Obama, marchers mark 50 years since King's 'Dream' speech

Ian Simpson and Jeff Mason 35 minutes agoPoliticsSocietyBarack ObamaBernice King

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By Ian Simpson and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - America is struggling to fully realize the vision that civil rights leader Martin Luther King described in his famous "I have a dream" speech 50 years ago, as the goal of economic security for all remains elusive, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday.

Obama, the first black U.S. president, spoke to thousands of marchers on Washington's National Mall on Wednesday to commemorate King's landmark address, which came to symbolize the struggle for equality among blacks and whites in America.

Obama said King's speech inspired millions of Americans to fight for a more just society and rights that people now take for granted.

"To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed, that dishonors the courage, the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years," Obama said.

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U.S. President Barack Obama (C) applauds the ringing of a Birmingham, Alabama church bell during cer …

"But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete," he said, calling economic justice the "unfinished business" of the civil rights battle.

Marchers, many wearing T-shirts with King's face on them, began their walk near the U.S. Capitol.

They were led by a line of military veterans and people who had been at the 1963 march, their arms linked. People sang "We Shall Overcome" and other civil rights anthems.

Fighting restrictive voting rights laws that Democrats say hurt minorities, combating joblessness and reducing gun violence among African Americans are among the issues that civil rights leaders put at the forefront of their efforts in 2013.

"This march was supposed to be about jobs, but it's about a lot more," said marcher Ash Mobley, 27, of Washington, who said she was there to represent her grandmother, who had been at the 1963 event.

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President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrive at the 50th Anniversary of the March on …

The marchers heard speeches from former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and members of King's family on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the site of King's address on August 28, 1963.

A bell rang at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), 50 years to the minute after King ended his clarion call of the civil rights movement with the words "Let freedom ring."

Bernice King, his youngest child, urged the crowd to stay true to the ideals enunciated by her father.

"If freedom is going to ring in Libya, in Syria, in Egypt, in Florida, then we must reach across the table, feed each other and let freedom ring," she said.

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U.S. President Barack Obama (bottom L) speaks with Yolanda Renee King, daughter of Martin Luther Kin …

Obama's address commemorating King, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and advocate of non-violence, comes as the White House edges closer to launching military strikes in Syria in response to what U.S. officials say they believe was a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government on civilians.

Obama has said the country's history of racial discrimination had contributed to a persistent economic gap between blacks and whites in the decades since King's speech.

Obama, whose mother was white and whose father was black, has sometimes seemed reluctant to weigh in on persistent racial divides in the United States, but he spoke forcefully about the issue last month after the man who killed black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was acquitted.

The "Let Freedom Ring and Call to Action" ceremony comes as almost half of Americans say much more needs to be done before the color-blind society King envisioned is realized.

Wednesday's event caps a week-long celebration of King's historic call for racial and economic justice. They included a march on Saturday that drew thousands of people urging action on jobs, voting rights and gun violence.

King's speech is credited with helping spur passage of sweeping civil rights laws. A white prison escapee assassinated him in 1968.

(additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal, Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland; Editing by Karey Van Hall, Cynthia Osterman and Jim Loney)

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Part of what made matters so stressful for me two days ago was watching the videos of the alleged gassing of Syrian civilians. I had been working on other issues and had not seen the videos until that day and had an extreme attack of vasanas such as sadness and belligerence.

Fortunately I had a pre-scheduled reading with Archangel Michael through Linda Dillon on Aug. 27 and asked him to verify that the gas attacks were real and what the details of them were and here are his comments:

Steve Beckow: Could you confirm for us please whether the gas attacks were a false flag or whether Bashar al Assad actually did this?

Archangel Michael: There have been attacks that have been using not what you would think of as chemical weapons or chemical warfare or poison gas. But there have been substances that have been, can we say homemade, created, that are noxious fumes that make those who inhale them very sick and if they are impaired that they would be sick enough to die.

But it is not what you have thought of as “normal” weapons of poisonous gas or chemical weapons.

In many ways this information is falling under the same category as what occurred in Iraq [ie., Saddam bombing Kurdish villages with poison gas] with weapons of nuclear destruction.

SB: Is this an American thing that’s being done or a Syrian thing?

AAM: No, it is a Syrian thing that’s being done.

SB: So we’re talking about Bashar al Assad. OK, so now you’re referring to the Kurdish poisoning.

