Which they?
Politicians in general, Senators in particular, or Kennedys?
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/7/2006 @ 3:28 PM
Democrats, actually. You'd think after the Wellstone disgrace they'd have class enough not to go stinking up people's funerals with a pantload of cant shat from atop a casket. And apparently, you'd be wrong.
Ah. Yes, forgot about that tasteless episode. There's a saying that there is a time and place for everything. Guess they haven't figured that one out.
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/7/2006 @ 3:59 PM
I listen to “The Tom Joiner Show” on the drive into work. They are very funny, but when they get on a “Damm White People”, “Republican”, or “Bush” tirade … It’s sad how they sing those “DNC Plantation Blues”. They all agreed that Mrs. King would have wanted them to slam Bush during the funeral. Well … no surprise, they did.
The Kings were non-violent protestors for social change (Marches on Washington? Coretta's march on Washington 6 days after MLK died?), political protestors, anti-war activists (MLK's Beyond Vietnam speech?) - what *content* from today's memorial was not fitting? Given their legacy of calling America to action on these *specific* issues, why would a call to action not be appropriate (not necessarily from "Democrats" or "the Left", but from anyone that supported civil rights, eliminating discrimination, finding alternatives to war, etc.)? But I won't characterize their positions - I'll quote from speeches:
Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was not just that one day his children would "live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.""...
From that march on Washington speech (the "I have a dream speech"), MLK didn't just say that he wished that all men would not be judged by the color of their skin - he spoke against discrimination and unequal opportunity:
"One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned... But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation."
Towards the end of the speech, (in the "I have a dream portion") he also says:
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"
and toward the end...
"I have a dream that one day "every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
Four years later, in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, MLK spoke about both non-violence (in terms of his opposition to the Vietnam war) and it's affect on social programs (especially on young black men who were being drafted for the war). He spoke about multiple reasons he was against the war, but tied the spending to the war to reductions in social programs that were targeted to help the poor (he noted that the poor were disproportionally affected by the war: "It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We are taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia or East Harlem... I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.").
MLK gave another reason for protesting the Vietnam war - he would argue for non-violence when campaigning for civil rights / social change... "But they asked, and rightly so, "What about Vietnam?" They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted...For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."
When Lowery and MLK formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, their motto was: "To save the soul of America".
MLK said that he felt that to ignore the war was to risk the soul of America.
MLK said that "I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies... A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth...The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just...A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just.""
MLK spoke about a call to a fellowship of man, our loving one's neighbor (and this was in the time of the Vietnam war): "This call for worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind...This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love on another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that his spirit will become the order of the day."
Issues about discrimination, opportunities for the poor or people of color, war and non-violent approaches to social change, etc. - these are the legacies of MLK AND Coretta Scott King. To mischaracterize them is unfortunate.
I just watched the entire CSK funeral on C-Span and realized that you can't get a sense of it from a few isolated quotes or sound bites.
It was a marvelous tapestry of art, full of nuance and richness. More important it was evocative of a time when we actually had decent people in the White House and Congress. In the succession of speeches there was poetry, there was soul-stirring song, there was historical context. There was spirituality, and humaneness, and love and hope.
Contrast all that with what these pathetic Republicans did immediately afterward. They seized upon tiny fractions of the event, the ones where allusions were made to Republican failures and criminal acts and lies. It shocked them. But what was more shocking was that these Republicans came away thinking the whole thing was about them.
It wasn't.
But the Republicans were not content to just leave those few TRUTHFUL fractions stand. No, fascist Karl Rove was compelled to immediately send his whores and pimps and slime merchants to try to tear it all down.
That's all they know how to do, they know nothing else. They got into power in Washington on slime and lies and misrepresentations and smear tactics, and they used their illegitimate power to sully everything good about America, most especially by lying us into an unnecessary war. And looking the other way when all those Black folks huddled in New Orleans and begged for help.
And like a poisonous leitmotiv or a lingering putrid smell, there was George Bush, sitting behind the speakers. As usual he was ill at ease and totally out of touch. He actually brought himself to believe he belonged there, sitting among honorable people.
Steve, yes, that would explain a lot. Their behavior and their confused looks when others react with disgust to their behavior.
For example, see John's comment above this. He can't figure out why the president would think he should attend Mrs. King's funeral, being that he is a Republican. The thought that it would be fitting for the president to attend the funeral of a great American, as a show of respect, never crossed John's mind.
Sad, really. I wonder if the madness will ever pass?
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 7:58 AM
Listen to KENNEDY blowing off all that HOT AIR why dont he for once keep his piehole shut so he cant put his foot in it all the time
C'mon, firebird. Sen. Kennedy doesn't have to worry much about what he says. He has a lock on that senate seat no matter what happens. Why should he be discrete when he can say whatever just so happens to pass through his mind?
