A post by Pat
I liked that show Connections where we learned things like weaving led to computers. So it was with great fascination I read this TIME article about the voice of God bringing about the Obama Presidency. The connections go from Alexander Scourby to Paul Robeson to James Earl Jones to Barack Obama.
Some people believe Obama is himself the voice of God, but they are wrong. James Earl Jones is. God used to be British, Allah too. That goes back a few years. God might still be British if it wasn’t for Ol’ Man River and Showboat. You see, British accents used to convey dignity, authority and power but Winston Churchill got knocked off his perch by black preachers.
I feel like a gnat when I hear a rich British accent but the Brits haven’t suffered enough to be the voice of God according to today’s standards. Over the years the notion developed that suffering confers dignity and since the blacks suffered and sing plaintive songs in booming voices, it was inevitable the voice of God would become distinctively black. Obama did manage to talk himself into the White House but not because his voice is the voice of God. Obama’s voice isn’t black enough to sell cereal according to the article. It’s all in the connections. Once God became African-American, a President was not far behind.
Here’s how it goes according to master weaver Michael Kinsley:
Barack Obama and the Voice of God
In the 1950s and ’60s, god was a man named Alexander Scourby. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., of Greek immigrant parents and attended college in West Virginia, but he spoke in a “deep and resonant voice” (as Wikipedia puts it) and–here is the key point–with more than a touch of a British accent. Long after Britain had exhausted its resources in World War II and lost its empire, a British accent conveyed authority, dignity, power.
Scourby died in 1985, after at least two complete recordings of the Bible and one of the Koran. Yes, in those days, even the Prophet Muhammad had a British accent. So who is God today? The answer is clear: he is James Earl Jones.
The roots of this development go back at least to the 1930s and Paul Robeson’s singing “Ol’ Man River” in Showboat. The therapeutic notion that suffering confers dignity and authority has spread just as the suffering of African Americans over generations has become universally acknowledged. Above all, black American ministers have replaced British politicians, at least in perception, as the world’s most eloquent public users of the English language. Our homegrown Martin Luther King Jr. has knocked Winston Churchill off his perch as the ideal.
Starting Jan. 20, the most powerful person in the world actually will be a black man. Although President Barack Obama is one of the greatest public speakers now practicing that art, he probably couldn’t get hired as the anonymous voice-over spokesman for a brand of cereal because he doesn’t sound black enough. Nevertheless, he is a beneficiary of this development. When God turned into an African American, it became less unthinkable that the President might be African American as well.
So Obama is President because Darth Vader is God and we’ll just keep rollin’ along right into the abyss.
I appreciate that Obama does not drift into pidgin English to make a “black” point. That’s the sort of ethnic pandering that some crowds seem to appreciate, but it seems just juvenile and insulting to me. I remember before Obama picked up steam and Hillary was going to be the second black president, so she was drawling about how we’s haz comes so fars and we ain’t goin’ back, or whatever it was she said. Somebody get that lady a dictionary.
It will be intersting to see, in a year’s time,if the adoration of the’ONE’, is still at the same level.
By that time he will have made a number of decisions that he actually has to stand behind.
I have a feeling that ‘Camelot II’, may not be all that some people think. We’ll see.
He still occasionally makes astute and incisive points, and is not always a doctrinaire lefty, but somewhere along the line, Mike Kinsley completely lost his marbles.
From The American Revolution of 1776 to Infantilism of 2009.
After Pershing led US troops in France to pull that country’s asses of their own onion soup, Clemenceau made the remark. “America is the only country in hostory that has gone from barbarism to degeneracy without the usual interval of civilization.”
Well, I hate Clemenceau – not that we ever met; my being born in 1941 – but in 2009, we find that we dropped not only to degeneracy, but infantilism with Baraq’s ascendency. Sometime even the devil speaks of future truths.
I may have lost a lot of friends over the past year, gay and straight, but, now I question, “What kind of friends throw my country away?”
I never believed in the Paranormal Side of the dimensions we live in, but Barky and the Thought Police zombies have me now believing. Morons!
I agree with SHAWMUT. I want my country back! BO is a poseur [a person who attempts to impress others by assuming or affecting a manner, degree of elegance, sentiment, etc., other than his or her true one.] He has no experience, he may well be suffering from illusions of grandeur… note the creation of “office of President Elect”, pretensions that he ‘is’ a reincarnation of JFK/FDR/Lincoln/Reagan/MLK.
My American flag will fly at half mast tomorrow in sorrow for my country.
I’d almost agree with PINEY about flying the flag at half-mast. But, for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, I’m putting it out fully unfurled.
In further consideration; it’s our flag to honor, not Baraq and his infantilized zombies to disparage.
The Flag. It’s ours. Let it not mourn, nor show distress. Keep in our souls that message which we revere. Assign to those who discredit it one of their own. White.
As to Baraq being a Messiah, have you noticed that it’s the secular element that sees him so. I’ve had a Messiah since Baptism. It’s my Messiah to whom I credit what ethics I have, and, human as I am, it is Him who has forgiven me, has graced me when I needed Him – and I trust – will abide my decisions in these times of challenge.
Oh, don’t let me run off in a paean of piety, my errors are legion; from giddiness to attitude, to occsions of shameful hypocrisy. How human.
SHAWMUT, it is going to be difficult to fight to regain our country and our pride in our country. Koolaid has become the nutrition of the masses, unfortunately.
My flag will definitely fly fully unfurled the day the two border guards walk out of prison and can breathe freely of fresh air.
Would our country… no, would I be as over-the-top if Sarah Palin was in the spotlight tomorrow? I would hope common sense would prevail.
Not a lot I can do now, or for the next 4 years, except pray we remain safe.
PINEY and Tammy, I think today will be the start of the American Weimar. That government, too, gave everything away to appease it’s own, short-cut its troops in the field and neutralized basic laws that led to chaos.
At least I can follow it, uninterrupted. I’ve told just about everyone around me in Boston, The Athens of Attitude, where they can stuff their fat heads and sneeze.
Not being agog over today’s spectacle I’m being cited as a bigot, self-hating gay, and….it’s becoming rather peaceful.