So Bashar al Assad has manufactured these weapons and used them but the scenes of all the dead, the hundreds of dead, are they true or is this a false flag.

AAM: That is not completely true. No.

SB: It would be very helpful if you could give us any details you can, like “not completely true.” Are they dead bodies or are they actors?

AAM: No, they are not actors. They are people who are unconscious.

SB: Unconscious. OK.

AAM: What we do not wish to do is to build on this drama.

SB: Right. But we as lightworkers need to know whether we should be calling for intervention in Syrira in Syria or not.

AAM: The intervention that we are asking the lightworkers to send to Syria is the energy that we have already sent which is energy of peace, healing, love and unity. It would create devastation, greater massacre, greater disharmony, more dissolution if other nations become involved. Let us put it that way.

SB: Is President Obama intending to become involved?

AAM: No.

SB: So the very stories that say, oh, he’s gonna do it are not correct, is that so?

AAM: He is being pressured to do it. But in many ways he is very aware … let us say that we would be very surprised. He is not being guided to take any action with regard to Syria. he has people on the ground investigating the truth, the veracity of the level of this poison gas, where and when it has been manufactured, the quantities and qualities of how it was manufactured.
He does not want to put himself in the position where he is again engaging in a war that is in fact based on lies.

SB: OK. So there have been a few deaths by this homemade gas but there haven’t been the large number of deaths that is being represented. Who is making these videos?

AAM: It is a combination of the regime of those who would profit from the scare tactics and the mass media that is more than eager to have this drama represented. So it is not just one team.

SB: Alright. Thank you.

Suzi Maresca interviewed Sanat Kumara on Heavenly Blessings that same day and asked him what the situation was in Syria and here is his response:

Suzi Maresca: I would like to ask a currents-events question. Primarily what I would like to know if there is any truth in the stories being fed us by the mass media or if the stories are in the category of false flags, specifically in terms of Syria at this time?

Sanat Kumara: You have some expressions that you use on Earth – slow news day? And when there is no news, they make up news. Now I am not suggesting that the violence and the conflict that rages in Syria is not true and real. It is a combination of things so let me explain and it works very well with our understanding and conversation today about above and below, within and without.

Why are the people in Syria – all factions – we do not favor factions – why are they not holding peace in their heart? Because when peace is in the heart, there cannot be outward aggression.

Are people fleeing? yes. Now let us also say that there are two categories of people fleeing and we do not mean political categories. There are people who are fleeing because they are fearful. And I am not talking about the fear that freezes. For some of them it is fight or flight. For others it is nervous fear.

So there is that category. And then there are those who are fleeing who are saying this is a time of turmoil and upheaval and this is my chance to move elsewhere. And because the borders will be open and refugees will be accepted, it is a chance to start a new life. So that is part of it.

But the key to Syria is every person on the planet – yes, with Archangel Michael and with us - to send the peace, the consideration and the love to Syria. There is a collective energy that is coming to surface, not just in Syria, but we are speaking of this, of inadequacy, a belief in the lack of self worth or in righteousness. But it is misplaced righteousness.

It is not righteousness that is in accordance and alignment with the divine, which is love. It is a manipulated understanding. So is it a power struggle? Absolutely. Is it violent? Absolutely. Does it need to come to the surface to be eradicated rapidly, not by the invasion with more violence but with peace? Yes, it does.

Because – let us use this example and this is where a practical application of this law comes into form and I would ask all of you to do this with me - there is no war above. Period. It is a place of harmony. It is not a place of turmoil. It is not a place of anger and frustration. That does not exist.

Therefore there is no room for it below. So what you see is the alignment, as if there is a cloud of Heaven above Syria, and the light is pouring down, and that light is filled with Michael’s blue flame of truth, of justice and of peace. And from each of your hearts, you have the capacity to send right to the heart of Eqypt, Iraq or Iran that sense of peace.

When you become outraged at atrocity – and you are correct it is outrageous – but when you join into that energy of drama then you are contributing to it. So you have need to align with the divine qualities and with divine law. And in that way do not underestimate your strength. Collectively you have the power to stop these factions fighting in this very moment. You send the energy of peace and you hold that vision and you do not tolerate and engage in any other vision.

SW: May I ask specifically if the news that’s being given to the world on what’s going on there is embellished, so to speak, in order to foment fear and negative reaction from people. I mean I understand our work is to hear the news and understand what’s going and send love and light to the area. At the same it feels like a possibility that the news coming out is enhanced, embellished, and made seem worse than it really is.