Comment by Mii\key (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 11:00 AM
For the most part this message board seems like it is here to bash the way African Americans feel about how we are being treated in our own country . Yes it is true that Mrs. King funeral service brought many mourners some different some alike. But what it also did was bring many powerful people into one space that can bring about change to our nation. So what Bush got bashed!!!!!!!! He should have. So what people talked of politcal change at her service!!!! They should have done that too!!! But let us not forget that her legacy was upheld, which is non-violent protest to the powers at be to help us become a better people. I don't think that because Mrs. King has died that she would want us to pass on the opportuity to bring social consiousness to the people and let the snake we call President Bush sit there totally disconnected to what is happening around him. But as usual when us as African Americans speak out about the injustice we endor on a daily basis we are considered to be trouble making monkies that still haven't learned their place. So to say that what happen at the Funeral of the late, Great Mrs. Coretta Scott King was an emmbarassment, well it all all depends on who talk to. Because I know one things for sure, as an African American woman living in this day and time I felt nothing but Joy and Honor to know that we still have leaders that are not afraid to speak out for the greater good of the African-American people no matter what the cost.
And to reply to the comment above about the President coming to honor a great American. That is a bunch of crock. To tell you the truth Bush would not have come if he didn't that that he would be crusified for not attending.
I certainly watched the entire funeral and agree that it was tastefully done, but let us not forget that people that attend sometimes have their own agendas and this was not supposed to be a photo opportunity and to sweep the problems that Mrs. King attempted to resolve in the past. African Americans and minorities are still struggling and there is no hope in sight. We are still second class citizens and let us not forget that Katrina lives and look what the govt has not done!!! We all need to redirect ourselves in a solution, not a bashing of everyone. But the fact remains, as we can tell with gas prices and such, we have a long way to go....
Don't be ridiculous, Stephanie. This post is bashing the use of a funeral to stage a political rally, to use Mrs. King's coffin as a podium.
It's inappropriate behavior at any person's funeral to use it to bash another person. It should have been about her, not President Bush and what the speaker believes his weaknesses or failings are. It is rude and inconsiderate to use a funeral for that. It was rude to a guest. It shows a lack of class and common decency, something it appears the left in general and Democrats in particular have little respect for - the little politenesses and niceties of civilized behavior that make a civilized society possible.
President Bush acted graciously. The others acted like boors. Can you see where boorish behavior ought to be criticized or has politics deadened your sensibilities?
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 11:40 AM
Sandy it is obvious that you are not African American and don't understand our struggle. You talk about how gracious Bush was but the truth to the matter is that he always seems to be gracious and put together even when he lying to the American people about a war that shouldn't take place. Even when her tried to divert out attention away from the real culprit OSOMA BIN LADEN. Or how about when he left the African American in New Orlean to die. So I will give you that. He was gracious as usual. So you can say what ever you want about the democrats this and the republicans that. That is typical of a Bush supporter divert the attention. The issue is that Black people need to be heard. Hell we built this nation and still have nothing to show for it. That is something that we can't deal with. I personally would not have expressed my political views that time but I can't blame someone else for seizing the moment. The people that spoke only said what was on the minds of the African American people.
I am a democrat, can't stand Bush, but it is inappropriate to politicize the funeral. Leave that crap outside of God's church. Dr. King would have been embarrassed.
My highlight was the eloquent words of T.D. Jakes.
There are so many errors of logic and fact in what you've posted that I honestly don't know where to begin. I understand your struggle enough to not trivialize it, and the actions of some of those speakers did just that.
My point remains - it was rude and inappropriate to use a funeral service for political ends, to attack a political foe. There are plenty of opportunities to criticize this administration and plenty of venues to do it. This wasn't it. It was crass. It was classless. And it said a lot about the speakers.
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 1:04 PM
Er, that last one was in response to Stephanie.
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 1:04 PM
Stephanie, the only thing holding us back is your own stupid rhetoric. Get a clue. If you can't make it here, where the hell are ya gonna go and make a life for yourself?
Don't cling to the bitterness from the stupid. That way is the proverbial trail of tears.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Know who said those things, Stephanie? Look it up.
'The man' can only ride your back if its bent.
Change your attitude or you can always expect to be right where you are now. Listen to the words of a great man, the greatest of his generation; or wallow in your self pity. The choice is yours.
To sum up Stephanie's rants: Bush was responsible for letting blacks die in New Orleans, his struggle to spread democracy in the Muslim world is a deliberate distraction from getting Osama, African Americans built the nation singlehandedly, African Americans haven't gotten anything at all out of being citizens here, and Bush's presence at the memorial was hypocrisy. And disagreeing with all this is equivalent to calling African Americans "monkeys", uppity, and "trouble-making".
The thing is, I already know "what was on the minds" of people like Stephanie. Heard it all before, yanno. I just don't believe that Stephanie's perspective is a legitimate perspective. I believe that it's the perspective of a few kooks and rejects, and I hope that it's not the perspective of the majority. If Stephanie does represent the views of the majority of African Americans, then the majority of African Americans are as delusional as she is.
