The FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr. for nearly five years from 1963 until his assassination in 1968. After approving the wiretaps, attorney general Robert Kennedy specifically requested to be personally informed about any findings.
After his “I have a dream” speech, the FBI called him, the “most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.”
When King learned he would be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the FBI decided to take its harassment of King one step further, sending him an insulting and threatening note anonymously. A draft was found in the FBI files years later. In it the FBI wrote, “You are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that.” The letter went on to say, “The American public … will know you for what you are — an evil, abnormal beast,” and “Satan could not do more.”
It really begs the question of what was blacked out, a friend points out. If all of that horribleness was deemed acceptable, what could be so bad to warrant the censorship?
The letter’s threat was ominous, if not specific: “King you are done.” Some have theorized the intent of the letter was to drive King to commit suicide in order to avoid personal embarrassment. “King, there is only one thing left for you to do,” the letter concluded. “You know what it is … You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”
A recent study from the University of Wisconsin hoped to answer this timely question as Clinton campaigns for the presidency, “Are women voters more likely to vote for female candidates?”
Answer: Not just because they’re women. Obviously.
Women generally voted based on information about the candidates and their positions on important issues: “Evidence suggests women voters are often more likely to support women candidates than are men but that this support is not automatic and is often based on additional considerations beyond candidate sex.”
The relationship was significant but was mediated by many other factors. And in fact, women were no more influenced by sex identity than men were. [and what about people who would not fit into those categories?] (more…)
I’m glad many people are supporting Jeremiah Wright, the pastor whom Obama has denounced. To a standing ovation and thunderous applause, he gave the benediction at a ceremony honoring Maya Angelou before her 80th birthday (April 4).
“Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity Unity Church of Christ.” — Barbara Ehrenreich, March 2008
“It’s hard sometimes for me to understand how Obama is able to milk so much reaction out of speeches that are not only pedestrian, but which contain truly startling statements. The speech he made yesterday, for example: how can he manage to dedicate a whole address to the importance of overcoming racism, and in the middle of that talk not only essentially smear his pastor with the ‘Angry Black’ stereotype, but also endorse the ongoing US policy of racism and injustice towards the Palestinians, and then somehow come out of the whole thing smelling like roses, sending hyperventilating progressives all over the country to their smelling salts, believing that they’ve heard the ‘greatest speech’ of modern times!” — “epppie,” an e-mail correspondent, March 19, 2008
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I just read Barack Obama’s Latest Greatest Speech – his celebrated address on race, titled “A More Perfect Union” [1], yesterday (I am writing on the morning of March 19 2008), in Philadelphia. Sparked by recent broadcasts of his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright’s angry denunciations of U.S. imperialism and racism, the speech changes nothing for me.
Deluded Obamanists can stop sending me e-mails saying (to quote one this morning) “wow he really knocked them dead in Philly telling it like it is on Race. Now will you please finally get on board with the Great Barack?”
As his most recent Grand Oration shows, the Chosen One is not about to sacrifice political ambition for the sake of truth and justice.
Yesterday’s address was all about Obama using his former pastor as a pretext for yet more triangulation [2]. Wright was employed as a foil for Obama to pose as reasonable on race and racism while he continued his project of deepening public confusion on racist and other United States oppression structures at the heart of American society.
During a fundraiser for diabetes research at North Dakota State University — the Mr. NDSU Pageant– , a white student in blackface portrayed Barack Obama receiving a lap dance from another guy dressed as the Obama girl.
In the background, two other students dressed as cowboys simulated anal sex while holding an Obama sign, which was ripped at the end of the 30-second performance.
At North Dakota State University only 1.5 percent of the students are black or African American.
I wonder if fox news will even mention this. It was on the front page of cnn.com, but a simple search for it on foxnews.com yields no results. They covered Obama’s “typical white person” comment and Rev. Wright’s speeches enough that you would think they like stories on race and Obama.
Rev. Wright, however, was not racist. He merely pointed out racism in society and U.S. policies. I guess Fox may just like stories on Obama that provide the opportunity for reporters to deny the existence of white privilege and structural racism.
