Civil Rights

I went to a church service last night on the anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March at a small AME congregation. Mostly black, mostly middle class farmers. The minister, part time, as he is a farmer too, spoke passionately of the zeal of those protestors who stood up against injustice and of the cause that they lifted up. BUT, he also challenged the congregation to do more than just recall....

A lot of tough questions have to be addressed if we are to have a real conversation about race. And all of us have to face realities without excuses.

Roy Moore's resemblance to George Wallace is very striking. Both justified their hateful prejudices as moral and democratic imperatives, warned of terrible consequences from not sustaining their bigotry and both made sweeping, dictatorial-styled edicts.

Selma received nearly universal acclaim from film critics. It got tons of publicity. So where are the crowds? Well, I live in very conservative Missouri in an area where there are few blacks but "12 Years a Slave" did rather well here. It was made for $22 million and made $188 million. So???

President Obama will make his 2015 State of the Union speech tonight at 6:00pm PST and PlanetPOV will be hosting a Live Chat that will run simultaneously with his speech and the (now) three Republican rebuttals (known in some circles now as The Whiners Circle).

In a hot auditorium in Charleston, SC on July 30, 1977, I heard Dr. Martin Luther King declare: "I'm not gonna say, 'Burn baby burn'!" I'm gonna say "Build baby build!"

Almost in parallel with Climate Change, the climate of politics and world events seems to be intensified by human events, we see extremes happening more often and more swiftly than in previous years.

Instead of seeing a psychotic cop-killer for what he was, some NYPD officers, their police union and prominent Republicans are exploiting this tragedy to validate the righteousness of their racism.

In the end, no one can maintain their power because of the inverse property of power, every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. And that is our eternal job as the majority of human beings on this planet, to be that equal and opposite reaction to those who accumulate power and use it to gratify themselves at the expense of the lives and well being of others.

We shall see what decision was reached and what the reaction is. Your thoughts and comments are invited and welcome here, before, during and after the decision is announced.