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| Topic: Oval Office rug gets history wrong | |
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President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, "How long? Not long." He would finish in a flourish: "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit. Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker. My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge," published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation." It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source. Parker said in 1853: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." The president is at minimum well-served by Parker's presence in the room. Parker embodied the early 19th-century reformer's passionate zeal for taking on several social causes at once. Many of these reformers were Unitarians or Quakers; some were Transcendentalists. Most courageously, as early as the 1830s, they opposed the laws on slavery and eventually harbored fugitives in the Underground Railroad network of safe houses. Without 30 years of a movement agitating and petitioning for slave emancipation, Lincoln could not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen in the midst of war. Parker was in the vanguard that laid the social and intellectual groundwork. The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html |
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????
wasnt this already discussed?.... the history books also frequently QUOTE people for saying things that they werent the FIRST to say a quote has nothing to do with who said something first,, it is just about who said it PERIOD |
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???? wasnt this already discussed?.... the history books also frequently QUOTE people for saying things that they werent the FIRST to say a quote has nothing to do with who said something first,, it is just about who said it PERIOD The hell it doesn. If President Bush would have done something like this it would be front page news on CNN, ABC, NBC, Move On, Daily KOS. Liberals would be up in arms protesting. |
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???? wasnt this already discussed?.... the history books also frequently QUOTE people for saying things that they werent the FIRST to say a quote has nothing to do with who said something first,, it is just about who said it PERIOD You are incorrect. Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. To credit someone who merely repeated a concept of great thinking is to give credit where credit is not due and to steal glory from a great mind. |
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Edited by
msharmony
on
Mon 09/06/10 05:30 PM
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lol, really, and how do we determine who said something FIRST?
how do you prove noone else said a SENTENCE prior to one person speaking it,,,thats silliness really here is Kings speech 'I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever." How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow." How long? Not long: Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, And, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above his own. How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. ' therefore the QUOTE is accurate, just as my QUOTING this speech is accurate dont believe me? put any of those lines in a search engine and see if thousands of references to KING dont show up.... |
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???? wasnt this already discussed?.... the history books also frequently QUOTE people for saying things that they werent the FIRST to say a quote has nothing to do with who said something first,, it is just about who said it PERIOD You are incorrect. Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. To credit someone who merely repeated a concept of great thinking is to give credit where credit is not due and to steal glory from a great mind. There is no logic with some people my friend. |
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???? wasnt this already discussed?.... the history books also frequently QUOTE people for saying things that they werent the FIRST to say a quote has nothing to do with who said something first,, it is just about who said it PERIOD You are incorrect. Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. To credit someone who merely repeated a concept of great thinking is to give credit where credit is not due and to steal glory from a great mind. There is no logic with some people my friend. exactly Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. most ALWAYS statements are FALSE and the two QUOTES are similar but NOT the same the QUOTE from parker is in "Of Justice and the Conscience" (1853) : "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." the QUOTE from king was delivered at the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery on March 25, 1965,,,it was 'How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' my suggestion is that people be honest about what it means to QUOTE someone,,,if the rug had said '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." it would be misquoted, but the statement on the rug WAS in fact quoted from Kings words and their similarity to what someone else said doesnt make it a QUOTE of what they said |
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H. been screwin'-da-pooch so much, he be needin' a new pooch-ta'-screw!
