America’s civil rights journey in two sentences:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Letter From a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
“It isn’t hard to find injustice around us, but we must not let injustice smear the good deeds that do occur everyday.”
–Sen. Rand Paul, Break Down The Wall That Separates Us From The ‘Other America’, January 19, 2015
Sage nodding from CHORUS.
Exeunt, FIN.
Open thread.
Belafon
Which isn’t very far from “It’s OK to fight against measures that mean your child might have to compete against more people for her college scholarship.”
Betty Cracker
Can someone translate the senator’s statement from Randroid to English for me? I’m not sure what he’s trying to say.
Baud
That is why, from this day forward, I vow to stop talking about the injustice of high taxes and overregulation.
I’m sure that’s what Rand said next.
Zandar
@Baud:
What Rand then went on to say was:
Because the injustice of police choking a man to death over selling loose cigarettes is not caused by the actions of the police, but by the injustice of laws that make selling loose cigarettes wrong.
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: I translate it as “My life is awesome. Why are all you people who are struggling to survive focused on how unfair society is when you should be looking at the good things people do. Like me. I do lots of good things.”
Baud
@Zandar:
LOL. Yeah,the “law” required a death sentence. Blame the legislators.
lamh36
A bit of MLK last speeches you may not have heard! A snippet…not quite the “I Have A Dream” MLK most white people are comfortable with
MLK on Economic Justice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4vdfugMFbg
Gin & Tonic
@Shalimar: Shorter: IGMFY.
currants
@lamh36: So right, and still so true so many years on. Thank you for that, lamh36.
Josie
@lamh36: It looks like not much has changed. There are people in congress today who are enriching themselves from farm subsidies while voting to cut food stamps, school lunches and social security, etc.
Gex
Translation: my demographics and my wealth insulate me from the injustices that regularly occur in our society, so I have the luxury of patting myself on the back about how great this society is (to those who are just like me).
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know if this works as a translation, but here’s a more or less equivalent statement: “Why doesn’t the news report on all the planes that DON’T crash every day?”
Tommy
@Baud: Hey I misinformed you yestrerday about Chromecast. The firs two I got just had a USB cable to power the unit. The one I got Saturday, opened it up after we talked and it had a straight-up micro cable that plugs directly into the wall outlet. IMHO that makes a lot more sense.
Patricia Kayden
There is nothing that Rand Paul has to say that would interest me. He’s already stated quite clearly that if it were up to him, there would be no law forcing stores to accommodate people who look like me. That’s all I need to know.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rand-pauls-rewriting-of-his-own-remarks-on-the-civil-rights-act/2013/04/10/5b8d91c4-a235-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_blog.html
lamh36
As anyibe checked put the SOTU guest list? If the list is any indication the SOTU may well be interesting.
http://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/01/19/meet-first-ladys-guests-years-state-union
Also too, has anyone else seen today’s Google doodle for MLK day?
Check it out and learn more here…
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2015/01/19/roxbury-artist-creates-google-doodle-for-mlk-day/pNins9NPSkP9q1xwk2pPeK/story.html
JCT
@Gin & Tonic: Yup, “don’t bother me with that stuff and help me pull this ladder up, hurry!”
And the NYT celebrates the holiday by publishing an Op-Ed by Marine Le Pen (David Duke was busy with his laundry or something) .My guess from reading her homily is that the subtitle was supposed to be “Let’s call a spade a spade” but someone nixed it. The comments are interesting..
GregB
Someone should make compare and contrast memes between Martin Luther King and Ayn Rand.
We’d find out who’s the real ‘Murkin.
Baud
@Tommy:
I bought one yesterday and tried it last night. My TV doesn’t have a USB so I was happy to see that it came with its own plug. I like it. Beats connecting the computer to the TV each time.
Tommy
Seems like this might be the right day to post this video. It was done in September of 2007 by a group called “Students for Barack Obama.” Really just students from the University of Iowa.
Back at that time there was of course a “buzz” around him, but he wasn’t drawing the crowds he would later in his campaign. Towards the end when they pull back the camera, from behind Obama, and you see the crowd at the University of Iowa, well it is stunning it was only early fall 2007. Tens and tens of thousands of people.
It starts, well you will see how it starts. A huge shout out to MLK and his dream for a better America, which kind of serves as the overall narrative of the entire video. But it is also a documentary of the students at Iowa getting ready for his visit with short interviews with them saying they are voting for Obama because he wants a better America, a better world, and he is motivting, in fact challenging them to work to make that happen …. no politican had ever asked something like that of them before.
It is long, ten minutes, but well worth your time. You get to see Obama dance. Crack jokes. Bear huge students. Just really looking like he is having the time of his life. Rally small audiences into a frenzy. And you hear excerpts from his early stump speeches that I am pretty sure made almost all of us want to vote for him.
I hope you enjoy ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K_ntZEPlHI#t=44
BTW: Everytime I watch it, and I’ve watched it 20+ times through the years, I am stunned it has only been viewed 70,781 times. My opinion does mean much, but I frankly think it is the best video of either of his campaigns.
Tommy
@Baud: Wonderful. Good to hear.
currants
@lamh36: Awesome!
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: That’s probably it. But his sentence was awkward to the point of incomprehensible. How is “injustice” supposed to “smear the good deeds”? Maybe it’s nonsensical on purpose so it can be filtered through various lenses of butt-hurt.
Mike J
@Patricia Kayden:
He does believe it’s wrong for a store to refuse service to somebody with a gun.
Maybe there’s something we can do here to make everyone happy.
wilfred
Pity the Obama Administration doesn’t agree, else it would stop threatening Palestinians with retaliation for seeking justice though the ICC.
Like free speech, which is freer for some, justice is juster for others.
