Waiting for the Second Coming . . . of Obama

The first time he came he could walk on water.  Now, some are wondering whom he is carrying water for.

Is Obama carrying water for the rich people and the establishment he ran against?  Or is he simply overcompensating for being called a radical and a socialist?  The opposition has repeated that big lie so often and so loudly that it becomes believable to millions of otherwise sane people.

Ironically the more our President moves to the center trying to prove that he’s no radical, and certainly not a socialist, the more the right wing tea party Republicans move the center to the right. They’ve played this cynical game as long as I can remember when a real loser of a Senator, McCarthy of Wisconsin, learned he could flush a covey of liberals simply by waving a paper and bellowing that liberals were communists.

People who understand socialism know that Barack Obama is not a socialist.  He is a centrist in every sense of the word.  Moreover, he’s a centrist with a rightward lean.  Europeans laugh when right-wingers call Hillary and Barack leftist.

A cartoon depicting a right-winger and a left-winger holding signs, had one saying, “I hate Obama.  He’s a socialist.”  And the other, “I hate Obama.  He’s not a socialist.  The recent midterm bloodletting begs the question - did running away from the dem record of achievement save any seats? No.  Democrats could not possible have lost more seats and we may even have been able to save some.  Independents might have given Obama and the Dems credit for at least standing their ground.  But when Democrats ran away from their own accomplishments, how could independents and middle of the roaders stick with Obama, “the change artist.” 

Adding insult to injury, far right Republicans gearing up for 2012 are now promising, “CHANGE.”  Ignoring the fact that they obstructed every effort to save the country, cynical Republicans trumpet, “Obama couldn’t get the job done in 18 months, give us a chance and we will do better.”
Maybe one reason for Democratic capitulationism is the fact that liberals, progressives and left radicals failed to maintain pressure on Obama to do the right thing and stand up to the crazies.  The administration also incredibly turned its back on young people, failing to assign anyone in government the task of continuing the mobilization that was so important to Obama’s victory.

The political spectrum in this country, after more than a century of red baiting, has now shifted so far to the right that the Republican Party itself is proving to be too liberal.  Their tigers, Rush Limbaugh, Beck, Palin and Bachman, egged on by numerous crazies – the Delaware witch, etc. are so addicted to blood and political mayhem, that the tigers they’ve unleashed are likely to tear their handlers.  Tan Man and mainstream Republicans are hanging on to the tiger’s tail for dear life.  To mix the metaphor, will Dr. Frankenstein control the monster or vice versa? Old-line Republican leaders don’t seem to have the guts to stand against their crazies.

Do we, Mr. President?

Lead us Obama and we will have your back.  We are whom we have been waiting for but we do require a leader.  If you chicken out, and we chicken out, how long will it be before corporate fascism runs America from behind the Oz curtain?

We fell into this predicament because we were happy and relieved to see Obama elected. From jump we should have been on him to do the right thing.  The things he promised during the campaign. We dare not make the same mistake between now and the presidential election in two years.

Bob Zellner
Southampton, NY.

Obama letter number 2, November 31, 2010: EAGLE, TURKEY OR JUST PLAIN CHICKEN?

Dear Mr. President,

When we called you a change artist we didn’t mean that YOU would change, we thought you were out to change the way politics are played.  Were we wrong?

Like Dr. King we are dreamers, but I never dreamed it would come to this – that we are leading you.  Why is it not the other way around?  Even crass politics requires you to LOOK like you are leading and putting up a good fight.  Nobody faults a politician for acting like a general to his army of supporters.

I don’t mean a violent fight, of course, because we touted you as the first nonviolent president - at least one with some understanding of the nonviolent movement.  I remind you, however, that we practiced nonviolent DIRECT ACTION.  There was nothing passive about it.

You are disappointing us, Sir, and I don’t mean the ones who gave up on you early, just waiting for an excuse to leave.  We stayed when you escalated an unwinnable war claiming young lives to prop up Karzai and his criminal “family.”  We stuck when you gave up public option prior to negotiations on health care.  We swallowed hard when you didn’t close Guantanamo and failed to advocate strongly for repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell.  We are the millions of long suffering supporters like the lady at town meeting who said she was exhausted defending you.

Do you intend to rain on this parade?  Boy scout training teaches that a drip can kill a spark but a deluge cannot douse a conflagration.  We hope you are not the drip putting out our spark.  Remember HOPE?

