Remembering Dr. King's Legacy, What Legacy?
http://mylatinovoice.com/politics-and-us/25-lo-que-es/2629-remembering-dr-kings-legacy-what-legacy.html
by Robert Waddell
1/26/11
Why wasn't there a mattress sale on Martin Luther King's Birthday?
Why doesn't the local car dealership have an MLK give away? And why
don't department stores have guys dressed as the slain civil rights
leader handing out leaflets that read "Get your civil rights, two for
one sale" on the national holiday?
Because, America only pays lip service to the legacy and the dream of
Dr. King; yes, Obama was elected and Oprah is America's Joan of Arc
but still the violence that killed Dr. King continues today. Begging
the question, does America still live up to the legacy of Dr. King?
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity," said Dr. King.
January 20th was the 50th anniversary John F. Kennedy was sworn in as
President. The time of non-violence, love, hope and 1960s peace have
all been ground down to forgotten dust where fat and lazy Americans
only care, it seems, about ipods, cell phones and Dancing with the Stars.
A few reasons why Dr. King's legacy is a dream and the American
Nightmare is our waking reality:
Even after the horrible tragedy in Arizona took place, no one ---
especially politicians --- wants to go near gun control or the lack
of service to the mentally challenged legislation. It is still too
easy for someone with a mental illness to legally buy a gun that,
with a magazine of 30 rounds, only serves to hunt people and not
animals. In certain parts of the country, guns are considered sporting goods.
The mentally ill are still looked upon as untouchables to be avoided,
more than the homeless. While America fell in love with Ted Williams,
the golden voiced homeless man, think how much harder it would have
been to like Williams if he were mentally ill? No one would have gone
near him, written about him, put a video up on You Tube.
The first act of the new Congress was to repeal the weak barely
existent law that won't kick in for another 3 years, which still
leaves so many Americans uninsured. This leaves mentally ill patients
without health care and the means of finding treatment...but they can
still exercise their Second Amendment Rights.
Australia and Brazil are flooded and Hawaii was being closely watched
a year after Haiti's Earthquake. Still think Global Warming is a myth?
Or as Dr. King once wrote, "a nation or civilization that continues
to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the
installment plan."
The Republicans aka the Tea Party continues with the Un-American and
Un-Patriotic rampage giving the wealthy tax breaks while unemployment
is at an all time high. Some of these foolish law makers still insist
that the President was not born in the United States. Obama might be
President but racism hasn't gone away. This reporter believes
wholeheartedly in the First Amendment, which many of these
Republicans have never read along with their Bibles, but I wish Sarah
Palin would shut the hell up.
American corporations have created jobs --- in India. And with a lack
of comprehensive immigration legislation, still the exploitation of
cheap labor continues.
There are still 2 un-just wars going on in Afghanistan and Iraq with
scant to no coverage on the news and even smaller amounts of anti-war
protest. If there had been a draft like in the 1960s, all of the
children who live off the fat of the land getting fat would be out
protesting their right not to go die and fight in two unjust foreign wars.
If the government wants to really save money, cut Defense spending
now and fully fund education. Dr. King once said, "A nation that
continues year after year to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
Prisons and death rows across the country are crammed with young
Latino and African-American men. The Justice system is anything but just.
Even though legal segregation has been abolished and the world is
much different than in Dr. King's time, still insensitive behavior
and laws continue America's reckless might over right. This is still
a government that looks out only heavily for the wealthy and for
corporations while ignoring the basic needs of citizens, the poor,
the elderly and children making one wonder where has the real legacy
of Dr. King gone? In schools, housing, jobs, civility? Where? Want to
really decrease gun violence, legalize drugs.
Perhaps in the few activists who still hope and believe in changing
the world. Hope lies with them as the Civil Rights leader said, "All
progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us
face to face with another problem....Almost always, the creative
dedicated minority has made the world better."
The wonderful and great Dr. King was assassinated years ago then his
dream was slowly corrupted, assassinated and chipped away. Make no
mistake that the gluttony, greed and indifference in America today
will only lead to a bleaker cultural territory. No one asks what they
can do for their country any more however they do ask what their
country can do for them. Maybe the Mayans had it right --- we're
running out of time.
.
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