Frances Rice and the National Black Republican Association are now running a radio ad in Maryland claiming that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. The ad also announces that Democrats were responsible for the Klan. Obviously, Rice and the NBRA did not benefit from my piece showing their claims to be bogus, incendiary and self-serving. And all the thanks I got from them was to be called a liberal racist trying to violate the rights of a poor, helpless black female veteran.
Colonel Rice didn't even answer my response which referenced quotes from former board members who resigned en masse in apparent protest over the leadership and direction of the NBRA. She did not even respond to my suggestion that she might be a plant by liberals to make Republicans look bad. Instead, (or perhaps on cue) all she did was go buy radio ads in Maryland trying to get votes for Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, a black Republican against his Democratic opponent, Representative Ben Cardin. Rice's ad is so offensive that even Steele has called for the ad to be pulled as it is "insulting to Marylanders."
However, in all fairness, and in spite of yet having seen any documentation that Dr. King was actually a Republican, I am willing to give Frances Rice, the National Black Republican Association and all Republicans a chance to genuinely claim Dr. King as their very own. All they need to do for beginners is to officially and publically endorse the following statements from Dr. King.
"The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government." (What do you say to that one, Dick Cheney?)
"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood." (Just don't let any of them attend a talk by the president.)
"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be." (And whether or not you will be extracted for outsourced water-boarding.)
"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love." (Says just what the Project for a New American Century advocates as the rationale for world conquest.)
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people." (Mainstream churches, are you listening?)
"Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists." (Preach that on Sunday.)
"No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." (That's not what came flooding down in New Orleans.)
"Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary." (If that doesn't smack of class warfare, what does?)
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." (What, greed isn't good?)
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." (This one is for you, dear Frances Rice.)
Needless to say, I sincerely doubt any major Republicans are likely to endorse any of the opinions stated above. Hell, let's be real. They would throw out anybody saying anything so leftist as what Dr. King oft and repeatedly advocated. Nor do I envision the GOP at any level endorsing Dr. King's vision of a Poor People's Campaign composed of "a multiracial army of the poor" trained to engage in extensive civil disobedience until the government passed a bill of rights for poor people. Somehow I can't see a Republican Congress legislating guarantee incomes for all Americans. I doubt Republicans would be too thrilled about "radical changes in the structure of our society" to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth.
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