Blue Texan!

Because a bunch of Republicans are neo-confederate racist bastards. Was this a trick question?

BT!

Because the man sitting next to Dr. King purged the Dem party of the racist faction. And where did that faction go?

Good morning fellow Texan. Thanks for those facts.

I am surprised that Arizona actually, finally recognized MLK considering the state leg is soooo darn conservative. I guess it was the threat of boycotts and the loss of $’s that they had to choose between their dislike of King or $’s.

We still have our Blue Dogs.

Kids in Johnson City, Texas are in school today…no MLK holiday….apparently, they take a “rodeo day” holiday at another time during the year in place of it. I don’t know about the rest of TX..

We still have our Blue Dogs.

Blue/Bush dogs are more “fascist” than racist. I guess my yard stick is having watched Congress in the 50’s and 60’s during the “civil rights era”, that wing went to the Thugs.

This morning I found myself thinking about the first time I came to know of Dr. Martin Luther King. I had arrived in the early Sixties as a young Irishman in Bible Belt country (North Louisiana). One of the first things I noticed was the large roadside billboards claiming to show King attending a Communist Party meeting.

It would be difficult for people who are not familiar with what was happening at that time in the Deep South to fully understand the hatred and bigotry directed towards Dr. King. I was not one bit surprised when I heard that he had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee.

But it is not just the Republicans who fail to fully appreciate the contribution of Dr. King…as evidenced by many of the comments in the Progressive Blogosphere over the past few days. I can well understand why the African American community would be defensive about any statement that seemed to diminish the contribution of Dr.King…even if that statement came from someone who is considered a friend of the African American community. Put simply, Dr. King put his life on the line…he made the supreme sacrifice.

Um, ’cause they’re assrockets? Just a guess…

I have said before that much of the Bush strategy for the was predicated on keeping the plates spinning until he could pass them off to another circus act.

What we’re hearing overseas today in the financial markets is the sound of those plates crashing to the floor.

Not to mention that the US is now pushing for a direct confrontation with Al Sadr in Iraq and that the US decline in monthly troop deaths ended this weekend.

So how’s John “I’m not really good on economics/Let’s stay 1 million years in Iraq” McCain going to be looking come September?

-G

And Huckabee says he’ll do something with the flagpole to those who would take the Confederate flag away . . .

LS, I left you another link to the Edmonds story downstairs.

Heard Martin Luther King’s Riverside Church speech last night in his own voice and it moved me. This speech is the first time where he laid it out against an illegal, immoral and unconstitutional military police action going on in Vietnam. He said our highest calling is to engage in civil disobedience to oppose the forces of oppression. Rise up now. If there is no coalition for peace ACTION log on and start a chapter in your neck of the woods. If nothing else you may enjoy the sense of community of being with fellow peace workers.

http://www.peacecoalition.org Peace now.

Hey BT.
Those are fair qusetions to ask. ‘fraid I don’t have any good answers, myself. Guess you gotta ask McCain, et al.

I was a little surprised about NH footdragging on recognizing the holiday. I know it’s (was?) red, but still….. I’m surprised. Not shocked, mind you.

Remember: Destiny has NY in it.

What pisses me off is they all say shit like, “Well, I admit it was a mistake to vote against MLK.”

But why did they all make the same mistake?

At leasdt he can say he voted against the “Bush tax cuts.” He3’s getting hammered fror it now in the R primaries. He’s still the only one who worries me – interms of actually getting elected. they all scare the shit outta me were they actually to get elected.

Remember: Destiny has NY in it.

Remember: Destiny has NY in it.

Ooh, that sounds exciting. What do you mean?

That surprises me. On their calendar, it looks like the are off Thursday and Friday, the 23rd adn 24th, for their livestock show. I know that’s important to small towns, with 4H and all, but I’m surprised they didn’t hold it some other time.

All of the schools in my are of north central Texas are off for MLK Day.

Through the years tehre are so many mistakes they’ve owned up to and it seems like once they say those words, it goes away. Like “OK, he said it was a mistake, let’s not dwell on it any more.” Frustrating.

Remember: Destiny has…… you know the rest.

What the fundies have waiting for us
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..v52leyFz4D

They were playng to their bases which I think haven’t changed all that much. McCain can get elected in Arizona but he wouldn’t in, say, California.

Remember: Destiny has…… you know the rest.

Two mommies?