Also, if someone makes an argument and it is wrong, then repeating the point on top of a coffin doesn't make it any more worthy of a hearing. Beyond a certain point the argument becomes an annoyance. "Give me what I want or I will keep pestering you!" isn't an ethical strategy. It's extortion.
Kiefer Sutherland put it best in Stand By Me: "Okay. You've stated your position clearly. Now I'm gonna state mine. Get in the @#$% car, now."
Except for the bit about wanting to be cooped up in a moving vehicle with her yammering away.
You forgot one, David: the one that says if Bush had refused to subject himself to a bunch of mindless, childish insults by not showing up at all, it would prove once and for all that he "just doesn't care."
And after all, if the federal gummint doesn't care, why, who does?
But the funniest bit of all is probably this: apparently, we're all participating in the "Swift-boating" of the King funeral by expressing our disdain for the lack of decorum and plain boorishness showed at her funeral.
Statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals suggest that fewer than half of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black, and that whites died at the highest rate of all races in New Orleans.
Poor Stephanie. Better adjust your talking points. Here's a hint: You might want to do some actual research. No doubt you'll just call me a racist or some such.
Mike, my man, I would love to take credit for that, but I can't. That comment, too, was Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted to see if Stephanie might recognize it, and learn once and for all what a great man believed, instead of Jesse Jackson and Company's interpretation of what a great man believed.
Bu apparently, but Stephanie's logic, she would not have minded if Bush had gotten up and said this: (hat tip mightysamurai)
"Corretta Scott King worked her whole life to defeat racial discrimination written into law by the Democratic Party. Her tireless struggle to overcome the Democrat Jim Crow Laws will forever be remembered.
But what will we will all remember most is her endless perseverence. When Democrats bombed her home in Alabama, she persevered. When KKK members like Democratic Senator Robert Byrd marched in support of segregation and filibustered the Civil Rights Act, she persevered. When John and Robert Kennedy tapped her phoneline to spy on her husband, she persevered. When Jimmy Carter ran for Governor on a segregationist platform, she persevered."
All true, and consistent with the "message and life work" of the Kings. Presonally, I would have a major problem with Bush if he had said that. Stephanie, I guess, wouldn't have.
What I find to be so funny is that the people who has responded to my comments has made no real point besides to say that you pitty me and I need to do research and change my views. That changes nothing. Like I had stated in my earlier response I would not have choosen that time to speak my peace with the President but I won't fault someone one else for doing so. To jonny you know nothing about me and therefore I care not of your opinion. See the difference in me and other people I don't need anyone to validate my feelings. It is easy for people to close thier eyes to what is happening around them and then try and be self rightous because they have managed to become part of the middle class society. That is real cute. I am well educated and I speak the truth and I walk in the truth. You should try doing that before you start bashing me. I am not claiming to know everything but I do work all over the city of Chicago everyday and I go home sad and devistated at the disadvatage that that African Americans have over their counter parts. From education to housing the grade of assisatance they get is laughable. So don't tell me that I am ignorant and I have no basis for what I am saying. I am out there trying to make a diffence. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
And to David Ross for you to say that my perspective is not a legitimate one is comical. And to take it a bit further you say that my perspective is of few kooks and rejects lets me know there is even more people out there walking around with blinders on. And they are happy to do so. I will say it again the comments that I say are of the the African American People. You can love or hate it doesn't change a thing. I can honestly say that now after actually looking at the telecast of the services that some speaker went overboard. But it still does not change the fact that they were in fact speaking the truth. AND Like I say I speak the truth and I walk in the truth and I will never bash anyone for doing the same.
Boy, for somebody who doesn't know anything, Stephanie, I guess I sure struck a nerve, didn't I? You should really see someone about all that anger. Lol. Its bad for the digestion.
So don’t tell me that I am ignorant and I have no basis for what I am saying. I am out there trying to make a diffence. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Only making a difference by purveying bullshit, Stephanie.
So answer the question, you didn't have a problem with what Lowery said, why would you have a problem with what I wrote?
If you don't need anyone to validate your feelings, why are you here?
Know nothing about you? Are you effing kidding me? I know everything about you.
Here's a short list:
You support abortion.
You think everyone who is a Republican comes from the "middle class" or higher
You think everyone that has succeeded more than you or makes more than you has had some advantage you didn't, instead of worked harder for it.
You think Samuel Alito is a racist.
You believe in Universal Health care
You think people who make more than you don't pay enough taxes.
You think the reasons that there are poor people are because of external forces as opposed to internal forces
You oppose school vouchers
If you voted at all, you voted for John Kerry.
You opposed the War in Iraq.
You have a problem with evangelical Christians of the variety of James Dobson and others like him.
