April 4, 2013 marked the 45th Anniversary of the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This tragic event is notable in many ways; not the least of which is that today the life of Dr. King's Dream hangs in the balance more precariously than it has since the dark day of the Dreamer's death. Today, all across the United States, attempts are being made at the state level to restrict minorities right to vote.
Today, more so than at any time since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the rights of African Americans, women, and gays which were won with the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of those brave Civil Rights warriors who were of every race, creed, gender, color, and sexual orientation, are in danger of being taken away by current Republican members of the US House and Senate as well as Republican governors and state representatives.
These racist reactionaries, who are the ideological descendants and political refugees of the old Dixiecrat Democrats, are calling for and fighting for, a return to those days before the enactment of these Acts when questions of equality and the right to vote were left to be determined by the States. The America they are seeking to is the America of State's Rights; the America of slavery, segregation, and Judge Lynch. Their ideal America is the America of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit". It is for we African Americans the America of our nightmares; the America Dr. King gave his life to change:
"Strange Fruit"
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop."
Now of course Republicans will vehemently deny that they are seeking to return America to the days of "Strange Fruit". Yet their rhetoric of denial does not match the reality of the consequences of their policies for the proof of the GOP's efforts to turn back the clock to these dark days is proven by the following: The Constitutionality of Section Five of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended such disfranchising devices as the poll tax, the literacy test, and prevented state's from denying people the right to vote solely on the basis of race and creed, is being challenged in the US Supreme Court and the there is no guarantee, that with five reactionary Conservative Justices, one of whom, Justice Scalia who regards Federal protections of African Americans right to vote as being nothing more than a racial entitlement, that Section Five's Constitutionality will be affirmed and the right to vote remain secure.
DOMA, which seeks to define marriage between a man and a woman, and therefore denying those who are gay the right to marry the person of their choice may also be allowed to stand and Roe versus Wade, which guaranteed a woman's right to choose is also in jeopardy.
In short, everything that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for is under attack and it is under attack by a Republican Party which has been hijacked by racist reactionaries who's sole agenda is to return America to its segregated past; to the dark days of "Strange Fruit", where slavery, segregation, Judge Lynch, and White Supremacy was the rule of American life, culture, and law.
Thus, as we remember the 45th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. let us be clear at what hangs in the balance. If the Republican Party is not stopped, it will assassinate Dr. King's Dream, just as its racist reactionary forebears of the not too distant past assassinated Dr. King himself.
If the Republican Party succeeds in rolling back voting rights, gay rights, women's rights; if it continues to murder the middle class and widen the gap between rich and poor, black and white, male and female, gay and straight, then Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will have died in vain.
If the Republican Party is successful, then the Dreamer will have dreamed for nothing; his life, his vision, his legacy, and even his death, will have all been been for naught.
If the Republican Party succeeds then it will prove that Dr. King's love of humanity, his belief in nonviolence, and his belief in America, was wrong.
The Republican Party can put forth all the Herman Cains, Dr. Ben Carsons, Clarence Thomases, Condoleeza Rices, and Tim Scotts that it wants but their personal success does not change the fact that the success of the Republican Party and its racist, reactionary extreme Right Wing agenda they support will spell utter disaster for African Americans, women, gays, the middle class, and the poor as a whole.
No token people of color that the GOP parades before us, regardless of their personal distinction can change this reality for as Dr. King himself pointed out many times, the success of one does not equal the success of all. Equal rights and equal opportunity for all rather than great success for a token few will determine whether or not America has finally moved beyond the shackles of racism, sexism, and homophobia and it will not be for those on the Far Right who are doing the chaining, to determine that all are made free by their act of it saying that it has "liberated" a token few.
Therefore ignore the GOP's false claims that it is diversified and that ii is for diversity for the blatant lies they are. Every Republican/Conservative event these days can easily be mistaken for a Ku Klux Klan rally and not just because of the hateful, racist rhetoric and the Confederate flags they proudly wave.
