This posting is from one of my "partners in crime" Dennis (Red) Menace.
Abortion, Scalito and the last of the red hot barking
monkeys. Ok! For those of you in the normal flow of things
there probably isn't much here. As part of the
Republican Revolution (funny word that one,
revolution). In one sense denoting change, and in the
other referring to travelling the circumfrence of a
circle only to come back to the point you started at)
that began in 1996, was enthroned by judical edict in
2000 and weighs heavily now on the minds of
America-hating lefty types like me as the ice melts,
Europe freezes and the coasts drown.
Don't worry, says one of my favorite songs, go
back to sleep. Another, by the same artist, muses simply, "Learn
to swim." Big changes are coming in this grand revolution,
and as a student of history and the epistemes (look it
up fer crissakes...do a google on Foucault) that guide
it I find this all quite fascinating. Though I was
unable to make the show last week because I am still
forced to rely on 100 year old technology (the
internal combustion engine, more on this in a sec) as
a means of transportation, I did get a chance to call
in (nice job Jon, et al.) and there were a few points
I raised that I'd like to go over again:
Some thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr. and his holy
day
My friends on the right like to start these types
of discussions with a nice first hand anecdote to set
the theme. I normally try and avoid these as they are
the least valuable of anything passing as a fact, but
in the spirit of the new times that are dawning as I
write, well...here goes.
In the last couple years I've worked a lot of
construction, and one of these jobs happened to be
a-way down south in Dixie. Everyone knew that I was a
Yankee and a liberal and had a general disdain for the
"Georges" of the world. One day the owner of the
company was standing with us as we had our morning
meeting and someone asked him jokingly if we would get
Dr. King's holiday off from work.
"Hell if we're going to do that why not kill 6
more niggers and take a week off," he replied.
Inspiring, no?
I often find it funny when people on the right
talk about the left, or insult its leaders. Surely
Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi or Teddy Kennedy don't
necessarily strike us as prominent historical figures,
nor would we place a Jesse Jackson even or an Al
Sharpton on the same level as a Martin or a Malcolm.
Those of the right could point to figures from the
last fifty years who had pushed the cause to the point
of their now successful revolution with pride, even if
the rest of us look at a Nixon or a Reagan or a Bush
as common criminals made mad by power.
See, the thing is the great heroes of the left
aren't here to lead us now into the new dawn because,
by and large, they all got their fucking brains blown
out by some fucking hillbilly. Funny how that works.
Now that Martin is safely dead we can honor him,
with this one day, where maybe, just maybe, white
could look to non-whites and admit and ask forgiveness
for the crimes of racism...for the lynchings and rapes
and the beatings and the dogs and standing in the
courthouse door talking about miscegenation and not
mixing the races.
Some do. There would be no reason to continue the
dialogue between the races if there weren't peope from
all sides that can see past the biases ground into all
of us from birth. Dr. King knew this as he expanded
the civil rights cause in the last years of his life
and prepare to launch his anti-poverty poor people's
movement. Malcolm, too saw the truth of this after he
came back from Mecca and founded his own organization,
expressing a willingness to work with whoever was for
the cause of social justice and equality.
Most don't. White's get defensive when you bring
up the past. Blacks get angry and vent their
frustration with a system that is 1) slow to change,
and 2) unwilling to admit when it was wrong.
So what does King George do on the holiday? Does
he go to the old south and try and reach out to the
people left behind and left out, the people left
stranded on their roof tops because he was too busy to
give a shit if anyone was helping them? Does he try
and prove that he is a "uniter and not a
divider-upper?"
No. He goes to the Lincoln memorial and gives
thanks to a white guy for freeing the slaves...go
figure.
Now I mostly feel sorry for white's (those
individuals that you may often here or see me refer to
as "dumb crackers") still so caught up in some fantasy
facism ideal like white pride to see that they have
more in common with poor blacks than they do with rich
whites. It seems such a simple and obvious fact of
life in America that its shocking to me when people
dont get it. As long as we fight each other we are too
busy to fight the system that oppresses us all.
Which leads me into issue 2, namely: the
expansion of the powers of the presidency and the
executive branch.
It is not legal, in that old fashioned sense,
namely the laws on the books, for King George to
autorize spying on american citizens. My good friends
and obviously much more intelligent friends on the
right have made it clear that the above statement os
complete balderdash. That either something we will
call "provisional law" allows for it, or according to
AG Gonzles, the president was given this authority by
congresses authorization of military force after 9/11.
They expressly didn't give him this power, but who
cares really, cus he's doing it anyway and its for our
safety right, and that's what they really care about,
Bush and Rummy and the gang...our safety.
And the band plays on: "Go back to sleep..."
There is more going on here than this though.
More going on with the fight to overturn Roe and the
push for us all to accept that Alito is really a level
head guy, though he spent 25 years producing writing
that suggested he was, in fact, another right
wing-nut.
The president speaks only to groups that agree
with him. Protestors are always kept on the periphery
in what we call now "free speech zones." Funny how
when you want to protest King George and his imperial
and bloody war and do something to bring the senseless
killing to an end you have to stand a mile away...but
if you are a woman going into planned parenthood to
get a pap smear to make sure you don't have cervical
cancer, well, then the free speech zone is the
sidewalk out front and you have to pass through a
bunch of red hot barking monkeys holding up big
pictures of aborted fetuses.
Facism has a vile way of creeping in. What's the
line from the German guy? I paraphrase, "First they
came for the gypsies and I did nothing, Then they came
for the jews and I did nothing. And then they came for
me...and no one did anything."
We on the left don't fit and don't belong here
anymore. Just ask them, my many good friends on the
right. This is their country. Jesus is their savior.
Jehovah in all his wisdom is their god. And, by golly,
the bible and the constitution means what they say it
does. End of discussion...
They might profess an interest in new ideas,
thinking outside the box, challenging the status quo,
but they don't really mean it and very slowly they are
and will continue to criminalize dissident voices. If
we are to fight the enemy then we must be united, yes?
Don't worry, its for your own good, freedom is slavery
and knowledge is ignorance and the Right way is
obviously the right way...it even says so in the name.
They used to burn left-handed folks at the stake,
ya know. And so it goes...
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