You support homosexual marriages,
You think the reason that people in your community hasn't succeeded is because of racism
Please, pleeeease tell me I'm wrong. I need a good laugh today.
and lastly and most importantly, you have no familiarity whatsoever with the beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr., or you could not possibly keep making these astonishingly ignorant statements you keep making.
So I'll tell you again, Stephanie, its your choice. I don't personally give a shit whether you change your behavior. If you want to be a bitter old crone. that's not my problem. having been on the receiving end of racism my whole life, I know partly where you're coming from. But being bitter and pretending that its everybodys fault is a recipe for despair.
Learn to take constructive criticism. Or not. It only hurts you. Feel free to have the last word. I've got better things to do than listen to your self destructibve whining.
Stephanie, in order for us to have a conversation, dear, you have to bring something coherent to the table, so to speak. You've not done that. Every statement you've made has been so dramatically divorced from reality that discussion with you is simply impossible. Your syntax is barely literate, your facts aren't, you know, factual, and all your conclusions are therefore supremely suspect.
Johnny Johnny Johnny, To be honest I have grown tired of you. Both times that I responed to you I kept to the issue not about you. But every time you respond to me it is to bash me and tell me how badly I need to change. A few of the things that you lined you lined out that you think I belive in is true some are just off the wall. I do know of the Dr. Kings beliefs. What is funny is that Dr. King was killed after speaking out against the Veiatnam war, speaking out for African American men that were being disportionalty sent to they deaths. Ow I know what he belived in and I belive in some of those same principles but don't think for a moment that I am going to conceede because other people don't like what I have to say. I have gotten a lot of responses to my comments and that is good even if they are not in agreement with me. That just means that I sparked something in the minds of others. I have brought something to the forefront that wasn't there before, and for that I feel good. But never the less I am stuck in my convictions and I see that you are stuck in yours. Lets just agree to disagree. and call it quits.
Randy I don't really have anything to say to either because you came out the gate saying that I have no validity to my agrument without so much as a sentence to prove your perspective. Try to debate with someone else
What is funny is that Dr. King was killed after speaking out against the Veiatnam war, speaking out for African American men that were being disportionalty sent to they deaths.
Must I disabuse you of yet another lie? Here you go:
Race Recorded Casualties
Native American 226
Caucasian 50,120
Malayan 252
Mongolian 116
Negro 7,264
Unknown 215
Totals 58,193
Blacks were about 12.5% of the casualties. That's proportional to their representation in American society. Whites on the other hand were 86% of casualties, which is greater than their proportion of the population. Sheesh, at least put forth a little effort to be honest.
Acording to whos numbers. Sure you can go on the internet and pull up information. But I trust no ones research besides my own. And belive me the numbers that you have is not the numbers that I have.
What numbers DO you have, Stephanie? So far, I've seen nothing from you but assertions, opinions stated as if they were hard fact. Give us some numbers, Stephanie, along with where you got them. If you can, which I doubt, because all you're really doing is regurgitating a bunch of bullshit some liberal liar has fed you.
You're willing to debate someone as long as they just sit back and let you lie about the President, but once they actually have the temerity to say out loud that you're a liar, you don't want to talk about it anymore. And this is what you liars on the Left call a "debate"? How typical of you.
Why is it, Stephanie, that the President owes black people anything at all more than he owes anybody else? Why is it up to the United States Government to save citizens of Chicago from whatever imaginary handicap they may think they have? What does that have to do with a bunch of hack politicians trying to score cheap political points by climbing up on someone's casket and preening like banty roosters crowing for attention?
To your specific points, few though they are: when, exactly, did Bush "lie" us into war? Can you tell me specifically of a single lie he uttered, even one? No, you can't, because the idea that he "lied" is purely YOUR OPINION, or more likely not even that -- it is an opinion I suspect you've been spoonfed by the same political hacks who tell you that blacks are feeble and helpless without loads of assistance from Big Brother Government which they want to control and dole out to you, thereby buying your votes and helping them maintain their hold on power; the same political hacks who were turning firehoses on your parents and siblings in Selma in the 60s; the same political hacks who voted against the Civil Rights Act in '64; the same political hacks who refer to a former Klansman (Robert Byrd) as "the conscious of the Senate" -- and the same hacks who were pissing all over the President from atop King's coffin. They're laughing at you when they're not telling you how much you need them, Stephanie, and they're counting on you being too dumb to even notice. And so far, they haven't underestimated you at all, because you play right along and don't question them on anything, ever.
Jordan already apprised you of the truth behind the Hurricane Katrina lies, so I won't even bother. Truth to tell, I don't know why I bother anyway, because like so many others, you refuse to hear anything but the same lying bullshit you've been fed your whole life.
None so blind as he who will not see. Or, y'know, she. Whatever. I don't care how many African-Americans (which is it, anyway?) are saying it: a lie is a lie, and stupidity is stupidity, and helpless dependence is helpless dependence. Black people have sold their votes to the Democrats for pretty damned cheap, and if they want to continue living on the plantation the Democrats have built for them, then they'll continue to get left out, left behind, and left looking blind and foolish when the whole illusion fails to deliver what it promised.