But I still thought that it would cover such blatant racism that does allow simple reporting without challenging their dearly held white privileges. Perhaps Foxnews fears coverage would benefit Obama by countering all their hard work through the Wright story to whitewash racism in society. Weren’t their talking points trying to make Obama seem divisive and Wright seem racist and to imply that most racism today is against white people (ridiculous)? (more…)
I heard this on CNN last night, but someone convinced me that the anchor must have just misspoken. Alas, though, it is true. Mike Gravel, presidential candidate from Alaska, has jumped the Democrat ship and landed in the Libertarian sinkhole.
“I’m joining the Libertarian Party because it is a party that combines a commitment to freedom and peace that can’t be found in the two major parties that control the government and politics of America. My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American; elites that reject the empowerment of American citizens I offered to the Democratic Party at the beginning of this presidential campaign with the National Initiative for Democracy.”
Does Gravel not know that the libertarian party of the United States is the capitalist party? It wants to end all taxes, extend neoliberal trade and stop social programs (refer to Ron Paul). The party doesn’t support the war because it doesn’t support any government spending. (more…)
The U.S. subsidies for corn producers may be having global impacts on the food supply. Many U.S. agricultural business switched from growing food crops to corn for ethanol, as a result of the federal money. Big businesses are also clear cutting the Amazon rainforest to grow what Bush touts as “alternative energy” that reduces the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
With intensifying food shortages and mounting prices, the sad irony is that corn ethanol is a net negative for energy. Because it uses more energy to produce than it yields, it contributes to the growing energy crisis and thus further to the escalating price of food.
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), March 28, 2008. Perhaps his slip suggests what he really believes would happen. Would Clinton really concede if the delegate count was not in her favor or would she try to woo the superdelegates?
This is obviously satire, but I want to point out that their estimate of the Iraq death toll is low. While there are around 90,000 documented deaths, the deaths of many people go unrecorded. A January 2008 study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that 151,000 Iraqis died violent deaths because of the Iraq war through June 2006.
A new study from Texas A&M University found that the more people know about global warming the less they care about it. The researchers interviewed over a thousand people and concluded, “More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.”
That’s definitely true for me. Because I studied environmental science in college, I couldn’t seem to escape all the brouhaha about global warming. Although I agree it’s important, I just don’t personally care. There are other more immediate threats to people’s wellbeing that warrant greater attention. I can’t worry about green house gases when people are dying from treatable diseases because of the global disparities, which are reinforced by corporations and their government sponsors as they produce their next new “green” technology. (more…)
During the San Francisco antiwar protests on March 19, a security officer outside of a closed Bank of America branch flicked off a protester for taking photographs. The bank was closed because of the protests that marked the five year anniversary of the Iraq War.
I love it. The state protecting capitalism reduced to using the finger against resistance.
Life. In the United States, more than 2,200 people are sentenced to life in prison for crimes they committed as minors. Only 12 people outside the United States face such sentences.
Health. The best doctors are the worst people. The top scoring medical students just want to make money by tending to narcissism of wealth.
Food. Big Business consumes organic food. The NYT found a neat graphic that shows how small organic companies have been bought up by big corporations and private investment firms. The whole organic labeling system itself makes it difficult for local farmers to become certified, so it is no surprise that multinationals own most organic foods. Buy local. Unlike organic food, it’s cheaper.
The U.S. Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division are investigating the South Carolina Highway Patrol. In series of videos, dash-board cameras have recorded South Carolina police officers intentionally hitting black suspects with cars and using racial slurs in their pursuit. (more…)
Across the country, United for Peace and Justice, CodePink, Students for a Democratic Society and many other antiwar organizations held protests today to mark the 5 year anniversary of the Iraq War. In Washington, D.C., the groups had events planned throughout the day.
The response? Military officials are pushing for extended troop presence in Iraq–a 6-week “pause” of troop withdrawal.
Naked dude running on public streets in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania A doctor saw Andrew Croulet, 27, of Brookline, PA running on snowing streets outside his home. He called 911 and offered Croulet his sweater. Officials say he was under the influence of some substance. He got hypothermia and faces charges of disorderly conduct, public lewdness, and resisting arrest.
Naked dude on store rampage in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Nicholas Hadzick, 28, of Freeland, PA (closer to Pittsburgh) got drunk and naked and went on a rampage. He drove a fork lift into a wall of the resort where he was staying. Then he went across the street to the store in the video to do an additional $40,000 worth of damage.
