It seems to me that we should honor Martin Luther King Jr today in this country by rededicating ourselves to the struggle for the basic ideas and ideals which he stood and struggled for in his day, and which have definite application today. To start with, we can press ahead for a decent, just, and compassionate society both at home and abroad.

For the fact is today people face some of the very kinds of problems Martin Luther King Jr sought to address and provide leadership on whether it be racism at home, or imperialism abroad, poor working conditions and virtually slave labor wages for working class people here and abroad, militarism with its terrible destruction of body and soul, a war that just keeps on agoing and ripping apart this country and destroying what good name the USA has abroad, an unjust society made worse by its perverted and anything but benign neglect of its cities and its remote rural areas as well.

In race relations, we have, it's clear, a long way to go to get to the point where we really have truly just race relations and that applies to blacks as well as other people of color with whites. Whites today still have some
problem recognizing that people of color don't have the same economic opportunities. This leads to a negative response on their part often to programs they see as primarily benefitting people of color. Actually many of these programs no longer exist. Those that do have been drastically scaled back. But all the less well off, including whites as well benefitted from these programs, and still do benefit from those programs still left standing. But we should be moving to either get the old programs back or replace them with more comprehensive programs which Dr King would surely endorse. We also ought to be cutting the Pentagon budget big time to provide funds for these very programs and saying no to war and militarism, and yes to the real social needs of the people here in this country. The racist mentality which afflicts so many of our white citizens that convinces them, falsely I might add, that race relations are in good shape in the USA, is one which must be overcome if we are to have really decent and just race relations. Furthermore, we need a Marshall Plan for US cities, which would be right in line with Dr King's thinking in his day, and we should do this to make sure we can put this policy of not so benign neglect of our cities behind us and rebuild them completely as we once did cities in Western Europe and with very good results. This would do much to foster better race relations, for as we do so we could be providing real economic opportunities for people of color, and obviously in many cases, for whites as well who are less well off. We would also be building back up the property values of property in those cities, and by doing so increase the tax base which we could get a much better source of revenue for local needs. Add to that we can rebuild the infrastructure of our great cities which need it rebuilt, and they need it badly. We might well cut down on the crime rate in core of these by doing this, thus making these cities safer places to live in. All of this Dr King would favor.

Then we all know Dr King spoke out against the Vietnam War, as we can be sure he would today give his moral authority to opposing this absolute travesty of this Iraq War. For this war, like the one in Vietnam, takes needed resources away from domestic social needs. That money going to support the rape, torture, pillage, and killing of the Iraqi people belongs in this country taking care of our domestic social needs, as Dr King I'm sure would agree were he here today. This war is ripping this country apart causing the worst of relations between our own people as this war continues unto oblivion, and it's doing so by the administration's labeling as unpatriotic those opposing this lowdown, immoral, stinking war. This war, like the one in Vietnam, is "a curse," as Dr King said the one in Vietnam was, and we must hear the "broken cries" of the Iraqi people, the way Dr King said then that we must hear "the broken cries" of the Vietnamese people. The initiative for ending this war is, as it was with the one in Vietnam, and as Dr King remarked, "ours." Let us take that initiative in the spirit which Dr King and others supporting him did on the Vietnam War. Damn the surge, full take the initiative to end this damn war ahead!

Dr King has advocated in his day that we create a non violent direct action movement to address and bring about solutions to problems of poverty ridden remote rural areas and major urban centers in this country, and he saw that we should be able to expand that to a movement that would be international in scope in addressing similar problems abroad and seeking colllaboration those abroad who would look beyond their own national boundaries to find solutions to problems confronting us all internationally.

We must find more creative ways to use a non violent, direct action movement, both at home and abroad, both on domestic policy and on foreign policy, and this would be a great way to honor one of the greatest of Americans in our history. As Dr King once put it so well, "It's always the right time to do the right thing," and further let us recognize as he said that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." If we hesitate in honoring Dr King with these actions, we will be the losers.