As our champion confronting the giant, did you forget to pick up some rocks, maybe left your slingshot at home?  Nonviolence is good, but this is ridiculous!  In the movement we turn the other cheek, but we don’t ray our principles.

Even Jesus, the Prince of Peace, got mad.  He believed in direct action.  When he plaited a whip - look out scribes and Pharacese! And for God’s sake don’t be changing no money over at the temple!

Has politics become so cynical that a fighting spirit in defense of principles no longer plays well?  It would be great for your base, and might even gain the respect of Independents and some moderate Republicans.  As a radical, a progressive and an activist, I can’t help admiring heartless rightwing Republicans and crazy tea heads.  They close ranks and fight for their cause.  Tea partiers, to the small extend they are working class, should be organized by Democrats, not the lying right.

If Progressives don’t stand for something, will we stand for anything?  You and your aids have given up on each political fight, even before taking the field.  Unlike little David, your political advisor, Axelrod, went out to meet Goliar and Co. with his hands up.  Weeks ago he said tax cut extensions for the richest 2% was on the table.  We knew then that you were going to give it to them.

We can only imagine the confab he had with Tan Man and General McConnell.

Axelhead:  Well fellas, what was it you unwashed, stinking, skin wearing barbarians wanted?

Boehner mumbles something about chicken crap.

Axelhead:  Oh, uh, you want to extend tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires?  Well, uh, my president certainly wants to get along and not be overly partisan.  We can probably, uh… work something out…. I’ll get back to you.

Well, Mr. President, we will stay tuned and see what you work out.

Sincerely,

Bob Zellner

50 Years Later: Where Do We Go From Here? Part Two by Ira Grupper

Sisters & Brothers:

       Justice delayed is justice denied.  I was part of a group that looked over cases and then encouraged filing complaints with metro, state and federal agencies. We were dissatisfied with the long time between intake of a complaint and resolution, and with the eventual outcomes as well.  

       The problem is not individual, but structural, and political.  The tasks of outreach, alternative dispute resolution and targeted case management are not accomplished when budget is limited and the big dogs, running in the tall grass, seem less than enamored of prosecuting potential political party donors?

       Mediation and conciliation agreements, prized by federal, state and municipal enforcement bodies, objectively favor corporations and government agencies at the expense of complainants.  The company or government agency just says: we ain’t done nothin' wrong, but we promise never to do it again.  Further, we'll agree to make the aggrieved party, the complainant, whole, and we'll give back pay and promotion.

The Kafka-esque irony is that conciliation agreements are a joyous outcome for enforcement agencies, since there is not enough money and staff to litigate the complaint avalanch.  Irony number two - the discriminated-against also view agreements as victories, having neither the money nor the years to wait while the processes lumber on.

       I was at the 50th anniversary of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh NC this past April.  As a SNCC veteran, I thought Attorney General Eric Holder, spoke eloquently about the Justice Department’s newfound energy in enforcing anti-discrimination laws.

       Ironic isn’t it that on September 24 of this year the Department of Justice’s FBI component broke into seven homes and an office belonging to activists in the peace and justice community in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan?  The eleven subpoenaed activists will have to testify before a federal grand jury — where they are not permitted to have a lawyer with them.

       In the 1970’s and 1980’s I was involved, here in the U.S., in support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.  Using the logic of the recent raids, I could have been imprisoned way back then, under the support for terrorism laws.  After all, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were put on the terrorist list by then-President Ronald Reagan.  Did that make me a terrorist? 

Let’s return, specifically, to the KY Commission on Human Rights. Months ago at a conference on disability, organized by the Kentucky commission we tonight honor.  I asked how many commissioners ever filed “commissioner’s complaints.”  The commissioner with the longest tenure, I think it was eleven years, responded:  “What is a commissioner’s complaint?”

 I was shocked.  Commissioners have the right, no, the duty, to file complaints, in their names, against offending companies and agencies.  This disgusting dereliction of duty, from my experience, is no better or worse than at all the other agencies.

       Some commissioners aren’t cognizant of the two roles commissions must play - enforcing the law, AND using their good offices to bring about an egalitarian climate.  Commissioners and citizens must understand this. I teach at Bellarmine University, and students in one of my classes are here, in the audience.  Why isn’t this audience packed with hundreds of students?  Is it lack of funding that prevents federal, state and local agencies from going into the high schools and colleges to explain why we need enforcement agencies?  What would Rev. Martin Luther King say about this?