They looked like the same guy to me, but they’re different people. What’s up with white men getting naked during winter in the Pennsylvania?
Minneapolis Police Department’s Mark Lenass broke the nose of Marcus Brock.
Headline Civil Rights News: Matthew Fleuret v. Orange County Sheriff’s Department et al.
According to his attorneys, Stephen Bernard and David Brown, Matthew Fleuret was taken into the Orange County sheriff’s department for his role in a bar fight. Video shows the cops beat him, strip him of his clothes, hold him to the floor, knee his head, strap him to a chair, and continue to tase him at least 11 times. Fleuret, a construction worker and handyman, was not prosecuted for the bar fight. LA Times
This follows the death of a man after being tased in an Orange County Jail. (more…)
The 1972 Vietnam Winter Soldier received no coverage from major news outlets. But this past weekend’s had a better reception.
MSNBC: “War stories echo an earlier winter” Boston Herald: “Testimony from vets in D.C. fires up local protesters” Boston Globe:”Veterans recall horrors of war in live broadcast” Washington Post: “War Stories Echo an Earlier Winter” AP: “‘Winter Soldier’ Hearings on Iraq Open — Vets Detail Misconduct”
First Clinton’s campaign fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro says Obama is “lucky” to be Black and the accuses his campaign of “racism:” “I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white.” Reverse racism cannot exist. Racism is about oppression; it is a power relationship.
Now Obama is condemning the comments made by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, about white privilege. Saying they are “inflammatory and appalling.”
Wright told his congregation the reason why “so many folks are hating on Barack Obama” is because he doesn’t “fit the model: He ain’t white, he ain’t rich and he ain’t privileged.”
“Hillary [Clinton] fits the mold,” Wright said, delivering a fiery tirade on how “Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong color,” and how “Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over as a black man driving” and how “Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home.”
Yeah, all of that is true. Clinton does have white skin privilege. You can’t deny that.
The future–meaning the past–of border control is being dug in Yuma, Arizona. Part of a greater Medieval revival in the US (torture, church & state, oligarchy), the city is borrowing from 14th century Europe in attempt to deter immigration through increased risk of death by drowning.
“The moats that I’ve seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that’s kind of what we’re looking at here,” Yuma county sheriff Ralph Ogden told the Associated Press.
The city is building a “security channel” along the border by replenishing a two-mile stretch of the Colorado river. The excavated soil would form two 15-foot high walls on both sides of the 400-foot wide area.
Joey Chestnut broke the world record by eating 59 1/2 hot dogs in July 2007 Despite all the media hype around the high-protein Adkins diet, a new study from Ohio State University found that protein deficiency causes weight loss in mice. The scientists crossbred mice deficient in protein and fat mice, commonly used in obesity research.
The result was smaller and leaner mice that lost weight while eating up to 30% more food. Despite their genetic propensity for obesity, the mice lost weight while eating more food. (more…)
Dirty water given to the military Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq became ill after using “unmonitored and potentially unsafe” water for washing, bathing, cleaning, and shaving. The problems did not extend to drinking water. But soldiers have experienced many illnesses including skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, and diarrhea.
A military contractor owned by Cheney’s Haliburton, KBR Inc. supplied the discolored, smelly water. (more…)
The investigators contacted 62 municipalities, but only 28 had tested their water system for pharmaceuticals and many only tested for one or two types of drugs.
Some water utilities declined to answer citing post 9/11 security issues; the heart disease drug nitroglycerin is widely used to make explosives. (more…)
If you ever need a taxi in DC, you should call Union Cabs. It is a cooperative of cab drivers who were former union activists at the major taxi companies. So the company is owned by the workers.
“Alexandria’s taxi monopoly has been broken,” said Syed Hussain, a driver and president of the company. “We’re proud owners of our own company.”
During a fundraiser for diabetes research at North Dakota State University — the Mr. NDSU Pageant– , a white student in blackface portrayed Barack Obama receiving a lap dance from another guy dressed as the Obama girl.
I heard this on CNN last night, but someone convinced me that the anchor must have just misspoken. Alas, though, it is true. Mike Gravel, presidential candidate from Alaska, has jumped the Democrat ship and landed in the Libertarian sinkhole.
The future–meaning the past–of border control is being dug in 
