Posted on 08/23/2003 6:23:59 PM PDT by nwrep
MLK Rally marked by Bush, Ashcroft bashing & absence of US flags; Speaker Praises Mugabe
The rally on the US Capitol today to mark the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was broadcast live on C-SPAN. The event was attended by Democratic presidential contenders Howard Dean, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton. The following are my personal observations, facts hidden from you by puff-pieces appearing on the wire services.
The most stunning aspect of this rally was the almost complete, seemingly choreographed absence of the Old Glory throughout the vast crowd, estimated by organizers to number 50,000. The fact that not a single black person thought it proper to show appreciation to a country that freed his forefathers from the clutches of slavery by proudly flying her flag, seemed almost offensive to me. Seen among the crowd were various pro-Palestinian banners and others denigrating America, one calling it "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world".
The ceremony started with various songs and religious intonations, including one involving a beer bottle and a potted plant by a so-called "African" leader representing an "African religion", but the singing of the Star Spangled Banner was, alas, not deemed worthy of the effort by the organizers. I found this to be extraordinarily ungrateful, as if they were going out of their way to avoid any association with American symbols.
What followed this remarkable opening was a long flow of speaker after speaker, spewing anti-Bush, anti-Ashcroft and sometimes, anti-American screed. First up was Martin Luther King III, and he set the tone for the afternoon's speeches by attacking the war on Iraq and Afghanistan, and blaming the Bush administration and the US military for all ills under the sun. He listed "homophobia" as one of the greatest contemporary evils facing mankind.
Following him were an assortment of speakers sympathizing with the "Palestinian cause", including terrorist appeaser James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute, and brother of the allegedly independent pollster John Zogby. Racism, discrimination and denial of civil rights were some of the things blamed by these individuals on the Bush administration. Ashcroft came in for several rounds of liberal criticism, particularly from Zogby and a young Arab woman dressed in a head-scarf, who levelled the usual charges against the administration, unhappy at our success in the war on terror.
The "Rev." Al Sharpton spoke and reeled off whatever DNC talking points might have been missed by the previous speakers, and he was followed by the "Rev." Jesse Jackson.
Following his rather long and boring speech, Jackson started soliciting donations, which were collected by the volunteers in what looked like paint buckets with slits. Jackson finished off with the obligatory phony prayer, which was well received by both the blacks and the guilty white liberals in the audience.
Rounding off this round of speakers dissociating themselves from the founding ideals of our Republic as well as Dr. King's color-blind vision were Kim Gandy, the NOW chief, and a representative of the National Gay and Lesbian Alliance. Only Corretta Scott King and Rep. John Lewis seemed to depart from the script which had turned this event into a defacto blame America outing.
As the afternoon started to wear, the crowd got restless and started to leave. The dark, depressing vision of America highlighted by the speakers did not help.
Towards the end, someone calling himself Obi Egbuna of the Pan-African Liberation Organization took the stand. What followed was virulent anti-western and anti-American rantings that even I was not prepared for. This gentleman, if you could call him that, placed the blame of all the problems facing the continent of Africa on the shoulders of President Bush.
Apparently in an effort to establish his credentials as even more radical than the previous speakers, he heaped lavish praise on Robert Mugabe for "reclaiming African lands from the colonialists", never mind the fact that this despicable tyrant has turned a once prosperous country into an ecological disaster by the systematic starvation of this people, while forcefully stealing farms from white farmers who had owned them for generations. In the twisted mind of this speaker, Mugabe was an example worth emulating across the continent.
The rally almost fizzled towards the end, as the dignitaries on stage started leaving in the middle of the speeches, walking past hundreds of empty chairs in the stands, a scene perfectly captured by C-SPAN.
This event raised a lot of questions in my mind: Why the almost enforced absence of US flags? Why no singing of the Star Spangled Banner? Why no mention of the greatness of America? Why no invitee from the right of the political spectrum? Why was this event not billed as a DNC rally, even though it appeared to be little more than that? Why the emphasis on "hip-hop", gay rights and Palestinian Liberation at a rally commemorating MLK's speech? What do these things have to do with civil rights, which, at this point in time, should be a non-issue?