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???? wasnt this already discussed?.... the history books also frequently QUOTE people for saying things that they werent the FIRST to say a quote has nothing to do with who said something first,, it is just about who said it PERIOD You are incorrect. Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. To credit someone who merely repeated a concept of great thinking is to give credit where credit is not due and to steal glory from a great mind. There is no logic with some people my friend. exactly Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. most ALWAYS statements are FALSE and the two QUOTES are similar but NOT the same the QUOTE from parker is in "Of Justice and the Conscience" (1853) : "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." the QUOTE from king was delivered at the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery on March 25, 1965,,,it was 'How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' my suggestion is that people be honest about what it means to QUOTE someone,,,if the rug had said '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." it would be misquoted, but the statement on the rug WAS in fact quoted from Kings words and their similarity to what someone else said doesnt make it a QUOTE of what they said Then I will rephrase my statement. Quotes are always credited to the originator of the quote when the source is known and the person doing the "quoting" is being intellectually honest. The quote on the president's rug is incorrect by crediting a statement to someone who does not deserved the credit for the origination of the idea. The above concept is so basic ... one could say we hold these truths to be self evident. If you do not think that MLK took the words of someone else and he therefore produced an original thought with that grouping of words ... the above concept certainly is not evident to you. |
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President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, "How long? Not long." He would finish in a flourish: "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit. Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker. My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge," published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation." It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source. Parker said in 1853: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." The president is at minimum well-served by Parker's presence in the room. Parker embodied the early 19th-century reformer's passionate zeal for taking on several social causes at once. Many of these reformers were Unitarians or Quakers; some were Transcendentalists. Most courageously, as early as the 1830s, they opposed the laws on slavery and eventually harbored fugitives in the Underground Railroad network of safe houses. Without 30 years of a movement agitating and petitioning for slave emancipation, Lincoln could not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen in the midst of war. Parker was in the vanguard that laid the social and intellectual groundwork. The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html I think this happens a lot. Maybe Obama will want to remember it when those specific people said it. Sometimes it is about who says it. |
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President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, "How long? Not long." He would finish in a flourish: "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit. Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker. My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge," published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation." It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source. Parker said in 1853: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." The president is at minimum well-served by Parker's presence in the room. Parker embodied the early 19th-century reformer's passionate zeal for taking on several social causes at once. Many of these reformers were Unitarians or Quakers; some were Transcendentalists. Most courageously, as early as the 1830s, they opposed the laws on slavery and eventually harbored fugitives in the Underground Railroad network of safe houses. Without 30 years of a movement agitating and petitioning for slave emancipation, Lincoln could not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen in the midst of war. Parker was in the vanguard that laid the social and intellectual groundwork. The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html I think this happens a lot. Maybe Obama will want to remember it when those specific people said it. Sometimes it is about who says it. Sometimes it is just a mistake. |
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???? wasnt this already discussed?.... the history books also frequently QUOTE people for saying things that they werent the FIRST to say a quote has nothing to do with who said something first,, it is just about who said it PERIOD You are incorrect. Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. To credit someone who merely repeated a concept of great thinking is to give credit where credit is not due and to steal glory from a great mind. There is no logic with some people my friend. exactly Quotes are always credited to the originator of the idea. most ALWAYS statements are FALSE and the two QUOTES are similar but NOT the same the QUOTE from parker is in "Of Justice and the Conscience" (1853) : "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." the QUOTE from king was delivered at the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery on March 25, 1965,,,it was 'How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' my suggestion is that people be honest about what it means to QUOTE someone,,,if the rug had said '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." it would be misquoted, but the statement on the rug WAS in fact quoted from Kings words and their similarity to what someone else said doesnt make it a QUOTE of what they said Then I will rephrase my statement. Quotes are always credited to the originator of the quote when the source is known and the person doing the "quoting" is being intellectually honest. The quote on the president's rug is incorrect by crediting a statement to someone who does not deserved the credit for the origination of the idea. The above concept is so basic ... one could say we hold these truths to be self evident. If you do not think that MLK took the words of someone else and he therefore produced an original thought with that grouping of words ... the above concept certainly is not evident to you. only as evident as claiming every snippet someone uses in this thread, like leading a horse to water, should not be QUOTED with them as the source but with the person who also said a similar CONCEPT as the source,,, |
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President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, "How long? Not long." He would finish in a flourish: "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit. Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker. My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge," published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation." It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source. Parker said in 1853: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." The president is at minimum well-served by Parker's presence in the room. Parker embodied the early 19th-century reformer's passionate zeal for taking on several social causes at once. Many of these reformers were Unitarians or Quakers; some were Transcendentalists. Most courageously, as early as the 1830s, they opposed the laws on slavery and eventually harbored fugitives in the Underground Railroad network of safe houses. Without 30 years of a movement agitating and petitioning for slave emancipation, Lincoln could not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen in the midst of war. Parker was in the vanguard that laid the social and intellectual groundwork. The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html I think this happens a lot. Maybe Obama will want to remember it when those specific people said it. Sometimes it is about who says it. nothing happened really, one can look in ANY history book which includes the MLK speech and there, in quotations, will be those exact words same cant be true of the other fellow who put a similar IDEA in a totally different phrasing,,,,(,a paragraph nonetheless whereas this was just a sentence) |
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He. Screwed. Up. ... AGAIN. MLK is NOT a President, either. Why is he included with the material from OTHER presidents? The boy is trying to establish a false equivalent. Not with me, he won't ...
