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to politicalwaves
In the last few years, we've seen an exodus
from Congress; legislators retiring, running from the frustration of deadlock
or, in some cases, "primary'ed" out of office. In fact, fully HALF of Congress
is new. There were even more newbies in 2010, as old, seasoned hands were
replaced by zealots eager to kill off government.
Olympia Snowe,
recently retired Republican moderate from Maine commented to Charlie Rose that
the new kids on the block are really at a disadvantage, having no template for
actual governance to follow. All they've seen is deadlock, preparing them for
nothing else.
The days of statesmanship seem to be behind us, and respect
for government at a low. Today I heard a Pub legislator say, with a sneer, that
this government was "activist."
Like most of what lawmakers say, these
days, I can only shake my head. What would they prefer? Government that's
passivist? One that's winnowed down to nothing much but the bare bones? One
that's, perhaps, drowned in a bathtub? Exactly so, with only enough means to
slip the Pentagon some bucks, then stay out of the way of big business and Wall
Street.
I also heard a Representative refer to taxes as "evil." I've got
to go with my dear Fishin' Jim's commentary on taxes -- he always says he was
happy to pay them, that meant he was making a good living.
One House
member that has my 100% approval is Florida's Alan Grayson -- not only is he
firmly progressive, he's PROUDLY/LOUDLY so. He also sends the most entertaining
requests for money, and invariably either amuses or moves me.
Here's
what he wrote this weekend, I'll let him do the heavy lifting in the
introduction -- then read excerpts of what Dr. King wrote in the Birmingham
jail, half a century past. No matter how many times you've read it before, it
will not fail to stir that longing within you for the world within our hopes,
the one we welcome in our dreams and envision in our hearts.
Fifty years
hasn't changed our culture a hell of a lot but it's brought us to the brink of
change, alright; we can clearly see our racism, now, know where NOT to step
unless it is our intention to do so. Some of us do, our course. Those that would
stand in the way of progress will fail, but they will continue their culture war
until the last gasp.
All I can add to this is yet another patriot's
quote, this one from Teddy Kennedy. We need to keep this one as a daily mantra
if we're to pull our share of the load:
"The work begins anew. The hope
rises again. And the dream lives on."
Jude
From the desk of Alan Grayson
Tomorrow marks
the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
"Letter from Birmingham Jail." King was jailed for campaigning against racial
segregation in Birmingham, in violation of an injunction against anyone
"parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing." His letter was
written on the margins of a newspaper, scraps of paper that another prisoner
gave to him, and then a legal pad that his attorney left behind. It has been an
inspiration to millions of people; I am one of them. Here are some
excerpts:
MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:... .
I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens
in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are
caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of
destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly....
We
have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.
The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining
political independence, but we stiff[ly] creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward
gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who
have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you
have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your
sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse,
kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast
majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of
poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue
twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old
daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been
advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told
that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of
inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to
distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white
people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is
asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you
take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in
the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you;
when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and
"colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy"
(however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and
mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day
and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at
tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with
inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating
sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer
willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience....
But though I was
initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to
think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the
label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice
roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not
Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the
Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do
otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of
my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This
nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ..." So the
question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we
will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for
the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic
scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all
three were crucified for the same crime---the crime of extremism. Two were
extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other,
Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose
above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire
need of creative extremists....
I have no despair about the future. I
have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our
motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in
Birmingham, and all over the nation, because the goal of America [is] freedom.
Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's
destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of
Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across
the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears
labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the
homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation
-- and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If
the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now
face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of
our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing
demands....
One day the South will recognize its real heroes. There will
be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to
face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that
characterizes the life of the pioneer. There will be the old, oppressed,
battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery,
Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to
ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one
who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest."
There will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of
the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in
at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience's sake. One day the
South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch
counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American
dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby
bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep
by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written so long a
letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure
you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a
comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail
cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long
prayers?...
Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will
soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our
fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant
stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their
scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and
Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr. ++
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the
final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than
evil triumphant.” ~ The Reverend Martin Luther King
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