Category Archives: Fire This Time

“Dilemma for Dr. King” – A 59th Anniversary Review

This is why as the Johnson administration talks of escalating the war beyond 450,000 men, of bombing Hanoi-Haiphong and even of confronting China on the Asian mainland the virtual silence of the unchallenged spokesman of American conscience becomes ever louder and more painful to those who have followed [Dr. King] thus far. The war in Vietnam is perhaps the gravest challenge of Dr. King’s career and conceivably its culmination. Who among us today could blame him if, faced with this dilemma, he agonizes over his course of action? No one, surely; but Martin Luther King, Jr., is not only answerable to us of today: he must walk with history as well. And if in his agony he should fail to act, it must be asked: can history forgive him?

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Bernie, Garrison, LittleHands & the Rainbow Toilet: My Top Blog Posts for 2016

It’s Top Ten List season, and how can I refuse? Yet out of more than 130 blog posts, how can I choose?

One way is to do it by the numbers: And the clear #1 on that score went up on February 12. It called out the slighting comments made by Congressman & civil rights legend John Lewis about Sen. Bernie Sanders, in the thick of a hard-fought primary struggle with Hillary Clinton.

I revere John Lewis; but the post also stood up for Sanders’ activist record as a college student — not as a movement hero or leader, but as one of many who did his bit, took his lumps, and had been a loyal ally for fifty-plus years since.

The post must have touched a nerve. Within about 36 hours it had more than 12000 views and had been forwarded too many times to count. And maybe its message made a difference; anyway, Lewis soon “clarified” and softened his statement, in the interest of “unity.”
Further, this spike in readership pushed the total blog views over the 100,000 mark, a landmark important to me. If the post hadn’t quite gone “viral,” it had at least become contagious.

The #2 post in hits also dealt with a public figure, radio host Garrison Keillor, who retired in July from his “Prairie Home Companion” after more than forty years of weekly broadcasts. The piece disclosed what I regard as two “secrets” about him that I had discovered in almost as many years as a fan.

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Say What You Will, Bernie’s Still My Guy

— He’s still in the Senate, with much higher visibility;

— He campaigned fair, and most of his main rivals self-destructed;

— His integrity is intact: (Tax returns? Naddadamthing; he & Jane are comfy, but not millionaires. He kept his word: & supported HRC after the primaries; he works nonstop.)

— His message of fighting oligarchy to save democracy is not only consistent, but it’s also reinforced daily by every billionaire appointment & crazy tweet from On High . . .

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Catching Up With The Saga of TigerSwan, Standing Rock & My Blog

One of the points of the blog post, which I hope will not be lost in the euphoria after the Standing Rock victory, is that TigerSwan exemplifies a state-of-the-art approach to technological control and suppression of organized dissent which has been taking form and growing under the radar over the past fifteen years. (Some details are in the disappeared post.)

It is one I believe we will see more of. And one which will get, I strongly expect, much more support from the new occupant of the White House than the current one.

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