To be opposed to the Republican Party today is more than just a matter of principle; it is a question of conscience or more specifically whether or not one has a conscience.. This decision to oppose or support the Republican Party is therefore ultimately a moral issue. It is to quote President Kennedy a "moral issue as clear as the Scriptures and as clear as the Constitution. The heart of the matter is whether or not all Americans are entitled to equal right & equal opportunities. Whether or not we will treat others as we wish to be treated; as we wish our children to be treated."
"We therefore," to further quote the president. "Face a moral crisis in this country" and that my friends gets to the heart not only of who we are as a nation but who we are as an individual. So it is right to ask how, if a one is pained at the sight of a hungry child, how can they support a party that would deny that child food to eat? If one loves their mother, daughter, sister or niece, how can one support a party which believes in state sanctioned rape through mandatory ultrasounds & other invasive procedures for those women who become pregnant? If one loves their mother, daughter, sister, or niece, how can one support a party that believes that she is not entitled to earn the same pay for the same work that a man earns who does the same job because she happens to be a woman?
If one is pained by America's shameful legacy of slavery, segregation, and Judge Lynch, how can one then support a party that denies the vote of the descendants of these atrocities because of the color of their skin and how can we deny the survivors of these terrible times their right to the ballot; a right that was earned through great personal sacrifice on their part and the wanton slaughter & brutality of their family members and friends? If one believes that love is transcendent then how can one support a party that believes in denying one the right to marry the person of their choice because it does not believe that their sexual orientation is valid, and if one is pained by the sight of the sick & the suffering then how can one support a party that would deny them healing & life sustaining health care?
Again this all ultimately comes down to a question of conscience. You cannot truthfully say that you are a kind person, a compassionate person, an empathetic person, and a loving person, if you support a political party and people who preach, practice, and support policies which do the exact opposite. It doesn't work that way. To feel compassionate, empathetic, kind, and loving, mean absolutely nothing if you support a political party that practices cruelty & selfishness for by supporting this party, the Republican Party, you are helping to make America into a nation that is those very things you claim to hate; an America that cares not for the plight of a hungry child, an America where it is okay for a woman to be subjected to the violation of her body that is state sanctioned rape, to the person of color who is denied their right to vote because their skin is dark, and the gay person who is denied their fundamental right to marry the person of their choice.
In short, if you have a conscience, if you believe in an America that is compassionate, kind, and just then you simply cannot support the Republican Party today because the Republican Party of today stands for, preaches, and practices, the exact opposite of all of these things all these things you say you are not and all these things you swear to be against.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
No Sure Thing. By Eric Smith
Don't be surprised if the House amended CR goes nowhere and I don't mean the Senate. I mean I see this CR not getting out of the House itself. The reason I say this is the fact that Reid has said that what the House is proposing to send back to the Senate is DOA because of the delay Obamacare for one year provision that was added to it. Now this is a critical element because delay is not repeal and therefore those radicals of the Right who want repeal & nothing else are going to be less inclined to vote for it knowing that it's going nowhere because even with a one year delay it will still technically be a vote on their part to sustain Obamacare.
I personally don't see these radicals swallowing that for any rhyme or reason so don't be surprised if Boehner pulls this thing at the last minute so as to reinsert the repeal provision or it gets voted down outright because enough Republican radicals to join with Democrats in opposing it. Again, I could be wrong and the House CR as it is now written may indeed pass on a straight party line vote but if that happens you can be damn sure that this crazy Cruz crowd will crucify those Republicans who vote for it for having merely voted to delay, rather than repeal Obamacare. However, no matter what happens a shutdown is inevitable and the Republicans are going to take the full blame for it and rightfully so.
I personally don't see these radicals swallowing that for any rhyme or reason so don't be surprised if Boehner pulls this thing at the last minute so as to reinsert the repeal provision or it gets voted down outright because enough Republican radicals to join with Democrats in opposing it. Again, I could be wrong and the House CR as it is now written may indeed pass on a straight party line vote but if that happens you can be damn sure that this crazy Cruz crowd will crucify those Republicans who vote for it for having merely voted to delay, rather than repeal Obamacare. However, no matter what happens a shutdown is inevitable and the Republicans are going to take the full blame for it and rightfully so.
The Logic of Acceptance. By Eric Smith
When it comes to those who are different we have to move past tolerance to acceptance for tolerance implies our permission and people do not need our permission to be who & what they are any more than we need their permission to be who and what we are. Another person's race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. is simply none of our business and the fact that so many think these things are their business and seek to make them their business diminishes their humanity and that of no one else.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance; these are ultimately the problem(S) of those who believe in this kind of nonsense; of those who waste irretrievable time thinking of reasons to dislike and/or look down upon someone rather than merely accepting people for who & what they are and quite possibly gaining a friend.
