Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Save Our Planet
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Obama Gives Biofuels a
Presidential Jumpstart


By "Environment News Service"

To spur biofuels research and commercialization, President Barack Obama signed last Tuesday a Presidential Directive establishing a Biofuels Interagency Working Group. He announced his administration's notice of a proposed rulemaking on a national Renewable Fuels Standard and announced $786.5 million in additional Recovery Act funds for renewable fuel projects.

"We must invest in a clean energy economy that will lead to new jobs, new businesses and reduce our dependence on foreign oil," said President Obama. "The steps I am announcing today help bring us closer to that goal. If we are to be a leader in the 21st century global economy, then we must lead the world in clean energy technology. Through American ingenuity and determination, we can and will succeed."

The Biofuels Interagency Working Group will be co-chaired by the secretaries of agriculture and energy and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and will operate in cooperation with the National Science and Technology Council's Biomass Research and Development Board.

The Working Group is tasked with developing the nation's first comprehensive biofuel market development program. It will use existing authorities and identify new policies to support the development of next-generation biofuels, increase flexible fuel vehicle use, and assist in retail marketing efforts.

>>> Read the full article
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Obama's Magic
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Ink on paper (digital colors)
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He Is a Real
Magical Man


By Peter S. Quinn

He is a real magical man
Walking down the magical span
Making so much magical for everyone’s treat

Not everything needs to be true
Though it’s going to be like it seems too
In its way on every walking street

Magical man, please have a try
There is deep and there's blue sky
Magical man, make your own magical plan

He’s exited for what he is
Reaching the earth in watery bliss
Magical man, never reaching your own feet

Magical man keeps on flying
Go all the way in your trying
Bringing it all up into reality
In magic’s for all to see

Not everything needs to be true
Though it’s going to be like it seems too
In its way on every walking street

Magical man please has a try
There is deep and there's blue sky
Magical man, make your own magical plan

He is a real magical man
Walking down a magical span
Making so much magical for everyone’s treat
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Bad Boy - Barack Obama
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© 2009 - Ben Heine
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A drawing I made on paper
(with digital colors afterwards)
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Bad Boy - Because

By Peter S. Quinn

There are moments lost in my natural sky
Feeling times that are done to nothing
Every time travel there asking reasons why
Sometimes giving no answers - just bluffing
Taking my heart to pieces in each try

When I reach down to deepest of my low
Finding no answers to keep me still high
When my life is a shadow of darkish glow
Answering nothing of its reasons and why
Only time spaces between goings to fly

I´m not a substitute for agent 007
Only awake up call to be taken seriously
I'll give you a touch of my heaven
If you are behaving mysteriously
Because I´m a man in black
Pointing my future at you
Keeping you on the right track
Anything to get you here through

Nothing to get exited either way
Only point-blank clear for its go
Feeling pressures of a coming play
To the hours that I don’t know
Drifting by and by in their flowing
In the answers that never come
Always something either way going
To somewhere it all is from
Nothing taking a turn to more
Just a seat in the corner of dark night
Coming to nowhere in what it’s all for
Because it has lost all its flight

Nothing more to be done or said
For my decisions are staying right here
Don’t worry- be happy – stay ahead
Just agree and everything’s clear

Nothing to get exited either way
Only point-blank clear for its go
Feeling pressures of a coming play
To the hours that I don’t know
Drifting by and by in their flowing
In the answers that never come
Always something either way going
To somewhere it all is from
Nothing taking a turn to more
Just a seat in the corner of dark night
Coming to nowhere in what it’s all for
Because it has lost all its flight

I´m not a replacement for agent 007
Only awake up call to be taken seriously
I'll give you a touch of my heaven
If you are behaving mysteriously
Because I´m a man in black
Pointing my future at you
Keeping you on the right track
Anything to get you here through

Nothing more to be done or said
For my decisions are staying right here
Don’t worry- be happy – stay ahead
Just agree and everything’s clear

Whenever you try - it's getting lost
Like a flight into nothing from nowhere
Feeling downsides and double-crossed
Reaching to nowhere from here to there

I´m not a substitute for agent 007
Only awake up call to be taken seriously
I'll give you a touch of my heaven
If you are behaving mysteriously
Because I´m a man in black
Pointing my future at you
Keeping you on the right track
Anything to get you here through

Because I´m a man in black
Pointing my future at you
Keeping you on the right track
Anything to get you through

Because I´m the man in black
Pointing my future to go
Because I´m the man in black
In point-blank clear to blow

(People are heard singing faraway:
“Yes he can! Yes he can!
Everything is coming now clear!
Yes we can follow…”)
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Barack Obama's
Challenges

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© 2009 - Ben Heine
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Together We Can

A poem by Peter S. Quinn

I want to chance all yes change all
Give me your hope and I have a call
For I am the man for your destiny
Yes sing with me - that's me!