How many people of color do we see at these things; one, two or three? Yes, they may be placed dead center or right behind the main speaker(s) but still you only count one, two or three.
A professional hockey game is a whole lot more integrated than these events and that doesn't even include include those black people who are in the seating bowl cheering on the respective teams, cooking the hotdogs and serving the beer at the concession stands. I mean a professional hockey game has more black people on the ice playing hockey than these GOP/Conservative rallies have in attendance and that's sad. So it goes without saying that contrary to what these Conservatives/Republicans would have you believe, a few grains of pepper in a mountain of salt does not diversity make and no one understood this better than Dr. King himself.
All this talk about Dr. King having been a Republican in his lifetime and would be a Republican today is nothing more than a self serving bald faced lie perpetrated by the current GOP in a vain attempt to conceal its racist agenda. Let us not forget that in 1964 Dr. King supported Democratic President Lyndon Johnson and convinced 96% of all African Americans to vote for the president and pro civil rights, Liberal Democrats across the board.
Let us also remember that on April 26, 1967, during a visit to Cleveland Ohio, Dr. King publicly endorsed the then yet to be announced presidential candidacy of Liberal Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy, saying that he was the "best presidential candidate from the civil rights perspective."
So again, when this current crop of Republicans say that Dr. King was one of their own and would stand with them today, dismiss it for the bald faced lie that is is and remember the words of the following poem written in memory of Dr. King by noted African American poet Carl Wendell Hines in 1971 who even then foresaw the day when Dr. King's Life and Legacy would be hijacked by those very Conservative reactionaries of the Far Right who's racist hatred of the man and all he stood for led directly to his death:
"Now That He Is Safely Dead"
"Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient Heroes.
They cannot rise to challenge the images
We would fashion from their Lives.
It is easier to build monuments
Than to make a better world.
So now that he is safely dead,
We, with eased consciences, will
Teach our children that he was a great man,
Knowing that the cause for which he
Lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died
Is still a dream."
The time to sing the praises of a hero in that hero's lifetime when that hero is still alive to hear the cheers and be inspired to perform even more heroic deeds. Conservatives waited until after Dr. King was safely dead before they saw fit to praise him for in his lifetime they cursed and spat upon him just as they curse and spit upon President Barack Obama today.
Yet even while the Republican Party sings the praises of Dr. King today, through its thoughts, words, and deeds, it is determined to assassinate his dream by systematically undoing his life's work and dismantling his legacy. This is the cold reality and the inescapable truth and therefore be not duped by its bought and paid token shills of color who would blind you to this reality.
Remember that these tokens of color on the Far Right are the ones who remain on the plantation of the GOP. They are the Massa's Favorites who are in bed with their Masters of the Far Right and do their bidding. These Massa's Favorites know absolutely nothing and care even less about what it is to be an American in general and an African American in particular in 2013.
Their reality is the reality of the Massa's Favorite of slavery times. Their reality is the warm reality of Massa's Big House, not the cold, brutal reality of the field hand's outhouse.
Their reality is a life of comfort; of good food, good housing, excellent education, healthcare, and employment; things they put a down payment on by their own labors true, but things now maintained and sustained by their Master's of the Far Right in return for their souls they've sold.
They speak not for the vast, vast majority of African Americans any more than those tokens of color who railed against Dr. King in his lifetime calling the Dreamer a troublemaker, a Communist, because he dared to fight against racial segregation, for the right to vote, and for people of color to think for themselves, and regard themselves as being people of value entitled to the same rights and freedoms as every other American.
These bought tokens of color know not poverty, deprivation, desperation, or despair. They want for nothing and will continue to want for nothing so long as they continue to front for and sing the praises of their racist masters of the Republican Party and the Far Right.