I read that he can only win in crossover states

“Can anyone tell me why…”

This is a fundamental difference between conservatives who would conserve a fundamentally flawed past and progressives who believe that society can make steady progress toward creating a more just and equitable world.

I remember the billboards. They showed MLK sitting in a school desk and said, “Martin Luther King in Communist Training School.”

Another billboard seen in the same areas said, “Impeach Earl Warren!”

This is a fundamental difference between conservatives who would conserve a fundamentally flawed past and progressives who believe that society can make steady progress toward creating a more just and equitable world.

Makes sense to me.

On May 2, 2000, South Carolina governor Jim Hodges signed a bill to make Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday an official state holiday. South Carolina was the last state to recognize the day as a paid holiday for all state employees. Prior to this, employees could choose between celebrating Martin Luther King Day or one of three confederate holidays

Both appeared in my locale as well, the Earl Warren painted onto the
side of a building until just a few years back… Get US out of the UN
was included as a bonus… that is the Republican line to this day but
has become “mainstream” in these radical times we live in.

FWIW, the so-called “Blue Dogs” are the conservative Dems who voted in line with Reaganomics in the early ’80s, defying tip O’Neill and the Dem management in the House by doing so.

Some of them (notably Phil Gramm) went ahead and changed their party from Democratic to Republican. Others who did this started with Strom Thurmond who ran for President as a “Dixiecrat” in 1948 against Truman because Truman had integrated the military in ‘47 by Executive Order. Trent Lott was a Dem at one time as well along with Richard Shelby and John Connally.

So in fact, many of the racist Dems went to the Republican party because, as they so like to put it “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me.”

The best thing the Democratic Party has ever done was to “leave” the racist a**hats like Lott, Thurmond, et al.

Thank You Dr King for your sacrifice and bravery. Thank you President Johnson for recognizing and doing the right (correct) thing.

Conservatives don’t see the past as flawed — they see it as a rosy place of eternal sunshine and happiness. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that they were (and are) the ruling class. They don’t WANT a more just and equitable world — it would shrink their massive slice of the pie. And that holds true for conservatives of modest means, too. The rich ones have convinced them they’re poor because demon liberals steal all their money and give it to brown people.

It sure surprised me when I learn about it a couple of years ago…the majority of the kids in school there are not involved in 4-H…I know from personal experience…it is clearly an excuse to diss MLK.

Thank you President Johnson for recognizing and doing the right (correct) thing.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH

Interesting that Johnson City is LBJ’s birthplace.

Conservatives talk of the “rosy place of eternal sunshine and happiness” to gain votes and pacify the masses so that those same people don’t notice that they are being robbed by the Conservatives. A fitting end to conservatives and the Republic Party is George W. Bush. Too bad that Pelosi and Reid are working hard to prevent that.

Well, that’s a shame. I guess the locals want to squeeze whatever they can from the “LBJ Birthplace” thing and slight what was probably his greatest achievement. It does help you to realize even more, that LBJ certainly knew the southern constituencies he was dealing with when he pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Rudy in Florida leading his supporters in prayer- shameless last act of a fading gooper star.

Why do scientists prefer to use gooper candidates rather than rats for experiments?

There are some things rats just won’t DO!

Thank you President Johnson for recognizing and doing the right (correct) thing.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH

Don’t hold back.

Interesting that everytime the Democratic Party stands up for the right
thing the electorate holds a grudge that lasts a generation at least.
Doing the right thing is not easy in politics, but at least there are
some left willing to take the heat while the Republicans keep selling
a huge negative as nostalgia for a lost golden age.

Hey, hey, LGJ- how many kids did ya kill TODAY?

oops

that was LBJ.

Aw, I don’t want to seem like a one issue dude!

I don’t think anyone is trying to sanctify LBJ. Everyone understands the mixed bag. He’s generally more despised than admired, because of Viet Nam. Still, that doesn’t change what he did do in regard to civil rights and, although it may have overstepped, The New Society, war on poverty, etc.

Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi are celebrating Martin Luther King Day by also celebrating Confederate General Robert E. Lee. What a slap in the face.

You must have been great at the marches . . . “Here, RW — you carry the banner, and let us do the shouting.”

*g*

And some people say we live in a “post-racial” society. Wake up!

Yes, that is galling. I have always considered Lee to have been one of the great scoundrels of American history.

The South continues to have great sway over the Presidential elections. With all candidates forced to kowtow, which side really won the Civil War?