It's really "so lovely" that today in the USA people are supposed to believe the conspiracy theory, and that's just what it is, of the panel W hand picked to investigate the 9/11 attacks by dismissing as conspiracy theories alternative theories about these same attacks. Yes, that's the right label for even the official version of the 9/11 attacks is conspiracy theory, because the official version says Osama bin Laden and his gang secretly planned the attacks down to the t, making this, surprise, a conspiracy theory. Anytime the theory in question says people plotted things this far in detail, it's got to be conspiracy. Thus all have to wonder why a conspiracy theory by a commission hand picked by the current occupant of the White House, who has shown he's "just outstanding" when it comes to being a pathological liar, and with all likelihood that as such W would be sure to choose those for this panel whom he knew he could manipulate to make sure the whole truth about the 9/ll attacks wouldn't come out in that panel's report has to be treated as the gospel truth. With this being the case, people need to allow for the fact that a variety of alternative theories are out there on what happened and who was involved or had something to do with either causing or allowing these attacks to take place. By saying this, it is in no way any endorsement of any particular alternative theory of this event, but maybe what happened was something which can only be explained by some combination of some of these various theories and maybe theories as yet not even advanced, but a rush to judgment to endorse the official conspiracy theory is entirely out of line until this country can have a real thorough and absolutely independent investigation of the facts, and that most assuredly hasn't happened as yet, given this administration's aversion to the truth that's just unparalleled in US history and the fact that the panel appointed to investigate the 9/11 attacks was the administration's hand picked choice.

At least in the case of the controversy surrounding the assassination of John F Kennedy, regardless of the opinion a person has about that event, the official version, at least is a one lone nut theory as opposed to a conspiracy theory, which may or may not be just what happened. But in that case to attack the alternative version of the event as a conspiracy theory might at least carry more weight in the debate. Here it all comes down to some kind of conspiracy. Now just what about the current administration, and most especially this president, makes either so damn wonderfully moral and just plain out decent and honest that people can easily dismiss even the charge that this administration at its top level even had a hand in this mass serial killing of Americans on American soil. To say this isn't nor does it, in any way, have to be an exoneration of the Islamic fanatics of Osama bin Laden's. Just because old bin's boys were in on the deal doesn't have to mean that W's weren't.

Some time ago a declassification of certain information brought out the fact that during John F Kennedy's administration Operation Northwoods, which the Pentagon was pushing for and Jack Kennedy rejected, would have involved terrorist attacks on Americans on the streets of Miami and the nation's capital and blaming it on Fidel Castro to get the American people to support an invasion of Cuba. Thus if this administration, unlike JFK's had approved such an operation, it definitely could have taken place, and it would have had the fact that bin Laden's gang was by what the official version said they were doing, diverting anyone from looking at any Pentagon involvement in such terrorist attacks, just the kind of terrorist attacks Operation Northwoods would have involved had JFK approved it.

Furthermore, people need to look at the fact that sometimes conspiracy theories have proven to be facts. In other cases, coincidence theory has proven to be fact, with coincidence theory the most common alternative to conspiracy theory. Then, of course, the lone nut theory, makes it appearance now and then, and may well at times prove right. In other cases, maybe some other less discussed theory of human behavior may explain what happened. But Watergate, the Iran Contra affair, the way this country got into the Vietnam War, and the way it got fooled into the current Iraq War are excellent examples of conspiracies. Hell, nobody but nobody considers any of these events any kind of coincidence. More to the point, each involved heavy duty plotting to keep what the bad guys were doing from coming to light and to get this country the mess it got into with each one of these events. Thus while it's true that, oftentimes things simply happen on the spur of the moment, as coincidence theory says, either with the event being the result of a prank, sometimes a very harmful one or at other times, with the event being the result of people just getting mad as hell and not wanting to take it anymore, and this just happening right then and there; but other times, and more than a few times in US history, people plot to get what they want even though it's harmful or illegal, which is really what a conspiracy is by definition.

Now just look at the official version of the 9/11 attacks as the conspiracy theory it is, and be the judge of it's veracity. Maybe those peddling the official version are peddling paranoia and Islamaphobia as well. This is something W's administration definitely doesn't want the American people to consider.










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