We met in 1970 or 1971. She was intense. A radical feminist. Rabidly anti-war. Pro Castro. A Progressive when it was dangerous rather than fashionable. When I talk about her as a friend, I am not talking about a Facebook friendship. I'm talking person to person, in the flesh friendship. Now though, we do interact mostly on Facebook. We are, after all, continents apart. She posts pictures of her kids, all growed up. I Like them. I post stories about our move to France. She Likes them.She Shares posts from a group called Moderates for Bernie. I don't Like them and I don't like them. One post in particular got my goat. It's a picture of a pensive Martin Luther King. The caption reads, "Let me get this straight..I fought and died for the Black vote. And now a man who marched with me is going to lose to a woman who supported Goldwater because of the Black vote..."
Putting words in the mouth of a departed icon like King in support of a contemporary political candidate is simply despicable. It's disrespectful of both King and of civil political discourse in a jaw-dropping way. There are plenty of Black activists on the scene today who support Bernie. Use a real quote from one of them if you have the need to question the right of Black voters to make their own choices.
It's true. As a teenager in the early 1960s, Hillary was introduced to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative by a high school teacher and became an admirer. I found the book interesting at the time, too. A learning experience. But by 1968, Hillary was volunteering for McGovern's campaign. After King's assassination, she organized a two-day strike at her college to support greater inclusion of minorities on staff and in the student body. And after college, she knocked on doors to register voters of color and agitated for the rights of women and children and migrant workers. Those communities remember those days and her work on their behalf. That's why they vote for her.
They were there and they remember and they vote.
Hatchet job artists like Limbaugh and Beck have led Republicans by the nose to the outer fringes of their party, to the outer fringes of decency, to Trump and Cruz. Are Progressives taking Democrats down the same road? Our political discourse deserves better.
End of rant...
Rant more sunshine!
ReplyDeleteIf I were still living in the States, I'd consider hemlock. As it is, I can barely stand what news is available to me. So sad...
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