He was an opportunist of the worst stripe and a racist to boot, fuck him.

Right? me too. the word in the South is that “He was ust protecting hios home” or some such shit. He very well could have bee4n hung for treason and I wish these gobers would realize it. But If the celebrate his day w/ MLK in three states,imagine if they had made a martyr of the guy?

I wasn’t taught to hate. Quite the contrary. I wonder if I would be different if I grew up in the south, seeing billboards pushing racism? I don’t know. Aren’t there also billbds saying evolution is wrong? What a disservice they do to the children subjected to that. Deliberately trying to make our children stupid and filled with hate. The perfect way to control them. Now, that’s evil.

I’ll agree he was an opportunist, like all politicians. I don’t see the racist. I don’t think either of us is likely to change the other’s opinion.

And some people say we live in a “post-racial” society. Wake up!

Considering that (and I realize that this is completely unfair), will we be shooting ourselves in the foot nominating Obama?

Raven, I think it’s OK to applaud the rare act of good amongst all the evil he foisted on the world. And LBJ DID foist a lot of evil. But the civil Rights Act and a lot of the Great Society programs were attempts at doing the correct thing, maybe if for nefarious purposes but still.

Hell, I even applaud Nixon for signing the bills creating the EPA. The fact that he did so kicking and screaming, he did sign them.

Yes, that is galling. I have always considered Lee to have been one of the great scoundrels of American history.

me too, a traitor to the Republic!

I agree with the limited praise for LBJ. He was a crass, beligerent leader. But in terms of social policy, he knew where the country should go.

hi firepups – long time no blogwhore I know… I’m out of the country (secret mission)in the meantime a brave lassie from Florida’s keeping up the tradition:

http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..n-fla.html

peace, scarlet-with-intermittant-web-access…

The South continues to have great sway over the Presidential elections. With all candidates forced to kowtow, which side really won the Civil War?

I too have asked that question!

This group out after Moveon is virulent.

Made my hair stand up.

[Modnote: fixed link]

preview is my friend

That’s because you are a good person.

Snowbird, links not working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v….._tv_ad.php

*waving* to scarlet p.

I grew up in “the south,” although after the civil rights era. I was absolutely taught not to hate. It has nothing to do with the billboards you see. My family has been in the south for many generations, and we do not hate. The (white) mother of my (white) dad’s childhood best friend stood in solidarity at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s. It is not about where you grew up. It is about the people you grew up with.

In respect and admiration on MLK Day.

(You can turn off the background flourish up top at the right)

I’ll accept that, spacefish. And, I didn’t intend to malign all our southern citizens.

snowbird, is that ad on tv? Or just the internet?

OT I broke down and read Bill Kristol’s latest op-ed at the Times on Saint John. I have never really read any Kristol before. I probably never will again (nor will I link). He writes on a level that would gain a high school student a grudging C from a teacher with the quiet advice to seek a career elsewhere than in writing. I could do better with toilet paper and crayons. Hey, Times, you interested?

This affects everyone regardless of race.

World stock markets plunged Monday. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080121/world_markets.html

The world is apparently skeptical about the MBA Preznit’s stimulus plans. Will Republic candidates ever move beyond “tax cuts fix all” rhetoric to finding solutions that actually work? We have serious problems and canot afford more years of Republic rule.

Hey, Times, you interested?

I’m still waiting for them to publish your list.

Don’t be snowed by all this shit about the south

Afterward, a clearly rattled King told the media, “I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I have never seen—even in Mississippi and Alabama—mobs as hostile and hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago. I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.”
MLK

Republican bigotry (an institution that has long flourished and will unfortunately continue to flourish with individuals like Rove, Malkin, Limbaugh, Coulter, and O’reilly) it is also interesting to examine what the King Children have done to tarnish and dishonor their father’s legacy. What would MLK do? Not what his children did with his legacy–that’s for sure.

Fighting King Children Hold Out and Sell Father’s Papers for $32 Million

Family Fights Over King Center

Family Continues to Fight Over King Center

One of the aspects of preserving the memory Dr. King that is seldom mentioned but true if you’ve followed the children of MLK is that both their handling of the father’s legacy and the non-profit center that bears his name was allowed to fall into disrepair.

Steps away from the church where King preached his gospel of nonviolence, his children have hired locksmiths to keep each other out of the center, and have shared their grievances with local media.