And hey presto, another liberal disappears into the ether, lacking the courage or strength to confront the falsehoods that underpin her cherished but erroneous core beliefs. Scuttling crab-wise back to the safety of the hive mind, where she'll wrap herself in the warm embrace of intellectual conformity, she'll congratulate herself on her brave victory over the forces of darkness and bask in the approval of her peers. She isn't the first liberal to have her sharp enthusiasm for the thrust and parry of debate blunted by a frustrating encounter with unyielding Truth, and she won't be the last.
Or, in fairness, maybe she's out Saving the Children™ or something.
This is the last time I am going to respond to any of you because this is starting to get ridiculos. First things first the defintion of disporportion: Absence of proportion, symmetry, or proper relation Even if I use the numbers that you gave me this is how it looks. 1. At the start of the war the
White Population was as follows
Total 171,204,758
Male 84,417,662
Female 86,787,096
Black Population
Total 21,063,732
Male 10,152,077
Female 10,911,655
This is a trend that has carried us all the way to the year of 2006.
Can you see the portions
Now once you calculate the number of white men that died. You say the number is 50,120
the percentage of whites that were lost comes out to be 0.0297% but if you just count the men it come out to be 0.05937
Now when you do the same thing for blacks the percentage come out to be 0.03448% then if you only count the men the percentage is 0.0715
So look again at the meaning of disporportion again then do your own math. You can find the information with national cenus
How is it that blacks are the minority but when it come down to percentage we were disporportionatly killed in the war.
The comparison you are making is absolutely meaningless. Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia - a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the close of the war. Read it and consider the difference. It's not that difficult.
90% of the people who work in the lab in my building are Asian. However, they only constitute 1% of the people who work in the buliding. But, they also constitute 95% of the Asians who work in the building.
So, if an explosion occurs in the lab and wipes it out, 95% of the Asians in my building will be killed, as opposed to less than one percent of other ethnic groups. Is that racism? Or does it just mean that there is a disproportionate number of Asians working in the fucking lab in relation to other ethnic groups?
Stephanie dear, your syntax still sucks, your facts still aren't even remotely factual, and your conclusions are still wildly suspect.
I warned you to fix that before you got back to us, didn't I? You didn't fix it, did you? You're still getting your ass handed to you with every comment you make. Well? What did you think was going to happen?!
Well Randy if I got my ass handed to me thanks because it is mine. Everyone that has responed has tried to discredit the information that I have set forth yet none of you have attempted to provide proof to support your arguments. Like I said the meaning of disporportions was clearly spelled out for you, but you still try to make it seem as though my numbers mean nothing. Point being that were and still is the minority in the USA but the number of African Americans killed impacted our population at a greater rate than our counter parts. Now you tell me if that is disporportionant. The numbers don't lie. So roll your eyes and suck your teeth all you want You still can't change the truth no matter how hard you try to.
What truth?! Your numbers don't even begin to add up. All you're doing is desperately attempting to find a reason to yell "Racism!". Why don't you get off your lazy ass and work for it, instead of trying to guilt the rest of us into funding your pathetic little entitlement?
Did I upset you Randy? I knew that would happen that always does. when someone can take the heat they fold and resort to name calling like children. Please believe me when I say everything that I have I worked my ass for it. I know that I am not entiitled to anything but at least there should be a fair playing ground. As for your guilt that is something that you have to deal with entirely on your own. I put no guilt on anyone. I speak the truth and that is it.
Riiight. No, you wouldn't know the truth if bit square on your ass. Your numbers are bullshit, (I notice you refuse to answer Jordan and johnnymozart above, since they tore the guts out of your wretched little assertion) your syntax is still pathetic, and your idea of a fair playing field makes me shudder with disgust.
As for your assumption of my guilt, forget about it. I refuse to accept the unearned, good or bad, your silly little guilt trip definitely included.
Randy Get a life Randy!!!!! The questions that Johnny put forth is not even in the same contexts of what the issue is. So until some poses a question worth answering I will ingnor them.
Politicians in general, Senators in particular, or Kennedys?
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/7/2006 @ 3:28 PM
Comment by Mike — 2/7/2006 @ 3:56 PM
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/7/2006 @ 3:59 PM
Comment by Paladin — 2/7/2006 @ 4:39 PM
Comment by Steve Skubinna — 2/7/2006 @ 8:03 PM
Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was not just that one day his children would "live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.""...
From that march on Washington speech (the "I have a dream speech"), MLK didn't just say that he wished that all men would not be judged by the color of their skin - he spoke against discrimination and unequal opportunity:
"One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned... But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation."
Towards the end of the speech, (in the "I have a dream portion") he also says:
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"
and toward the end...
