Rev Martin Luther King Jr: I've Been to the Mountain Top for collective bargaining rights

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered this speech in support of the striking government employees (sanitation workers) at Mason Temple in Memphis, TN on April 3, 1968 — the day before he was assassinated.

He was there to lend his support to sanitation workers who were on strike, protesting terrible working conditions and low wages. Taylor Rogers and Elmore Nickelberry were among the 1,300 who walked off the job in 1968.

Rogers remembers picking up tubs of garbage that were full of holes. "That garbage would leak all over you," he says. By the time he got home, his clothes were dirty and full of maggots that had fallen on him.

"I had maggots run down in my shirts, and then maggots would go down in my shoes," Nickelberry says. "And we worked in the rain — snow, ice and rain. We had to. If we didn't, we'd lose our job. They said, 'A garbage man wasn't nothing.'"

Rogers says, "It was awful." One day, two workers, who had gone into a trash compactor to escape the rain, were crushed to death. "Sometimes you cry," Nickelberry says.

"Sometimes you get mad and get up in the morning and ... say, 'I ain't going to work.' ... I had to work because that's the only way I could feed my family."

'All We Wanted Was Some Dignity'

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89361277

See also: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/memphis-v-mlk/

http://www.afscme.org/about/1029.cfm

Early voting in Maryland - information

I found it really disappointing that the County is doing such a lousy job getting out information about early voting. The latest Paperless Airplane covers voter registration, which expired in August, not the ongoing primary. Primary voting information is not an option on the menu at 240-777-8683 (VOTE), although you have to take the extra time to listen to them assure you that the options are updated often so you should wait and listen to them all each time (press 0).
It's not on the website for the Silver Spring Center, one of five early voting spots: http://www.silverspringcenter.com/voter.htm

Thank goodness I got the call from My Representative Chris Van Hollen telling me about it.

Here is the top-sectret brochure. http://www.elections.state.md.us/documents/Final_English_Spanish%20Brochure.pdf

Even the Washington Post is not helping, hiding it under the cute but hard to find headline, "early bird specials." Here is the story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305866.html

The hours are 10am-8pm

If you care about the Chesapeake Bay, vote for Roger Manno. If you care about honesty and integrity, vote for Martin OMalley, not Robert Ehrlich.

Ever wanted a quick explanation of how health reform will benefit Maryland to share with friends and family?

Last year, more than 700,000 Marylanders lost their homes to foreclosure when health bills bankrupted them. Insurance companies did that to Marylanders.

See what health reform does for Marylanders here.

Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute

King's next project, after public accomodations and voting rights, was going to be economic equality. His work remains unfinished.

Read his speeches and realize you can replace his descriptions of fairness and aspirations to any marginalized groups: immigrants, gays and poor.

Here is a speech given in response to King's death by Bobby Kennedy in Indianapolis, Indiana: a city that responded with NO riots. Listen to it in Kennedy's own voice here.

_________________________

Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

(Interrupted by applause)

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

(Interrupted by applause)

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Robert F. Kennedy - April 4, 1968

Just two months later, Robert Kennedy was gunned down during a celebration following his victory in the California primary, June 5, 1968.

Obama in Silver Spring!

Obama makes an unannounced visit today to Viers Mill Elementary School.
Right wing wackos commenting on WaPo hope the diverse group of little children don't grow up to VOTE!

Jesus was a public option

Jesus apparently took some convincing that he should cast his pearls before swine, or in this case, his bread to the dogs, to make health care accessible.

“But Lord,” said the lowly Canaanite woman. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Jesus was pleased by her understanding. “Woman, you have great faith!” he said, astonishing the disciples. The disciples watched closely, and would later record this triumphant moment in the Holy Book. The Canaanites were the “dogs” of Israel, but this one—this “dog,” a far cry from one of the chosen—had great faith? Jesus told the woman that her request had been granted. And indeed from that very hour, the woman’s daughter was freed of her demon.

Likewise among the lepers, the outcast Samaritan - the immigrant - proved worthy of health care. Luke 17:11-19:

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Jesus raised the dead and cured the sick, and took care of outcasts from outside his church and immediate community. How did the established interests respond? With a death sentence, which is probably a pre-existing condition.

Insurance company profiteers make US sick

Obama at College Park on Health care reform.