It makes zero sense and it is counterproductive. When it comes to referring to a friend the only thing you need to mention to someone else; the only thing you need to think about really, is that person's name. What their race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation are is nobody else's business and the extent to which one feels that they have to articulate these things to others is the extent to which they cheapen that friendship. The fact that that person is your friend is good enough and that means of course that it is more than good enough for everyone else.
Therefore acceptance & not tolerance is the way to go for in the and tolerance is conditional wheres acceptance is not and the best of friends are those who accept you for who and what you are with no strings attached.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance; these are ultimately the problem(S) of those who believe in this kind of nonsense; of those who waste irretrievable time thinking of reasons to dislike and/or look down upon someone rather than merely accepting people for who & what they are and quite possibly gaining a friend.
It makes zero sense and it is counterproductive. When it comes to referring to a friend the only thing you need to mention to someone else; the only thing you need to think about really, is that person's name. What their race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation are is nobody else's business and the extent to which one feels that they have to articulate these things to others is the extent to which they cheapen that friendship. The fact that that person is your friend is good enough and that means of course that it is more than good enough for everyone else.
Therefore acceptance & not tolerance is the way to go for in the and tolerance is conditional wheres acceptance is not and the best of friends are those who accept you for who and what you are with no strings attached.
A Fight to the Finish. By Eric Smith
You do not negotiate with terrorists. You take them down. You don't play nice with hostage takers. You annihilate them. In the form of the Republican Party we are up against people who seek to deny food to the hungry, healthcare for the sick, and the vote to those who in their opinion vote the "wrong" way. We are up against a people & political party that though claiming to be for small government nonetheless believes in state sanctioned rape in the form of forced ultrasounds and other highly invasive medical procedures directed at pregnant women. We are up against a party that wants to eradicate the social safety nets that are Social Security & Medicare; who seek to eliminate food inspectors who ensure that the food we consume is not contaminated & safe to eat.
They want to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency which seeks to ensure that the we drink clean water and breath unpolluted air. We are up against a party that wants to eliminate the minimum wage & child labor laws, and we are up against a party that wants to eliminate the middle class and create in its place a two class society; a society of rich and poor where the haves grows fat on the unrequited toil of the have nots.
The Republican Party in short seeks to turn America into a pseudo slavery society firmly rooted in white supremacy and grounded by male domination. This is who and what we are up against. This is the true face and nature of our foe. If we cherish any of the above things mentioned then there can be no middle ground to be had with our adversaries for these people see compromise as conquest and therefore the only language they understand is the language of conquest; whether they are the ones who conquer or are conquered.
Against such a foe our option can be none other than to pursue a policy of total annihilation for anything short of that will be a victory for them in that they will be able to rise and wreak havoc again as they have done so repeatedly in the past. We do not have the luxury of allowing them to do that again. This time we must finish the job and by that I mean finish them off permanently. Therefore let this be the final battle. Make this current battlefield be their permanent graveyard. Annihilate! Annihilate! Annihilate! Let this be our battle cry against the Republican Party and the Far Right!
Take no prisoners, give no ground, and charge straight ahead and be not moved by their calls for accommodation & common ground for make no mistake these calls on their part are insincere since they themselves are engaged in a war of annihilation of their own; a war that seeks to annihilate us, this country, and all its freedoms save only those freedoms they would reserve solely for themselves. These are the stakes. It is either them or non existence for everyone else.
They want to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency which seeks to ensure that the we drink clean water and breath unpolluted air. We are up against a party that wants to eliminate the minimum wage & child labor laws, and we are up against a party that wants to eliminate the middle class and create in its place a two class society; a society of rich and poor where the haves grows fat on the unrequited toil of the have nots.
The Republican Party in short seeks to turn America into a pseudo slavery society firmly rooted in white supremacy and grounded by male domination. This is who and what we are up against. This is the true face and nature of our foe. If we cherish any of the above things mentioned then there can be no middle ground to be had with our adversaries for these people see compromise as conquest and therefore the only language they understand is the language of conquest; whether they are the ones who conquer or are conquered.
Against such a foe our option can be none other than to pursue a policy of total annihilation for anything short of that will be a victory for them in that they will be able to rise and wreak havoc again as they have done so repeatedly in the past. We do not have the luxury of allowing them to do that again. This time we must finish the job and by that I mean finish them off permanently. Therefore let this be the final battle. Make this current battlefield be their permanent graveyard. Annihilate! Annihilate! Annihilate! Let this be our battle cry against the Republican Party and the Far Right!