       To conclude: The historic work of the KY Commission on Human Rights needs to be better funded, and expanded…You now know that I am an unrepentant hellraiser.  My motto is, and I have cleaned it up and made it gender-neutral:  If you grab them around the neck, their hearts and minds will follow.

Four little girls were murdered in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 by racists who bombed the church where they were attending Sunday school.  We must never forget their sacrifice, their martyrdom, and the supreme price paid by James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, Herbert Lee, Vernon Dahmer-and so many more.

       They, and hundreds of thousands of freedom fighters, over many years, are to be thanked for the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights.  We can pay homage to the precious collective memory of the fallen in battle by creating a climate where companies and agencies that discriminate don't just get slapped on the wrist, but get the living defecation knocked out of them.

Then, and only then, will fifty years of the KY Commission on Human Rights be the landmark we all shall cherish. 

Thank you.  

Ira Grupper

50 Years Later: Where Do We Go From Here?

Part one of a two part guest blog from, Ira Grupper, my hell raising friend and comrade in the movement for forty years.

Sisters & Brothers:

Where the KY Commission on Human Rights needs to go depends on its past history, and how its work comports with the work of city and federal agencies. 

The 1960s saw masses of African American people, with participation and solidarity of other minorities and decent white people, rise up and bring down enforced racial segregation, Jim Crow--apartheid made-in-the-USA.  De jure discrimination and segregation, at long last, were outlawed.

This struggle was a war, producing casualties, with participants jailed, beaten, fired from jobs, and even murdered, forcing authorities to make certain concessions.  Among these were a series of laws giving everyone, regardless of color, the right to vote, the use of public accommodations, and access to fair housing and employment.

The Movement inspired other so-called "protected classes," to demand justice.  Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, women, the disabled, older people, lesbians and gays--were on the move. They had fought for dignity and rights all along, but the Movement provided inspiration and demonstrated what a cohesive militant people's force can accomplish.  Federal, state and municipal enforcement agencies, like the KY Commission on Human Rights, were created as a response.

These agencies had to contend, in the 1960s, with a society wherein the rich profited by exploiting the poor — a society that kept Black and white people apart.  White workers accepted their own exploitation by internalizing that, as badly off as they were, at least they weren't Black.  Inheriting the detritus of the war on the poor and the non-white back then, the agencies had to develop rules and regulations to try to root out unfairness at the workplace, and otherwise. 

       Today, approaching 2011, have these government agencies succeeding in creating a climate where discriminators fear paying a high price for their actions?  Sometimes, yes.  Usually, no.

During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan dismantled protections won during the Civil Rights Movement.  He appointed Clarence Thomas to head the EEOC and do the dirty work of gutting enforcement, of destroying equal opportunity.  Mr. Thomas was rewarded for his nefarious deeds by being appointed to the US Supreme Court.

       How are things today?  Marcelles Mayes, president of the Metro Disability Coalition here in Louisville, recently told me:  “Even with passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, so many disabled are unemployed or under-employed.  For the severely disabled generally it’s 75%, and for the blind and visually disabled it is 91%”.  As recession wreaks havoc on poor and working people, millions of Americans are further prevented by racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and anti-disabled bias from access to the workplace. 

Where do unemployed teens wind up, to an alarming degree?  They wind up in prison resulting in drastically rising incarceration rates with a devastating racial breakdown. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the KY Commission pushed for restoration of voting rights for ex-inmates as proof that the penal system has faith in its rehabilitation program?  

TO BE CONTINUED: Read part two next week on Zellner Blog.

Thank you.  
Ira Grupper:  irag@iglou.com

The Calling

       As a veteran of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s I was honored and privileged to work, walk and go to jail with the bravest and most inspiring people our generation produced.   It was a pivotal chapter in American history; whatever we thought we were doing and achieving, we did made a difference. We were front line troops, (mostly) young women and men putting our own bodies on the line to break the back of deep discrimination and injustice. Some made the ultimate sacrifice, their blood watering roots of freedom’s tree marking the beginning of a new kind of life for all Americans.

       Young people ask if the Freedom Movement really changed things in a basic way because schools teach only the most rudimentary information.  It’s hard to remember or learn how bad things were.  Without our struggle, the reinvigorated women’s’ movement, gay rights, laws against age and disability discrimination would not have arrived when they did.

