MLK, 40 Years, a Donkey, the Deregulation and Blackout of Our Civil Rights!

By Lloyd Hart

Yesterday I witnessed the most incredible irony as I monitored the corporate media. George Bush was giving a speech yesterday afternoon in front of a friendly only crowd of Marines when he stated "May God continue to bless America". This of course after lying to the American public, making out how successful things are in Iraq and Afghanistan attempting to spin what is completely out of control and slaughtering our children every day into something this regime thinks the public will accept. Within a brief period of time after George Bush lobbied God, lightning struck the crumbling deregulated electrical grid that represents America's privatized casino that Washington politicians call an energy policy. Of course the results of this blackout will be in the billions of dollars in losses during a time like no other in the past when the electrical utilities are robbing the ratepayers blind. The energy companies swore up and down that utility prices would be lower with deregulation but all we've seen is the price of electricity go up and the government turn a blind eye to emissions violations and Enron price-fixing scams. It looks as though presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was right to keep Clevelands utilities out of the private sector after all.

I mean, what the hell were Dick Cheney and the energy crooks meeting about? Oh yeah right, there was a map of Iraqi oil fields in the papers Cheney released under court order. Cause it certainly wasn't about the electrical grid in America and the American people's needs to maintain a civil society here in the homeland's security. What did Dick Cheney say after the secret energy meetings? "Conservation won't work, we have to rebuild our infrastructure". I guess the real question is what did the Energy giants do with all the money they stole from us by increasing our electricity rates to record highs? Wasn't that money supposed to rebuild the infrastructure? Oh yeah right, they gave it to Bush and built themselves a few more mansions and to oh yeah, further monopolize America into the casino Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and George Bush see America as. The fact is that conservation would have prevented the overloading of the grid in the summer heat in which the grid became vulnerable to an isolated incident like a lightning strike.

Just as during the Vietnam war when white middle-class kids start coming home in body bags the white middle-class joined the peace movement, maybe now that everyone is experiencing a massive blackout instead of just Black and Latino neighborhoods experiencing brownouts in the ongoing energy redlining practiced here in America. Maybe, just maybe everyone will join together in Washington D.C. on August 23rd 2003 and revitalize the meaning of our collective dream. The dream that Martin Luther King articulated so beautifully on that day in Washington forty years ago. Maybe now that all of our civil-rights are being taken away from us on every level with the Patriot Act and Homeland Security including in the services that we buy and pay for with our tax dollars and our rate paying. Maybe now as the Bush regime attempts to privatize the dream of taking care of our old, our infirm, our air, water and wilderness. Maybe now that everyone is being segregated from the dream not just Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos and women. Maybe now the words "I have a Dream" that pierced my heart forty years ago with the power to heal each other will truly mean something as we're being challenged by a new King George and a ruling class that no longer seems capable of handling the responsibility of governance of the people by the people.

As I wonder through the political wilderness that presidential candidate Senator Joe Lieberman and the Democratic Leadership (DLC) Council led us to ("the loss of the House, the Senate and the White House" John Stewart, the Dailey Show) and yet claims we'll be led to if a progressive candidate wins the nomination, I can't help thinking exactly what presidential candidate Al Sharpton said Spike Lee's house the other night that the "Democratic leadership Council are nothing but elephants in donkeys clothing". I believe if we all show up in Washington on August 23rd 2003 the 40th anniversary of the Martin Luther King march on Washington we can pitch a new Big Tent and pull down the Democratic Leadership Council's pup tent. I mean lets face it, it was Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council that failed to deliver universal health care coverage for all Americans and failed to provide civil rights to gays in the military that caused the Democratic party to lose the House and Senate to the Republicans, not because of some whacked out Republican revolution run by that megalomaniac Newt Gingrich. The numbers prove it, Democrats stayed away from the polls in 1994. As Senator Tom Dashle (DLC) and George Bush are quietly terminating Native American reservations and paving over Native American burial grounds to make way for a low-wage recreation economy in the heart of the Sioux nation we have the very first opportunity after 40 years of struggle to reestablish the dream against a backdrop that all Americans can recognize, the incompetance on every level, foreign and domestic of the Bush regime and the wealthy that support the regime. We Have A Dream! Lets Make It Happen!