Take no prisoners, give no ground, and charge straight ahead and be not moved by their calls for accommodation & common ground for make no mistake these calls on their part are insincere since they themselves are engaged in a war of annihilation of their own; a war that seeks to annihilate us, this country, and all its freedoms save only those freedoms they would reserve solely for themselves. These are the stakes. It is either them or non existence for everyone else.
The True Meaning of the American Flag-By Eric Smith
On the night of April 3rd, 1968, in what would tragically be the final speech of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said the following:
Today, forty five years after Dr. King uttered these words, far too many Americans do not understand the true meaning of our flag. They do not grasp the uniqueness of what it is to be a real American patriot. To them freedom applies only to themselves. To them the benefits of our Democracy is theirs to enjoy alone though they expect everyone else to gladly fight along with them to preserve their rights even though they would deny those same rights to others.
They have the audacity to actually question the patriotism of those of different races, creeds, genders, and sexual orientation who to dare fight for those very freedoms and opportunities that they regard as their birthright. They behave as though such rights are theirs to give and accuse those who are not satisfied with the pace of expanding the reach of Liberty with being ungrateful; as if those who are denied those rights they are entitled to at birth, should show gratitude towards who those who had no right to deny them these rights they are now enjoying in the first place.
These white people in the Republican Party and of a Conservative mindset are always railing against us African Americans of being lazy and greedy. They use the term Affirmative Action as the rest of us use an expletive, forgetting of course that they themselves are the beneficiaries of the greatest, most generous Affirmative Action program in the history of this nation; that Affirmative Action being their white skins.
If you are born white in general and a white male in particular in this country, no one ever questions whether or not you will have the chance to rise from poverty, to get a good education, to work at a well paying job, or even become President of the United States. If you are born white and male in this country then you don't have to worry about your rights being denied at all. You don't have to worry about your legitimacy and your qualifications being questioned for a certain university or a particular job because of the way you look.
If you are white in America then you don't have to worry about being followed around by the proprietor of some store assuming you're a criminal who's about to rob the place. If you're white in America you don't have to worry about being stopped by the police while walking through a good neighborhood who suspect by mere dint of your skin's pigmentation alone that you've committed or are about to commit, a crime. If you're white in America you don't have to worry about being shot by a self appointed neighborhood vigilante even if you are wearing a hoodie and what's more you can be walking around carrying a gun, to say nothing of a bag of skittles, and still have little to be worried about.
If you're white in America, no one automatically assumes just by looking at you that you're uneducated, illiterate, on Welfare, a drug addict, or an ex con regardless of what kind of clothes you're wearing. It has always been that way in this country but only now things are really beginning to change. More and more people are waking up to the fact that this state of affairs runs counter to the true meaning of this flag; that it just isn't right.
Yet these folks in the Republican Party and the Far Right I've mentioned above are now raising hell because all of a sudden they have to share their freedoms, rights, and liberties with everybody; freedoms, rights, and liberties that they never had any right to hoard for themselves in the first place. They are screaming at the top of their lungs that their rights are being taken away. That they're going to take "our country back!" Excuse me but this country doesn't belong just to them. It never has. It has always belonged to all of us have played a key role in sustaining it, protecting it, and making it great. These people don't get to claim exclusive ownership of that which they hijacked stole and wrongly denied to others.
This discrepancy was pointed out in a speech President Abraham Lincoln gave at the Sanitary Fair in Baltimore MD on April 18, 1864 when he said the following:
"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name———liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names———liberty and tyranny.
"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty."
Needless to say, the wolfs of President Lincoln's time are the Republicans, Tea Party members, Libertarians, and Conservatives of today. They are the ones raging because they are not being allowed to exercise what they believe is their right to deny rights to others because they happen to dislike the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, and their sexual orientation. They assert their right to do to others as they please while at the same time claiming that others do not have the right to do to them as they please because it would be a violation of their rights.
This is the root of their problem. They are finally being forced to play by the same set of rules as everyone else and they are collectively throwing a national temper tantrum as a result. All it really proves is that these people never really cared about this country or its flag in the first place. I mean the heart of true Americanism is generosity and tolerance. Without both of these things you can't say that you are really a patriot for these are the foundations of our freedom; these traits are what makes us unique among all the nations in the world.
Our flag has meaning that is true but that meaning only counts for anything if it has the same meaning for everybody. As Jackie Robinson himself once said "There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free." That is what these Republicans/Conservatives refuse to see and find impossible to accept and so therefore if anyone's patriotism is to be rightly questioned it is theirs because the rest of us, through our embracing of diversity and fair play are living the true meaning of the American flag while they, through their hostility to diversity and opposition to fair play, are not. It's as simple as that.