Living isn’t easy if love isn’t growing
We have a new call now worth knowing
I just need to have you by my side
Take a moment and hold me tight

This isn’t easy for me you know
To build it all up and let it grow
I need your help and to be with me here
Stand by my side close and near

The rivers are going to fall a long way
Before we can give a prosper day
But if you will jus build with me
Yes we can! - Yes we can, hope again see

I want to make this a better place
For everyone to have their days
To live and make good of what they do
Together we can! - Yes it’s up to you

I didn't say it would be very easy
We come along way and it’s been breezy
But trust me to build you a hope
And I shall try to be your strong robe

I want to chance all yes change all
Give me your hope and I have a call
For I am the man for your destiny
Yes sing with me - that's me!

Living isn’t easy if love isn’t growing
We have a new call now worth knowing
I just need to have you by my side
Take a moment and hold me tight

I told you yes we can make and stop
Build the future reach the top
I am counting on you to help me
Lent me your hand and it shall be

The rivers are going to fall a long way
Before we can give a prosper day
But if you will just build with me
Yes we can! - Yes we can, hope again see

I want to make this a better place
For everyone to have their days
To live and make good of what they do
Together we can! - Yes it’s up to you

The rivers are going to fall a long way
The rivers are going to fall a long way

Give me your hope and I have a call
For I am the man for your destiny
Yes, sing with me! - That’s me, that’s me

Yes we can, yes we can
Together we can
Build up our hope and dreams

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* * *
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How big a change
can Obama produce?


Comparisons with presidencies that produced
historic changes in direction are overstated.
More like a rebalancing seems in the cards.

By Ted Van Dyk (*)

National media and pundits have seized on the theme that President Obama's new budget, released last week, represents an historic change of direction akin to those taken by Presidents Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, Lyndon Johnson in 1965, and Ronald Reagan in 1981. It represents change, all right, but a close look at the earlier examples might make it seem less momentous than billed.

More likely, it represents one of the periodic rebalancings we take in domestic policy between those responsibilities taken by the public and private sectors — but never far from a moderate middle. The so-called historic turn being taken by Obama is more a course correction, putting us somewhere between the Johnson and Reagan models

One reason for this prediction is the fact that the Obama budget is based on optimistic assumptions that were dealt a blow Friday when data indicated the economy will be slower than previously anticipated in pulling out of recession. That also means that federal tax revenues accordingly will be fewer than those necessary to pay for the Obama domestic initiatives. Resource constraints, interest-group opposition, and a Congress accustomed to having the final say will certainly slow if not stop much of the Obama program.

>>> Read the full article
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Obama Vs. The Fear
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© 2009 - Ben Heine
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One of my illustrations of Obama
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I'm Superman

A poem by Peter S. Quinn

Come to my heart knock on wood
Don’t worry, be good I'm your super man

I will let you be what you want to be
Bring you through because I'm superman
Let you have wings - set you free
Fly with me with these wings if you can

Don’t pretend just come on and really fly
Everything I said - I'm going to try
Bringing in all the hope I gave
Just you wait and see and - be with me brave

There is no one other - I'm the one
I am the man with the super sign on
Giving you what real power is and test
And you will have to imagine with me the rest

Because I have the powers of kryptonite
There is no way to test such might
But just come with me and see what I can
Together we can - yes we can! Because I'm superman

All the strength that you couldn't know
Is inside and now coming out so fine!
Every power known - now superman shall show
Just watch my symbol as it glows up like sunshine

Mightier than a jet plane I’ll fly and I promise you
Everything will be to better put and straight
Promises you thought gone I shall again renew
Take away all doubt and settle each debate