Senate wants to pay us to shop for junk

Compare the Senate and House stimulus plans:

The Democrats in the House propose to increase spending to help poor, and to save schools and public works projects that have suffered under the tax cuts and silly stimulus packages that have gotten us into this mess. The Senate wants to pay us to shop for houses and cars, buying more environmentally harmful junk from companies and banks who can use taxpayer bail-outs to pay stock options and executive bonuses.

WaPO has a helpful graphic here.

AP's Comparison of economic stimulus plans here.

ACTION: Contact Congress easily - use this link!

Campaigns who smear middle school girls: follow them to the Gates of Hell

WaPo Saturday surprised no one when they admitted that "Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said."

With John Kerry in 2004, they had counted on Kerry's reputation for talking issues to death to assure success of the smears from the Swiftboaters. When the same operatives had smeared McCain in 2000, they counted on McCain having no time to correct the lies about McCain's own middle-school age daughter. With Obama, I believe they depend on the public's fear of angry black men to push Obama between a rock and a hard place, making an effective, passionate response difficult and even impossible. At the risk of self-importance, I propose a quick, effective and resonant response for these expected smears. If you like the idea, vote here on DKos.

We know that McCain has a costly and ineffective plan for health care that involves paying private insurers, one of the few industries that are already profiteering even in this distressed economy. We know that McCain was erratic and ineffective in his contribution to the financial crisis. Michigan is no longer the battleground state targeted, as Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, to toss registrations and turn away voters (but beware, Pennsylvania is). McCain's last chance to win is to distract voters from his 90% record of voting with George Bush with Smears of Obama.

Many voters will be shocked and afraid at the sight of an angry black man standing up to Grandpa John and Bible Barbie... er, McCain and Palin. McCain and his advisers are certainly counting on an unwillingness of Obama to strike back. I suggest he try this for size.

McCain talks about change. But this smear campaign is not a change. It involves Karl Rove, Rove protege Steve Schmidt, Bush campaign manager Terry Nelson, Bush communications director Brian Jones, Bush media adviser Mark McKinnon, and Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman. It includes old Freddie Mac lobbyist Mark Buse. That's not change. That's more of the same.

Let me tell you what that group of men did to win the Republican primary for George W. Bush in 2000. They slimed McCain's own daughter - his own middle-school aged daughter - by saying her mother was was a prostitute.

Let me tell you this: If those men had said that about one of my children, about one of my daughters, about anyone my family, they would not be embraced into an inner circle of men telling me how to run a campaign. In fact, when it comes time to identify the men who must be followed to the gates of hell, I would follow those men. I dare McCain to talk about ending the war and ending the economic crisis instead.

Short, simple, acceptable anger. A man protecting his family.

Rich people know McCain won't raise their taxes - he'll raise yours

Will Barack Obama raise taxes?

Rich people, who pay experts - and campaign contributions - to track these things, know what John McCain won't tell you. Barack Obama will lower your taxes, unless you make $230,000 or more a year. John McCain will raise taxes on poor and middle-class Americans. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center separated fact from fiction.

WaPo: Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy. For the approximately 147,000 families that make up the top 0.1 percent of the income scale, the difference between the two plans is stark. While McCain offers a $269,364 tax cut, Obama would raise their taxes, on average, by $701,885 - a difference of nearly $1 million.

Why Supreme Court Appointments - and Elections - Matter

From Monica Goodling engaged in criminal activity in appointing the country's lawyers based on why they "want to service George Bush," to Republicans insulting minorities everywhere by suggesting the intellect of Clarence Thomas is the best intellectual heft they have to offer the country, legal appointments in the US have reached historic low. While the crimes continue, the effect this has on the country's judicial system, and unfairly charged defendants, is far-reaching. Of course, real criminals enjoy the diversions that allow them to continue.

A new study by the NYTimes shows that:

[Legal] Practitioners are keenly award of this. The first question asked by many lawyers taking on a new case is “What judge has it been assigned to?” In recognition of how important judge selection can be, some states even allow litigants to strike the first judge assigned to a case and take a chance on doing better with a second pick.

The federal system does not provide for such challenges. Rather, in federal court, you must take the judge you get – and the judge you get (or, at least, what type of judge you are most likely to get over the long run) depends, in this age of vetting, almost exclusively on one thing – presidential elections. Another is upon us now.

Dirty Tricks on Joe Biden

We've already seen the attack machine start on Joe Biden, bringing up charges that he committed plagarism when he described his childhood using facts from Neil Kinnick. He had mentioned Kinnick in previous speeches, but this one time he used the first person ("I") and did not credit Kinnick.

Biden had brain aneurysms at the time.

See the Biden story on YouTube.