"I have a dream that one day "every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
Four years later, in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, MLK spoke about both non-violence (in terms of his opposition to the Vietnam war) and it's affect on social programs (especially on young black men who were being drafted for the war). He spoke about multiple reasons he was against the war, but tied the spending to the war to reductions in social programs that were targeted to help the poor (he noted that the poor were disproportionally affected by the war: "It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We are taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia or East Harlem... I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.").
MLK gave another reason for protesting the Vietnam war - he would argue for non-violence when campaigning for civil rights / social change... "But they asked, and rightly so, "What about Vietnam?" They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted...For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."
When Lowery and MLK formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, their motto was: "To save the soul of America".
MLK said that he felt that to ignore the war was to risk the soul of America.
MLK said that "I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies... A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth...The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just...A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just.""
MLK spoke about a call to a fellowship of man, our loving one's neighbor (and this was in the time of the Vietnam war): "This call for worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind...This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love on another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that his spirit will become the order of the day."
Issues about discrimination, opportunities for the poor or people of color, war and non-violent approaches to social change, etc. - these are the legacies of MLK AND Coretta Scott King. To mischaracterize them is unfortunate.
A true memorial is to remember their legacy.
Comment by Mahni — 2/8/2006 @ 1:45 AM
It was a marvelous tapestry of art, full of nuance and richness. More important it was evocative of a time when we actually had decent people in the White House and Congress. In the succession of speeches there was poetry, there was soul-stirring song, there was historical context. There was spirituality, and humaneness, and love and hope.
Contrast all that with what these pathetic Republicans did immediately afterward. They seized upon tiny fractions of the event, the ones where allusions were made to Republican failures and criminal acts and lies. It shocked them. But what was more shocking was that these Republicans came away thinking the whole thing was about them.
It wasn't.
But the Republicans were not content to just leave those few TRUTHFUL fractions stand. No, fascist Karl Rove was compelled to immediately send his whores and pimps and slime merchants to try to tear it all down.
That's all they know how to do, they know nothing else. They got into power in Washington on slime and lies and misrepresentations and smear tactics, and they used their illegitimate power to sully everything good about America, most especially by lying us into an unnecessary war. And looking the other way when all those Black folks huddled in New Orleans and begged for help.
And like a poisonous leitmotiv or a lingering putrid smell, there was George Bush, sitting behind the speakers. As usual he was ill at ease and totally out of touch. He actually brought himself to believe he belonged there, sitting among honorable people.
He was so miscast. So out of place.
Comment by John Palcewski — 2/8/2006 @ 7:33 AM
For example, see John's comment above this. He can't figure out why the president would think he should attend Mrs. King's funeral, being that he is a Republican. The thought that it would be fitting for the president to attend the funeral of a great American, as a show of respect, never crossed John's mind.
Sad, really. I wonder if the madness will ever pass?
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 7:58 AM
Comment by firebird — 2/8/2006 @ 10:48 AM
Comment by Mii\key (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 11:00 AM
And to reply to the comment above about the President coming to honor a great American. That is a bunch of crock. To tell you the truth Bush would not have come if he didn't that that he would be crusified for not attending.
Comment by Stephanie — 2/8/2006 @ 11:10 AM
Comment by Sandy — 2/8/2006 @ 11:34 AM
It's inappropriate behavior at any person's funeral to use it to bash another person. It should have been about her, not President Bush and what the speaker believes his weaknesses or failings are. It is rude and inconsiderate to use a funeral for that. It was rude to a guest. It shows a lack of class and common decency, something it appears the left in general and Democrats in particular have little respect for - the little politenesses and niceties of civilized behavior that make a civilized society possible.
President Bush acted graciously. The others acted like boors. Can you see where boorish behavior ought to be criticized or has politics deadened your sensibilities?
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 11:40 AM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/8/2006 @ 12:18 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/8/2006 @ 12:42 PM
My highlight was the eloquent words of T.D. Jakes.
Comment by Harold — 2/8/2006 @ 12:52 PM
My point remains - it was rude and inappropriate to use a funeral service for political ends, to attack a political foe. There are plenty of opportunities to criticize this administration and plenty of venues to do it. This wasn't it. It was crass. It was classless. And it said a lot about the speakers.
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 1:04 PM
Comment by Mikey (Not the Host) — 2/8/2006 @ 1:04 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/8/2006 @ 1:21 PM
Don't cling to the bitterness from the stupid. That way is the proverbial trail of tears.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Know who said those things, Stephanie? Look it up.
'The man' can only ride your back if its bent.
Change your attitude or you can always expect to be right where you are now. Listen to the words of a great man, the greatest of his generation; or wallow in your self pity. The choice is yours.