I will let you be what you want to be
Bring you through because I'm superman
Let you have wings - set you free
Fly with me with these wings if you can

Don’t pretend just come on and really fly
Everything I said - I'm going to try
Bringing in all the hope I gave
Just you wait and see and - be with me brave

I am the guy who will always stand by your side
Give you opportunities and money in your pocket
Don’t you worry - let the worries away ride
I'll be your superman and fly like a rocket

There is no one other - I'm the one
I am the man with the super sign on
Giving you what real power is and test
And you will have to imagine with me the rest

Because I have the powers of kryptonite
There is no way to test such might
But just come with me and see what I can
Together we can - yes we can! Because I'm superman

Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!
Because I'm superman
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* * *
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Obama Vs. The Fear

By Mark Morford

Everyone I know is feeling a little bipolar right now. Everyone I know is going through the most unusual of psychological and socioeconomic fits, a bit unsure what to do and how to feel and exactly which emotional flush should be the one to modulate their equilibrium on a day-to-day basis.

The conundrum is obvious and compelling and, as always, deeply enhanced -- if not wholly solved -- by vodka.

It goes something like this: Do you allow yourself, even now, to feel any sort of ongoing, relieved, merciful joy that Barack Obama actually is sitting in the Big Chair in the White House? That this elegant, articulate, Zen-like man whose integrity is rock-solid and whose ideas, while certainly not in perfect alignment with every ultra-lefty vision on the planet (clean coal? Please), are astonishingly ambitious and brave, is leading this nation during one of the worst economic times in its short and paroxysmal history?

Or do you say whatever, sorry, no time for that. Everything's plummeting and jobs are dying and (in my case, certainly) the industry you've worked for your entire career is gasping its last breath, and therefore, melancholy and dread and panic are the only truly appropriate responses, because I don't care how great the guy is, any smile that might cross my face when I see him gets immediately wiped out as soon as I ponder my 401k?

It's a bizarre choice indeed. The good news is, the Obamafied bliss is still out there, still swirling, still waiting to be supped like a fine digestif. At any given moment you can, if you so choose, pause in whatever it is you're suffering from and hear that voice and see his visage or perhaps merely hear some pundit say the words "President Obama" out loud, and you can still enjoy that delicious chill, that little jolt that says, "Oh my God, did we really do it? Is that lucid, impeccably centered man really the leader of the free world?"

Hey, it sure beats doing your taxes.

>>> Read the full article
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- Barack Obama -
C h a n g e

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© 2009 - Ben Heine
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Illustration on paper
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Poll: Obama More Popular Than Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.


John Lennon once claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Now President Obama has evidence that he's more popular than both.

Obama topped a new Harris interactive poll that asked 2,634 Americans who they admire enough to call a hero.

Jesus came in second on a list that includes God, Mahtma Gandhi and George Washington.

Other historic or notable figures making the top 10 were Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Abraham Lincoln, John McCain, John F. Kennedy, U.S. Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger and Mother Teresa.

Participants named the heroes randomly instead of being shown or read a list of people to choose from. The poll was conducted online between January 12 and 19, 2009.

At the 16th spot in the poll, George Washington, Bill Clinton and Colin Powell tied.

Other politicians who made the poll's top 25 include Hillary Clinton (12), FDR (13), Condoleezza Rice (12) and Sarah Palin (21).

God ranked 11th, between Mother Teresa and Hillary Clinton.

Of the multiple reasons participants gave to explain their choices of heroes, the ones most cited is, "Doing what's right regardless of personal consequences" with 89 percent, "Not giving up until the goal is accomplished" with 83 percent and "Doing more than what other people expect of them," with 82 percent. Also popular were "Overcoming adversity" and "Staying level-headed in a crisis."

In the first Harris Poll asking this question in 2001, Jesus came in first, followed by the Rev. King, Powell, John F. Kennedy and Mother Teresea.

Obama joked last year at a roast that contrary to rumors, he was not born in a manger but on the planet Krypton. Apparently, Obama is even more popular than Superman, who didn't make the cut.

--------------

--> The above article appeared on Foxnews.com
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I wanted to share with you these 2 sensational poems by my dear associates and friends Mark Prime and Peter S. Quinn.

FYI, I'll post brand new portraits of Barack Obama in the coming days.