So it should not be surprising that they accuse Democrats in general and white Liberals in particular of being the "worst racists" for these Massa's Favorites of the GOP know what the Massa's Favorites of slavery times knew; and that is that with freedom comes responsibility and central to that responsibility is using one's back as a ladder for those less fortunate to climb to their full potential just as they used the backs of others to climb to theirs.
Of course it is painful at times for others to use our backs as a ladder so that others less fortunate than us may climb upward and the last thing these Massa's Favorites of the Republican Party want is to be made uncomfortable for they know that if they do help others who are less fortunate and are of a Liberal/Democratic mindset that their Conservative Masters will no longer help and sustain them.
Gone will be the material comforts that their souls have bought. Gone will be the luxury of having others do their thinking for them. So of course these Massa's Favorites of the Republican Party will pull up the ladder that is their backs and preach the glories of self reliance and self sufficiency; conveniently forgetting of course that but for the backs of others they would have had no way to climb to the heights they have.
What makes this Liberal bashing by people like Dr. Ben Carson, Justice Clarence Thomas, Senator Tim Scott, and former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice so doubly damnable is that but for the progressive Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's that criminalized racial segregation and ended voter suppression based on race, is that none of them would have ever gotten anywhere because the doors through which the had to pass in order to become a brain surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a Justice of the US Supreme Court, a US Senator, and a US Secretary of State would have remained closed to them because of the color of their skin. If it had been otherwise then none of them would have been pioneers since people of color just like them would have occupied these esteemed positions generations earlier.
It was Liberals and Liberal thinking which opened these doors for them; not Conservatives. It is Conservatives of both parties, Democrat and Republican, who have always stood in the way of progress in matters of achieving equal rights. So it is right to question the judgement, if not the sanity, of people like Dr. Carson, Justice Thomas, Senator Scott, and Dr. Rice for supporting those, who if they'd had their way, none of them would have ever gotten anywhere, regardless of how hard they worked. I mean seriously, what type of black person supports a party, people, and policies which argues that it is okay to deny people the right to vote because they are black?
What type of black person supports a Party and a political mindset that says, in Justice Scalia's words, that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which guaranteed the right of people of color to vote by preventing them from being denied that right because of the color of their skin) a ""racial entitlement?"
How come the right to vote is only an "entitlement" when it comes to black people and what type of black person supports such a racist, wrong headed, misinterpretation of the right to vote?
It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all and so the only logical explanation for people of color being Conservative/Republicans these days is that they have been brainwashed, paid off, or both. There is no other even remotely credible explanation for such conduct which is idiotic, demeaning, and self defeating in every sense of the word.
Therefore the bottom line is this. If you are for voter ID laws, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against Roe versus Wade, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against equal pay for equal work, then you are against Dr. King. If you are in favor of DOMA, you are against Dr. King. If you are against someone because they are Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, or Hispanic, then you are against Dr. King.
If you are against someone because they are poor, hungry, homeless, and on Welfare, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against someone because they are Muslim, Christian, Jew, Gentile, Protestant or Catholic; if you are against anyone, period, because of their religion, then you are against Dr. King.
If the first thing that comes to your mind and out of your mouth when you refer to a friend is that person's color, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, then you are against Dr. King for true love and true friendship, is unconditional and without need of clarification. If you hate common sense gun laws, then you hate Dr. King and if you seek to exploit your fellow citizens for personal & financial gain then you are against Dr. King.
Those who say they regard as a hero someone who stands for the exact opposite of what they stand for is lying through their teeth and only a fool believes that they are sincere in what they say. These Conservatives/Republicans don't sing the praises of Dr. King because they agree with what he stood because they stand for the exact opposite of what he stood for and are in favor of everything he was against.
Thus they praise him not because they admire him but because it is the politically correct thing to do and for no other reason. I won't even mention that these very same people of the Far Right who are giving false praise to the life and legacy of Dr. King for the mere sake of being politically correct are the same exact ones who make a special point of accusing those of us on the Left of being too obsessed with being politically correct because it should be obvious that hypocrisy is in the Far Right's DNA. These people can no sooner stop lying and being hypocrites than any of us can voluntarily stop breathing. It's as simple as that.
