Martin Luther King + Ron Paul + The Journey Toward A More Perfect Union…

 

Ron Paul said, “Martin Luther King is one of my heroes.” because of his advocacy and practice of civil disobedience. But was he being on the level? Well, let’s see. Let’s start at the very beginning. . .

 

They declared that they were free of any and all other powers save that of the Almighty. And so one man was tasked with making a draft of the formal statement of their independent stance. Thoughtfully he wrote, on that first fourth of July, in 1776, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain  inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. . .”

 

But what of the men, women and children in bondage? Did they not also have rights that can never be taken away from them? Not to him and his fellows. They did not count. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, the man who penned those immortal lines, held the largest number of human beings in chains than anyone else in the colonies. And so, 87 years later. . .

 

A gaunt, black clad figure in a stovepipe hat arose, bared his bushy head and looked out at the crowds gathered on the grounds of the enormous cemetery. Here, men by the many thousands their copious blood they did shed, in the fiercest battle of a horrific conflict that then still raged. Now, though, could be seen a faint flicker of light at the end of the tunnel signaling perhaps and end to the carnage, and so Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address,

 

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought for on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” and he went on to promise, “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . .“ (November 19, 1863)

 

And when the guns eventually did go silent, the new birth came, but it died in infancy. And so, exactly 100 years later (August 28, 1963), standing in the shadow of a stupendous alabaster monument of the Great Emancipator, a small, powerful Black man arose, looked out upon the throng stretching to the horizon, and with a mighty voice that we can still hear, he proudly declared,

 

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’. . I have a dream that one day. . . little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers!”

 

A little black boy, but two years old at the time, exactly 45 years later to the day, (August 28, 2008), stood before a wildly cheering crowd to accept the nomination of his party to become the president of the United States, which he did in three months time. The Dream at last? But yet again, it did not come to pass. Nonetheless, three years later to the day (August 28, 2011), they planned to unveil an alabaster monumental likeness of the Man Who Had a Dream, as if to say it had.

 

But, as the best laid plans of mice and men are wont to do, things went awry. On August 23, 2011, the earth shook so hard it cracked the towering white phallic symbol to the first president, highest structure bar none in the capital city that bears his name, while two and one half hundred miles away, the greatest city in the land, and in the world some would say, saw its skyscrapers for the first time ever shudder and sway.

 

20 weeks and a day after the scheduled unveiling, January 16, 2011, the twenty-sixth celebration of the day set aside to honor America’s revered Black icon, the Reverend Martin Luther King, jr., five white men are set to gather, and each present their case, as to why they should be picked to try and replace the Black ruler that captains the nation.  One of them, old and wizened, but nonetheless a champion of the young, invoked the spirit of the man called King. Did  he have a right to, or is he, like so many others, naught but a usurper?

 

 

On the airwaves the Fairness Doctrine is no more. Anyone can pay to say anything without any rebuttal at all. And money is given free rein to support any candidate for anything. But wait, perhaps this is as it should be! After all, the stations on the left counter those on the right, and vice versa, don‘t they? And the favored contenders for the crown, with money to spare, have thus stripped each other bare in the public square. And so, will the wise old one with legions of the young, whom the cameras studiously avoid, end up being the last man standing to do battle with Barack Hussein Obama? Then shall the winner take us the rest of the way to realizing the elusive Dream, a perfect union, at last?

 

Imagine that debate. Each man would have to defend his record and lay out his vision, to win the hearts and minds of the people of the nation, that on the world stage holds pride of place, but somehow has yet to come to grips with the original, and still pending, issue of race.

 

 

President Obama would have to address the shameful mass incarceration of the Black and the poor and the Brown. And Ron Paul would be called upon to explain his initial opposition to the King holiday and the sometimes hateful newsletters that once appeared under his name. And he, in turn, would doubtless call out the president for the useless wars we’re fighting, and the many we appear to be planning. And Obama would certainly take Ron Paul to task for proposing that to the side, the already fragile social safety net be cast. What a contest that would be! Will it come to pass? We shall see. . .

 

Oh, yes, the question we first asked. Ron Paul said, “Martin Luther King is one of my heroes.” But is he telling the truth?

 

You say you want to know what I think? You want to know my opinion on the matter? Why?         

                                                                                        

 

Staff Writer; Arthur Lewin

 

For more articles written by this talented brother click on the following link; https://thyblackman.com/?s=lewin.