Why does an Arab woman in a headscarf think she has the right to tell Americans that we have "a long way to go in our struggle for freedoms"? Why did the NAACP invite so many Arabs to speak at this rally? Why were there so many Palestinians at this rally? Why was someone from the more moderate civil rights groups (such as the Congress for Racial Equality) not invited to speak? And lastly, why the non-coverage by the media, with the notable exception of C-SPAN?
their maize crops have failed...
what have these "worthless pieces of human debri" done for africa?the people are starving.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1965000/images/_1966365_zim_food.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1966365.stm&h=180&w=300&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dzimbabwe%2Bstarvation%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8
Trajan88
they did in "kolliefornica"
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A boy and his dog in Zimbabwe:Oct. 2002
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If you listen to his speaches, he was all for good work ethics. He felt employment was an American dream. He wanted Blacks to be able to earn their keep like every one else.
MLK asked for equality, and nothing more, through Peace.
He did NOT ask for welfare or elitist status. He wanted people to be judged by their character, not their income, their vote, or color, or quotas.
He would be against affermative action according to his speaches. It would belittle the black race to have to still live off the hand outs of the white man. They still wouldn't be free.
I'm watching it now on C-span and I agree, this rally was not about honoring MLK
The State Department's Trafficking in Persons (PC for slave-trading) report is quite enlightening. Note that 13 of the 19 countries in "Tier 3" (the dregs) are predominantly Islamic (13 of 19). There are no Islamic countries in Tier 1.
Some of the Islamo-world's worst offenders, like Mauritania and Sudan, were not even mentioned.
Mauritania (99% Muslim) did not abolish slavery even nominally until 1981 and there are still no legal penalties for continuing to hold slaves. If I read the linked article correctly, the French colonial adminstration in Mauritania (1903-1960) would have been sanctioning slavery, since most Mauritanian slave families have been in bondage for generations.
Crowd Amplifies King's Call for Equality
Full Social, Economic Justice Still a Dream, Crowd Says
By Mary Beth Sheridan and Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 24, 2003; Page C01
Throngs of demonstrators from Washington and across the nation gathered at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday to commemorate the unprecedented civil rights march of August 1963, but some voiced frustration that the rally drew a far smaller crowd than previous anniversaries.
snip...
There was no official estimate for the size of the crowd that gathered on a sunny, clear Saturday around the Reflecting Pool, which rippled with a gentle breeze. U.S. Park Police do not provide crowd estimates, and organizers declined to provide a figure. But the crowd, according to one police officer who said he had been at previous commemorations, was far smaller than its predecessors. The 30th anniversary drew an estimated 75,000; the 20th, at least 250,000 people to remember King and denounce the policies of President Ronald Reagan.
snip...
About 400 advocates for the poor and homeless arrived at the conclusion of a three-week march from Marks, Miss., reenacting King's Poor People's Campaign of 1968. Before the rally, they built a tent city on the Mall and named it Bushville.
"It's a time for us to show people the kinds of problems we still have in our own country -- 71 million Americans without health care and one in three children living in poverty. How can that be in the richest country in the world?" asked Cheri Honkala, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Kensington Welfare Rights Union, which organized the group. [Note to CSPAN viewers: extreme screechy-voiced COMMIE warning... What am I saying?! The vast majority of speakers today were extremists, America-haters and representatives of commie groups. Make that warning a general Mega-BARF Commie warning for the whole darned thing.]
The demonstrators plan to stay at the tent city through Friday, but Honkala said the National Park Service has told them to leave the Mall by midnight yesterday because of preparations for a Sept. 4 NFL concert. "But we'll stay. If we have to, we'll get arrested," she said. "This is what massive civil disobedience is all about."
snip...
The variety of speakers at the rally reflected how equal-rights campaigns have expanded over the years. At the 1963 demonstration, women were not given the opportunity to speak, and as recently as 1983, organizers had excluded gay rights groups from the program.
Yesterday, representatives of both groups gave speeches. Dozens clutched pink balloons from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
"We're all still fighting for equality," said Sandi McCullough-Jones, 52, of Capitol Heights, a consultant who attended with her daughter, also a lesbian.
IMHO what started it was the Nation of Islam and their propagation of the idea that Christianity is "too white", that it's contaminated by the devil-essence of the white man. The significance of the "X" is that it cancels out the white slave name and replaces it with nothingness; it's a symbolic act of annihilation both of the white race and of whiteness, i.e., everything that European civilization has ever done or ever stood for. Most people have no idea how overtly racist the Nation of Islam was in the 60's. They've toned it down in the last 25 years, but not by much.
Not that they have anything to worry about, with their liberal media buddies covering for them -- unlike Baptist preachers who preach against sodomy.
Well, that's an improvement -- at least she's out of office.
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