Comment by johnnymozart — 2/8/2006 @ 6:09 PM
Comment by Mike — 2/8/2006 @ 6:13 PM
The thing is, I already know "what was on the minds" of people like Stephanie. Heard it all before, yanno. I just don't believe that Stephanie's perspective is a legitimate perspective. I believe that it's the perspective of a few kooks and rejects, and I hope that it's not the perspective of the majority. If Stephanie does represent the views of the majority of African Americans, then the majority of African Americans are as delusional as she is.
Also, if someone makes an argument and it is wrong, then repeating the point on top of a coffin doesn't make it any more worthy of a hearing. Beyond a certain point the argument becomes an annoyance. "Give me what I want or I will keep pestering you!" isn't an ethical strategy. It's extortion.
Kiefer Sutherland put it best in Stand By Me: "Okay. You've stated your position clearly. Now I'm gonna state mine. Get in the @#$% car, now."
Except for the bit about wanting to be cooped up in a moving vehicle with her yammering away.
Comment by David Ross — 2/8/2006 @ 6:59 PM
And after all, if the federal gummint doesn't care, why, who does?
But the funniest bit of all is probably this: apparently, we're all participating in the "Swift-boating" of the King funeral by expressing our disdain for the lack of decorum and plain boorishness showed at her funeral.
Comment by Mike — 2/8/2006 @ 7:29 PM
Poor Stephanie. Better adjust your talking points. Here's a hint: You might want to do some actual research. No doubt you'll just call me a racist or some such.
Here's the full article.
Comment by Jordan — 2/8/2006 @ 8:40 PM
Pingback by Scrutator » disgraceful funeral — 2/8/2006 @ 8:58 PM
Bu apparently, but Stephanie's logic, she would not have minded if Bush had gotten up and said this: (hat tip mightysamurai)
"Corretta Scott King worked her whole life to defeat racial discrimination written into law by the Democratic Party. Her tireless struggle to overcome the Democrat Jim Crow Laws will forever be remembered.
But what will we will all remember most is her endless perseverence. When Democrats bombed her home in Alabama, she persevered. When KKK members like Democratic Senator Robert Byrd marched in support of segregation and filibustered the Civil Rights Act, she persevered. When John and Robert Kennedy tapped her phoneline to spy on her husband, she persevered. When Jimmy Carter ran for Governor on a segregationist platform, she persevered."
All true, and consistent with the "message and life work" of the Kings. Presonally, I would have a major problem with Bush if he had said that. Stephanie, I guess, wouldn't have.
Comment by johnnymozart — 2/9/2006 @ 10:28 AM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/9/2006 @ 12:16 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/9/2006 @ 12:32 PM
So don’t tell me that I am ignorant and I have no basis for what I am saying. I am out there trying to make a diffence. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Only making a difference by purveying bullshit, Stephanie.
So answer the question, you didn't have a problem with what Lowery said, why would you have a problem with what I wrote?
If you don't need anyone to validate your feelings, why are you here?
Know nothing about you? Are you effing kidding me? I know everything about you.
Here's a short list:
You support abortion.
You think everyone who is a Republican comes from the "middle class" or higher
You think everyone that has succeeded more than you or makes more than you has had some advantage you didn't, instead of worked harder for it.
You think Samuel Alito is a racist.
You believe in Universal Health care
You think people who make more than you don't pay enough taxes.
You think the reasons that there are poor people are because of external forces as opposed to internal forces
You oppose school vouchers
If you voted at all, you voted for John Kerry.
You opposed the War in Iraq.
You have a problem with evangelical Christians of the variety of James Dobson and others like him.
You support homosexual marriages,
You think the reason that people in your community hasn't succeeded is because of racism
Please, pleeeease tell me I'm wrong. I need a good laugh today.
and lastly and most importantly, you have no familiarity whatsoever with the beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr., or you could not possibly keep making these astonishingly ignorant statements you keep making.
So I'll tell you again, Stephanie, its your choice. I don't personally give a shit whether you change your behavior. If you want to be a bitter old crone. that's not my problem. having been on the receiving end of racism my whole life, I know partly where you're coming from. But being bitter and pretending that its everybodys fault is a recipe for despair.
Learn to take constructive criticism. Or not. It only hurts you. Feel free to have the last word. I've got better things to do than listen to your self destructibve whining.
Comment by johnnymozart — 2/9/2006 @ 12:39 PM
Fix that, and get back to us.
Comment by Randy Rager — 2/9/2006 @ 12:43 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/9/2006 @ 1:06 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/9/2006 @ 1:08 PM
Must I disabuse you of yet another lie? Here you go:
Blacks were about 12.5% of the casualties. That's proportional to their representation in American society. Whites on the other hand were 86% of casualties, which is greater than their proportion of the population. Sheesh, at least put forth a little effort to be honest.
Comment by Jordan — 2/9/2006 @ 1:24 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/9/2006 @ 1:36 PM
You're willing to debate someone as long as they just sit back and let you lie about the President, but once they actually have the temerity to say out loud that you're a liar, you don't want to talk about it anymore. And this is what you liars on the Left call a "debate"? How typical of you.
