Politics of lies

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | 2-12-06 | Editorial

[smoothsailing]

Politics of lies

Sunday, February 12, 2006

The funeral of Coretta Scott King proved that Martin Luther King's legacy is far less significant than his acolytes would have us believe.

Civil rights largely are practiced but souls are comforted by the security of the plantation. The Democratic Party is a master -- but not a good master.

Consider Jimmy Carter -- a Southern Democrat incompetent as president, classless since -- who reminded that Dr. and Mrs. King "became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance."

It was a slap at President Bush -- sitting behind the podium -- and his warrantless eavesdropping on suspected terrorists.

Mr. Carter -- who fumbled the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis, setting the stage for today's nuclear confrontation -- also found in the blackness of Hurricane Katrina victims evidence that equal opportunity has not been achieved.

Why was Carter not booted off the stage?

Democrat icon Bobby Kennedy approved the wiretaps of King conducted during the terms of his brother and Lyndon Johnson under suspicion King's group was infiltrated by communists.

Not true, but the FBI dogged King until the day he was shot dead. Surveillance did turn up King's adulteries (that's right, Jimmy, allude to that during Mrs. King's funeral), which the FBI used in an attempt to blackmail King into suicide.

A community gathered to mourn ravenously consumes the politics of lies from a Democrat whose party, by the way, runs New Orleans...

[driftless]

"sad state of civil rights"

They weren't very good prior to the sixties. I remember the church burnings and the bombings. I remember seeing the Klan on tv. And speaking as a white Northerner, things weren't a lot better up here even without de jure discrimination and segregation. A great percentage of adults I knew as a child were openly racist. And speaking as someone who grew up Catholic, there was still plenty of religious bigotry.

Thankfully those days are gone. America has come a long way in this regard. Back then I heard a lot of racist comments from white adults. Fortunately my father wouldn't allow that racist garbage in our house. Racism hasn't disappeared, but it isn't the ball and chain around the legs of Blacks and other minorities that it used to be.

[liberty2004]

Capitalism did NOT work for majority of Black people.

This is an utterly naive and offensive statement. I strongly suggest you delve into the history of Jim Crow laws and such. You will discover that Capitalism was NOT allowed to occur because the LAWs of government prevented it. Do you realize that many trolley lines were private before government took them over. Many of the owners of these private lines strongly resisted segregating the riders. Governments all over run mostly by Democrats passed laws that forced segregation. Fines were levied and jail often threatened on owners that resisted. Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell have often addressed the issue Capitalism and discrimination. Capitalism doesn't care about color, except green. Government laws and actions by petty government bureaucrats are the cause of most misery in this once great Republic.

To suggest that the widespread discrimination that the blacks suffered is related anyway to capitalism is absurd.

[Smokin' Joe]

If you want someone who broke down barriers, learn of the life of George Washington Carver. How many in his day were consulted by Henry Ford, or offered a six-figure salary to leave Tuskegee Institute and work with Thomas Edison (when few people --of any color--made four figures a year). Carver stayed at Tuskegee to carry on the work he loved, and to teach.

It is a crying shame that for fear of appearing weak, men of substance and integrity have been supplanted by others as idols whose only contribution to their race and humanity is the ability to throw a ball.

Forget the BS and teach your children to read and write well--insist on it, and they may go far and accomplish much, regardless of the color of their skin. Encourage them to be doctors and scientists, lawyers and writers.

I am not diminishing the contributions of Dr. King in the struggle for racial equality, but there has to be a position of greater prominence to be had than the current crop of reverend whiners, rappers, ball players, and Oprah.

We all do better if we dare our children to dream of great things, and dare them to achieve those dreams, regardless of the transient whims of pop culture.

[Caipirabob]

Mr. Carter -- who fumbled the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis, setting the stage for today's nuclear confrontation -- also found in the blackness of Hurricane Katrina victims evidence that equal opportunity has not been achieved.

Carter also campaigned on promoting a platform of White and Black Segration in order to win the Governorship of Alabama.

"He wanted to appeal to the large middle class, blue collar type, predominantly white, and most of these people are going to be segregationists," says historian E. Stanly Godbold. "Carter himself was not a segregationist in 1970. But he did say things that the segregationists wanted to hear."

So he was against it before he was for it (and campaigned on it)? Sounds about right for a rat.

In a bid to win their vote in the 1970 governor’s race, Carter minimized appearances before African American groups, and even sought the endorsements of avowed segregationists, a move that some critics call deeply hypocritical.

At any rate, Carter wasn't above catering to the lowest common denominator when he needed to.

[Caipirabob]

Alabama...geez...I mean Georgia. I ran across too many George Wallace articles and had that stuck in my mind.

[jmaroneps37]

When jimmie made his comments about wire taping, he showed that as an old bigoted white man who grew up in a bigoted part of America, he still thinks of Black people as child like. He still believes they can he patted on the head and told anything as long as they go back to the fields, pick more cotton and vote Democrat. This old dope doesn't even realize how insulting and patronizing his comment was.

[CBart95]

The point of the piece was the disgraceful conduct of (No. Outrageous behavior) of Jimmy Carter toward a sitting President at Coreta King's memorial service.

As tempting as it may have been, a discourse on the state of affairs of the civil rights movement, particularly one full of bile and vieled accusations, is and was just plain callous and thoughtless on the part of "Clock King".

Even with those personal points made,your personal and thoughtful memoir is engaging and worthwhile, as free as they seem to be of hyperbole, of those troubled times. Your recollection seems to square with the facts as they were and as they are generally historically recalled.

Even your personal comments to "Clock King" appear "in order" and without the "rancor" he brings to the table.
Nonetheless, It still feels totally inappropriate to use the occasion to launch into treatises of the state of the Civil Rights movement.

Still, your thoughtful and mature handling with these issues are powerful examples of how to harmoniously deal with such subject matter and I appreciate them.

Thank you.

[driftless]

"point of article"

I agree with most of your comments. But there is tendency to forget the past. I should have added to my comments about the radical left and Black power movements doing damage to the civil rights movement something about race-hustlers and scoundrels like Carter and Lowery destroying the image of King.

While he gets the analogy to capitalism not working for black people wrong (Tom Sowell has proven that it was working very well for Blacks pre-sixties), I think Clock King feels that there is a general segment of some people on this forum who don't understand what King and other civil rights leaders were facing at the time.

I don't believe King was a saint, but I do believe he was a hero for what he accomplished. Having said that, I agree the article focused more on how King's successors have almost totally ruined his legacy.

[CBart95]

I very much appreciate your reference to the wisdom of Dr. Thomas Sowell.

We are blessed with his example.

[smoothsailing]

Another fine opinion piece in the Trib today:

Rainbow Coalition racism

What made the civil rights movement so great was that it was an agenda that was not personal; it had the support of all races. But somewhere along the way, the civil rights movement was hijacked by radical liberalism.

Somehow, I find it hard to believe that Martin Luther King would have advocated anyone of any color being treated in such a despicable way. Nor would he have appreciated his wife's funeral, a celebration of a life well-lived, being turned into a political rally intent on embarrassing a sitting president. This is the legacy of the civil rights movement?

[svcw]

I don't know how old you are but I remember an editorial cartoon about MLK that went like this.....
There were a group of people who were in front of MLK walking away from him and his arm was out pointing to them yelling, "come back I am your leader".
Things were changing and MLK was part of that but not the only part. The current black "leaders"(?) are a bastardization of the whole movement.

[svcw]

As someone who lived through this, you are right on.