Obama experience

"so his experience is essentially that of a lawyer and a state legislator. There hasn't been this empty a résumé for a presidential candidate since, uh, hmm. Abe Lincoln. Lawyer and state legislator. Whoa, and they're both from Illinois! It's almost as though God Himself is endorsing ..."

You might say times were simpler then, and experience less important. Do you mean times like the dizzying changes in transportation, caused by the interContinental railway, and the internal combustion engine? Like the earthquake in the labor market and racial and immigration forces, caused by the advent of tens of thousands of free slaves poised to enter the paid workforce to the dismay of the poorest paid Scotch and Irish in those dead end jobs?

It's shocking. I'm reminded of how Lincoln flagrantly lifted "a house divided against itself" from the Bible, thereby creating an inarguable moral and philosophical underpinning for the war he would wage to save America and to affirm, forever, the dignity of human freedom. It's like . . .

read more on Obama and Lincoln.

Scott McClellan: “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”

From AP:

In a shocking turnabout, the press secretary most known for defending President Bush on Iraq, Katrina and a host of other controversial issues produced a memoir damning of his old boss on nearly every level — from too much secrecy to a less-than-honest selling of the war to a lack of personal candor and an unwillingness to admit mistakes.

In the first major insider account of the Bush White House, one-time spokesman Scott McClellan calls the operation "insular, secretive and combative" and says it veered irretrievably off course as a result.

Is the money McClellan received to write a book more inspiring of truth than the money he took masquerading as a public servant? Now that there are over 4000 American military casualties in Iraq, McClellan makes it clear he made his own “decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”

Hillary vs. Obama

STOP IT.

I say this as a first-grade student in the year Hillary graduated from college. When everyone said they wanted to be President, I said so too. Even teachers laughed. Imagine the power that gave to the students to deflate the dreams of elementary school girls.


Imagine the derision aimed at the smart, accompished, promising women of Wellsley in 1969, the same year. The year Hillary graduated.

An undated photograph of Hillary Rodham, center, during her days as a student at Wellesley College, from 1965 to 1969.

The women, and the men who benefit from their work, discoveries, and support, who read these words owe those women a debt that can never be paid. If you don't want Hillary, don't support her. But acknowledge this debt.

The John Edwards Effect on Clinton, Obama and the DNC

According to the NY Times, John Edwards' policies are running for President. Ironically, Universal Health Care may be more his legacy than Obama's or even Clinton's.

As the architect of these policies, Edwards deserves a place to bring them to reality. He has the ability and courage to do this.

To understand the extent of the Edwards effect, you have to think about what might have been.

At the beginning of 2007, it seemed likely that the Democratic nominee would run a cautious campaign, without strong, distinctive policy ideas. That, after all, is what John Kerry did in 2004.

If 2008 is different, it will be largely thanks to Mr. Edwards. He made a habit of introducing bold policy proposals — and they were met with such enthusiasm among Democrats that his rivals were more or less forced to follow suit. It’s hard, in particular, to overstate the importance of the Edwards health care plan, introduced in February.

Before the Edwards plan was unveiled, advocates of universal health care had difficulty getting traction, in part because they were divided over how to get there. Some advocated a single-payer system — a k a Medicare for all — but this was dismissed as politically infeasible. Some advocated reform based on private insurers, but single-payer advocates, aware of the vast inefficiency of the private insurance system, recoiled at the prospect.

With no consensus about how to pursue health reform, and vivid memories of the failure of 1993-1994, Democratic politicians avoided the subject, treating universal care as a vague dream for the distant future.

But the Edwards plan squared the circle, giving people the choice of staying with private insurers, while also giving everyone the option of buying into government-offered, Medicare-type plans — a form of public-private competition that Mr. Edwards made clear might lead to a single-payer system over time. And he also broke the taboo against calling for tax increases to pay for reform.
Suddenly, universal health care became a possible dream for the next administration. In the months that followed, the rival campaigns moved to assure the party’s base that it was a dream they shared, by emulating the Edwards plan. And there’s little question that if the next president really does achieve major health reform, it will transform the political landscape.

* * * *

Furthermore, to the extent that this remains a campaign of ideas, it remains true that on the key issue of health care, the Clinton plan is more or less identical to the Edwards plan. The Obama plan, which doesn’t actually achieve universal coverage, is considerably weaker.

One thing is clear, however: whichever candidate does get the nomination, his or her chance of victory will rest largely on the ideas Mr. Edwards brought to the campaign.