Good luck to the new US President!
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Finally

By Peter S. Quinn

Finally we are equal
That is the place to be
Finally we are equal
Yes finally we are free
There are dreams in our heart
From this moment to start
With so much to give
In rejoice and to live
Every walk in the past
Is now in for its trust
We were flowers and seed
That in past did bleed
But now is our hope
To hold on to that strong rope

Finally we are equal
That is the place to be
Finally we are equal
Yes finally we are free
There is so much to do
Bring it forward and through
With the feelings inside
That will be our guide
What we want to bring
And about much to sing
So we prosper to live
And from ourselves give
There were moments of strife
In our thoughts and life
But now the new shall arrive
Where all our hope will thrive

Finally we are equal
That is the place to be
Finally we are equal
Yes finally we are free
Give from everything like this
Don’t just make moment’s bliss
But the true reality to go
What we share and what we know
Let’s build responsibility
In its greatest durability
And the rise of new day to come
Where every prosper is from
There is hope in this all
Never let it again fall
Make the final takes a go
Come now start freedom show!

Finally we are equal
That is the place to be
Finally we are equal
Yes finally we are free

Ask not what the country
Can do for you
But be its strong support
That makes it all come through

Walking my way with my brother
In every its turn and trial
Where before my father and mother
Had some of the flourish denial
Where everything was in bramble
In every its thorn and din
Through struggling ways and ramble
For the growing to be akin
Where our ancestors are to lead
With their written words and tongues
So we might someday it read
And be their voice and lungs

Oh give the music its true worth
Of singing and the melody
So we might prosper this earth
And become of troubles free
Oh give us the music from birth
In each of its going harmony

In each our walk and waiting try
We consider the changing paces
Where the heart meets the sky
In every its way and graces

So much is to reconsider
And what we must for future aim
So we may come out fitter
In peace and be the same

The road is still to be made
To be someone to grow
And not to the moments fade
That falls in its furlough
There is safeness on the side
To give us something more
And there for each freedom abide
And reach to its peaceful shore

These times must be in safe
To bring us forward still
In every instances waif
To climb to the highest hill

Love everything in right
For that has given the day
And sketched for further light
To lead the tomorrow's way
When tracks of time be brought
Into the raised battlefield
Where love must come from thought
That generation appealed
Through every struggling grain

Each struggle is not plain
And driven through struggle
There is so much strain
In times of hope and juggle

Love is so much to give
And conquering from there
We must in justice live
For us in just adhere

The love is never easy
In times that move along
There might be some breezy
In hours timeless song
And fall be cast on light
On days from bright to dark
For sometimes there is night
Away in glowing spark

Today is sparkle time
Of glowing air
For now is the time made
To go finally there
In to the billow's high
And reach our new sky
With hope of every brim
From the deep of the dim
The growing of glowing
Of well-to-do times to come
With all the best forward
Each fragile bloom

Finally we are equal
That is the place to be
Finally we are equal
Yes finally we are free
There are dreams in our heart
From this moment to start
With so much to give
In rejoice and to live
Every walk in the past
Is now in for its trust
We were flowers and seed
That in past did bleed
But now is our hope
To hold on to that strong rope

Long last
Freedom has come!

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* * *

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This Day's Birth

By Mark Prime

Through flood… and quaking earth
And winds, those before our grand machinery
Anointed the solemn granite
With our foundation, left great trust in the future
Of their manuscript here
Upon the countries doorstep,
That such swaying of the pillars toward failure
Be remedied in the steadfast parchment.

On this day of days
Let us consider love,
Compassion, freedom, hope.
The sky, ocean, seas, soil,
Home to our limbs and joy
Long misplaced and low,
A glee sunken in our brow
Like the whisper of our end
Bending the corners of our mouths

Misplaced in the shadow of sand and war.
Let this day be remarkable with its coming,
Daring our better selves to stand upon
The shoulders of history and predict our future
With its smiling on the children of peace

In one long, joy filled stride.
We have but to embrace ourselves; the wish
We formed at this day’s birth
Beneath the sun, reaching down to us, above
The staining of men in trenches
Whose lives wait in favor of ours.
Holding for a rise from ashes,
To cleanse this; our foul-bred hunger.
Equipped with mercy

And kindness
The prayer need rise out of us, but no further
Than we might travel among the poor.

