Martin Luther King & 1968

I turn 50 this year. I was 9 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 40 years ago today. Bobby Kennedy was murdered later that summer, soon after my birthday, another American tragedy. And my father died in between, an American hero on a much smaller scale, but a hero of mine in any case.

So thoughts of 1968 bring back many sad and strange memories for me. It really seemed like the entire world was crumbling around us, between the war and the violence in the streets and all the protests and civil unrest. Nixon resurgent, and the beginning of his reign of error.

40 years have gone by...and where are the protests? We have a war as heinous, if not more heinous, than Vietnam, if only because we should be so much wiser. We have lost many of our civil rights in the meantime, because we've allowed fearmerchants like Bush and Cheney and Rove to steal them in the night like so many petty thieves. We have more people in prison per capita than mainland China, and we torture people routinely in the name of national security.

And Bush is trying for his 3rd term, via the zombie corpse of McSurge.

We could use a Rev. King right about now. In fact, there probably hasn't been an American moment in the past 230 years where we couldn't have used a Martin Luther King.