SK; Let me suggest to you two things. There are very few news organizations on your planet that do not embellish, that do not dramatize, that do not try to get the worst pictures and scenarios and go with that because that is what they think people want but it is also what lines their coffers and I mean their coffers as well.

So is it embellished? of course. You may take that as a given.

SW: Specifically gas attacks? Is that what’s going?

SK: There are some gas attacks. Now the second piece of what I say is the realization that any atrocity is horrendous. So we do not mean to minimize the atrocity. What we wish to be very clear about is that news organizations look for the worst and promote the worst.

SW: Right. I’m just wondering at what point the heavenly agenda becomes part and parcel of our news.

SK: We’re not interfering with the free will. But there was something that went unnoticed when Gabrielle told you that the new grid is in place. And that new grid,. dear heart, is part of the heavenly agenda and it is also going to influence the collective behaviors enormously. You cannot stand and be part of the new golden grid and be dirty.

Protesters gather on Whitehall outside Downing Street to campaign for no international military intervention in the ongoing conflict in Syria (Getty Images)

Stephen: Seems some sanity may be creeping into the Syrian ‘strike’ debate after all! Most telling in all this is the survey the newspaper did which shows a whopping 44% of Britons say their country should ‘never’ meddle in another country’s affairs – see Poll graphic below.

By Peter Dominiczak, Tim Ross and Robert Winnett, The Telegraph, UK – August 28, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/nn6swpv

British Prime Minister David Cameron backed down and agreed to delay a military attack on Syria following a growing revolt over the UK’s rushed response to the crisis on Wednesday night.

The Prime Minister has now said he will wait for a report by United Nations weapons inspectors before seeking the approval of MPs for “direct British involvement” in the Syrian intervention.

Downing Street said the decision to wait for the UN was based on the “deep concerns” the country still harbours over the Iraq War.

MPs had been recalled to vote on a motion on Thursday expected to sanction military action. Instead, after a Labour intervention, they will debate a broader motion calling for a “humanitarian response”.

A second vote would be required before any British military involvement. This could now take place next week.

In a statement on Wednesday night Downing Street said that it only wanted to proceed on a “consensual basis” and was now wary about becoming embroiled in another divisive conflict in the Middle East in the wake of Iraq.

Senior sources had previously suggested that Britain would take part in strikes as soon as this weekend which meant an emergency recall of Parliament was necessary on Thursday.

However, following Labour threatening not to support the action and senior military figures expressing concerns over the wisdom of the mission, the Prime Minister on Wednesday night agreed to put British involvement on hold.

The climbdown is likely to be seen as an embarrassment for Mr Cameron as he was determined to play a leading role in British military strikes, which had been expected this weekend.

The new strategy emerged after days of wrangling with Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, and after a succession of senior Tories had spoken out in the strongest terms against an intervention.

There were growing doubts that Mr Cameron would be able to secure a Commons majority before the UN reported back on last week’s gas attacks in Damascus that killed hundreds and injured thousands more.

Should The UK Pursue Military Action Against Syria? POLL

Should the UK pursue military action against Syria?

Labour had demanded the Prime Minister agree to hold a second vote in the Commons after the UN inspectors concluded their work.

However, during a tense telephone call between the two party leaders at 5.15pm Mr Cameron “totally ruled out” giving MPs a second vote – which would have left Downing Street’s plan for a weekend offensive in tatters.

Labour then immediately announced that it would order its MPs to vote against the Government’s motion authorising military strikes. Just minutes before 7pm Downing Street was forced to redraft the planned motion saying that “before any direct British involvement … a further vote in the House of Commons will take place”.

On Wednesday night, a senior Conservative source said: “Labour has been playing politics when they should have been thinking about the national interest. Their position has changed continuously over the last 24 hours — finally ending in demands they had never even hinted at before.”

The Americans were consulted before Mr Cameron’s decision was announced and senior White House officials are said to have made it clear that they “respect the British Parliament”.

The move came just three hours after William Hague, the Foreign Secretary said it was “very important” for the UK not to leave it too long before launching strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

MPs will still debate and vote on a broader motion in the Commons on Thursday.

They will be asked to support the Government’s motion which states that a “strong humanitarian response is required from the international community and that this may, if necessary, require military action that is legal, proportionate and focused on saving lives by preventing and deterring further use of Syria’s chemical weapons.”

