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Playing politics at Mrs King's memorial service
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by Madeline Zane, Unknown News
Feb. 14, 2006
The carefully-choreographed right-wing uproar over the anti-war, anti-surveillance comments made at Coretta Scott King's funeral last week come off like a sick, pathetic joke. These comments can only be called "partisan" or "opportunistic" in the looking-glass vocabulary of Bushworld, where "partisan" is anything that makes Republicans look bad, and "opportunistic" is anything that makes
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Republicans look bad, and "playing politics" is anything that, well, makes the Republicans look bad.
In the rest of the universe, "opportunistic" refers to someone who does something purely to make themselves look good. Can even the most deluded Republican hack claim with a straight face that men and women with a proven commitment to civil rights were eulogizing one of the leaders of the civil-rights movement only in order to make themselves look good?
In fact, anyone using the real-world (as opposed to the Bushworld) definition of "opportunistic" would have to point the finger "squirmer-in-chief" on stage that day. George W. is the only modern president who has never once met with the NAACP. There is not one nickel in the budget Bush released last week to rebuild a city whose black population was hit disproportionately hard. George W.'s attendance at Coretta Scott King's funeral was the textbook definition of "playing politics" and "opportunistic."
The right-wing pundits found it "inappropriate" to use a funeral to talk about what the deceased believed in and fought for. They called it "partisan" to talk about King's opposition to the war, and torture, and the government's treatment
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And what kind of tribute would King's funeral have been, if the speakers there held their tongues out of fear or obedience?
If the speakers that day had remained silent, that might have made the right wing happy.
But it would have been like lining up one by one to spit on the grave of a woman who always bravely spoke truth to power.
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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of the poor. On the other hand, if the right wing wants to label compassion and decency "partisan" values, I suppose we ought to let them.
And what kind of tribute would King's funeral have been, if the speakers there held their tongues out of fear or obedience? If the speakers that day had remained silent, that might have made the right wing happy. But it would have been like lining up one by one to spit on the grave of a woman who always bravely spoke truth to power.
George W. Bush made his real tribute to the legacy of Coretta Scott King on the night of the State of the Union address. As he wrapped his smirking mouth around a few empty platitudes written for him by a professional partisan opportunist, his goons were dragging a mother who lost her son to a useless, politically-motivated, opportunistic war out of the auditorium. A factual statement was printed on her t-shirt. And in Bush's America, facts are partisan and opportunistic. Even the most heartfelt outpourings of grief and joy are called partisan and opportunistic, if they make the Partisan Opportunists in charge look bad.
© by the author.
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CORETTA SCOTT KING
FUNERAL
MEMORIAL SERVICE
PLAYING POLITICS
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