Now you Republicans, you Conservatives, you Tea Party members, and you Libertarians have the right to think and be exactly as you are but what you don't have the right to do is lie and demand that others take your lies to be the truth. You don't have the right to do that!
So stop lying you Republicans! Stop lying you Libertarians! Stop lying you Tea Partiers and stop lying you Conservatives! Stop lying! Stop telling this lie that you love the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because the truth is you hate him! You hate his guts and you curse his memory and this is proven by your determination to roll back the tide of equality; to destroy the America that Dr. King lived and died to create!
Tell the truth you Republicans! Tell the truth you Libertarians! Tell the truth you Tea Partiers and tell the truth you Conservatives! You people hate Dr. King, period! You hate everything he stood for and everything he represents! Admit it! You hate him and it is your right to hate him but at least have the guts to be honest with yourselves, with each other, and with your country and have the guts to admit that you hate him for the whole world see's right through your lies. Your actions and the people & policies you support shine the light of truth on your hatred of Dr. King and his Dream every single day.
You are fooling no one but yourselves so own up to the truth and admit that if you're a Republican, a Tea Party member, a Libertarian, and a Conservative, that you hate Dr. King, period. I mean since you all stand against every single thing he stood for it is obvious that you don't love him and the flip side of love is hate.
So with Dr. King's Dream now squarely in the crosshairs of the Republican Party, let us all ask ourselves is this the America we really want? Do we really want to tell our children and grandchildren that love, nonviolence, are irrelevant as the Republican Party is telling us now?
Do we want to say to them that dreamers like Dr. King, while well meaning, were ultimately fools because that we as a people, as a nation, are simply incapable of living up to the standards of those ideals he and other Dreamers lived and died for; ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence and consecrated by the blood and sweat of all of all who have died and struggled for the cause of Liberty where our fellow citizens of color, women, gays, the poor, and the middle class are concerned?
If you're a Republican/Conservative, take a moment to examine your conscience. Have the courage to turn your face to the nearest mirror and look yourselves right in the eyes and then have the guts to honestly ask yourselves what is so really wrong about wishing that others enjoy the same fruits of freedom that you enjoy for yourselves?
What is so wrong with everyone having the right to vote, with everyone having the right to marry the person of their choice, and everyone living and playing by the same set of rules? In short, what is so wrong with being what you say you are, an American? What is so wrong with an America that really is the Land of Liberty and the Home of the Brave for everyone and not just yourselves?
Why do you Republicans/Conservatives insist on being so selfish and thinking only of yourselves; of caring only about your rights and not giving a damn about the rights of others?
Dr. King wasn't like this. He believed in freedom for all; not just in freedom for the few, and he did a lot more than pay mere lip service to Liberty like you Republicans & Conservatives are doing; he lived for it, he suffered for it, and he died for it. He was truly a great and wonderful man and the key to his greatness was not only that he was a loving man but that to him Freedom for All in fact and not just in words was the Gospel. He opposed anyone who hated, anyone who was insincere, and any person who opposed equal rights to any person because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation.
He more than than anyone in our times believed in an America that was truly a Land of the Free, a Home of the Brave, a Land of Full Equality, a Land of Fairness, and where the strong did protect the weak.
All of these things were the things for which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life forty five years ago this April 4th. This is what his Dream was all about; to live in an America where everyone treated everyone else as they wished to be treated; as they wished for their children and their grandchildren to be treated.
So again we have a choice; we can choose between the Republican Party and its reactionary racist agenda which is determined to assassinatel the Dream of Dr. King and return America to its dark segregated past or we can choose the Dream itself; we can choose to continue to follow Dr. King's path; to pursue his vision; a vision which says that all of us are in this together, that all of us are equal, and that all of us have rights and value. Look ahead my fellow Americans. See forward and don't allow this nation to go backwards as the Republican Party would have us do for Dr. King deserved better and so too do all of us.