No further than the broken,
The weary, hunkered down, begging
Of our hands to fetch them up.

All of us, our strength, a sturdy column
Unbent by the weight of courage,
Tempests in the empty halls of power,
Rumbling a refrain of unity
As we break open the shackles of misuse
Long left to fester on the people’s steps,
Find that this dawn is upon our shoulders,
It is we, who now negotiate with our own death,
Our girth of indifference.

Rise now to greet this day,
Our moment elevated from spirit,
Breathing, throbbing, ready,
Not for one, not for country,
But for love.

Use it for more than our self-seeking,
Use it as if it were the breath of mercy kneeling down.
Indulge its hunger, it has been waiting so long,
Hunkered down, bound and bleeding, ready
For our rising shoulders to hoist it tall again.

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We March Onward In
The Footprints Of Revolution

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© 2008 - Ben Heine
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Ode To Change
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By thepoetryman
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(This poem is for President Elect
Barack Obama... and hope.)

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How is it possible-
that, in an age of such a shredded foundation,
that, in an age of such unprecedented warring,
that, in an age of such unequaled corruption and
terrible sadness, a moment as this could come?

How is it possible-
that, after such machinations of greed and hubris,
we have the power to have witnessed this;
the moment now bending its light upon us,
directing us forward to our better selves?

How is it possible-
that we now proceed with this stunning milestone,
that we march onward in the footprints of revolution
though the course is not curved of our choosing
and the strident shriek of the dying covers our skies?

How is it possible-
that we have stumbled to our rightful place of account,
wandered in on such lustrous and cheerful promise
standing now before our grasp, yet still untaken,
unused, and ready for our hands to shape into our art?

How is it possible-
with the end written before the bright and new beginning,
with our expectations rutted in dishonest obligation,
with the world’s eyes having peered down into our shame,
that our pathway is not ruled by immeasurable detonation?

How is it possible-
that, with such divergence and fragmentary mourning,
with stained waters and sky distorting our reflection,
with our differences still hidden in the visage of ghosts,
we were able to land here without knowing what’s next?

How is it possible-
that the air that we scorch doesn’t blink or make a sound
as we push and shove our burning way through it
with sorrow at our flank speaking of others as mere fodder
for our wholly unrestrained hubristic nourishment?

How is it possible-
that this plot has begun at the end of such torturous ire,
at the back of gloom instead of the heart of illumination?
That this moment even has words like hope and change within it
is certainly the most astounding thing of all!

© 2008 mrp/tpm
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Changing Masks
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We Wear The Mask
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By Paul Lawrence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

(The poem appeared on Dunbarsite.org)

Creative Commons License
Martin Luther King - Barack Obama
Heir to a King?

.© 2008 - Ben Heine
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Martin Luther King "dream" lives on,
40 years after death

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By AFP

WASHINGTON -- On April 4 America marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, just as the first black candidate with a viable shot at the White House reinvigorates the late reverend's civil rights "dream."

In 1968 the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was killed by a single bullet to the head while on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis, in the southern state of Tennessee.

The Nobel peace prize winner was just 39 years old. Had he lived he would have turned 79 in January.

The mystery surrounding his assassination has swirled for years, with escaped convict James Earl Ray convicted of the murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Ray confessed to pulling the trigger, then quickly proclaimed his innocence. Debate over the official version of events, in which authorities determined that Ray had acted alone, remained sharp.

Conspiracy theories abound, with many refusing to believe how or why this unknown convict could have escaped from a Missouri state penitentiary, planned the assassination, and thwarted King's security detail all on his own.

In death King became a martyr in the civil rights struggle, but in life he was a charismatic hero battling for racial equality, from the 1956 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama and non-violent protest marches through to his famous "I have a dream" speech in Washington in 1963.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,'" King told some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in the US capital.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Four words -- "I have a dream" -- thundered through his speech and entered into the American lexicon as symbols of the pursuit of racial equality in America.

Some 40 years later, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign is putting that concept to the test.

The Illinois senator -- the only African American presently in the Senate -- addressed the sensitive race issue directly in a recent speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that drew parallels with King.

