R.I.P. – Moon of Alabama

January 31, 2006

R.I.P.

—

It seems to me that true homeland security ought to be more about providing health care for every citizen and less about reshuffling bureaucratic agencies and undermining our civil liberties.

True homeland security should be about protection of liberties. True homeland security should be about protection of pension assets for retired people.

Genuine homeland security should also be about gun control, protecting Americans against domestic hate crimes, and getting serious about reducing the pollution of our air and water.

And homeland security should mean feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and making sure there is quality education for every child and jobs at a decent wage for everyone who wants and needs one. That’s how we make our country safe and secure for all citizens.

Coretta Scott King

Posted by b on January 31, 2006 at 18:10 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Here’s something very important to remember:
especially when the GOP is buying off black church leaders — Armstrong Williams style — to betray the work of Dr. and Mrs. King:
Coretta Scott King :

In addition to being a tireless, outspoken symbol of the civil rights movement and a human rights advocate who carried on her husband’s message long after his death, Coretta Scott King also made many specific statements about the struggles of gays and lesbians, and advocated launching a national campaign against homophobia in the black community.
Here are a few of her powerful statements:
“I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.” — March 30, 1998
“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group.” — at the 25th Anniversary Luncheon for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, April 1, 1998.
“For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions.” — at the 25th Anniversary Luncheon for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, April 1, 1998.
“We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say “common struggle” because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination.” — November 9, 2000

Coretta always supported gay rights and rebutted claims that her husband was anti-gay. These were human rights to her, because unlike many who crusade against gays, she suffered from discrimination. She knew the price. Too bad her anti-gay crusader daughter Bernice does not have the same depth.
There are very few civil rights leaders now who will support gay rights. John Lewis, Julian Bond, and Al Sharpton (who has his own baggage) are pretty much it.
Coretta was a strong and powerful human being and she will be dearly missed in this field of hucksters and heartless bastards.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2006 18:45 utc | 1

Although I would like to whole-heartedly agree with this comment “And homeland security should mean feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and making sure there is quality education for every child and jobs at a decent wage for everyone who wants and needs one. That’s how we make our country safe and secure for all citizens. I feel it’s a bit optimistic. This makes the citizense safe and happy-yes…but if the citizens of the world are not happy, and hate our guts, then it won’t matter if we are happy if we aren’t safe from others.

Posted by: business babe | Jan 31 2006 20:29 utc | 2

It’s not ‘a bit optimistic’ in the sense that it is some sort of unrealistic utopian fantasy. If America busied itself with education, healthcare, and constructive pursuits — then it would have less time for stupid, anachronistic empire building.
Maybe then everyone else wouldn’t hate your guts and you would not have to cower in fear of your own dark shadow.

Posted by: DM | Jan 31 2006 21:15 utc | 3

DM
where is the money in that?

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 31 2006 21:42 utc | 4

Thanks for the art b. I love that piece or should I say peace?

Posted by: beq | Jan 31 2006 23:27 utc | 5

RIP to both of them.
I saw a fabulous Nam June Paik piece about astronauts at the Pompidou Center in Paris years ago. I had no idea who he was and in the middle of all serious art stuff, it was laugh out loud funny. Brilliant.

Posted by: Dismal Science | Feb 1 2006 17:58 utc | 6

On video art pioneer Nam June Paik — in Vancouver’s then-new art gallery, built downtown inside the former federal-style courthouse, he had an installation in a show featuring video art …
It was quite funny too, a realistic streambed made of smooth stones, with the sound of rushing water broadcast from hidden speakers. Nestled among the rocks were small monitors, each showing footage of salmon. Can’t remember the name of the piece.
Also notable, Brian Eno’s “Windows” — three large monitors turned sideways, so the image was vertical rather than horizontal. Each monitor showed ambient footage shot by Eno, who had turned the video camera sideways and shot hours of tape of the view from his apartment windows in New York, London and I think Berlin.
The footage was of sky or buildings, and in typical Eno style was very boring … at least very slow-moving, clouds drifting across the sky and so on. I remember a remarkably exciting moment when a bird flew across the frame.
I saw another Eno installation in the darkened basement of a bank in art-loving Montreal.
This one had an ambient soundtrack, an installation featuring sand and a picket fence as I recall, but the feature was a big couch where you could sit in front of several huge monitors, turned at 45 degrees so they were “diamond-shaped,” on which were abstract washes of color, all blended together like an accident in a paint factory. As you began to gaze at the screens, a very psychedelic moment occurred when you realized that the colors were slowly, I mean really slowly, blending into one another.

Posted by: jonku | Feb 1 2006 18:39 utc | 7

Speaking of the video simulated world (that we’re living in) heres one of Joe Bageants best, and in full Guy Debord “specticle” mode a-la USA.
Simuliacran Republic

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 1 2006 20:56 utc | 8

A cyber taste from the above:
Americans, rich or poor, now live in a culture entirely perceived through, simulacra-media images and illusions. We live inside a self-referential media hologram of a nation that has not existed for quite some time now, especially in America’s heartland. Our national reality is held together by a pale, carbon imprint of the original. The well-off with their upscale consumer aesthetic, live inside gated Disneyesque communities with gleaming uninhabited front porches representing some bucolic notion of the Great American home and family. The working class, true to its sports culture aesthetic, is a spectator to politics … politics which are so entirely imagistic as to be holograms of a process, not a process. Social realism is a television commercial for America, a simulacran republic of eagles, church spires, brave young soldiers and heroic firefighters and “freedom of choice” within the hologram. America’s citizens have been reduced to Balkanized consumer units by the corporate state’s culture producing machinery.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 1 2006 21:00 utc | 9

anna missed, there is a Bageant for every occasion. Good one.

Posted by: beq | Feb 1 2006 21:43 utc | 10

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