Category: government

Martin Luther King Jr – I have a Dream

On By Rick McIn ethics, firearms, government, human rights, musicLeave a comment

“I Have a Dream” is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States …

I still have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream – one day this nation will rise up and live up to its creed, “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream…

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’m reading a book about those days. President Kennedy playing a balancing act between King and his supporters and the segregationists, mostly whites in the southern States.

Amazing days. King was far from perfect. Nor was Kennedy perfect. (Both were womanizers, for example.) But I admire both in different ways.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, but opposed by filibuster in the Senate.

Thereafter, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward, which in its final form was passed in the U.S. Congress by a Senate vote of 73-27 and House vote of 289-126 (70%-30%). The Act was signed into law by President Johnson …

Warm-up acts at the 1963 March on Washington:

Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson sang “How I Got Over“, and Marian Andersonsang “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands“. …

Joan Baez led the crowds in several verses of “We Shall Overcome” and “Oh Freedom“. Bob Dylan performed “When the Ship Comes In“, for which he was joined by Baez. Dylan also performed “Only a Pawn in Their Game“, a provocative and not completely popular choice because it asserted that Byron de la Beckwith, as a poor white man, was not personally or primarily to blame for the murder of Medgar Evers.

Peter, Paul and Mary sang “If I Had a Hammer” and Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind“. Odetta sang “I’m On My Way“.

Charlton Heston, James Baldwin, Marlon Brando, and Harry Belafonte were there.

Charlton Heston supported civil rights?

Yep. He was a big booster of Democrats before switching to the dark side with Reagan and then the NRA.

Nazis killed over 275,000 for mental / physical defects

On By Rick McIn government, human rightsLeave a comment

Aktion T4 was a postwar name for mass murder through involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. …

In October 1939 Adolf Hitler signed a “euthanasia note” backdated to 1 September 1939, that authorized his physician Karl Brandt and Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler to implement the programme.

The killings took place from September 1939 until the end of the war in 1945 …

In the towns where the killing centres were located, many people saw the inmates arrive in buses, saw the smoke from the crematoria chimneys and noticed that the buses were returning empty. In Hadamar, ashes containing human hair rained down on the town. …

Memorial in Berlin to the disabled killed by Nazis in Germany.

I support the Kinder Morgan pipeline

On By Rick McIn economics, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

Actually, I’ve only recently looked at the issue. So this is a weak endorsement.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

We have some decades left using Petrotoxins. If you use them, you need to weigh all the alternatives for transport. Is this pipeline actually more dangerous than the alternatives?

I don’t think so.

Opponents, especially First Nations, were not sufficiently consulted. Perhaps not sufficiently compensated.

I’m hoping — in the end — some compromise can be decided. Otherwise we’ll be stuck with worse options.

White cops question black man

On By Rick McIn ethics, government, human rights, things getting betterLeave a comment

St. Louis MO April 19, 2018.

Rule of law is critical to society. I like the police. But I like them better when video is rolling.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The only other person on the scene when police called over a gentleman, I propped up my camera.

This gentleman did exactly what I would have done. Came directly to the first officer. Sat down immediately as requested.

Police were not aggressive in body language or any other way. Eventually they noticed my camera. Did not seem to care. I suspect most encounters go exactly like this. But are not reported

Oswald Mosley & the British Union of Fascists

On By Rick McIn ethics, government, human rightsLeave a comment

Have you heard of this guy?

Oswald Mosley was leader of the British Union of Fascists(BUF). …

Mosley was imprisoned in May 1940 and the BUF was banned. He was released in 1943, and, politically disgraced by his association with fascism, he moved abroad in 1951, spending most of the remainder of his life in Paris …

The BUF was protectionist, strongly anti-communist, strongly anti-zionist and nationalistic to the point of advocating authoritarianism. …

I couldn’t recall hearing of any Brits who supported Hitler and Mussolini.

But they did exist.

7 days of Heroin

On By Rick McIn bad news, government, things getting worseLeave a comment

Cincinnati, Ohio.

July 10-16, 2017

18 deaths. At least 180 overdoses. A typical week. ☹️

We have to do everything we can to reduce the number of people addicted to hard drugs. Prescription painkillers should be limited.

Read the story. Watch the video on USA Today. It’s shocking.

Trump’s bungled the Drug Czar portfolio as he’s bungled so many things. I think it’s Jim Carroll in charge, right now.

German youth against the Nazis – “Swing Kids”

On By Rick McIn government, movies, musicLeave a comment

The Swing Youth (German: Swingjugend) were a group of jazz and swing lovers in Germany in the 1930s, mainly in Hamburg and Berlin. …

… composed of 14 to 21-year-old boys and girls in high school, most of them middle- or upper-class students …

They admired the British and American way of life, defining themselves in swing music and opposing the National-Socialist ideology, especially the Hitler Youth …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (Hollywood adaptation)

Here are a couple of historical photos.

Ted Cruz – Hooker for the NRA

On By Rick McIn ethics, firearms, governmentLeave a comment

Ted Cruz took more money from the NRA than any other politician.

I’m not sure they’re getting their money’s worth. Despite being a smart, eloquent sleaze ball, he’s not all that convincing.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Catholics supported Hitler’s rise to dictator

On By Rick McIn ethics, governmentLeave a comment

Hitler had a minority government in 1933.

The Enabling Act (German: Ermächtigungsgesetz) was a 1933 Weimar Constitution amendment that gave the German Cabinet – in effect, Chancellor Adolf Hitler – the power to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag. …

The Enabling Act gave Hitler plenary powers. It followed on the heels of the Reichstag Fire Decree, which abolished most civil liberties …

The combined effect of the two laws was to transform Hitler’s government into a legal dictatorship. …

The Party of Catholics supported it.

Hitler negotiated with the Centre Party‘s chairman, Ludwig Kaas, a Catholic priest, finalising an agreement by 22 March. Kaas agreed to support the Act in exchange for assurances of the Centre Party’s continued existence, the protection of Catholics’ civil and religious liberties, religious schools and the retention of civil servants affiliated with the Centre Party.

As we know, the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII did not do enough to challenge the Nazis or Mussolini.

Trump is not Hitler … but the Catholics supporting him reminded me of how Evangelical Christians support Trump.

Pastor John Pavlovitz calls out Christians who support Donald Trump:

“… It’s about my disbelief at your sudden tolerance for his infidelity, his cruelty, his intellectual ignorance, his disrespect for the rule of law—things you once claimed you could never abide. …

… my disappointment at your easily manipulated nationalistic fervor; how the God and Guns, America First, Love it or Leave it rhetoric … ”

Trump-Supporting Friend—This Really isn’t About Donald Trump

Jesus would denounce almost everything Trump says and does. I have no respect for any Christian who supports the hateful President.

it’s International Fact-Checking Day

On By Rick McIn education, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

After being fooled a number of times on April Fool’s Day, I’m ready for this.

#FactCheckIt

Click PLAY or watch it on Twitter.