It appears that the Obama White House is intent on sweeping history literally under the rug after the new presidential rug was found to have a historical quote wrong. The quote attributed to Martin Luther King was actually the words of abolitionist Theodore Parker who will now have his misattributed words walked over by every visitor to the Oval Office.
The quote is “[t]he arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” King, however, was not the source of these inspiring words. They were the work of a Boston abolitionist and Unitarian minister. Parker was an incredible writer and a tireless advocate for the end of slavery. He never lived to see it. He died at age 49 in 1860 — shortly before the Civil War.
King never claimed to be the author of the words and gave credit to Parker.
The original quote from 1853 was
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
Theodore Parker, “Of Justice and Conscience,” in Ten Sermons of Religion, (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Company,1853).
In the end, he would likely take the slight in good fashion. After all, he told people “[n]ever violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.” Amen, Brother.
Source: Washington Post
Jonathan Turley
Why not? The unionized workers of today are merely the non-unionized workers of tomorrow as the giant multinationals that own & control this 2 party kleptocracy relentelessly deplete good paying jobs in the search for greater & greater profits.
KF Are you proposing non unionized working people unite under a third party?
Much ado about nothing over the rug
What Swarth mom said is important … I’m hoping the DNC has a plan to inspire all the 2008 voters to get themselves to the polls …
I don’t know about that strategy Swarthmore & Rafflaw. In my view it’s a mistake for working people to keep voting for either Capitalist Party A or Capitalist Party B because neither party can fulfill their class interests.
For example. Historically the American working class has backed the Democrats. But the Dems prosecuted every war in the 20th century. (Grenada, Panama, & the 1st Gulf War don’t count as wars since only one side was shooting.) Imperialist wars are decidely not in the working classes interest since the workers fight, die & get maimed while the capitalist bosses reap superprofits.
No, it’s clearer than ever today that working people for their own survival must begin to adhere to some class principles and organize for political independence from these 2 greedhead parties that are constantly leading them into blind alleys and ruin.
What’s needed is a revolutionary attitude amongst working people, not more of the false paradigm of voting for “the lesser evil” which doesn’t lessen the grab for profits over people.
Old Marx & Engels once co-wrote a remarkably prescient address in 1850 that sounds as if it could have been written yesterday:
“Even where there is no prospect whatever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces and to lay before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint. In this connection they must not allow themselves to be bribed by such arguments of the democrats as, for example, that by so doing they are splitting the democratic party and giving the reactionaries the possibility of victory.”
In my view it’s definitely time for a third party, not a tea party but a politically independent party made up primarily of people who have to sell their labor to survive, which constitutes the vast majority of the republic.
rafflaw:
You viciously demonize tens of millions of people and for what purpose except to hype hatred? If “Teapublicans” are as you say then they should be killed because that is what we are doing in Afghanistan: killing the Taliban.
Neither Tea Party people nor Republicansadvocate shooting women in the head for not wearing modest clothing and that is the asinine comparison YOU are making.
Republicans and Tea Party members all advocate educating girls and women. And they all except women working outside the home and speaking in public. Members of the Taliban advocate none of that. Neither Tea Party members nor Republicans advocate cutting off peoples hands for stealing either. So one has to be hopelessly stupid to compare the two.
What you are saying no rational person can conclude and yet it is at this website where I hear the comparison hinted at more than anywhere I go on the net.
You are stupidly inciting the slaughter of Americans you disagree with by intentionally comparing them to people our government is in the process of slaughtering overseas.
You’re a genius. Oh, and your opponents are supposed to be the bad guys.
A Pew poll last year found that 77% of Americans say that “there is too much power concentrated in the hands of a few big companies.” A clear majority — 62% — says businesses make too much profit, while fewer than four-in-ten (37%) say businesses “generally strike a fair balance between profits and the public interest.”
Raflaw:
apparently not if Buddha’s last post on Drill Baby Drill is true.
