So that settles it. If Obama is elected, then rather than being a nail in the coffin of the racial divide in the US, it will have the complete opposite effect.
Every criticism of his presidency — a national past-time which surpasses baseball — will be considered racist, along with all his critics.

I struggle to imagine you’ve ever written a less defensible claim here or anywhere else Ackerman.

After all, where would someone need to go to find a political commentator of any stripe who hasn’t acknowledged Obama’s celebrity status, without involving racism ? They fkn know him in Uzbekistan you clown. WTF did you think that was about, his housing policy ? We’d literally need to discover a lost Amazon tribe and teach them journalism and hysterical dishonesty, just to come up with a 2nd person to agree with you here.

Either you’ve got a Pope-like infallibility to blog on the run which precludes you from ever making a poorly thought out claim or you need to retract that. Your pastime of criticising other writers for their unsupported lies really does depend on it.

Thank you for sharing such a profoundly moving experience. 1963 is both a lifetime and, also, only a moment away …

I do not recall having ’seen’ you here-abouts before, but I sincerely hope that you may gift us often with your presence and compelling eloquence.

David

Thanks for that anectdote. I’ve taken the liberty of re-posting your comment on the current thread – click here.

On this day in 1963 I sat watching MLK’s triumph, and what I believe was a turning point in the consciousness of white people in America. I recall that for weeks leading to the March on Washington right-wing pundits and most main stream media people were stoking the fires of fear, trying to convince America that this was the beginning of black rebellion. Instead, we saw an ocean of peaceful, proud men and women led by Dr. King staking out their proper place in our society and polity.

My grandfather was with me that day and he was intensely interested in the unfolding story. He was barely literate having left school in rural Jackson County WV on the death of his father from “side pleursisy” or appendicitis, when he was ten years old thus requiring his earnings of 25 cents per day from hoeing corn to support his mother, six brothers and one sister. He survived WWI, was kept from the coal mines by a bad heart and earned his living as a rural paper delivery man raising a family of four with my grandmother. He was, in his youth a member of the KKK but hardly proud of it. Still, he shared the common prejudices and fears of most poor white men in the south and that focused on race, always black people, and religion, always Catholics. He was hostile, angry and quite sure black people were a menace of some never-defined nature. He had nothing but antipathy and comptempt for Dr. King, the NAACP, and the nascent civil rights movement

I recall that sweltering day watching for what seemed like many hours a procession of brave men and women in their summer suits, hats and sunday school best, and knowing they were suffering in the DC humidity and heat. As Dr. King concluded his speech, I was moved and embarrassed by his indictment of white racism, and turned to ask my grandfather’s reaction. He had tears streaming down his cheeks and could not speak for several minutes, when he finally composed himself he said three words, “He is right”.

At that moment I knew in my heart that America was changed forever. I want to believe that if we are lucky and Barack Obama is the man we think he is, we may be looking at another epochal change. Delivering the acceptance speech tonight is the realization of only some of Dr. King’s aspirations, and we must hope that Obama is gifted like Dr. King with the strength, vision and clarity to overcome the message of hate and doubt fostered by corporate propagandists, and that his message of social justice and unity will be greeted with the same understanding: “he is right–yes we can”.

I can dream, can’t I?

we have been witness

to a breathtaking

odyssey of

hysterical import.

Here,indeed, is

the fertile crescent

of inspired witicism.

We look forward to further

insight and adventure as our

brilliant sages of comedic

wisdom joyfully bounce back

and forth

through time and cosmology,

ever leaving us writhing

with gut-busting stitches,

our often too-sober

wee minds stretched

and well-exercised,

our funny-bones

well tickled and

our humor well-buoyed up.

A true, and all too-rare pleasure,

these days.

Damn, me ribs wlll

be sore for

a month.

;~D