Author: Redactor

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Thought

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they’re worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36-years-old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life – some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right.

“A man might be afraid his home will get bombed, or he’s afraid that he will lose his job, or he’s afraid that he will get shot, or beat down by state troopers, and he may go on and live until he’s 80. He’s just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80. The cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.”

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Today

King shot, Microsoft formed

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King was struck in the jaw by a bullet that severed his spinal cord. The 39-year-old civil rights leader was pronounced dead on his arrival at a Memphis hospital. Following the assassination, riots broke out in cities across the country, with National Guard troops called out to quell unrest in Memphis and Washington, D.C.

On April 4, 1975, Microsoft was founded Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

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political challengers

Agreeing with a Communist

There’s not much I have in common with Van Jones, the Yale-educated lawyer, community organizer, former advisor to President Barack Obama, author of a new book, Rebuilding the Dream, and self-proclaimed communist. But that doesn’t make him wrong on everything.

Yesterday, as I was fixing lunch and experimenting with political hormesis by watching “Now with Alex Wagner” on MSNBC, I caught a discussion about leftwing frustration with the president.Van Jones

“We thought we had a movement that was for the people,” Jones said about electing Obama.

“We have the wrong theory of the presidency,” Jones explained. “LBJ did not lead the civil rights movement. . . . You have to have two kinds of leadership, not just one, if you want to change the country. You got to have a head of state who’s willing to be moved, but you have to have a movement willing to do the moving.”

Rolling Stone magazine writer Tim Dickinson told the story of President Franklin Roosevelt, who responded to organized labor’s complaints, by saying, “Make me do it.” Dickinson explained, “He meant: ‘I need you guys to go out and create the conditions that force the government to act.’”

Van Jones has a frightening agenda, but on political strategy, he’s correct.

Remember when conservative activists, led by the late Paul Weyrich, stood up to block Bush from nominating Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court, giving us Justice Samuel Alito, instead?

Those of us fighting for freedom at the grassroots cannot rely on those we elect to do the right thing. We have to make them do it.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

Privateers authorized to attack Brit ships, MLK “mountaintop” speech

On April 3, 1776, John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, signed the authorization for privateers to attack British vessels. Lacking sufficient funds for a strong navy, the Congress gave privateers permission to attack any and all British ships.

On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King spoke at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee, in what has come to be known as his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech. The following day, King was assassinated in the city outside his hotel room.

Categories
Thought

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t really matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., the conclusion of his “Mountaintop” speech (April 3, 1968).
Categories
Today

Jeannette Rankin seated as first woman elected to Congress

On Apr 2, 1917, Jeannette Rankin took her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as the first woman ever elected to Congress, representing Montana. Four days later, she would be one of only 50 representatives to vote against U.S. entry into the First World War. In 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Rankin would cast the only dissenting vote against the country’s entry into World War II.

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national politics & policies political challengers

Enemies, Bedfellows

The Ron Paul 2012 campaign’s caucus-state delegate strategy, discussed here before, aims to work around the candidate’s biggest hurdle: Republican voters. Though Ron Paul has a strong appeal to the young and to independents — constituencies needed to win against a sitting president — older, mainstream Republicans voters aren’t especially responsive to the maverick’s charms. Concentrating on selecting actual delegates at the caucuses, rather than the media-hyped (and electorally meaningless) straw polls, is a clever strategy.

But what’s good for the goose is great for the gander. A video from Washington State shows a self-proclaimed “mainstream” GOP activist offering caucus participants a slate of 31 delegates allegedly divided up amongst Romney, Santorum and Gingrich supporters, explicitly promoted to make sure that Ron Paulers don’t “take over” the party as they did, to his horror, in the Seattle area.

The Ron Paul supporters touting the video call it “election fraud.” Well, “caucus fraud” might be more to the point, considering that the slate offered was rejected by Rick Santorum’s  supporters as a con job. Since then Santorum folks and Paul folks have united. As one Santorum activist put it, “[i]n order for us to win the nomination in Tampa in August, we must deny Romney delegates to that convention. If . . . Romney receives 1,144 delegates before the national convention, it is all over for our campaign. That is the reason why the Senator himself directed us to coalition with the Ron Paul delegates to deny Romney any state delegates.”

Whether as a grand dialogue of ideas or a horse race, this time around the politics is interesting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

William Shakespeare

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

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Thought

William Randolph Hearst

“Let cooler heads prevail. We don’t have any conclusive facts demonstrating a Spanish attack on the USS Maine and surely neither blind vengeance nor aggressive imperialism provides a legitimate foundation for our foreign policy.”

Categories
Today

April fools – Madison, Wilson, Bush

On April 1, 1787, James Madison, father of the Constitution, removed the General Welfare clause from his draft of the U.S. Constitution, telling friends that, “I fear future big-government-loving politicians will undoubtedly abuse the clause’s vague concept to drown the people in federal overreach.”

On April 1, 1918, Woodrow Wilson became the first and only President of the United States to be impeached and removed from office for lying about munitions being aboard the Lusitania in an effort to whip up war fever against Germany and push the nation into World War I.

On April 1, 2002, the U.S. Congress refused to grant President George W. Bush’s request for a declaration of war against Iraq.