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President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, "How long? Not long." He would finish in a flourish: "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit. Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker. My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge," published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation." It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source. Parker said in 1853: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." The president is at minimum well-served by Parker's presence in the room. Parker embodied the early 19th-century reformer's passionate zeal for taking on several social causes at once. Many of these reformers were Unitarians or Quakers; some were Transcendentalists. Most courageously, as early as the 1830s, they opposed the laws on slavery and eventually harbored fugitives in the Underground Railroad network of safe houses. Without 30 years of a movement agitating and petitioning for slave emancipation, Lincoln could not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen in the midst of war. Parker was in the vanguard that laid the social and intellectual groundwork. The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html I think this happens a lot. Maybe Obama will want to remember it when those specific people said it. Sometimes it is about who says it. nothing happened really, one can look in ANY history book which includes the MLK speech and there, in quotations, will be those exact words same cant be true of the other fellow who put a similar IDEA in a totally different phrasing,,,,(,a paragraph nonetheless whereas this was just a sentence) it would make them both seem more intelligent to use an original quote... it is just taking away from one person and giving it to another... almost a racial bias, huh? |
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seriously,,,
"We certainly all learned a lot of important history," Gibbs said Tuesday. "What King said and what Parker said are not the same thing." He also noted neither man's name is actually on the rug. None of the quotations has names attached. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_XZvDn911E4MBmB-ACk2wUYdMMgD9I3B9U00 NEITHER NAME IS ON THE RUG,,,,had anyone SEEN the rug before going on this irrelevant tirade?.... 
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seriously,,,
"We certainly all learned a lot of important history," Gibbs said Tuesday. "What King said and what Parker said are not the same thing." He also noted neither man's name is actually on the rug. None of the quotations has names attached. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_XZvDn911E4MBmB-ACk2wUYdMMgD9I3B9U00 NEITHER NAME IS ON THE RUG,,,,had anyone SEEN the rug before going on this irrelevant tirade?....
why does he need a rug anyway? who ordered it and how much did it cost? we need to know these things, it is very important... |
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Edited by
msharmony
on
Tue 09/07/10 07:55 PM
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President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, "How long? Not long." He would finish in a flourish: "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit. Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker. My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge," published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation." It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source. Parker said in 1853: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." The president is at minimum well-served by Parker's presence in the room. Parker embodied the early 19th-century reformer's passionate zeal for taking on several social causes at once. Many of these reformers were Unitarians or Quakers; some were Transcendentalists. Most courageously, as early as the 1830s, they opposed the laws on slavery and eventually harbored fugitives in the Underground Railroad network of safe houses. Without 30 years of a movement agitating and petitioning for slave emancipation, Lincoln could not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen in the midst of war. Parker was in the vanguard that laid the social and intellectual groundwork. The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html I think this happens a lot. Maybe Obama will want to remember it when those specific people said it. Sometimes it is about who says it. nothing happened really, one can look in ANY history book which includes the MLK speech and there, in quotations, will be those exact words same cant be true of the other fellow who put a similar IDEA in a totally different phrasing,,,,(,a paragraph nonetheless whereas this was just a sentence) it would make them both seem more intelligent to use an original quote... it is just taking away from one person and giving it to another... almost a racial bias, huh? not really, not anymore than crediting Lincolns Gettysburg words to Lincoln although several of the concepts within it werent originally though of by him,,, but did you get the bit where Kings name is not even ON the rug,,lol |
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Edited by
Peccy
on
Wed 09/08/10 08:43 AM
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President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, "How long? Not long." He would finish in a flourish: "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit. Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker. My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge," published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as "Barack Obama's favorite quotation." It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source. Parker said in 1853: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice." The president is at minimum well-served by Parker's presence in the room. Parker embodied the early 19th-century reformer's passionate zeal for taking on several social causes at once. Many of these reformers were Unitarians or Quakers; some were Transcendentalists. Most courageously, as early as the 1830s, they opposed the laws on slavery and eventually harbored fugitives in the Underground Railroad network of safe houses. Without 30 years of a movement agitating and petitioning for slave emancipation, Lincoln could not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen in the midst of war. Parker was in the vanguard that laid the social and intellectual groundwork. The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Theodore Parker, Oval Office wordmeister for the ages. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html I think this happens a lot. Maybe Obama will want to remember it when those specific people said it. Sometimes it is about who says it. nothing happened really, one can look in ANY history book which includes the MLK speech and there, in quotations, will be those exact words same cant be true of the other fellow who put a similar IDEA in a totally different phrasing,,,,(,a paragraph nonetheless whereas this was just a sentence) i see what you are saying, but all he is doing is paraphrasing someone elses writings... is that a right thing to do? it would make them both seem more intelligent to use an original quote... it is just taking away from one person and giving it to another... almost a racial bias, huh? not really, not anymore than crediting Lincolns Gettysburg words to Lincoln although several of the concepts within it werent originally though of by him,,, but did you get the bit where Kings name is not even ON the rug,,lol C'mon...aren't there bigger issues than this rug? I don't care if he has the cast of Sesame Street on it if he tries to fix this economy!
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Quoting someone without giving proper credit in the world is called plagarism or at least it used to be.
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