What Dr. King accomplished in his relatively short time in this world need not be related here.
You will still find, however, many Americans who regard Dr. King as a "communist agitator" because he stood up and spoke for those denied opportunities for education, employment and advancement because of the color of their skin. You will still find those who excoriate Dr. King because he spoke out against the Vietnam War.* More commonly, you will hear and read the statements this weekend of politicians who will praise the memory of Dr King, praise what he accomplished and then those same politicians will go back to work to do everything they can to increase the power of corporations, to increase income disparity and to crush the lives of the middle class and the poor. You will find politicians who claim that the GOP is the party King would side with, while deliberately ignoring that it was Richard Nixon who allied the GOP with the racists who bolted the Democratic Party after President Johnson pushed through and signed the civil rights acts of 1964 and 1968.
You should not pay those folk any heed.
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* The same people, curiously, have nothing but praise for the well-connected young men who used draft deferments to avoid service or who used family connections to get safe spots in the National Guard, men such as George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John Ashcroft and Dan Quayle.
How can you call him Richard Cheney? Even he prefers to be called a Dick.
ReplyDeleteI'd prefer to give him the title of "the late", but that is premature.
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