RepubAnon
@Betty Cracker: @Amir Khalid: My interpretation of Rand Paul’s statement was less “why don’t you report on the planes that don’t crash” and more “just shut up about the plane crash – it makes the manufacturers look bad, and could force to spend money on improvements.”
Without knowledge of the actual probability of suffering injustice at the hands of the police, we can’t tell whether it’s a real problem or something manufactured by the media and activist groups, such as the “ISIS is hiding under your bed” themes we see at times. However, the sheer number of incidents reported strongly indicates that police injustice, ranging from misuse of asset forfeiture to unjustified shootings, is a real problem. Rand Paul wants to treat this the way Victorians treated sex: nice people don’t talk about it, and it’ll go away if we ignore it…where’s that knocking shop?
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: I believe it’s part of that zero-sum mindset our wingnut friends have. Mentioning injustice smears good deeds in the same way that acknowledging slavery, native American genocide or WWII internment camps is hating on America and denying her greatness.
shortstop
@Mike J: Cracked me up.
Laertes
“Smear” is a revealing choice of words there. Not “obscure” or “hide” something similarly passive. You can innocently or accidentally hide or obscure things. To smear is, always and everywhere, willful and dishonest and malicious.
Rand Paul really hates victims of injustice.
shortstop
@Laertes: that’s what I was trying to say — you did it more succinctly and engagingly.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
I do not think that is what he’s getting at. What he’s doing is stating, “hey, look there’s a lot of bad stuff in society, but occasionally people help others out, so we do not need to spend as much time obsessing about injustices, inequities and other problems people like to keep on and on and on about.”
The paragraphs before the quote at the top:
No mention of the fact that why the hell is the RICHEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET allowing people to go hungry?
Per Sen. Paul, we should not focus on the structural injustice of having poverty and hunger, in a country that is richer than any other country on the planet, but focus on folks being charitable.
RSA
@Patricia Kayden:
I know, right? Why would Time publish a piece on MLK Day from probably the most prominent U.S. politician today who finds the civil rights movement controversial?
Roger Moore
@RSA:
A suspicious person might think it’s because they want to endorse his views.
Tommy
@gene108: I had read that story before and it is flat out wonderful. My town build a Food Pantry a few years ago. Some were worried he “homeless” and “poor” people would be attracted to our town.
In a Town Hall meeting some brave people, well known in the community, raised their hands and asked to speak. They said they try to hide it, but at times they can’t afford to enought buy food. A Food Pantry could really help them out. It would be a god sent. And when they could afford to buy food, they’d “play it forward” for others.
People were stunned, how could these people not have enough money to buy food? They were people that went to PTA meetings. Their church, taught Sunday School. Kids played with each other. They had jobs.
I think at least a few people came to understand not everybody that is hungry in this nation “lives in a van down by the river.”
Our Food Pantry has won every award I think the state of Illinios can give out. And the local people, myself included, seem to have embraced it and often times their sheleves are overflowing with food!
eric
@Roger Moore: Because cash is green.
gene108
@Tommy:
I think there are a lot of good things that are going on today that are being ignored.
Record high high school graduation rates.
Record low teen pregnancy rates.
Record low crime rates.
We have, in some ways, seem to have licked, over the last 20 years, the social ills that “plagued” us in the 1970’s and 1980’s and early 1990’s.
We are as a society, in many ways, in much better shape than we were in the past.
Hillary Rettig
NICE JUXTAPOSE
Shakezula
@Betty Cracker: #NotAllWhitePeople.
Cervantes
Not by a long shot.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
I notice a local guy on that list — Captain Phillip C. Tingirides, who is helping run a community policing program in Watts (South LA) that includes face-to-face meetings between residents and the cops assigned to the neighborhood.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
I can’t imagine there being a wrong day. Thanks.
Did you notice what happens when you click the link below the video?
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
“Yeah, injustice exists, but on this MLK day lets all be sure to remember what’s really important: things are still great for us white people”
Villago Delenda Est
The entire Paul clan is a blight on humanity.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
Because. Reasons. — the parasite scum of the 1%
Cervantes
@wilfred:
One bright note: Given Palestine’s current status at the UN, and notwithstanding ostensibly principled and pragmatic objections voiced by the Obama Administration, a prosecutor at the ICC announced on Friday that she is opening a preliminary examination into “the situation in Palestine.” It’s not much but it’s more than we’ve had before.
BruinKid
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) will see Rand Paul, and raise him a bill that guts ESEA, something King wanted to ensure the right to a high-quality education. Because “states rights” and all that.
Gex
@gene108: And for conservatives, charity is the way they control you. Just as they liked scared workers afraid to leave their jobs for fear of losing health care, they like what little our society does for the needy to be considered charity and at our discretion so the poor will grovel and be compliant.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: I am blown away.
boatboy_srq
@gene108:
But it isn’t: we have good people like LEO Stacy to help out. Because that’s the way things ought to be done, and how they’re done best. Why, if you made this into a federal program, then all sorts of people would want some, and they’d lie and cheat on the forms that Big Gummint would make them fill out (but not check), and before long we’d be spending BILLIONS!!11!1! THAT’s how gummint waste starts, and we don’t want that.
/snark
Seriously: one LEO helps somebody out (twice) and we’re supposed to be happy that the poor shoplifter didn’t starve on those few days. Because eating once, and getting enough groceries to last another month or so, will offset the other +/- 330 days in the year when LEO Stacy isn’t around to collect donations. This doesn’t even reach the “we’re washing dishes in the closed soup kitchen whether they like it or not” level of entitlement.
sm*t cl*de
Auto-correct is NOT YOUR FRIEND.
rikyrah
@Villago Delenda Est:
ICAM