Obama's remarks were "the most important speech on the question of race and the future of this country since Dr King's 'I have a dream' speech," said Chaka Fattah, a black Congressman from Pennsylvania.

Several other commentators hailed Obama's address as historic.

According to a CBS News opinion poll, 69 percent of Americans approved of the Illinois senator's speech, in which he urged an end to the country's "racial stalemate."

Obama also spoke eloquently about black "anger" and white "resentment" at a time when divisive talk about race threatened to engulf the presidential campaign.

"I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle," Obama said.

"But I have asserted a firm conviction ... that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds," said Obama.

While 52 percent of Americans hailed King's "great influence" on civil rights -- with 75 percent of blacks and 47 percent of whites saying so -- some 39 percent of blacks said the country still had "a long way to go" towards racial equality, according to a survey of 1,012 respondents conducted by Ohio University.

Throughout the country, religious ceremonies and university conferences will celebrate King's legacy, including an event at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, where longtime human rights advocate and black activist Angela Davis will address the theme "We are not now living the dream" of Martin Luther King.

(The report appeared on newsinfo.inquirer.net)



Forty years on, Obama, others
still stand in King's shadow

.
By John Railey

By the spring of 1968, an exhausted Martin King was often tortured by thoughts that he would be killed. He harnessed his pain and pressed on.

“He grasped the benefit of dramatizing his fight with death - and hence, his people’s fight with social death as victims of oppression,” Michael Eric Dyson writes in his compelling new book, April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America.

“King never tired of telling black folk that unearned suffering, even death, is redemptive. … What we make of his death may determine what we make of his legacy and our future.”

Friday will mark the 40th anniversary of King’s assassination on that Memphis hotel balcony. The anniversary has always been a more realistic occasion than the King holiday in January. The holiday is about sweet dreams. The anniversary is about whether America really is moving from nightmares to those dreams. This year, in addition to the big 4-0 number, Barack Obama’s presidential run has given us all the more reason to ponder that question.

Obama, with his mix of black blood and white blood, has forced America into a debate on race. But it’s a debate that often gets dumbed down, just as King’s radical dreams of peace, equality and justice have been dumbed down. King’s hard legacy was quickly wrapped in soft myth.

“Before his body was even laid to rest, Martin Luther King Jr. had slipped into the long night of myth,” Dyson writes. “He quickly became the most overworked martyr since Abraham Lincoln.”

And “martyrdom also forced onto King’s dead body the face of a toothless tiger. … In exchange for collective guilt, whites have given King lesser victories: a national birthday, iconic ubiquity, and endless encomiums,” Dyson, who is black, writes.

“But blacks have not been innocent in the posthumous manipulations of King’s legacy. If whites have undercut King by praising him to death, blacks have hollowed his humanity through worship. … Whites want him clawless; blacks want him flawless.”

Amen.

Dyson writes about how Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, despite what Dyson depicts as strong efforts, have failed to fully carry out King’s dreams. You think? Dyson could have found a few other black leaders to explore. Regardless of what their inflated egos might lead them to believe, Jackson and Sharpton don’t speak for all black folks any more than James Dobson and Pat Robertson speak for all white folks.

Dyson writes that because “King and Jackson fought bitter battles with ugly forces, Obama can gracefully walk through doors kicked in by King and Jackson.” Jackson did fight those battles, at least in his days as one of King’s lieutenants. But Sharpton’s fighting, often just for the sake of publicity, has accomplished little except to further divide the races.

And how about all the anonymous blacks and whites who paved the way for Obama’s presidential run? Dyson does seem to get that point. “As he walks through those doors, Obama carries the legacy of his people even as he seeks to serve the entire nation. There could hardly be a more fitting tribute to King, and to the people and justice he loved.”

It’s a grand vision, anyway, that suggestion that Obama could sweep into the White House, buoyed in large part on the dreams of another charismatic black leader. For Obama to have made it as far as he has is a huge statement in and of itself about how far we’ve all come.

And regardless of whether we’re backing Obama, we can all hope that 40 years after King’s assassination, a black leader shouldn’t have to worry whether he’ll have all the time he needs to play out his hand, for better or worse. He shouldn’t have to worry that he’ll be killed for the color of his skin in a land that proclaims freedom for all.

(The article appeared on journalnow.com)

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