       This important history is passed along through stories of that wonderful era. But the stories are supposed to inspire, not put us to sleep fifty years later. Rocking chair congratulations can come later.  Alone among the major civil rights organization of the sixties, the NAACP continues to flourish and function.  SNCC, CORE, SCLC and the Urban League are extinct or quiet. Every activist in every field should be a paid up member of the NAACP. There’s still work to be done!

       Help me deliver this blog to Americans of good sense and heart, especially young Americans. Please know that just as I and my sisters and brothers in struggle felt called to ACT, that calling is sounding for you today.  Rosa Parks once challenged me, “Bob when you see something wrong, you have to dosomething.  You must take action.”

       For young Americans, new chapters of these stories continue to play out: poor people are excluded, as are gays, the disabled, young people and people of color.  As Dr. Maya Angelou, supporting the Spike Lee, Barry Brown movie, Son of the South, from my book, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, said, “This film should be made because hate is once again becoming an acceptable form of public discourse.”

       Decisions affecting humans and our planet are made for the profit of a few while harming the many. Education policy and practice, meant to lift us up, funnels people into becoming sleepy consumers of culture and products, leaving us stripped and empty.  Seventy percent of our economy depends on rampant consumerism funded mostly by credit.  We don’t make things anymore, shipping jobs to poor non-unionized workers around the world.

       It’s time. It’s more than time. In fact, it’s getting very late. Join me in exploring not just the great stories of the past, but finding the opportunities to write some new stories that are desperately needed today. Stories of hope, courage, imagination and struggle. That same call that moved us back in the day still resounds today. Can you hear it?  Will you heed it? 

Bob Zellner

November 1, 2010

Dr. Maya Angelou, Shirley Sherrod, and Bob Zellner

Dear Zellner Blog readers,

Recently when Dr. Maya Angelou and I hosted Shirley Sherrod as guest of honor at a party in Dr. Angelou’s Harlem, home I mentioned the mistake Benjamin Jealous made in criticizing Ms Sherrod without having all the facts.  Maya admonished me at the time and I now apologize.  The following message to me from Shirley and the NAACP was mailed to all members.  As a member of the Eastern Long Island Branch I am forwarding Ms Sherrod’s healing message to my Zellner Blog readers.  Please pass it on to help bridge the black-white racial divide. BZ

Bob Zellner,

Back in March, I delivered a speech to an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet in my home state of Georgia. I drew on my personal life story to urge poor people, white and black, to pull together and overcome racial divisions. We have to understand that our struggle is against poverty and against those who are blocking our path out of poverty. Unless we figure this out, I warned, our communities won't thrive and our children won't prosper.

As you know, a Tea Party blogger named Andrew Breitbart released an intentionally deceptive, heavily edited clip from that speech to make it look as if I was delivering exactly the opposite message. Then Fox News blasted that false message across America's airwaves, creating a firestorm that led to my ouster as the USDA State Director here in Georgia.

Not long ago, I sat here in my living room in Albany, Georgia for an afternoon of deep conversation with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. As he has done in public, Ben movingly apologized for the fact that the NAACP was initially hoodwinked by Breitbart and Fox into supporting my removal. I told him what I want to tell you. That’s behind us, and the last thing I want to see happen is for my situation to weaken support for the NAACP.

Too many people confronted by racism and poverty count on the NAACP to be there for them, especially those in rural areas who often have nowhere else to turn. People ask me, "Shirley, how are you getting through all of this? " I tell them that, if they knew what I have lived through, they'd understand that these current challenges aren't about to throw me off course.

When I was 17 years old, my father was murdered by a white man in Baker County, Georgia. There were three witnesses, but the grand jury refused to indict the person responsible. I knew I had to do something in answer to my father's death. That very night, I made a commitment that I would stay in the South and fight for change. I have lived true to that commitment for 45 years. I didn't yield when, just months after my father was killed, they came in the middle of the night to burn a cross in front of our house with my mother, four sisters, and the baby brother my father never got to see still inside. I'm surely not going to yield because some Tea Party agitator sat at his computer and turned everything I said upside down and inside out.

I learned a lot of lessons from my parents growing up, but one of the most important ones is what my mother taught her children after our father was killed. She told us we mustn't try to live with hate in our hearts. My mother led by example. Just 11 years after that cross-burning incident, she became the first black elected official in Baker County, and she's still serving, still working to bring people together.