Dexter Scott King and Yolanda Denise King (now deceased) fought to sell the decayed property to the National Park Service, fighting over the sale with their siblings their siblings, Martin Luther King III and Bernice Albertine King.

The spectacle of King’s children squabbling over their father’s legacy has embarrassed many of Atlanta’s civil rights activists.

We’re watching the changing of the guard,” said Wellington Howard, who founded Georgia Insurance Brokerage on Auburn Avenue 36 years ago. “There are no leaders like King and [the Rev. Ralph David] Abernathy and Lowery anymore.”

Soon after Dexter King succeeded his mother as head of the King center in 1989, Howard said, the family’s standing in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood dropped.

“Coretta was not quite a saint, but she had a lot of hopes and dreams,” he said. “The kids have only used their daddy’s image to make money.”

Dexter and Martin King have drawn considerable criticism from the community for drawing six-figure salaries from the King Center, while reducing programs and allowing its buildings to fall into disrepair.

When Coretta King founded the center in the basement of her home shortly after her husband was assassinated in 1968, she envisaged that it would play a leading role in furthering the Rev. King’s vision of social change.

By 1981, she had raised $8 million to build on Auburn Avenue, and invited a wide selection of notable African Americans — including author James Baldwin and actor Sidney Poitier — to serve on the board.

Now only nine board members remain. All are family members, except former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, who was a close colleague of King’s.

The National Park Service has estimated that the nearly 25-year-old Auburn Avenue complex — which includes an exhibition hall, an archives building, and King’s marble tomb, which sits on top of a reflective pool— is in need of $11.6 million in repairs. The reflective pool leaks, drainage pipes have collapsed and wiring is loose and exposed.

the center — whose mission statement declares its dedication to “developing and disseminating programs that educate the world about Dr. King’s philosophy and methods of nonviolence” — no longer offers programs on nonviolence.

“Nothing happens at the center anymore,” said William “Sonny” Walker, a former King Center board member and interim executive director of the center from 1993 to 1995. During that time, he said, the center sent staff to South Africa to monitor the 1994 elections and developed school curriculums around King’s teaching.

Sweet home Chicago

But the civil Rights Act and a lot of the Great Society programs were attempts at doing the correct thing, maybe if for nefarious purposes but still.

Nefarious purpose for the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights?

Hey, my $600 rebate is gonna fix everything for me!

The south is an easy target because nobody wants to believe that hate lives in “their” city.

You’re right. While for the most part, Philly, the city of brotherly love can be tolerant, some sections where I know people, and hear them talk can spew some of the most virulent hate filled rhetoric around.

And the “quaint” small town I live in whispers in hush tones about the black section of town.

Hey, Times, you interested?

I’m still waiting for them to publish your list.

Sometime in early 2010 the Times will publish an article suggesting that perhaps its coverage of the Bush Administration had some flaws and that he might not have been our greatest President.

Great post Blue Texan, thanks.

I’m not sure either pre or post Civil war there is much difference between North and South. Pre-civil war, the Northern Industrialists were happy to accept payment from Southern plantations. Post civil-war, as the free slaves migrated north and west, so did the white supremacy laws.

Yes, that is galling. I have always considered Lee to have been one of the great scoundrels of American history.

FWIW, as far as Robert E. Lee is concerned, imo he was a man of his time. Jefferson Davis, Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln disagreed about slavery. With the possible exception of Lincoln, very late in his life, none of them had a problem with legalized white supremacy, segregation (and the civil rights violations it protected, was just fine.

OT, about Bobby Lee, Jeff Davis absolutely did not want the surrender at Appomattox. Davis ordered Lee to order the Army of Northern VA to melt away and continue the Civil War as a guerrilla-war. See Quantrill who spawned Frank and Jesse James, (not nice guys as the latest historical revelations confirm). Probably also influenced was Nathan Beford Forrest, who started the KKK, but later resigned from it. Lee had great reason to fear surrendering at Appomattox. The Northern Abolitionists wanted him hung for treason, along with Jefferson Davis. Longstreet told Lee that Grant would not let that happen. Booth’s assassination of Lincoln really put that to the test, but Grant always protected Lee. I’m not sure where Lee really stood after Appomattox. Both sides have portrayed him as supporting their interests.

OT, everyone here knows Strom Thurmond was a segregationist. AFAIK, however, he led the fight against lynching, because he knew it would hasten the end of segregation. He did not oppose the other Jim Crow laws, suppression of voting rights, the chain gangs, and many other civil rights violations, but in return for being against lynching, a lot of white supremacists hated him.

