dog Soldier; thank you for the reminder of that designation, sadavis. Dog Soldiers., Skywalkers. ;o)
‘tattered planet’ is the truth, and an image that resonates.
Ah. Librul brains are less tribal, didn’t you know?
Yeah, and sooo much more ‘neo-cortex’, reasoned, not primal, and tra la la. Correlations do not imply causation. But: Dems get to feel so proud.
;o)