There are buildings in America named after Bill Clinton, famous for the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
There are buildings in America named after Ronald Reagan, famous for the Iran-Contra scandal, promoting torture and death squads in Latin America and giving Saddam Hussein access to American-made weapons of mass destruction.
There are buildings in America named after George H.W. Bush, the man who made "Gulf War Syndrome" a part of the English language.
Yet Congress in its wisdom has officially refused to name a post office in Berkeley, California after Maudelle Sherik, a long-time City Council member who has fed the hungry, fought injustice, fixed our potholes, set us an example of courage and graciousness, funded our libraries, inspired our children and generally made our city a better place.
If instead of serving on the Berkeley City Council, Maudelle had been President of the United States or head of the FBI, America too would have been a better place -- and we wouldn't be struggling with debt, unemployment, senseless "wars" that are draining our country's wealth, corruption in high places, stolen elections and a tarnished world image.
Maybe that's why Congress balked at naming a post office after Shirek. She's not corrupt enough or hypocritical enough or blood-thirsty enough. And she's too honest!
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Excerpt from the San Francisco Chronicle: ....Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, objected to Lee's proposal and rallied Republicans to defeat the measure in an unusual roll call vote.
Lee, who said Shirek helped inspire her to run for elected office, was furious after the House defeated her measure on a mostly party line vote of 215 to 190. The measure needed two-thirds support for passage. "Maudelle Shirek is a woman whose leadership, service and commitment to our community are a testament to what is great about our nation, and she deserves to be honored," Lee said.
"That a Republican from Iowa could launch a campaign to deny naming a local post office after this 94-year-old civil rights leader, who until recently was the oldest and one of the longest-serving elected officials in California, is just shameful."
The decisions to name post offices and federal courthouses are so routine in Congress that they typically are approved by a voice vote that signals unanimous consent. But Lee's bid to name the post office in Berkeley for Shirek has been controversial from the start.
....In an interview with the Associated Press, King said Shirek had an "affiliation with the Communist Party" because she was involved with the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Berkeley. The library's Web site says it was named for Karl Niebyl, a San Jose State professor of economics who escaped Nazi Germany and donated his collection after his death, and Roscoe Proctor, a teacher and African American activist. The research library provides information on "progressive alternatives" and says its stated mission is to "support emerging struggles for racial and gender equality, and for Socialism.''
Lee, in a statement after the vote, blasted King, saying his "campaign of innuendo and unsubstantiated 'concern' is better suited to the era of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover than today's House of Representatives."
To which King responded: "I think that if Barbara Lee would read the history of Joe McCarthy, she would realize that he was a hero for America."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/28/mngf8ev3ub1.dtl
