Conservative presidential political developments

Bob Barr, Libertarian:

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr eased into presidential politics Saturday with an announcement that he has formed an exploratory committee to gauge voter interest in his candidacy as Libertarian.

If there are "sufficient numbers" of people behind a Bob Barr presidential race, he's running, the former Republican said.

His announcement brought whoops and applause from the audience of 130 Libertarians, mostly from Midwestern states.

"We are at a tipping point," Barr said, "in terms of the willingness of voters, in significant numbers, to consider alternatives to the major [political] parties."

Barr conceded it was unlikely he could win, but he said his potential candidacy would be an opportunity to preach the Libertarian philosophy.

"I don't think any past performance by a Libertarian candidate is any benchmark," he said. "Are my expectations that the Libertarian candidate will win [the White House]? No. But with a credible candidate, anything is possible."

Barr does McCain considerably more damage than Nader could possibly be to Obama. Word also today of KindaSleazy Rice's interest in "running" for vice-president:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has exhibited interest in becoming John McCain's vice presidential running mate, a Republican strategist says.

Dan Senor revealed during Sunday's edition of ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that Rice has been seeking support to be considered for the No. 2 spot on the Republican ticket this fall.

"Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this," Senor said.

Absolutely fantastic news if he picks her. There would be no escaping the "four more years of Bush" label. And since McSame is so absurdly wrong on the three most important November issues -- Iraq, health care and the economy -- the Republicans' electoral disaster looms larger each passing day.

Now if we can just get Mrs. Clinton to hurry up and take a hint ...

Sunday Funnies (liar, liar, sniper fire)

Charlton Heston 1924 - 2008

Once a progressive:

Heston was always able to channel some energies into the public arena. He was an active supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling him "a 20th-century Moses for his people," and participated in the historic march on Washington in 1963. (Right), he joined civil rights protesters picketing a whites-only restaurant in Oklahoma City in 1961.

Ben-Hur was released fifty years ago and won eleven Oscars (a record, now tied by Titanic and and the third film in the LOTR trilogy, The Return of the King). Heston also won the heart of every woman of my mother's generation. My mother-in-law in particular occasionally mentioned his name in a tone approaching lust.

He had many script lines chiseled into popular culture but for my generation his signature will be "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape".

His evolution into a conservative nearly overshadowed his considerable body of cinematic work, and his virulent gun-rights activism toward the end of his life -- as well as his creeping Alzheimer's -- was laid bare by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine.

Heston was a stellar actor and and an enthusiastic political activist on both sides of the political spectrum. He will always be a mythic figure, and to some a reverential one.

In the name of love

Early morning, April 4

Shot rings out in the Memphis sky

Free at last, they took your life

They could not take your pride

In the name of love

What more in the name of love



Forty years ago, Dr. King was assassinated by a sniper named James Earl Ray* while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there to support a strike by the garbage workers in that city. You may hear that in the stories of remembrance told today in the media.

However you will probably not hear what started the strike. It was not started over wages, vacation pay, work hours, or anything resembling benefits. The strike resulted from the deaths of two sanitation workers.

In February of 1968 two men named Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death in the back of a garbage truck. They had taken refuge in the compactor section, the gaping mouth in the back that eats the garbage poured into it, and via a hydraulic ram compacts the trash into the truck. On that day, as they collected the refuse of Memphis, there came a heavy rain storm.

Which is why they crawled into the loader/compactor section. While they were there, the ram was activated by electronic malfunction and the two men were crushed to death. The city paid the families one month's pay plus $500. Not one official from the city attended either of the men's funerals.

Cole and Walker were black, like nearly everyone else working in sanitation -- except the white bosses. Memphis assigned garbage collection to blacks only and relied on cheap wages and the dictatorial rule of white supervisors to win its awards as one of the nation’s cleanest cities.

The strike among the black sanitation workers of Memphis arose out of their attempts to organize a labor union, which the mayor and the city council fiercely resisted. Unionization, they feared, would open up the floodgates of demands by African-Americans, who comprised nearly 40 percent of the local population of 500,000 in the mid-1960s.

In fact, no one needed unions more than black workers in Memphis. The constant threat of getting fired forced them to take what the white man dished out. Segregation denied them adequate education, training, and promotions. They routinely endured police brutality and unjust incarceration. The strike of black sanitation workers in 1968 thus embodied a larger struggle for the human rights of all black workers in their community.

That is why King was in Memphis. Yes there was a strike, but it was the result of the utter disregard for the dignity of human beings, either in life or in death.

That was segregation in this country. It was vicious, it was vile, and it was obscene. It cost many people their self-respect. And it cost some their lives.

Let's not whitewash that fact, today or any other.

In other news, 76% of Americans believe it is time for a black President. Personally, I think it's long overdue.

*Allegedly.