Law and Legal Expert

Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and regretting the American political class

Recently, we celebrated the birthday of a great American, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an individual who has probably done as much for civil rights and equality in this country than any other American in our history. His courage and vision were instrumental in the progress that minorities have made this country the last five or six decades. If not for him, we can not have one African-American president in Barack Obama today, if not for him an African American woman, Oprah Winfrey, can not be one of the most powerful people in show business today if not for him many of our leaders in politics and diplomacy (eg Colin Powell), sports (eg Michael Jordan), and other fields may not have ever gotten the opportunity to become fully who they are.

Now, how this country has met all the views and wishes that Dr. King dreamed and dreamed? Despite the progress that has been done, we as a nation still have a long way to ensure equality for all. His visions of equality must be part of every American daily interactions with everything they come into contact with. His is a message of peace and harmony is a desirable thing.

However, this march for a better tomorrow, probably go much smoother if many members of our political class stopped and took a moment today to reflect about their poisonous words over the past year or so. Consider:

– The Democratic congressman Charles Rangel: “I want you to know your audience and knowing that the group who were in Washington fighting the project health and fight against the President, looked just as well and shouted groups like those who attacked the civil rights movement in the South. “

– Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee:” All those who used leaves have long since lifted them out and started to wear clothes with a name, say I am part of the tea party. “

– Former Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson (in reference to Americans who attended the Washington rally Glen Beck):” These are people who were wearing sheets over their heads, for 25 years . ‘

– Despicable language coming from our so-called “leaders.” Language which, collectively, the judges marks and millions and millions of Americans with honest and intelligent reasons to oppose Obama as racist Care. These three never met the same people who collectively branded as racists, and racists true since the 1960s that never quite met the African American citizens who collectively for less than the brand as they should have rights in this country.

I never met Dr. King, but I am sure, based on his works and words, he would not have attacked so violently against ordinary Americans who are expressing a personal opinion and honest, as these three, and others in positions of leadership has done over the past year or so. Their language does nothing to move the intentions and visions of Dr. King to the front and they underestimate the true heroes of the civil rights era that faced the real racists.

I would also bet that Dr. King would have appreciated the following quote from Elie Wiesel: “No race is over … No religion is less All collective judgments are wrong They are racists.” I think Mr. Wiesel describes in detail the politicians who had spread the range collective judgments about the honest Americans who just happen to have differing opinions.

Furthermore, if these politicans had any notion of American history, they would realize that was many, many times the political class through government actions that were facilitating the racists of yesteryear:

– It was the political class, usually the Democratic Party in the South, which has horrible Jim Crow laws .

– It was the political class, usually the Democratic Party in the South, which has all sorts of laws to vote and access to polling stations for African Americans very, very hard to do.

– One of the longest serving Democratic senators in our history, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, in fact, be admitted as a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

– was the government that institutionalized the Supreme Federal Court “separate but equal “for nearly six decades, through its Plessy v. Ferguson decision.

– was the federal government by consent of the political class that maintained segregated armed forces of the Civil War through World War II.

– It was the government of the Federal Office of Public Health, who led the sickening human experience known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in 399 African American men.

Today, the political class should take a look around your own space work, Congress, and finally realize the shameful lack of equality in that chamber when it comes to minorities and women. The halls of Congress are still so out of kilter with the rest of American society, this can not be considered a form of racism?
So, before Rangel, Lee and Grayson start to falsely blame ordinary American racism, they should understand that racism evident in our history was perpetrated and executed by his brothers political history.

Unfortunately , an African American politician who could have done more to curb that Wiesel could be considered racism, Barack Obama, has been disappointing in silence when it came to Rangel, Lee, and Grayson. I doubt that Dr. King would have been so shy, given one of his most famous quotes and insightful as always: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I’m sure Dr. King would have said, realizing that collective judgments of any group of Americans and honest is an injustice to be fought, just as he did in the 1960s.

The attribute of another great meeting in Dr. Kings vision is the recognition that Americans and human beings everywhere, be free and I deserve to be free. Consider one of his greatest insights always:

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring. when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we can speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to unite hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Finally free! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Great stuff. However, I wonder how Dr. King would react if I saw today where this country has been as a result of our political class, for all Americans, in relation to freedom:

– You really can be free when politicians control their wealth through Social Security reform

– Can you really be free when politicians control their retirement through Medicare health

– Can you really be free when politicians increasingly control of their health care through early retirement Obama care?

– Can you really be free when politicians control their ability to get a student loan

– Can you really be free when politicians control its ability to obtain a home mortgage through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA

– Can you really be free when the political instruments allow the government to snoop on all aspects of your life by Patriot Act with minimal checks and balances?

– Can you really be free when the government can hold people forever in prisons like Guantanamo and elsewhere for the mere suspicion of being a terrorist?

– You can really be free when all levels of government to confiscate about 40% of their salary each year through taxes and government fees

– Can you really be free when the moneyed interests, like unions and corporations to political campaigns overload billions and billions of dollars of special interest

– You really can be free when the primaries and congressional district boundaries are manipulated to ensure that the holder of the office almost always re-elected?

– You really can be free when the political class can not stop themselves from spending and wasting more money than it collects fees and current and future generations with onerous national debt

– Can you really be free when it is marked with a Label poisonous to simply express a different view of a politician?

Thus, despite the perceptions, actions, successes, and the teachings of Dr. King, we still have long way to go in this country to fulfill their dreams of equality and freedom . And the first step in this journey is to understand that the politicians of today and yesterday, are and were probably the main obstacle to both goals.

This is why it is so important for us all to become more actively to ensure that our politicians start acting like the leader Dr. King was not to serve yourself, do not solve the problem that we accept youth in positions of power for long. Equality and freedom must be our mantra, and not the mantra of political hatred that currently divide our country and denies equality and freedom for all.

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