However, crucially the motion then adds: “Before any direct British involvement in such action a further vote of the House of Commons will take place.”

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said: “We are ensuring the House of Commons has the final say before any direct British involvement — one vote tomorrow, and another one if and when we are asked to participate directly.”

UN weapons inspectors are not due to leave Syria until Friday, making it unlikely a second vote will take place before next week. Government sources said it was not inconceivable a second vote could be held late on Friday or even on Saturday.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, MPs will be given a dossier of evidence by Downing Street that Whitehall sources have described as “utterly compelling” proof of Assad’s involvement in chemical atrocities against his own people.

It will include details of YouTube videos believed to show atrocities being committed by the Syrian regime. Mr Hague had on Wednesday reiterated that Britain must react urgently to do “what is necessary” to protect civilians and prevent further chemical weapons attacks by Assad’s regime.

Nato indicated its strong backing for Britain and the United States by saying that the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons “cannot go unanswered”.

Mr Cameron had drawn up plans to force his MPs to back a motion that the party’s whips are said to have warned was leading to anger among a growing number of backbenchers.

Several junior members of the Government have spoken publicly over their concerns and there were indications that there could have been resignations if a compelling case for British involvement was not made. Guy Opperman, parliamentary private secretary to Mark Harper, a Home Office minister, said that he was not in favour of “any military action”.

“For my part I see no plan, as yet, and more importantly, no strategy and exit,” he wrote on his website.

Other Conservative MPs including Sir Gerald Howarth, a former defence minister, Nick de Bois, the secretary of the powerful 1922 committee and Richard Drax, a former soldier, also expressed serious concerns. Tory grandees joined former military leaders and high-profile church figures to warn of the dangers of intervening.

However, Mr Cameron’s decision to delay also attracted criticism from within his own party. Douglas Carswell, a Conservative MP, mocked the government’s climbdown.

He said: “What to do when you cannot command a majority in Commons for Syria strikes? Table motion about something else. This is how we are governed.”

The team of 20 UN inspectors has been in Syria since Aug 18 looking into three earlier suspected chemical attacks.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria, said the death toll from the “substance” used in last week’s attack — widely thought to be the nerve agent sarin — could rise to about 1,000.

John Smallman

Saul: Visualize an Immense Cloud of Light Hovering Over Areas of Conflict, channeled by John Smallman, August 28,2013 at: http://johnsmallman.wordpress.com/

John’s reading of this message can be found here:
http://johnsmallman.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/2013-08-28-saul-audio-blog-for-wednesday-august-28th.mp3

The apparently escalating conflicts at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea will not result in a full-scale multinational war. The nations there in disharmony and disarray are going through a necessary cleansing, an eruption of conflicting interests and agendas which they themselves have to address honestly and transparently, and through calm and wise negotiation resolve to the satisfaction of all parties involved. Military action from within, or outside intervention would only aggravate an already tense and angry situation, and will not occur.

You, the Light-bearers and wayshowers, can best help by intending, every time you meditate or go into your quiet inner space, to send loving wisdom and emotional restraint to all those who are in any way involved or engaged in the developments occurring there. It would also be most effective to visualize an immense field or cloud of Light hovering over the areas where conflict is ongoing, from which brilliant multicolored rays of Love are pouring down and entering the hearts of all in the vicinity.

That may not sound to many of you like a very efficacious way to assist in bringing peace to those areas of conflict, but I assure you that it is far more powerful than you can possibly imagine. I most strongly urge you to do it every time thoughts and anxieties about those conflicted ones come to mind. You know that military enforcement cannot bring lasting peace, and that it does add greatly to the suffering already being experienced. As you have been told so many times by so many wise ones over so many eons, Love is the only answer to any situation where people are in disagreement. Force or violence always fail.

Prayer is powerful medicine. Use it by praying and intending that Love infiltrate the hearts of every human, and utterly refrain from requesting judgment or punishment for those whom you see as the cause of the disharmony, and in this manner – by the immense power of Love fully intended and directed – change the hearts of the collective. Here in the spiritual realms we are well aware that you have been intending this for some considerable time, and with much success, but now, with the energies of Love and healing further intensifying all across the planet you can each individually add greatly to that intensification and therefore to its increasingly potent effect.

