Palinesque

From Sarah Palin: Graceless Under Pressure by Jeffrey Winbush:

When she should rise above the fray, once again she gets dragged down by her inability to overlook a slight. How sadly predictable. How Palinesque.

Palin uses loaded words and images and then tries to act surprised when they blow up. No, she didn't pull the trigger in Arizona, and I wasn't expecting her to issue a half-assed apology, but she could have expressed a little less of the "Why is everybody picking on me?" whine and a lot more of the "Let's set aside our differences and come together as Americans to help the victims and start the healing." She could have done that, but she decided to stick to her guns. As usual, it's all about Sarah.

Somewhere in those eight minutes, she and her speechwriters could have referred to an even greater communicator than Reagan -- and that's Martin Luther King Jr., who said, "Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies -- or else? The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

Have We Reached The Promised Land?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2010. Where are we now? And how much farther must we go?

Quote Of Note - Martin Luther King

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Monday, Then Tuesday

From By Chance, Two Memorable Days by Mary Jo Patterson:

For Sheryl Goodine, an educator in Glen Cove, on Long Island, a rare moment to step back and think about the way the world has changed is about to occur: It will begin on Monday, Martin Luther King’s Birthday, and end the next day, with the inauguration of Barack Obama as president.

The two days fall side by side by a quirk of the calendar. Yet for Mrs. Goodine, and millions of other Americans, they are intertwined. The confluence of events, she says, has left her reeling, but in a good way.

“On Monday we celebrate Martin Luther King, and on Tuesday we celebrate our first black president. I have to punch myself sometimes — it’s hard to explain how I feel. It’s life-changing,” said Mrs. Goodine, 58, who long ago played a role in the nation’s civil rights movement herself.

“President-elect Obama’s success is definitely an exciting moment. But the civil rights movement should never be reduced to the success of one individual,” said Dr. West, who is an ordained minister. “There were so many other civil rights movement heroes.”

“As we stand at the brink of Obama’s inauguration, many people are connecting King and seeing the inauguration as a fulfillment of King’s dream,” Dr. Alderman said recently in Ithaca, N.Y., where he was consulting with public officials considering renaming a street. “That connection is very real and organic. But we shouldn’t see the civil rights movement as done. All the troubles with race and boundaries in America are not over.”

Forty Years Of Crap

From Forty Years by Barbara O’Brien:

In the U.S., public consensus, coherent majorities, and skilled leaders providing direction in a positive, not a destructive way, are things only us geezers dimly remember and the young folks have never seen.

And after a few years of near-total dominance by right-wingers of the federal government, 81 percent of Americans say the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.

It’s 40 years since 1968. Now a black man and a white woman are competing with each other for the Dem nomination. They both face nasty bigotry barriers, and it would be a breakthrough if either were elected. Yet only one of these candidates has shown a real talent for building public consensus. The other one is running an increasingly bitter, and angry, wedge-issue style campaign. I think 40 years of that crap is quite enough.

What Does John McCain Really Think Of Martin Luther King?

From The anniversary of Dr. King’s death puts McCain in a tough spot By Steve Benen:

[H]is views on race in the 1980s do not stand up to the sunlight of America a quarter-century later. Most glaringly, McCain as a young congressman in 1983 voted against a federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Most Republicans in the House voted for the holiday (89 voted for the holiday, 77 opposed), though all three Arizona House Republicans were opposed. Reps. Dick Cheney, R-Wyoming, and Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, voted for the holiday. (Cheney had voted against it in 1978.)

Martin Luther King

From 40 Years Later, (The Late) Martin Luther King Still Silenced by Jeff Cohen:

If King had survived to hear the war drums beating for the invasion and occupation of Iraq - amplified by TV networks and the New York Times front page and Washington Post editorial page — there’s little doubt where he’d stand. Or how loudly he’d be speaking out.

And there’s little doubt how big U.S. media would have reacted. On Fox News and talk radio, King would have been Dixie Chicked. . .or Rev. Wrighted. In corporate centrist outlets, he’d have been marginalized faster than you can say Noam Chomsky.

Jeremiah Wright

Jeremiah Wright:

God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place.

Wrong. That was Martin Luther King preaching in his church on Feb. 4, 1968. And we all know what happened to him.