Someone here speaks of voting, as if voting once every 4.th year , and on a gadget that can be (and has been) manipulated as easily as scratching….Where do you ever experience democracy in your everyday life? Unless you get rid of your parasites=Fed-politicians,zion-bankiers and uniforms of all operatic fascist- designs,you are in deep trouble. What DO you think 900 FEMA-camps are for???
Swarthmore,
amen to your comments about keeping the Teapublicans from governing this country. It would be a new version of the American Taliban if they get control of the House or Senate.
Okay, I’ll take the rug. Send it to……….
KF The credit card vote was the the tip-off that Obama was not that liberal. That is why I had trouble deciding whom to vote for in the 2008 primary. I will support him in 2012 as will Kucinich because voting for a third party candidate will only enable the tea party republicans to take full control. They will probably gain the house and maybe the senate this year.
Just my opinion: I wish journalists and news organizations would spend more time on “real” news than insignificant stuff like this Oval Office rug tale and stories about Sarah Palin and lipstick on pit bulls…and Mark Sanford and his mistress…and Glenn Beck.
How about some in-depth investigative reporting about things that are truly of import??????????
OS,
Good digging. Well played.
Such a mistake is not surprising coming from somebody whose moral compass is dangerously uncalibrated.
What else but moral turpitude can explain how a Black man from the South side of Chicago, arguably one of the most segregated cities in America, sides with the credit card companies against his constituents on his first major vote as an Illinois Senator on that draconian bankruptcy reform bill literally written by the big banks who later were his biggest cororate campaign contributors.
Morality’s suspect when you give a handful of the greediest, most incompetent banks 3/4 of a trillion dollars with zero public accountability or congressional oversight.
Morality is particularly dubious when you escalate the war in Afghanistan, prolonging the suffering of one of the poorest countries on earth.
Morality is nullified when you thwart single payer health care reform by letting the insurance industry write that perfidious reform bill.
Morality is odious when you let BP quarantine reporters and call the shots during the worst oil spill in human history, and then promise to let them keep on drilling.
I hope Obama can taste the Windex next time he eats blackened Cajun shrimp.
I found what Parker originally wrote in 1836 and it is quite different from the King quotation on the White House rug:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
Theodore Parker, “Of Justice and Conscience,” in Ten Sermons of Religion, (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Company,1853).
Thanks Otteray, i will add the full quote to the blog.
This story marginally misattributes like a rug!
I wish that journalists would quit trying so hard for “gotcha” moments and getting it wrong. Dr. King did say the quote exactly as written on the rug. Parker made statements similar to this, but as far as my research has been able to determine, never exactly as transcribed on that rug. Dr. King had previously acknowledged both Parker and Gandhi, another of the people who influenced him. Dr. King made that statement in a speech given to the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee on September 2, 1957. The speech was entitled, “A Look to the Future.”
In that speech, Dr. King said this:
“With all of these forces working together, I am convinced that we can bring the third period of race relations in America to its full realization in the not too distant future. So my answer to the question of our theme is that the future is filled with vast and marvelous possibilities. This is a great time to be alive. Let us not despair. Let us realize that as we struggle for justice and freedom we have cosmic companionship. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Source:
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/a_look_to_the_future_hfs
Re do the rug and take out MLK as the author of the quote and replace it with Parker’s name. Nice to see the zero care and attention to historical fact going on over there in the WH. I am increasingly more underwhelmed by this crowd. Don’t get me started on the IKEA room makeover.
Theodore Parker was a brilliant man, once learning a new language a month at Harvard as he sought to master every nuiance of the Bible and Christian theology. After hearing a lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson on the implausibility of miracles, Parker set about to be both church and social reformer. An abolistionist of the highest mind, he had a strange streak of racial consciousness deeming the Anglo-saxon race the “most progressive” of all races. Yet he ardently favored school intergration and full equality for southern slaves.
I can over look this is sometimes credited work is sometimes incorrectly attributed. What he needs to do is get on a Run this country in the manner that he promised.
Chinese Proverb: Talk Don’t cook rice…..Who say, I don’t know.