Not nefarious purposes in and of themselves, but sometimes LBJ did not do things for all the stated, above board reasons.

But he did do the correct thing in backing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, regardless of his reasons for doing so.

Johnson City refusing to honor a Nobel Peace laureate, but something tells me the campus was lousy with recruiters and attendance mandatory at their Veterans Day assembly

In the South, the King family argued about the legacy of their father, and allowed the King Center to fall into disrepair. It still needs an infusion of $12-15 million to fix its infrastructure.

The children of MLK have locked each other out of the King Center, and the National Park Service has approached them attempting to buy it so that it can be restored from its current decay.

Recently, the children initiated a bidding war for their father’s papers, selling them for $33 million, but little of the money has gone to repair the King Center.

King Children Deal Father’s Papers for $33 Million

Johnson City is a tiny place, struggling to come up with tacky looking gift shops, etc. to stay alive. People pass through it en route to the more touristy Fredricksburg.

ICYMI, this Tbogg thread is hilarious. Tbogg wrote it when Mitt said he marched with King:

“Black History Month with Rahsaan Roland Romney“

The comments are as good as the post.

Spew alert.

ed,

where in north Louisiana were you? i was in Ruston beginning in 1965 and i remember those billboards very well. i also remember that about ten years later the students at Louisiana Tech elected an African-American president of the student government.

dakine01 January 21st, 2008 at 10:09 am
54
In response to Raven @ 49
Raven, I think it’s OK to applaud the rare act of good amongst all the evil he foisted on the world. And LBJ DID foist a lot of evil. But the civil Rights Act and a lot of the Great Society programs were attempts at doing the correct thing, maybe if for nefarious purposes but still.

Hell, I even applaud Nixon for signing the bills creating the EPA. The fact that he did so kicking and screaming, he did sign them.
_______________________________

both were very flawed and complicated men. of the two, i would take Johnson. nobody forced him to do the good that he tried to bring about. he chose to do it and he banged heads to get it done.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man, one of the greatest Americans ever, but he never held elective office. although we will never know, and he would probably never have done so had he lived, if he had held a political office in America he might well have been put in the inevitable position of compromise that all politicians must face and consequently disappointed many of his followers.

no one running for president today measures up to the expectations of a large number of FDL’ers. that’s because they’re all politicians. Jesus isn’t running for president, nor is Yaweh, Mohammed or the Buddha.
we all need to remember this.

spacefish January 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am &65

I grew up in “the south,” although after the civil rights era. I was absolutely taught not to hate. It has nothing to do with the billboards you see. My family has been in the south for many generations, and we do not hate. … It is not about where you grew up. It is about the people you grew up with.

Same here, except *during* the era. And, amen, friend…….it IS all about those who reared you.

And Huckabee says he’ll do something with the flagpole to those who would take the Confederate flag away . . .

Can’t help but see that Huckabee, as a former Governor of Arkansas, certainly knows that the Confederate Battle Flag represents at least THREE racist periods that are very hurtful to the African Americans.

The first was the use of that flag as the banner under which the Confederacy defended slavery under the bogus assertion of “States Rights”. This was entirely bogus since their own Confederate Constitution embedded slavery into the Southern system and, as well, was a more centralized Constitutional Structure than the US Constitution at the time. As well, the South insisted on the expansion of slavery into other States and Territories, and pushed for laws that actually diminished Northern and Western States for treating people within their own borders as having Constitutional rights. The Civil War was about the retention of slavery PERIOD! All the other assertions are a smokescreen. The Stars and Bars was NEVER used as a symbol or banner in the South until the Civil War.

The second period was after the Civil War, when groups of white vigilantes used the Confederate Battle Flag to oppose Radical Reconstruction. Many White “Shooting Clubs” in the Carolinas and elsewhere flew the banner during “white riots” against the Reconstruction governments and established the flag as part of their “white coup” State Legislatures. These groups were often affiliated with the first KKK movements (although it’s true that the Klan often used other flags, such as some with more explicit Christian crosses). Thus these segregationist “Jim Crow” governments flew the flag of “resistance” to the Civil Rights laws “imposed” on them after the war. The flag at this time became almost a worshipped icon honoring Confederate War dead HEROES (Fallen in the defense of the “peculiar institution” of slavery). Instead of personal family or regimental effects and memorials, gravesites and battlefields were often resplendent is Confederate flags. In fact, they were symbolic of a continued resistance to the North’s victory. For many Southerners they continue to represent this racist past.