"All we say to America" said Dr. King is 'Be true to what you said on paper.' If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right."
Today, forty five years after Dr. King uttered these words, far too many Americans do not understand the true meaning of our flag. They do not grasp the uniqueness of what it is to be a real American patriot. To them freedom applies only to themselves. To them the benefits of our Democracy is theirs to enjoy alone though they expect everyone else to gladly fight along with them to preserve their rights even though they would deny those same rights to others.
They have the audacity to actually question the patriotism of those of different races, creeds, genders, and sexual orientation who to dare fight for those very freedoms and opportunities that they regard as their birthright. They behave as though such rights are theirs to give and accuse those who are not satisfied with the pace of expanding the reach of Liberty with being ungrateful; as if those who are denied those rights they are entitled to at birth, should show gratitude towards who those who had no right to deny them these rights they are now enjoying in the first place.
These white people in the Republican Party and of a Conservative mindset are always railing against us African Americans of being lazy and greedy. They use the term Affirmative Action as the rest of us use an expletive, forgetting of course that they themselves are the beneficiaries of the greatest, most generous Affirmative Action program in the history of this nation; that Affirmative Action being their white skins.
If you are born white in general and a white male in particular in this country, no one ever questions whether or not you will have the chance to rise from poverty, to get a good education, to work at a well paying job, or even become President of the United States. If you are born white and male in this country then you don't have to worry about your rights being denied at all. You don't have to worry about your legitimacy and your qualifications being questioned for a certain university or a particular job because of the way you look.
If you are white in America then you don't have to worry about being followed around by the proprietor of some store assuming you're a criminal who's about to rob the place. If you're white in America you don't have to worry about being stopped by the police while walking through a good neighborhood who suspect by mere dint of your skin's pigmentation alone that you've committed or are about to commit, a crime. If you're white in America you don't have to worry about being shot by a self appointed neighborhood vigilante even if you are wearing a hoodie and what's more you can be walking around carrying a gun, to say nothing of a bag of skittles, and still have little to be worried about.
If you're white in America, no one automatically assumes just by looking at you that you're uneducated, illiterate, on Welfare, a drug addict, or an ex con regardless of what kind of clothes you're wearing. It has always been that way in this country but only now things are really beginning to change. More and more people are waking up to the fact that this state of affairs runs counter to the true meaning of this flag; that it just isn't right.
Yet these folks in the Republican Party and the Far Right I've mentioned above are now raising hell because all of a sudden they have to share their freedoms, rights, and liberties with everybody; freedoms, rights, and liberties that they never had any right to hoard for themselves in the first place. They are screaming at the top of their lungs that their rights are being taken away. That they're going to take "our country back!" Excuse me but this country doesn't belong just to them. It never has. It has always belonged to all of us have played a key role in sustaining it, protecting it, and making it great. These people don't get to claim exclusive ownership of that which they hijacked stole and wrongly denied to others.
This discrepancy was pointed out in a speech President Abraham Lincoln gave at the Sanitary Fair in Baltimore MD on April 18, 1864 when he said the following:
"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name———liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names———liberty and tyranny.
"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty."
Needless to say, the wolfs of President Lincoln's time are the Republicans, Tea Party members, Libertarians, and Conservatives of today. They are the ones raging because they are not being allowed to exercise what they believe is their right to deny rights to others because they happen to dislike the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, and their sexual orientation. They assert their right to do to others as they please while at the same time claiming that others do not have the right to do to them as they please because it would be a violation of their rights.
This is the root of their problem. They are finally being forced to play by the same set of rules as everyone else and they are collectively throwing a national temper tantrum as a result. All it really proves is that these people never really cared about this country or its flag in the first place. I mean the heart of true Americanism is generosity and tolerance. Without both of these things you can't say that you are really a patriot for these are the foundations of our freedom; these traits are what makes us unique among all the nations in the world.
Our flag has meaning that is true but that meaning only counts for anything if it has the same meaning for everybody. As Jackie Robinson himself once said "There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free." That is what these Republicans/Conservatives refuse to see and find impossible to accept and so therefore if anyone's patriotism is to be rightly questioned it is theirs because the rest of us, through our embracing of diversity and fair play are living the true meaning of the American flag while they, through their hostility to diversity and opposition to fair play, are not. It's as simple as that.
Assassinating the Dream: The Republican Party's War on the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By Eric Smith
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.