* * * *

If Democrats manage to get the focus on their substantive differences with the Republicans, ... polls on the issues suggest that they’ll have a big advantage. And they’ll have Mr. Edwards to thank.

Compare Clinton and Obama: Just two candidates with equally popular messages?

The media coronated Hillary early on ("Hillary Looks Like a Winner") when she won New Hampshire and Michigan. Clearly they were hoping for the ratings and circulation that would be created by a Hillary bash-fest, just as William Randolph Hearst hoped when he told his photographers "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war."
In January, Hillary was "the winner in the race for coverage."

Edwards won points for honesty in his presentations, but lost the batttle for free airtime minutes in the news. Running with federal spending limits against two candidates with no limits and Senate campaign funds to borrow from, he also lost the battle of dollars that would have enabled him to buy airtime. The decision by the FEC not to match ActBlue funding hurt his campaign more.

Now that Obama is racking up victories of his own, the media wants to make this a war for the crown. And the reasons seem clearly grasping. Never admitting their initial Presidential predictions might have been premature, they have to find some way her candidacy imploded, or else - gasp - admit they were wrong, or worse, self-serving and opportunistic.

Maybe Clinton and Obama are two people who want to be President, want to accomplish their own goals in their way, and are willing to offer themselves up before the electorate, to be rejected or not. How many people have the determination and perseverence to do that? Why isn't that news?

Either Hillary or Obama would be a great president. Compare their policies on healthcare, abortion, Climate Change, Immigration, Iraq, Iran and the Economy without the screeching media bias on the NYTimes website.

Beltway Primary Today

Good stories here on DKos.

DKos Maryland here.

Sample ballot here. League of Women Voters info here.

Montgomery County Dems site here. Voter info here.

Where is the DCC sample ballot for our counties? Does anyone know?

Stem Cell research and cures 20 years behind: millions suffer

Stem cell research relied on a few donations from fertility clinics that would otherwise be incinerated. Couples undergoing in vitro fertilization have an option when their treatment is finished to donate their embryos to other couples, and many do. But some just can't face the prospect of a genetic child of their own "out there," and yet still want to help others, for example, by making a contribution to cures.

Since Reagan stopped federal funding for stem cell research in 1987, scientists in the US were prohibited even from using the microscope in a lab that received a Federal grant to view stem cells. They had to waste time and money to create duplicate labs while patients died. Their colleagues left to research outside the US, slowing collaborations, while patients died. Research in countries like South Korea with weaker oversight infrastructure produced work frought with fraud while patients died.

While patients and their families suffered for 20 years, political opportunists conjured harangues and tales of woe, of embryos created merely for destruction.

Denying the existence of the same American ingenuity,
encouraged by government funding, that invented the Internet, built a trans-Continental railroad, and salvaged our environment from pollution, financed how to make penicillin, vaccines and other "wonder drugs" widely available, they somehow got away with draping themselves in the American flag.

Now scientists can make stem cells from skin. These cells can't yet do everything that stem cells can do, but the discovery is a breakthrough. Now that we are 20 years behind studying and understanding how these cells behave, grow, and contribute to curing terrible diseases.

Rick Weiss: The big next step is to find better ways of turning on the right genes to get cells to become embryonic -- ways that don't involve retroviruses. Many scientists are talking about using "small molecules" that can get to a cell's DNA and affect which genes are turned on or off. Also important: What other gene combinations can accomplish that (the two teams used four genes each, but two are different between them and other combinations with other genes may work, too). The thinking right now is that different genes in different doses might result in stem cells that have slightly different potentials to become different kinds of tissues. Then of course there will be years of safety testing, first in animals, then in people. And then, at least, some efforts to treat diseases. Meanwhile they will be used by many scientists to study diseases in lab dishes.

From WaPo editorial:

Congress should continue to consider legislation easing restrictions on the use of discarded embryos for research. After all, this breakthrough could not have been possible without research on embryonic stem cells. The potential gains from this science are so great that all avenues should be pursued until the new technology is proven.

Immigrants pay your taxes

Are immigrants paying taxes so you don't have to? Apparently so.


Hat Tip to Tom Paine.

[Texas] Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn was quick to point out that this was the first time any state agency in the country presented "a comprehensive financial analysis of the impact of undocumented immigrants on a state’s budget and economy, looking at gross state product, revenues generated, taxes paid and the cost of state services."

The report titled "Undocumented Immigrants In Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State Budget and Economy" found that “the absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion. Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received."