You and I have to keep working as well. Change has to start with us. I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support I have received over these last few weeks. It means so much to me and my family. But you and I have to make sure that people all across the country who wage a daily struggle against poverty and racism have support networks as well. And that's why your personal involvement in sustaining the NAACP is so critical. The NAACP confronts the virulent racism that my family and so many other families have had to endure. But it is also leading the way in breaking down the structural barriers that block so many people's paths out of poverty.

In our struggle between the "haves" and the "have-nots," they want to keep the poor divided - and we have to insist, by our words and our actions, that there is no difference between us. As we move forward together, I urge you to remember this: Life is a grindstone. But whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us. Thank you for all you are doing to challenge poverty and racism. I look forward to working and struggling right by your side.



Sincerely, 

Shirley Sherrod

Son of South. The Fight for Racial Equality…Dr. MAYA ANGELOU WANTS THIS FILM TO GET MADE.

Photography by Verane Pick

Dr. MAYA ANGELOU WANTS THIS FILM TO GET MADE.
A movie should nourish you a little beyond its popcorn intake. In the stellar fundraiser at Dr. Maya Angelou’s Harlem home, Shirley Sherrod and Dr. Bob Zellner join spirits for the Civil Rights Film “Son of the South”.

Sunday night saw a merry and emotional evening of celebration and support for the upcoming production of the feature film, “Son of South”. The picture is based on Bob Zellner’s recently acclaimed memoir, “The wrong side of murder creek”, a spirited and emotional account of a life devoted to the Civil Rights Movement.

Shirley Sherrod and David Goodman

“I won’t be misused, overused or abused, but for what I believe is right, I will be of use.” states the ever-graceful Dr. Maya Angelou in the joyful colors that graces her living room. “In an era of such strong polarization, where hate is again being accepted as a tolerable response to our fellow human beings, this story needs to be told, this story needs to be heard.”

Director Barry Alexander Brown and Willy E. Woods

Dr. Maya Angelou Supports Spike Lee & Barry Brown's Movie about Bob Zellner: Son of the South

Maya Angelou, Shirley Sherrod support Zellner’s Wrong Side of Murder Creek movie project
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 by Brian
 

Dr. Maya Angelou expressed her support for the new movie Son of the South — based on Bob Zellner’s memoir The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement — with a fundraising party at her home October 3. In attendance were Zellner, Son of the South director Barry Alexander Brown, and a host of civil rights figures including former US Department of Agriculture staffer Shirley Sherrod.

Dr. Maya Angelou, Shirley Sherrod, and Bob Zellner together in support of the Son of the South movie

Verane Pick described the event in an article on the Scallywag & Vagabond website. (Event photographs by Pick.)

Son of the South, with executive producer Spike Lee, will bring to the big screen the events Zellner describes in The Wrong Side of Murder Creek. In the book, Zellner chronicles a lifetime of civil rights activism, from his childhood as the son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including his imprisonment for desegregation work and his meetings with Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and others.

At the Son of the South event, Dr. Angelou told Pick that “in an era of such strong polarization, where hate is again being accepted as a tolerable response to our fellow human beings, [Bob Zellner's] story needs to be told, this story needs to be heard.”

Zellner himself described the story he tells as “not about who wins and who loses, who’s strong or who’s weak, [but rather] about standing up for what you know is right. And if you really look, you’re bound to see it: true courage isn’t measured by your fists, your tanks, or your ability to overpower your enemy, it lies in compassion, forgiveness, benevolence . . . and the joy it sprouts within.”

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek received the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award presented by the Southern Regional Council. Library Journal gave The Wrong Side of Murder Creek a starred review, noting that “this powerful portrait of a courageous man is highly recommended”; Publishers Weekly called the book “a testament both to the courage of civil rights activists and to the hatred they overcame.”

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, by Bob Zellner with Constance Curry, is available from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

Letter to Glenn Beck at Fox News

Glenn Beck
Fox News


Dear Mr. Beck,


      Your fantasy #1 is that, “We (meaning your rightwing crowd of nuts) made the civil rights movement and we can take it back.”  Welcome to the real world, Glenn!   May I call you Glenn? Your 1960 counterparts were in fact the main opposition to Dr. King, SNCC and the Freedom Movement. 


      Mr. Beck, I suspect that you know better.  You’re telling a huge lie, because your willfully ignorant, know-nothing, sheep-like followers might not believe a lesser lie. You fancy yourself a historian.  Have you ever heard of Massive Resistance?  What exactly do you think your God Father, (Governor George Corley Wallace of Alabama - the cradle of the confederacy) was resisting?  He was resisting the Civil Rights Movement?  Yes?


