Mar 31 2010

Must see TV tonight – MLK Jr. & Obama!

Tavis Smiley has produced a special report comparing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama, focusing on their attitudes to war, empire and the consequences for society and the world.  

Smiley speaks out against what Cornell West has called “The Santa-Claus-ization” of King.  In typical goody-two-shoes, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” fashion, the mainstream has chosen to concentrate on what it considers the good, positive King, not the one who criticized U.S. foreign policy and called the United States the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”  

That was true when King said it in the sixties, one year before he was assassinated; and, sadly, it remains true today.  

The show airs on PBS tonight (8 PM Pacific, check your local time).  I’ve e-mailed the link out to my list, hoping some will hear, perhaps for the first time, King’s views on war and his contrast to Obama.

Read the Black Agenda Repost article on the program:

King and Obama.

14 comments

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  1. …and let’s discuss together after the airing.

  2. according to my Listings (comcast).

    thanks, syd!

    theres another show coming up next week I want to see too… The Buddha on APril 7th.

    • TMC on March 31, 2010 at 21:37
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    • Edger on March 31, 2010 at 23:48
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    http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/reports/index.html then click “Watch Preview”

    NOTE: right now I’m getting a message that the server is overloaded when I click “Watch Preview” – not surpisingly

  5. to hear word number one about Barack Obama and that had little to do with Obama, then nothing. So I checked the show page and it would seem that this episode has little to do with Barack Obama.

    How can it;

    “If he was to be a man of conscience, a man of compassion, he had to speak.” Dr. Vincent Harding, credited with co-writing MLK’s Beyond Vietnam speech.

    So little to do with a man of politics beholden to a military industrial complex.  

    Okay here it is now, 8:35. Sort of refreshing, a little less Obama. Here we go, the president speaks “I get MLK but….” Reminds me of my favorite saying “Everything after “but” is bullshit.”

    And return to a story about a great man. In the end comes the challenge to Barack Obama. Very good last ten minutes. I wish it went as far as dharmasyd’s link to Black Agenda Report. That was a good read.  

     

  6. …..missed it

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