Today is Martin Luther King Day, which the great Barry Crimmins said was his favorite holiday “because it honors a great man and it annoys racist nitwits.” This speech can never be seen enough. I’m sure you’ve seen it many times. I know I have. But I still can’t listen to it without getting choked up, even after hundreds of times.
Jan 21 2013
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day
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jws1
January 21, 2013 at 3:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I detest that folks like Beck have attempted to co-opt this man as “one of their own.”
Shawn Smith
January 21, 2013 at 3:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
All the more amazing when you realize that the last half, the parts that I believe are most cited, were done completely off script. Mr. King is reading during the first half, but after gauging the reactions of the crowd, he starts going with more personal remarks, and not looking at any notes any more.
Modusoperandi
January 21, 2013 at 4:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Shawn Smith, in the unrated director’s cut he keeps going. It gets a little blue. Not a lot of people know that. None, in fact.
dan4
January 21, 2013 at 4:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What an jackass you are, MO.
jws1
January 21, 2013 at 5:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Someone needs a sense-of-humor.
dan4
January 21, 2013 at 5:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@5: Even as “humor,” it was disrespectful to MLK and the great speech he gave that day.
jws1
January 21, 2013 at 5:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@6: Bullshit.
d.c.wilson
January 21, 2013 at 5:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
jws1@1:
It never ceases to amaze me how, when he was alive, conservatives branded him a communist, but now that MLK is dead, they’re trying to rewrite history and claim him as one of their own.
But I guess that’s the way conservatism works in American. Eventually, they always claim that everything they used to oppose was their idea all along.
marcus
January 21, 2013 at 6:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
MLK is revered but not sacred. Rumor has it that he actually had a bit of a “blue” sense of humor. He was my first real hero.
aaronbaker
January 21, 2013 at 6:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“” . . . annoys racist nitwits” immediately reminded me of Joseph Sobran, who sneered at MLK and this speech in one of his screeds (I won’t link to it). Sobran at least had the virtue of being honest about his bigotry.
Dr X
January 21, 2013 at 7:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Ed:
Likewise. In fact, I’m getting choked up just reading that you get choked up listening to it.
iainr
January 21, 2013 at 7:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Apparently CD Baby, Screen Media Ventures LLC, IODA or Diwan Videos have claimed that they own this now and I can’t see it from “my jurisdiction”.
Nor with my normal “I’m an American, honest” settings that let me watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report.
F [nucular nyandrothol]
January 21, 2013 at 9:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
iainr
Stupid question: Did you try watching it at YouTube? You are likely facing multiple layers of restrictions, one which might be fixed by a proxy, and the other is that no one can watch the video embedded here.
And copyright, yes, is completely FUBAR.
Zeno
January 21, 2013 at 11:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Republicans hasten to embrace a placid and denatured version of King. It reminds me of Philip Roth’s Our Gang, which satirized Richard Nixon and his cronies: Nixon: “Martin Luther King was a very great man, as we all must surely recognize now that he is dead.”
Modusoperandi
January 22, 2013 at 1:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dan4, you must be whatever-the-opposite-of-a-laugh riot is at parties.
dan4
January 22, 2013 at 1:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@15: Yes, because if I don’t laugh at your pathetic jokes, I don’t laugh at any jokes. What a mighty fine egocentric attitude to have, MO!
joachim
January 22, 2013 at 4:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But King was a Christian.
No sidestepping it. He was.
Modusoperandi
January 22, 2013 at 5:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dan4, so what pathetic jokes do you laugh at?
democommie
January 22, 2013 at 7:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
King was a great man and like all men (especially the great ones, imo) he was deeply flawed. I suspect that he might have laughed at Modusoperandi’s comment @3.
Modusoperandi:
I know it was entirely serendipitous but you have now “split” dan4′s spleen. He used to give it all to me, now he’s going to have to spend a chunk of time dealing with your irreverence instead of giving his undivided attention to my jibes, taunts and sophomoric humor. I will only advise that you NOT do what I do and make fun of him–it seems to make him become even more ridiculous.
dingojack
January 22, 2013 at 8:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Demo, Modus – as long as you don’t try to jibe Dan’s spinnaker I think you’ll be OK.
Dingo
Childermass
January 22, 2013 at 8:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So?
I hope no one here is saying that one has to agree with King on 100% of things for King to be great.
marcus
January 22, 2013 at 9:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“But King was a Christian.No sidestepping it. He was.”
“I hope no one here is saying that one has to agree with King on 100% of things for King to be great.”
Both of these statements are true, there is also this: The only leaders black communities were allowed to have during the civil rights era were their pastors. There were simply no other civic offices available to them. The pastor was the civic and religious leader, it was the only way, to political or civil responsibility.
dan4
January 22, 2013 at 9:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@18: *commences sarcastic clapping.* What a great comeback, MO (especially since I didn’t emphasize the word “your” in my comment @16 that you were responding to, even though the ahem, “wit” in said “comeback” is dependent on me having done just that.)!
savagemutt
January 22, 2013 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, MO, you were totally p0wned by Dan’s different word emphasis!
dan4
January 22, 2013 at 9:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@24. savagemutt. Give me a break. MO @18 clearly implied that my comment @16 emphasized the word “your” in “…your pathetic jokes…” (I didn’t).
Modusoperandi
January 22, 2013 at 11:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dan4, here. Feel better now?
Michael Heath
January 23, 2013 at 8:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think if someone did an empircal study on who wins the audience over in regards to verbal jousts between comedians and their hecklers and then presented it here, dan4 might have let this one slide.