Today, more so than at any time since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the rights of African Americans, women, and gays which were won with the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of those brave Civil Rights warriors who were of every race, creed, gender, color, and sexual orientation, are in danger of being taken away by current Republican members of the US House and Senate as well as Republican governors and state representatives.
These racist reactionaries, who are the ideological descendants and political refugees of the old Dixiecrat Democrats, are calling for and fighting for, a return to those days before the enactment of these Acts when questions of equality and the right to vote were left to be determined by the States. The America they are seeking to is the America of State's Rights; the America of slavery, segregation, and Judge Lynch. Their ideal America is the America of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit". It is for we African Americans the America of our nightmares; the America Dr. King gave his life to change:
"Strange Fruit"
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop."
Now of course Republicans will vehemently deny that they are seeking to return America to the days of "Strange Fruit". Yet their rhetoric of denial does not match the reality of the consequences of their policies for the proof of the GOP's efforts to turn back the clock to these dark days is proven by the following: The Constitutionality of Section Five of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended such disfranchising devices as the poll tax, the literacy test, and prevented state's from denying people the right to vote solely on the basis of race and creed, is being challenged in the US Supreme Court and the there is no guarantee, that with five reactionary Conservative Justices, one of whom, Justice Scalia who regards Federal protections of African Americans right to vote as being nothing more than a racial entitlement, that Section Five's Constitutionality will be affirmed and the right to vote remain secure.
DOMA, which seeks to define marriage between a man and a woman, and therefore denying those who are gay the right to marry the person of their choice may also be allowed to stand and Roe versus Wade, which guaranteed a woman's right to choose is also in jeopardy.
In short, everything that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for is under attack and it is under attack by a Republican Party which has been hijacked by racist reactionaries who's sole agenda is to return America to its segregated past; to the dark days of "Strange Fruit", where slavery, segregation, Judge Lynch, and White Supremacy was the rule of American life, culture, and law.
Thus, as we remember the 45th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. let us be clear at what hangs in the balance. If the Republican Party is not stopped, it will assassinate Dr. King's Dream, just as its racist reactionary forebears of the not too distant past assassinated Dr. King himself.
If the Republican Party succeeds in rolling back voting rights, gay rights, women's rights; if it continues to murder the middle class and widen the gap between rich and poor, black and white, male and female, gay and straight, then Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will have died in vain.
If the Republican Party is successful, then the Dreamer will have dreamed for nothing; his life, his vision, his legacy, and even his death, will have all been been for naught.
If the Republican Party succeeds then it will prove that Dr. King's love of humanity, his belief in nonviolence, and his belief in America, was wrong.
The Republican Party can put forth all the Herman Cains, Dr. Ben Carsons, Clarence Thomases, Condoleeza Rices, and Tim Scotts that it wants but their personal success does not change the fact that the success of the Republican Party and its racist, reactionary extreme Right Wing agenda they support will spell utter disaster for African Americans, women, gays, the middle class, and the poor as a whole.
No token people of color that the GOP parades before us, regardless of their personal distinction can change this reality for as Dr. King himself pointed out many times, the success of one does not equal the success of all. Equal rights and equal opportunity for all rather than great success for a token few will determine whether or not America has finally moved beyond the shackles of racism, sexism, and homophobia and it will not be for those on the Far Right who are doing the chaining, to determine that all are made free by their act of it saying that it has "liberated" a token few.
Therefore ignore the GOP's false claims that it is diversified and that ii is for diversity for the blatant lies they are. Every Republican/Conservative event these days can easily be mistaken for a Ku Klux Klan rally and not just because of the hateful, racist rhetoric and the Confederate flags they proudly wave.
How many people of color do we see at these things; one, two or three? Yes, they may be placed dead center or right behind the main speaker(s) but still you only count one, two or three.
