BS: Eulogy for Barack Obama (alive & well)

Subject: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 11:44 PM

I have heard the drum beat of violent murder and assasination from black brothers, Hillary Clinton, and the wealthy white elite as if the words were merely hollow echos of a reverberating past. The words spoken of Barak's fate, drop from mouths in dispassionate notes of inevitability.
I hear this and realize how sick we are, how desperate we are in need of a cure.
Is there such a thing as healing before one is afflicted by injury?
If there is, I would take these words to heart:

___
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 12:15 AM

(sigh-)

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 12:18 AM

Weeee-yooooo Did you just cut one???

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:02 AM

I want some of whatever he drank or smoked.

Who has threatened Senator Obama? Certainly not Senator Clinton. No conservatives I've heard. If 'black brothers' are predicting it, I find that very sad for them. But when one plays 'identity politics', anything can be said with impunity.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:54 AM

Be careful, JohnotSC- I think it was canned heat.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 03:39 AM

It's a good speech, though...

http://www.rfkmemorial.org/lifevision/onthemindlessmenaceofviolence/

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: irishenglish
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 07:07 AM

Can everyone get this right-Its Barack, not Barak.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: kendall
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 08:10 AM

CarolC..touche'

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 08:47 AM

There does seem to be an attempt to get people to believe assassination is inevitable. This is one thing that bothered me about Billary's staying in the race--it felt to me as though they maintained a tenuous hold on hope because they expected Obama would be taken out and Hillary would continue on to nomination by attrition. Then there are people here at Mudcat who have repeatedly said that he'd never serve.

It's not that I believe he'll be assassinated, although somebody may attempt it.

It's that I believe people's fear may be/is being used to manipulate their votes.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 08:53 AM

... people's fear may be/is being used to manipulate their votes.

Now THERE'S something unheard of in U.S. politics!

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:26 PM

Barack Barack
Aflac Aflac
quack quack
\I'll try to spell better, thanks.


I am most familiar with the word Baraka.
Baraka is a grand word.
It has a wonderful meaning and a beautiful touching 15 year old film entitled Baraka.


W has escaped death several times. In Germany 2 years ago a live grenade failed to go off after it was thrown at him.
The attempts rarely are made public due to copy cat fears.
When it happens in another country is more difficult to suppress.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:42 PM

Every President - every single one of them has some nut case that is out to get them. That's just a law of nature. For every famous person there is someone out there that wants to steal some of that fame by trying to kill or injure them.It's a silly damn shame - but there it is. So you have to protect yourself and then get on with your life.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barak Obama
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:47 PM

I am honestly surprised a more concentrated effort has not been made, over the last eight years, against Karl Bush Cheny in one or another of their multiple ugly heads. Maybe it's that people turn to stone when they look upon them directly...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barack Obama (alive & well)
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 04:59 PM

Luck maybe.

If legitimate is brought against them, who would testify?
http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/trial_dees.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barack Obama (alive & well)
From: GUEST,Padre - sans cookie
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 07:05 PM

I served as a chaplain at St. Elizabeth's hospital in DC - every few weeks, someone would be admitted for evaluation/treatment because they had tried to enter the White House grounds while carrying a weapon of some sort (ranging from very large Rambo-type knives to guns to explosives). They all had some perceived grievance against the sitting president (at that time Bill Clinton, but those who had served there for many years told me that every president since Eisenhower had had one of these people out to get him). The 'poster boy' for those attempts was, of course John Hinkley, Jr. who had been confined to St. E's after being found not guilty by reason of insanity of the attempt on Ronald Reagan's life, and the wounding of Jim Brady, the press secretary.

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barack Obama (alive & well)
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 07:14 PM

Padre:

What an interesting period that must have been in your life. I bet there are several books worth of story lingering in those memory banks!!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barack Obama (alive & well)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 10:16 PM

I'm pleased that some nice Joe Clone changed the thread title.

It did look ominous.

Thanks!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barack Obama (alive & well)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 04:58 PM

Amos: your post of July 1 at 1:47PM: we will hope that some Secret Service person does not monitor the Mudcat ravings.

Donuel:all together now, THE SKY IS ONCE AGAIN FALLING!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Eulogy for Barack Obama (alive & well)
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 06:19 PM

Doug:

Oh? In your AMerica, the citizens aren't even allowed to be surprised and say so without being harassed by armed thugs?

What a vision for this once great country you have....



A