In the ongoing absence of a replacement for MLK's irreplaceable voice, Chris Hayes provides some inspiration for this MLK Day

PLUS: Joe Sestak has some concrete suggestions


Yesterday the Democratic Party sent out this message from Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), one of the people we remember most warmly from the Obama inauguration, on behalf of the Voting Rights Institute.

"Always searching and never quite finding is grueling and often dispiriting work. But there is simply no alternative other than to give in and let the field turn hard and barren."

-- Chris Hayes of The Nation,

in "System Failure," in the February 1 issue

by Ken

I suppose it's not really new that we have an officially racist national party. After all, American racists have always had a party that embraced them. For a long time it was the Democrats. When the party tried to rise above the shame of its Dixiecrat wing in the tumultuous '60s, Richard Nixon saw the opportunity to make the GOP our majority party for at least a generation by making it the sanctuary for race-based hatred. The thing that's different now is that, in the wake of of the party's eventually suicidal lurch to the extreme right, and the catastrophe that resulted from its longtime control of the reins of the federal government, the Republicans have carved themselves down to not much more than their Confederate base -- with the Western survivalists-separatists as junior partner in the "coalition." A regrettable result is that the GOP left-behinds no longer need to pretend to be anything other than what they are. Witness the spectacle of Sens. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby of Alabama and Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

What tends to be forgotten is that race-based discrimination demeans and degrades the perpetrators every bit as much as the victims. It's just that the victims pay a way stiffer price; the perpetrators are for the most part tangible beneficiaries -- it's just their humanity that's shot to hell, and who cares about that? People who delude themselves into thinking that they are superior to their fellow humans based on anything other than merit undermine our government and the fabric of our society. The dream of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was to free us all, and his voice -- that amazing, one-of-a-kind voice -- was lost to us at a time when we could least afford to lose it.

I find myself thinking once again -- I've been thinking about it a lot since I read it -- about the Chris Hayes Nation piece Digby and Howie directed us to the other day, "System Failure." In matters of racial equality too we're stuck trying to arrange an ever so slightly fairer sharing-of-the-wealth within the existing system of oligarchical monstrousness, because it's so fucking hard to push back against it, trying to replace it or even power-share with it.

What the country needs more than higher growth and lower unemployment, greater income equality, a new energy economy and drastically reduced carbon emissions is a redistribution of power, a society-wide epidemic of re-democratization. The crucial moments of American reform and progress have achieved this: from the direct election of senators to the National Labor Relations Act, from the breakup of the trusts to the end of Jim Crow.

So in this new year, while the White House focuses on playing within the existing rules, it's our job as citizens and activists to press constantly for changes to those rules: public financing, an end to the filibuster, the breakup of the banks, legalization for undocumented workers and the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, to name just a few of the measures that would alter the balance of power and expand the frontiers of the possible.

If I had to bet, I'd say that not of one of these will be won this year. The White House won't be of much help, and on some issues, like breaking up the banks, it will represent the opposition. Always searching and never quite finding is grueling and often dispiriting work. But there is simply no alternative other than to give in and let the field turn hard and barren. [Emphasis added.]

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 on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

POSTSCRIPT: AS WITH MANY OTHER SUBJECTS,
REP. JOE SESTAK HAS CONCRETE SUGGESTIONS

Adm.-turned-PA Rep. Joe Sestak's Senate primary campaign has been generating an enormous volume of position e-mails, often contrasting the announced positions with those of his "Democratic" opponent, Sen. Arlen "I Am the Gov't" Specter. I confess I haven't spent a lot of time digesting all these press releases, which in my mind tend to reduce to "campaign blather." However, the fact is that the campaign has been churning out an enormous volume of heavy-substance stands on real-world issues. Don't we always say we want more substance over style in campaigns?

Today's "NEWS FROM JOE SESTAK, DEMOCRAT FOR SENATE," for example, is "Joe Sestak Announces Legislation to Reauthorize and Reform the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights." (The subhead is "Bill Seeks to Improve Operations, Decrease Partisanship and Fix Funding Deficit.") "While differences of opinion will always exist between Administrations," says the congressman, "the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights should not be impeded by partisanship from performing its core function: ensuring that we are effectively implementing the civil rights laws that Congress has passed."

The release has some concrete suggestions to, as the congressman says, "commence a sustained effort to monitor and enforce our civil rights protections after so many years of neglect by the Bush Administration, and the Commission can play a vital role." It's certainly hard to quarrel with this diagnosis:

A 2007 report by the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights and the Center for American Progress disclosed the blatant politicization of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division that occurred during the Bush years. The report found that the counsel of career staffers was ignored, high-ranking career attorneys were involuntarily transferred, and a hiring system that emphasized professional credentials was thrown out. Additionally, the GAO reported in December, 2009, that the Division veered away from pursuing cases of widespread or systematic discrimination, such as challenging "at-large election systems" or pursuing "pattern or practice' suits."

In December, 2009 Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez testified before Congress that this led to more than 70 percent of the Division's attorneys leaving between 2003 and 2007, causing a "significant depletion of capabilities and institutional knowledge."

UPDATE: REP. JOE AT THE LLANERCH DINER

Congressman Sestak has posted a video clip in which he visits the Llanerch Diner in Upper Darby, PA, in his CD (anyone who read the voluminous letters-to-the-editor pages in the glory days of the Manchester Union-Leader knows Upper Darby as a hotbed of some of the country's most virulent far-right loons), where he tells a story told to him by the pastor of what's now Drexel Hill Baptist Church but in 1948 was the Garrettford Baptist Church, a story about weekly visits from a young theologian known to the locals as "Marty," who one week was invited by the white couple that had picked him up to dine with them at the Llanerch -- an invitation that challenged the young Martin Luther King Jr., since it would be the first time he had ever eaten in an all-white cafe. Check out the clip to see how he handled it.

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