Obama is NO Dr. King

[Hortical]

I get ill when I see T shirts comparing Obama to King!


Obama is closer to Nixon than to MLK

The US president's militaristic foreign policy shows how far removed he is from the civil rights leader's ideas.


Last Modified: 29 Aug 2013 08:44


Paul Rosenberg is the senior editor of Random Lengths News, a bi-weekly alternative community newspaper.

Dr Martin Luther King was a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War and American militarism [Getty]


Because Barack Obama is the United States' first black president, there are many who still automatically associate him with Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. And with the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, it's virtually a knee-jerk reaction to associate his presidency with the fulfillment of King's dream.
But, as the almost-simultaneous sentencing of Chelsea nee Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison should remind us, a more accurate historical comparison to that time would link Obama to Richard Nixon, rather than King. Nixon, after all, tried to have Daniel Ellsberg jailed for revealing the Pentagon Papers, and Ellsberg himself has said, "I'm sure that President Obama would have sought a life sentence in my case."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...131532445.html

[Don1]

If MLK were to be President...he would either have to play the game dictated by the Military Industrial Complex (as outlined by Eisenhower) .... or be assassinated.

MLK didn't play the game, he wasn't even the president...but look what happened to him

Obama doesn't want to be murdered...he wants to live and be hailed as a "great president"

It's not complicated

[Muadib]

I think the appropriate wordage is MLK is no Barack Obama..

One cannot compare a Civil Rights leader to the leader of the Greatest Nation and Military Power this World has ever seen...

The prerequisites for each are like night and day... or black and white..

[HL]

Yours is the correct answer.

An activist and a politician are different roles. Yes night and day...black and white

[Islandman]

When Don1 and Muadib are on the same side of an issue, it must be very lonely on the other side, LOL.

[Tilla]

Thank you Benjammin.

[Sir X]

Agreed with you all , that said saying the president who brought troops home from iraq and afghnistan and refused to send ground troops into libya is a militarlistic leader is out of bounds , what is true is he inherited the shitstem, how much chnage he can make to that system is the question.

CC: Obama care.

[TDowl]

Right on, and some of those people making the comparison are the same ones who use to cuss MLK, bwoy how things have change, those same people are making some sick comments on FB..as the world turns, President Obama mi seh..

[Karl]

Hortical?

Each human is a complex being. King was...Obama is. Picking out one characteristic or trait and on that basis say that's the man is always misleading.

What if instead of thinking on 'militaristic foreign policy' (..and your judgment as such) you looked at HARP and entire policy as it impacts home-ownership...and what of The Affordable Care Act, his positions on stimulating the economy in a time of 'depression', his position of a path to legal residence for the reported 12,000,000 undocumented, his positions on growth of jobs/reduction of underemployment and unemployment rates, opposition to the Supreme Court rulings as it affects the Voting Rights Act and on and so on?

Would Dr. King and President Obama be found to be in lock-step on very many policies?

I think so...but I am just asking of you, what do you really think?

[Peter R]

Bredrin, that is one of the funniest comments I have read on this site... as Don1 wouda se... woieeee mi upper respiratory tract!!!

[Rockman]

It is my belief that MLlK would have been a great President.
The progress induced by civil activism made the US,as a whole,able to make claims of civilty.It wasn't a black accomplishment-it was a societal one.

I think Obama is the best President ever,the things he is infamous for are republican-like.
But when compared to MKL,he is woefully lacking.
Check de level,MKL was a cosmopolitan,Obama isn't.
Racism and classism are biases,you are just as lacking when you interpret the constitution to be afforded to Americans only,it is the way all PEOPLE should be treated by you.

[Don1]

Lol

[Hortical]

The article is for discussion purposes, and obviously I am not in lock step with the writer and his comparison with Nixon. I agree, they are uniquely different, one is a civil rights hero, while the other is a politician who has yet to fulfill his potential as an effective leader. The NSA's spying & warrantless wiretaps under the Patriot Act is an abuse of power, and is a throwback to the FBI's harassment of civil rights workers under J. Edgar Hoover. The desire to launch $1.5M cruise missiles into Syria is over the top.

MLK spoke out & opposed the Vietnam war, and likewise today, he would have gone against the pending US involvement in Syria. I am on the fence on Syria, and when should the US get involved in a civil war? Bill Clinton chose to stick his head in the sand during the Rwanda civil war. 500,000 to 1,000,000 perished on Clinton's clock....

[Rockman]

Nice!

[Islandman]

If MLK had even desired to be president he would not have been the MLK we know. Hence it is somewhat paradoxical to say he would have been a great president.