A professional hockey game is a whole lot more integrated than these events and that doesn't even include include those black people who are in the seating bowl cheering on the respective teams, cooking the hotdogs and serving the beer at the concession stands. I mean a professional hockey game has more black people on the ice playing hockey than these GOP/Conservative rallies have in attendance and that's sad. So it goes without saying that contrary to what these Conservatives/Republicans would have you believe, a few grains of pepper in a mountain of salt does not diversity make and no one understood this better than Dr. King himself.
All this talk about Dr. King having been a Republican in his lifetime and would be a Republican today is nothing more than a self serving bald faced lie perpetrated by the current GOP in a vain attempt to conceal its racist agenda. Let us not forget that in 1964 Dr. King supported Democratic President Lyndon Johnson and convinced 96% of all African Americans to vote for the president and pro civil rights, Liberal Democrats across the board.
Let us also remember that on April 26, 1967, during a visit to Cleveland Ohio, Dr. King publicly endorsed the then yet to be announced presidential candidacy of Liberal Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy, saying that he was the "best presidential candidate from the civil rights perspective."
So again, when this current crop of Republicans say that Dr. King was one of their own and would stand with them today, dismiss it for the bald faced lie that is is and remember the words of the following poem written in memory of Dr. King by noted African American poet Carl Wendell Hines in 1971 who even then foresaw the day when Dr. King's Life and Legacy would be hijacked by those very Conservative reactionaries of the Far Right who's racist hatred of the man and all he stood for led directly to his death:
"Now That He Is Safely Dead"
"Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient Heroes.
They cannot rise to challenge the images
We would fashion from their Lives.
It is easier to build monuments
Than to make a better world.
So now that he is safely dead,
We, with eased consciences, will
Teach our children that he was a great man,
Knowing that the cause for which he
Lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died
Is still a dream."
The time to sing the praises of a hero in that hero's lifetime when that hero is still alive to hear the cheers and be inspired to perform even more heroic deeds. Conservatives waited until after Dr. King was safely dead before they saw fit to praise him for in his lifetime they cursed and spat upon him just as they curse and spit upon President Barack Obama today.
Yet even while the Republican Party sings the praises of Dr. King today, through its thoughts, words, and deeds, it is determined to assassinate his dream by systematically undoing his life's work and dismantling his legacy. This is the cold reality and the inescapable truth and therefore be not duped by its bought and paid token shills of color who would blind you to this reality.
Remember that these tokens of color on the Far Right are the ones who remain on the plantation of the GOP. They are the Massa's Favorites who are in bed with their Masters of the Far Right and do their bidding. These Massa's Favorites know absolutely nothing and care even less about what it is to be an American in general and an African American in particular in 2013.
Their reality is the reality of the Massa's Favorite of slavery times. Their reality is the warm reality of Massa's Big House, not the cold, brutal reality of the field hand's outhouse.
Their reality is a life of comfort; of good food, good housing, excellent education, healthcare, and employment; things they put a down payment on by their own labors true, but things now maintained and sustained by their Master's of the Far Right in return for their souls they've sold.
They speak not for the vast, vast majority of African Americans any more than those tokens of color who railed against Dr. King in his lifetime calling the Dreamer a troublemaker, a Communist, because he dared to fight against racial segregation, for the right to vote, and for people of color to think for themselves, and regard themselves as being people of value entitled to the same rights and freedoms as every other American.
These bought tokens of color know not poverty, deprivation, desperation, or despair. They want for nothing and will continue to want for nothing so long as they continue to front for and sing the praises of their racist masters of the Republican Party and the Far Right.
So it should not be surprising that they accuse Democrats in general and white Liberals in particular of being the "worst racists" for these Massa's Favorites of the GOP know what the Massa's Favorites of slavery times knew; and that is that with freedom comes responsibility and central to that responsibility is using one's back as a ladder for those less fortunate to climb to their full potential just as they used the backs of others to climb to theirs.