God’s Will is, and always has been, for His children to live in harmonious, joyful, and creative cooperation, and the time has now arrived for those who so freely chose to construct and enter into the illusion to release themselves from it by letting go of the tendrils, the netting, the web of fear, anxiety, and distrust that tie them to it, so that they can awaken as divinely planned. When you release those unloving character traits which, as a result of eons spent in the illusion, have come to seem totally normal – an essential safety precaution to ensure your survival there – the vast inner space that opens up within you all will fill rapidly with the Love from which you have been shielding yourselves by maintaining those traits.

To have an awareness – a knowing, conscious experience of the Love that is your eternal nature – will forever remove all your fear, anxiety, and mistrust because Love is transparent and shows very clearly that there is no need for them. It is uncontaminated, unadulterated, undiluted, absolutely perfect as God created It. You can probably imagine having that sense of freedom and total acceptance, an awareness of your infinite worth just because of who you truly are. And of course the reality is far, far beyond anything that you can imagine. Knowing yourselves like that ensures tranquility because all that is not of Love fades quickly from your memories because it was unreal, part of the nightmare that is lost almost instantly on awakening.

Your true nature is perfect peacefulness, the “peace that passeth all understanding,” and you are returning to an eternal awareness, an infinitely powerful knowing – far greater than experience – of your own magnificence as perfect aspects of your divine Source from which separation is inconceivable and impossible. Keep turning inwards to the Light of Love burning within each one of you, intend to reflect it to one another, and to all areas of the world that are consumed with conflict, as you wait in excited anticipation for your moment of awakening.

With so very much love, Saul.

The Manuscript of Survival – Part 349, channeled by Aisha North, August 29, 2013 at http://aishanorth.wordpress.com

You have become weary now, dear friends, and rightly so, as this massive operation that has been going on has also involved you in so many ways. Not directly, but more in the energetic sense, and the fallout from all of this has been very apparent to you all.

You see, you have been working so hard to anchor these new energies through your own phsyical bodies, and even if this will not be news to any of you, the amount you have managed to transport as it were is simply astounding. For not only have you been sitting in your own personal forcefield of light, you have also been connected closely with so many others out here, and together you have brought a huge load of transformational light to this blessed abode.

For this is a blessed place dear ones, even if you on all sides may see signs that it can be likened more to a hellish place. But know that these are merely scarrings on the surface of this beautiful planet of yours, and now, thanks to all of your hard work, the beauty you perceive within will start to come further and further out.

Let us explain. As we have talked about earlier, there is indeed a massive translocation operation going on. In other words, so much of what has been keeping the vibrations deliberately down on this planet has been sent packing, for want of a better word. And just what do we mean by that? Well, as we have touched upon earlier, the amount of negative energy on this planet has been staggeringly out of balance with the amount of light, and as such, the scales have been tipped far too far to the side of those still in favour of keeping it thus.

However, their reign is now considered as well and truly over, and as such, the operation to tip the scales back so that far more favourable circumstances can be had for all is well on its way. It is not completely over yet, but it is fair to say that from now on, you will all start to feel the lessening of this old load of heavy and draining energies.

In other words, what was once a massive wall of energetic hindrance has no only been scaled, but it has been torn apart, and through all of these rifts the light has now been pouring in for a long time already. And to add to that, much of the old imprints have been washed away in the same process, not only in you, but also in thousands upon thousands of other people out there.

So once again we say expect to find more and more people around you starting to rejoice from the realization that the air they are breathing has already gotten a far fresher quality, and the burden they have been carrying on their backs, perhaps without them even noticing it, has been removed. So look around you, and we think you will all see people starting to straighten out their back, looking about them as if bewildered and thinking ”what is this? There is something new in the air, but Í cannot begin to describe the quality of it.” So they will be puzzled, and they will start to search for answers, and so now, your time as wayshowers will truly begin.

For you are the forerunners in this, you have traveled this road already, so you are here, ready to guide them as they start to take their own faltering steps down that same road. It will not all be easy for them, but in many ways, their road will be a far more direct one than the one you had to travel in order to get to the point you are at the moment.

For as you hacked your way through that dense, wild jungle from the very beginning, you hacked away so much that constituted a hindrance, not only to you, but to anyone following in your wake. But now, they will see a clear path marked by you, one that has been trodden by many an eager soul before them, and so, they will catch up far more easily than you can perhaps even envisage.

So again we say thank you all for a brilliant job, for you are shining even stronger than before, and now, there are so many new eyes open that will be able to perceive that light, and who will be called to answer the calling from their own heart and take up their place beside you.