Is there really no thread on the MLK50th speeches?

[nolabear]

I came home to watch President Obama's speech and came here, hoping to get an idea what I've been missing all day. Time was when DU would have had a cadre of people following and commenting and discussing such a remarkable, historic event.

What has happened?

For the record, I find the president's speech an interesting combination of honoring, uplifting, admonishing and a little sad. We have gained so much, but there is an air of weariness that I pray can be overcome. As many today have repeated again and again (in the bits I've been able to hear) we need one another. We need to stand together.

[gopiscrap]

1. I know I have been

posting all day...I took today off to watch this!

[nolabear]

3. I'm so glad. We need to listen, as a country.

[gopiscrap]

6. I agree

but the tragedy is that the folks who need to hear this the most refuse to listen.

[Warpy]

2. I posted my favorite video

of Mavis Staples singing "Eyes on the Prize" accompanied by film of why that march had to occur and why that speech had to be made.

[snooper2]

4. Folks have been busy keeping the truthy trolls at bay

[nolabear]

12. Truthy trolls?

Trolls I get, what are truthy trolls?

[snooper2]

13. Trolls who use far left conspiracy theories to continue the bashing of this administration...

[nolabear]

17. Oh! Thanks. Learn something every day.

[JaneyVee]

5. Historic!

[bigtree]

7. sometimes you just have to lift it up by yourself, nolabear

. . . it's never been easy; here or anywhere else.

[nolabear]

18. Oh I do, I do, but one person does not a social movement make.

[bigtree]

22. but, maybe they can be a spark

. . . a quiet, but necessarily determined and vigilant reminder.

[Peacetrain]

8. Watching it on CSPAN on the computer

I have to admit, I got the biggest kick out the fact, Jimmy and Bill will not shake hands.. Poor President has to keep peace between those two also..

[Spazito]

9. Sadly, the posters who would have started threads know they will, inevitably, get....

snark responses like 'he does make pretty speeches', comments like that. Why bother starting threads when it just gives the same posters one more opportunity to trash the President. For all too many prolific posters here, the President can do nothing right, nothing.

It is both nauseating and, imo, reflects badly on DU but it is what it is now.

I found the same as you with the President's words, uplifting and admonishing, sad yet hopeful.

[malaise]

10. True but we have several threads here

Most of us don't care.

[Spazito]

20. I hear you...

Checking in to DU the last few months has been disheartening, to say the least. It is quite sad, all of it.

[one_voice]

15. +1

I missed having the threads.

So many great speakers today. So much that could have been talked about, reflected on, and just enjoyed.

Guess we can't have one day without all the flaming.

[Spazito]

19. I miss those threads very much as well...

I keep checking DU to see if it even remotely resembles what brought me to DU in the first place but, alas, not yet so I read, shake my head and move on to other things. I live in hope yet, lol.

[MineralMan]

11. I've been listening to them.

They're not controversial, though, so they're not of much interest to most DUers. There have been a few threads, but not very active ones. So, I'm just listening.

As President Obama said, we still have a long way to go. We always will, it seems.

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Bernice King gave a supremely hypocritical speech.

Bernie needs to check herself and start with the woman in the mirror and all that. But better speakers than that old hack were inclusive and visionary and the President was very good and he and the First Lady looked supremely Presidential as they always do.
My favorite was John Lewis, but he's always my favorite.

[Motown_Johnny]

16. I'm curious about something Pres. Clinton said.

(paraphrased poorly)


Something about "The inheritors of Dr. King's legacy whining about political gridlock".


It sounded like a shot at Pres. Obama to me. I am going to need to watch that part again.

[leftstreet]

23. It sounds like a direct shot at Obama

MLK did not 'live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock'

[Motown_Johnny]

27. So it wasn't just me?

That line really felt like a slap in the face. I really was taken back when I heard it.

[BumRushDaShow]

25. From the transcript - it is right at the end

So how are we going to repay the debt? Dr. King’s dream of interdependence, his prescription of wholehearted cooperation across racial lines -- they ring as true today as they did 50 years ago. Oh, yes, we face terrible political gridlock now. Read a little history; it’s nothing new. Yes, there remain racial inequalities in employment, income, health, wealth, incarceration, and in the victims and perpetrators of violent crime. But we don’t face beatings, lynchings and shootings for our political beliefs anymore. And I would respectfully suggest that Martin Luther King did not live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock. It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-bill-clintons-speech-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-march-on-washington/2013/08/28/e309acdc-0ff9-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html

Of course the part about not "fac(ing) beatings, lynchings, and shootings for our political beliefs anymore" is total bullshit. I think Clinton must have slept through Occupy discord.

The "gridlock" is solely due to the black face holding the highest office in the land who not only took all of their ideas and put a left spin on them, basically took away all of their talking points, and so we have had to suffer through 4 1/2 years of a regressive GOP meltdown - and that includes Clinton's head-explosion as well as he hasn't forgiven this President his wife's loss. Anyone on DU who keeps insisting that Obama is a DLCer need only look at how the REAL "DLC", "Third Way", etc., reacts to him.

[JI7]

21. i have not been able to watch and was hoping to see it on DU

was disappointed not to see much on it but then not really surprised.

[jeff47]

24. They don't make the administration look sufficiently bad to be discussed here. (nt)

[Cha]

26. I see you've seen bigtree's thread by now, nolabear.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023551816