Of course it is painful at times for others to use our backs as a ladder so that others less fortunate than us may climb upward and the last thing these Massa's Favorites of the Republican Party want is to be made uncomfortable for they know that if they do help others who are less fortunate and are of a Liberal/Democratic mindset that their Conservative Masters will no longer help and sustain them.
Gone will be the material comforts that their souls have bought. Gone will be the luxury of having others do their thinking for them. So of course these Massa's Favorites of the Republican Party will pull up the ladder that is their backs and preach the glories of self reliance and self sufficiency; conveniently forgetting of course that but for the backs of others they would have had no way to climb to the heights they have.
What makes this Liberal bashing by people like Dr. Ben Carson, Justice Clarence Thomas, Senator Tim Scott, and former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice so doubly damnable is that but for the progressive Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's that criminalized racial segregation and ended voter suppression based on race, is that none of them would have ever gotten anywhere because the doors through which the had to pass in order to become a brain surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a Justice of the US Supreme Court, a US Senator, and a US Secretary of State would have remained closed to them because of the color of their skin. If it had been otherwise then none of them would have been pioneers since people of color just like them would have occupied these esteemed positions generations earlier.
It was Liberals and Liberal thinking which opened these doors for them; not Conservatives. It is Conservatives of both parties, Democrat and Republican, who have always stood in the way of progress in matters of achieving equal rights. So it is right to question the judgement, if not the sanity, of people like Dr. Carson, Justice Thomas, Senator Scott, and Dr. Rice for supporting those, who if they'd had their way, none of them would have ever gotten anywhere, regardless of how hard they worked. I mean seriously, what type of black person supports a party, people, and policies which argues that it is okay to deny people the right to vote because they are black?
What type of black person supports a Party and a political mindset that says, in Justice Scalia's words, that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which guaranteed the right of people of color to vote by preventing them from being denied that right because of the color of their skin) a ""racial entitlement?"
How come the right to vote is only an "entitlement" when it comes to black people and what type of black person supports such a racist, wrong headed, misinterpretation of the right to vote?
It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all and so the only logical explanation for people of color being Conservative/Republicans these days is that they have been brainwashed, paid off, or both. There is no other even remotely credible explanation for such conduct which is idiotic, demeaning, and self defeating in every sense of the word.
Therefore the bottom line is this. If you are for voter ID laws, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against Roe versus Wade, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against equal pay for equal work, then you are against Dr. King. If you are in favor of DOMA, you are against Dr. King. If you are against someone because they are Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, or Hispanic, then you are against Dr. King.
If you are against someone because they are poor, hungry, homeless, and on Welfare, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against someone because they are Muslim, Christian, Jew, Gentile, Protestant or Catholic; if you are against anyone, period, because of their religion, then you are against Dr. King.
If the first thing that comes to your mind and out of your mouth when you refer to a friend is that person's color, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, then you are against Dr. King for true love and true friendship, is unconditional and without need of clarification. If you hate common sense gun laws, then you hate Dr. King and if you seek to exploit your fellow citizens for personal & financial gain then you are against Dr. King.
Those who say they regard as a hero someone who stands for the exact opposite of what they stand for is lying through their teeth and only a fool believes that they are sincere in what they say. These Conservatives/Republicans don't sing the praises of Dr. King because they agree with what he stood because they stand for the exact opposite of what he stood for and are in favor of everything he was against.
Thus they praise him not because they admire him but because it is the politically correct thing to do and for no other reason. I won't even mention that these very same people of the Far Right who are giving false praise to the life and legacy of Dr. King for the mere sake of being politically correct are the same exact ones who make a special point of accusing those of us on the Left of being too obsessed with being politically correct because it should be obvious that hypocrisy is in the Far Right's DNA. These people can no sooner stop lying and being hypocrites than any of us can voluntarily stop breathing. It's as simple as that.