Why is it, Stephanie, that the President owes black people anything at all more than he owes anybody else? Why is it up to the United States Government to save citizens of Chicago from whatever imaginary handicap they may think they have? What does that have to do with a bunch of hack politicians trying to score cheap political points by climbing up on someone's casket and preening like banty roosters crowing for attention?
To your specific points, few though they are: when, exactly, did Bush "lie" us into war? Can you tell me specifically of a single lie he uttered, even one? No, you can't, because the idea that he "lied" is purely YOUR OPINION, or more likely not even that -- it is an opinion I suspect you've been spoonfed by the same political hacks who tell you that blacks are feeble and helpless without loads of assistance from Big Brother Government which they want to control and dole out to you, thereby buying your votes and helping them maintain their hold on power; the same political hacks who were turning firehoses on your parents and siblings in Selma in the 60s; the same political hacks who voted against the Civil Rights Act in '64; the same political hacks who refer to a former Klansman (Robert Byrd) as "the conscious of the Senate" -- and the same hacks who were pissing all over the President from atop King's coffin. They're laughing at you when they're not telling you how much you need them, Stephanie, and they're counting on you being too dumb to even notice. And so far, they haven't underestimated you at all, because you play right along and don't question them on anything, ever.
Jordan already apprised you of the truth behind the Hurricane Katrina lies, so I won't even bother. Truth to tell, I don't know why I bother anyway, because like so many others, you refuse to hear anything but the same lying bullshit you've been fed your whole life.
None so blind as he who will not see. Or, y'know, she. Whatever. I don't care how many African-Americans (which is it, anyway?) are saying it: a lie is a lie, and stupidity is stupidity, and helpless dependence is helpless dependence. Black people have sold their votes to the Democrats for pretty damned cheap, and if they want to continue living on the plantation the Democrats have built for them, then they'll continue to get left out, left behind, and left looking blind and foolish when the whole illusion fails to deliver what it promised.
Comment by Mike — 2/9/2006 @ 1:45 PM
http://www.archives.gov/research/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html#race
It's the National Archives.
Comment by Jordan — 2/9/2006 @ 2:22 PM
And hey presto, another liberal disappears into the ether, lacking the courage or strength to confront the falsehoods that underpin her cherished but erroneous core beliefs. Scuttling crab-wise back to the safety of the hive mind, where she'll wrap herself in the warm embrace of intellectual conformity, she'll congratulate herself on her brave victory over the forces of darkness and bask in the approval of her peers. She isn't the first liberal to have her sharp enthusiasm for the thrust and parry of debate blunted by a frustrating encounter with unyielding Truth, and she won't be the last.
Or, in fairness, maybe she's out Saving the Children™ or something.
Comment by Mike — 2/9/2006 @ 3:14 PM
White Population was as follows
Total 171,204,758
Male 84,417,662
Female 86,787,096
Black Population
Total 21,063,732
Male 10,152,077
Female 10,911,655
This is a trend that has carried us all the way to the year of 2006.
Can you see the portions
Now once you calculate the number of white men that died. You say the number is 50,120
the percentage of whites that were lost comes out to be 0.0297% but if you just count the men it come out to be 0.05937
Now when you do the same thing for blacks the percentage come out to be 0.03448% then if you only count the men the percentage is 0.0715
So look again at the meaning of disporportion again then do your own math. You can find the information with national cenus
How is it that blacks are the minority but when it come down to percentage we were disporportionatly killed in the war.
Comment by Stephanie — 2/9/2006 @ 4:27 PM
Comment by Jordan — 2/9/2006 @ 6:04 PM
(rolls eyes)
Stephanie,
90% of the people who work in the lab in my building are Asian. However, they only constitute 1% of the people who work in the buliding. But, they also constitute 95% of the Asians who work in the building.
So, if an explosion occurs in the lab and wipes it out, 95% of the Asians in my building will be killed, as opposed to less than one percent of other ethnic groups. Is that racism? Or does it just mean that there is a disproportionate number of Asians working in the fucking lab in relation to other ethnic groups?
Do you ever have an independent thought?
Ever?
Comment by johnnymozart — 2/9/2006 @ 6:22 PM
I warned you to fix that before you got back to us, didn't I? You didn't fix it, did you? You're still getting your ass handed to you with every comment you make. Well? What did you think was going to happen?!
Comment by Randy Rager — 2/9/2006 @ 10:48 PM
Thanks
Steph
Comment by Stephanie — 2/10/2006 @ 11:47 AM
Comment by Randy Rager — 2/10/2006 @ 1:02 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/10/2006 @ 4:30 PM
As for your assumption of my guilt, forget about it. I refuse to accept the unearned, good or bad, your silly little guilt trip definitely included.
Comment by Randy Rager — 2/10/2006 @ 5:26 PM
Comment by Stephanie — 2/13/2006 @ 10:34 AM