[
Editors Note: I am not the staunchest Obama supporter, in fact I believe there are
legitimate critiques of his policies -- especially his (mostly wrong-headed conservative) economic policy decisions. However, much of the right-wing criticism of Obama is fueled by hatred and, yes, racism. I quantify that last assertion
here, but today I find myself SMDH at the revolting scumbags on the right. I mean, they have no sense of fuckin decency, no fuckin shame at all. I believe these cretins would fuck their own mothers over without a second thought...]
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate Multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. p 53,
The Strength to Love, 1963
First things first. It seems there’s a mini storm over the above quote by MLK. The quote, with the leading line,
I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy... went viral immediately after the news of the murder of Osama Bin Laden was released. A
rather irresponsible article penned by Megan McArdle at
The Atlantic, noted that after having Googled said quote, she couldn’t find verification. Therefore, the reporter surmised, the quote isn’t accurate, and MLK never said it.
Actually, as I have correctly cited, the quote is a genuine MLK quote. What
isn’t part of the quote, is the first line and here’s what happened. The sentiment was first
posted as a Facebook status, and it read (verbatim):
I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” -- mlk [emphasis added]
Note the placement of the quotation marks. As the status was repeated, the quotes were misplaced, giving the impression that the leading sentence -- the sentence not part of the MLK quote -- was attributed to MLK. This then led other reporters, bloggers, commenters to assert that MLK never said it. And that’s a false conclusion. But the larger point here is that journalists are doing a piss-poor job of research. Indeed, the research can be found in the comments section of The Atlantic article. Has this journalist ever heard of... books? Direct sources? *The article has been picked in places like the WashPo, The CS Monitor, and if you Google the first line, you’ll easily get 50-60k hits (the last time I looked).
This is bullshit, lazy, hack writing, plain and simple.
Now on to the important stuff...
I guess it was to be expected. No sooner than the news of OBL’s assassination was released, that the right wing cretins went into feces flingin’ mode, and started patting themselves in the back for the deed. What’s that? Yes, the Bush administration spent trillions, sent us to two unnecessary wars where about 50,000 of our men and women were killed or maimed, and spent almost a decade without even getting close to OBL, but Bush should be given the honors. Obama is just the lawn jockey. he can’t possibly be smart enough to capture/ kill OBL, right?
Except that it isn’t true. In fact, only six months after 9/11, The Village Idiot publicly admitted he was no longer concerned about OBL. Let’s take it to the videotape, Johnny:
Spin that bitches. More importantly, Bush shut down the CIA unit weighted with the responsibility of capturing Bin Laden. Guess who opened it up again? Yup... Obama.