      If you are such a smart historian, standing ready to assume Martin Luther King’s mantel of civil rights leadership, tell me about the famous Southern Strategy of your hero, President Ronald Reagan.  Why do you think the Solid South switched overnight from Democrat to Republican?  Was it because Republicans, like their best president, Lincoln, supported freedom for black people? No, Glenn, it was because Reagan opened his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Neshoba County, Mississippi, where the three civil rights organizers were murdered during Freedom Summer, 1964. Candidate Reagon famously talked about “states rights,” code for allowing the South to maintain segregation by all means necessary.


      This was a wink, wink, and meaningful signal to segregationists.  Republicans realized they no longer had to shout “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” like their teachers, George Wallace and Ross Barnet, not to mention Bull Connor and killers like Byron De Lay Beckwith and James Earl Ray.


      The Southern Strategy worked, Glenn, because your ideological brothers, whom you claim were “making the civil rights movement,” convinced white southerners that Republicans would be “reliable” on civil rights.  Your Tea Party, and your unmitigated hubris in standing in the footprints of Dr. King will not work. I knew and worked with Dr. King.  You, Mr. Beck, are no Martin Luther King.


      Your big lie is designed to convince white working people, north and south, that they are better off shelving their economic interest in exchange for Republican support for a conservative social agenda, like opposition to affirmative action and freedom of choice. 


      Glenn, as a thirty-million dollar per year big shot TV personality, isn’t your real allegiance to the wealthy two percent in our country who are paid $300,000 a year or more?  You yourself must be making over ten times that amount. 


      Why don’t you fess up and come clean with your followers that you are leading them down the garden path?  What a pretty way to state that you want to keep them ignorant and poor.


      So, Mr. Beck, your fantasy that you can become the civil rights leader without ever having supported civil rights, or doing anything at all to secure those rights, is a personal affront not only to me, but also to hundreds of thousands who bled and suffered to make the movement a success over the last four hundred years in this country.


      Talk about sensitivity concerning the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan.  Where is your sensitivity when you claim something that in no way belongs to you?  This is personal with me because I know, as a white male southerner, that it is my responsibility to oppose racism, sexism and religious persecution in all its forms. 


      To this end, I was arrested over 18 times in seven states standing up for justice and human rights.  I am careful not to claim any credit for the success of the freedom movement because I know it was lead by women and men of color all over this country, primarily in the South.  The people in the communities and martyred leaders, both men and women, were the ones who made the civil rights movement, not me and certainly not you and your political ilk. 


      Finally, Big Shot Beck, are you aware of how ridiculous you looked strutting up and down on that historical stage?  Will your silver tongue be able to explain to your followers your second big fantasy?


      For the life of me I don’t know why the Democrats are not talking twenty-four hours a day about your biggest fantasy – that the way to help General Petraeus win the hearts and minds of the Afghans is to bash Muslims for trying to build a church near Wall Street?  Beck, does this actually help win the war?  No. Frank Rich laid it out clearly in his New York Times opinion piece, so that even Democrats could understand.


      Let me get this straight.  You and your millions are the last American holdouts supporting the war in Afghanistan (other than our Muslim President, Obama), and yet you are the same megalomaniacs declaring world war on Islam?  You don’t want to fight the small numbers of fringe Muslims, the tiny minority embracing terrorism.  You really think it is better to hate and war against ALL Muslims all over the world- even those in Texas and Murfreesboro, Tennessee?


      As Imus used to say, and Joe Scarborough is now saying, - Glenn Beck, ARE YOU NUTS?


Sincerely, 
Bob Zellner


  

This is Zellner Blog #1 With What's Happening Now.

Half a century ago, this country approached a crossroads- a decision was to be made nationally, whether to continue legal apartheid, or complete the job of emancipation begun under our greatest President, Republican Abraham Lincoln. Our country has now reached a second major crossroads. We must decide whether or not to become a responsible member of global society, or intensify the emergent Know-Nothingism and neo-Fascism implicit in the program of the extreme right.

In the spring of 2007, I began a series of National Public Radio commentaries focused on the Obama campaign. This Zellner Blog will address current issues of racial and social justice by occasionally reprinting these commentaries written early in the Obama administration, as well as releasing new commentaries on the current situation. I will be focusing on contrasting the hopes and dreams of the early Obama phenomenon, with the progress and setbacks facing us today.