http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/south…..aurin.html

The third period of the usage of the flag as a racist symbol(and one of resistance to efforts to re-establish Civil Rights for blacks) was during the era of De-Segregation. Black school kids flanked by Federal Marshals often had to be escorted through mobs of Confederate Flag toting hooligans. The Klan canonized the flag as a common symbol…although often it was converted to Stars & Bars on a field of WHITE. The Segregationist governors of many States where the Stars and Bars were not part of the traditional State Flag incorporated the symbol into the official flag (as in Georgia) or began to fly the banner alongside State Flags. The bogus “States Rights” movement emerged once again, arguing that the 14th and 15th Amendments were inapplicable to discriminatory acts by State and Local Governments.

In all of these cases the Confederate Battle Flag was utilized as a symbol of oppression. That Huckabee continues to actually SUPPORT violent acts against those that want to legally eliminate this flag as a symbol of the States that are supposedly representative of us all, regardless of race and religion, is demonstrative of why this man is utterly unqualified to be the leader of the United States. For many Americans, and I write his as an individual who had several ancestors fighting for the Confederate cause and who owned slaves, that flag represents not simply “past history” but a living emblem of intentional “in your face” hate and ideology.

Like the Nazi flag, it deserves a place in museums and archives to document its role in our historical errors…but to actually encourage and champion those that continue to use it to intimidate others or to rewrite the history of the racism is downright malevolent.

The Confederate flag argument is the lingering echo of the Big Lie told in the South after the Civil War: that the South’s rebellion was all the fault of the slaves and if not for them, the South would still be the wealthy, proud region it was before the “War of Northern Aggression.” Those who defend the flying of that flag, of course, conveniently forget that the South started the war and that Confederates were all traitors to the Union. They were deeply humiliated by their loss and took it out on the black population of the south for the next hundred years.

Going back to Arizona and MLK Day:

I don’t remember the exact year the holiday was established in Arizona, but it was passed by referendum 61% to 39% in 1992, so the 2002 figure reported above is 10 years off. (Source: http://findarticles.com/p/arti…..ai_1453879

The state MLK holiday was a requirement for Arizona to get the Super Bowl, which first happened in Arizona in January 1996 after being taken away for 1993 due to what I describe below. It was also a requirement for the NBA All-Star game, which was held in Phoenix in January 1995.

Various valid reasons for citing Arizona’s red-statedness and relative backwardness aside, Arizona deserves credit for ultimately passing the holiday by popular referendum. As far as I know no other state did it that way. There were a couple of false starts in the 1980s and the 1990 election, where it was first established by gubernatorial edict (courts said not legal) and then two failed referendums in 1990, where one added another state holiday (think we’re really cheap) and another replaces Columbus Day (think P.O.d Italian-Americans – even out here).

The winning formula added MLK day and consolidated the February Washington and Lincoln birthday holidays into Presidents Day, just like nearly everyone else, for a net push in number of state holidays and happy Italian-Americans, or perhaps Spanish-Americans, whose ancestors paid for it, or perhaps mournful Native Americans, whose ancestors and contemporaries paid for it in a different sense. No offense intended, just bvein=g snarky.

BTW, Phoenix and some other cities established MLK Day as a city holiday well ahead of the state, but that got little credit in the late 80s / early 90s controversy.

Re: 91

Note: I released the previous post before finishing editing. There is a logical contradiction in the first sentence second paragraph that I didn’t finish changing after looking up the history, and the letter and number thing in the last line of the next-to-last paragraph was meant to be “being”.

He said our highest calling is to engage in civil disobedience to oppose the forces of oppression. Rise up now.

If he had said that during the 1960s it would’ve made sense. What does it mean in the context of today?

I think he’s just spewing rhetoric those folk are known to respond to. He panders.

Actually, in the early 1960s the sense (in government at least) was that our highest calling was to national defense and continued Liberty by defeating the godless Soviet Union. After all, that’s how we got into that nasty mess in Vietnam.

I suppose one’s ‘highest calling’ depends upon the person.

Today John Edwards says we have a moral challenge to leave America better for our children than it was for us. Does Sen. Obama not recognize that this is a uniting message? What civil disobedience would he have us practice to oppose Bush and his ilk?

I prefer John Edwards message.