Violence and MLK Day

On this day America honors a man who was shot right here in the Memphis area, one who paved the way to finally correcting a mistake that lingered for a century and a half. He had a persistent and consistent Biblical approach to solving the problem--non violence, even though his message actually stirred some to violence. Still, we are better now than we were then.

Robert Kennedy was also assassinated in the 60s; today's Huffington Post has a guest column by one of his daughters, the former wife of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Kerry Kennedy. She quotes her father's address after King's death:

We've had difficult times in the past. We will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

All true. It was a good speech. But why is her HuffPo column entitled, "Tucson, King and Kennedy"? What does Tucson have to do with MLK or racial violence in general? Wasn't everyone involved white?

BLAME GAME 1/17/11

This attempted tie between politics and Tucson should surprise no one--the reason Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are popular at all is due to years of blame. The monolithic lefty media controlled the narrative from the 70s through the 80s and determined right from wrong, usually coming down on the right for being wrong. Limbaugh pushed back--I first found his show by trolling the AM dial in the early 90s searching for news about the Gulf War. There was no 'mind numbed robot' effect, it was a 'hey, this guy doesn't believe I'm to blame for everything' effect.

It's quite possible the left believes their own memes, but it's also quite possible they believe they are far smarter than the right and can make them chase their own tails by starting them. I believe that's what Hillary Clinton did by indicting a mythical "vast right wing conspiracy" in the 90s--she knew the pushback was only normal politics and she knew more about Bill than she let on, but it was a great diversionary tactic during a crisis.

Now the left has a new crisis--the huge House majority mandate coming in. So what happens? Another meme created to cause tail-chasing. They really don't care if the civility argument is valid as long as it continues getting play. That's the point (and yes, I'm falling for it by commenting here about it). It's time to defeat the tactic. It's time for the war of ideas to commence.