Now you Republicans, you Conservatives, you Tea Party members, and you Libertarians have the right to think and be exactly as you are but what you don't have the right to do is lie and demand that others take your lies to be the truth. You don't have the right to do that!
So stop lying you Republicans! Stop lying you Libertarians! Stop lying you Tea Partiers and stop lying you Conservatives! Stop lying! Stop telling this lie that you love the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because the truth is you hate him! You hate his guts and you curse his memory and this is proven by your determination to roll back the tide of equality; to destroy the America that Dr. King lived and died to create!
Tell the truth you Republicans! Tell the truth you Libertarians! Tell the truth you Tea Partiers and tell the truth you Conservatives! You people hate Dr. King, period! You hate everything he stood for and everything he represents! Admit it! You hate him and it is your right to hate him but at least have the guts to be honest with yourselves, with each other, and with your country and have the guts to admit that you hate him for the whole world see's right through your lies. Your actions and the people & policies you support shine the light of truth on your hatred of Dr. King and his Dream every single day.
You are fooling no one but yourselves so own up to the truth and admit that if you're a Republican, a Tea Party member, a Libertarian, and a Conservative, that you hate Dr. King, period. I mean since you all stand against every single thing he stood for it is obvious that you don't love him and the flip side of love is hate.
So with Dr. King's Dream now squarely in the crosshairs of the Republican Party, let us all ask ourselves is this the America we really want? Do we really want to tell our children and grandchildren that love, nonviolence, are irrelevant as the Republican Party is telling us now?
Do we want to say to them that dreamers like Dr. King, while well meaning, were ultimately fools because that we as a people, as a nation, are simply incapable of living up to the standards of those ideals he and other Dreamers lived and died for; ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence and consecrated by the blood and sweat of all of all who have died and struggled for the cause of Liberty where our fellow citizens of color, women, gays, the poor, and the middle class are concerned?
If you're a Republican/Conservative, take a moment to examine your conscience. Have the courage to turn your face to the nearest mirror and look yourselves right in the eyes and then have the guts to honestly ask yourselves what is so really wrong about wishing that others enjoy the same fruits of freedom that you enjoy for yourselves?
What is so wrong with everyone having the right to vote, with everyone having the right to marry the person of their choice, and everyone living and playing by the same set of rules? In short, what is so wrong with being what you say you are, an American? What is so wrong with an America that really is the Land of Liberty and the Home of the Brave for everyone and not just yourselves?
Why do you Republicans/Conservatives insist on being so selfish and thinking only of yourselves; of caring only about your rights and not giving a damn about the rights of others?
Dr. King wasn't like this. He believed in freedom for all; not just in freedom for the few, and he did a lot more than pay mere lip service to Liberty like you Republicans & Conservatives are doing; he lived for it, he suffered for it, and he died for it. He was truly a great and wonderful man and the key to his greatness was not only that he was a loving man but that to him Freedom for All in fact and not just in words was the Gospel. He opposed anyone who hated, anyone who was insincere, and any person who opposed equal rights to any person because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation.
He more than than anyone in our times believed in an America that was truly a Land of the Free, a Home of the Brave, a Land of Full Equality, a Land of Fairness, and where the strong did protect the weak.
All of these things were the things for which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life forty five years ago this April 4th. This is what his Dream was all about; to live in an America where everyone treated everyone else as they wished to be treated; as they wished for their children and their grandchildren to be treated.
So again we have a choice; we can choose between the Republican Party and its reactionary racist agenda which is determined to assassinatel the Dream of Dr. King and return America to its dark segregated past or we can choose the Dream itself; we can choose to continue to follow Dr. King's path; to pursue his vision; a vision which says that all of us are in this together, that all of us are equal, and that all of us have rights and value. Look ahead my fellow Americans. See forward and don't allow this nation to go backwards as the Republican Party would have us do for Dr. King deserved better and so too do all of us.
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