In Defense of Religion: The Freedom to Worship as Absolute. By Eric Smith
In response to the extremist/intolerant behavior of extremists on the Christian Right and Islamic Fundamentalists, there is a natural reaction to regard organized religion in all its manifestations as being fundamentally flawed, cruel, intolerant, and completely out of place in the modern world. Many have become very vocal in their claims that neither God nor any type of supernatural deity exists. That is their right of course but that is a right that stops with them.
It is no more the right of a non believer to mock, denigrate, and pass judgment on those who are believers any more than it is the right of believers to mock, denigrate, and pass judgment upon those who are non believers. The right to believe is as absolute a right as is the right not to believe for as Jackie Robinson once said, the "first freedom for all people is freedom of choice."
At the heart of every religion is the desire to give comfort, refuge, and inner peace to those in distress. That is the underlying desire and theme of every prayer in every Faith and if by believing, men, women, and children find that comfort, refuge, and inner peace so lacking in the world then it is not for any non believer to ridicule and condemn them for doing so for they have just as much right to find solace in their belief in a Higher Power as those who take comfort in believing that no such Higher Power exists.
It is wrong for a non believer to tell a believer that God does not exist; that the Faith they practice is a sham for in doing this they are no better than those who would seek to proselytize non believers and through the force of shame seek to compel them to believe as they believe for in the final analysis no one can be forced to believe or not believe anything without their consent. We and we alone determine whether or not we believe that God exists and we and we alone determine whether we believe that God does not exists.
Let us not forget that nations of atheists & non believers are guilty of their own fair share of human atrocities as well. For recent proof we need only see the tens of millions of Soviet citizens slaughtered by Joseph Stalin between 1924 and 1953 in the Communist ruled Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. We only need look to China post 1949 or Cuba post 1959. These are but a few examples of the many non believing Republics which have slaughtered millions of people for in the end a religion is only as good or as bad as the people who practice it. The same is equally true of non believers as well.
No human being, whatever his/her beliefs, has a monopoly on truth and no one is a paragon of virtue. We are all prisoners to our personal prejudices and we are all burdened by human failings. It is just a matter of degrees. So if a person says that they believe in God, Allah, Buddha, etc; then that's their business. Unless they make a concerted effort to make you believe like they do then you have absolutely no right to denigrate them for having their beliefs; to tell them that there is no such thing as God and that their religion is a sham. Doing so makes you no different and no better than those religious extremists you condemn. Leave people to their beliefs and and allow them to worship as they choose for again the right to believe is just as valid as the right not to believe and therefore both rights should be equally protected and equally respected for in the end they are nothing more than human rights.
It is no more the right of a non believer to mock, denigrate, and pass judgment on those who are believers any more than it is the right of believers to mock, denigrate, and pass judgment upon those who are non believers. The right to believe is as absolute a right as is the right not to believe for as Jackie Robinson once said, the "first freedom for all people is freedom of choice."
At the heart of every religion is the desire to give comfort, refuge, and inner peace to those in distress. That is the underlying desire and theme of every prayer in every Faith and if by believing, men, women, and children find that comfort, refuge, and inner peace so lacking in the world then it is not for any non believer to ridicule and condemn them for doing so for they have just as much right to find solace in their belief in a Higher Power as those who take comfort in believing that no such Higher Power exists.
It is wrong for a non believer to tell a believer that God does not exist; that the Faith they practice is a sham for in doing this they are no better than those who would seek to proselytize non believers and through the force of shame seek to compel them to believe as they believe for in the final analysis no one can be forced to believe or not believe anything without their consent. We and we alone determine whether or not we believe that God exists and we and we alone determine whether we believe that God does not exists.
Let us not forget that nations of atheists & non believers are guilty of their own fair share of human atrocities as well. For recent proof we need only see the tens of millions of Soviet citizens slaughtered by Joseph Stalin between 1924 and 1953 in the Communist ruled Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. We only need look to China post 1949 or Cuba post 1959. These are but a few examples of the many non believing Republics which have slaughtered millions of people for in the end a religion is only as good or as bad as the people who practice it. The same is equally true of non believers as well.
No human being, whatever his/her beliefs, has a monopoly on truth and no one is a paragon of virtue. We are all prisoners to our personal prejudices and we are all burdened by human failings. It is just a matter of degrees. So if a person says that they believe in God, Allah, Buddha, etc; then that's their business. Unless they make a concerted effort to make you believe like they do then you have absolutely no right to denigrate them for having their beliefs; to tell them that there is no such thing as God and that their religion is a sham. Doing so makes you no different and no better than those religious extremists you condemn. Leave people to their beliefs and and allow them to worship as they choose for again the right to believe is just as valid as the right not to believe and therefore both rights should be equally protected and equally respected for in the end they are nothing more than human rights.
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