It is difficult, these days, to chronicle our cultural descent into oblivion, as it picks up speed and sucks more and more elements into its vortex. The financial crisis alone exposed the massive greed, selfishness, and “every-man-for-himself” mentality that is quickly becoming the norm, not the exception, for the general population. We see it daily in the violence that erupts across the country. From a lone gunman in Binghamton, New York, mowing down a group of people studying to become citizens, to the almost-daily murder-suicides that are usually the manifestation of financial and marital distress.
In Boston, a medical student has been charged with the gruesome murder of a young girl who had advertised her “services” on Craig’s List, the popular on-line “yard sale”. Yes, we’re selling everything. This event, which should come as no surprise, given the misogynistic culture in which we are awash, has led to the inevitable argument in favor of legalizing prostitution.
One has to wonder, what, exactly, we are to tell our children. I have told my young boys that a physical relationship with a woman is best saved for your wife, or at the very least, someone you love and intend to love into the future. I tell them that sex is not a sport, or entertainment, it is an intimate act between two adults that will have lasting impact for both. There is, and should not be, anything cavalier about it. What should I tell my daughter? That if educating herself and holding down a job seem too daunting, than it is quite acceptable to simply spread your legs for a living. Enjoy the fulfilling life of a prostitute, and maybe your kids can be prostitutes, too. What a sad, sad place we find ourselves in.
Worse, still, is that the iconic figures in our lives to whom we sometimes look for direction and strength, can find themselves, or at least their legacy, stained by the greasy handprint of greed and narcissism as well. This was the case last week when it was revealed that the descendents of the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. had charged the foundation building a memorial to this great man, a fee for using his name.
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, a privately-funded group which is building a 28-foot sculpture of King, depicted emerging from a chunk of granite, which will be forever displayed on the National Mall, was charged $800,000.00 by the family. Astounding.
According to Cambridge University historian David Garrow, “I don’t think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family…I don’t think any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington. One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C., that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny.” I have to agree, David. What a shame, too, that it had to be this family. Relatives to a man who defined selflessness. Indeed, a man who, arguably, knowingly sacrificed his life to a cause that was as imperative to him as breath itself. How saddened I expect he would be to know of these circumstances. King would have been “absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children”, Garrow said. “Mortified” might be a better word.
Financial documents reveal that the foundation paid $761,160.00 in 2007 to Intellectual Properties Management, Inc., an entity run by King’s family. Another $71,000.00 “management fee” was paid by the foundation in 2003. In the 1990′s, the family sued USA Today and CBS over their use of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech without permission. Indeed, the management firm, whose chairman is King’s son Dexter, president is cousin Issac Ferris, Jr, and board of directors is filled for life by King’s other children, has primarily been involved, almost exclusively, in the pursuit of funds from the use of King’s words and images in merchandising. One might thing that the offspring of this larger-than-life man had greater destinies in waiting, but as is so often the case, the easy dollar wins out. The easy road. Increasingly…the road most travelled.
And so it goes. I remember vividly my father’s speeches to me about character and dignity. How these things are the foundation of a man, and yet they are ethereal in many ways. You can’t put a dollar-value on them. They don’t bring you material things. They bring you only the satisfaction of knowing your achievements, even your failures, are pure. They bring you the quiet satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing. They are real enough that they allowed men like John McCain, and thousands like him, the strength to say “no” to an early release from a squalid Vietnamese prison. They are the qualities so real that millions of Americans call on them each day when summoning the self-discipline we all need to say “no” sometimes. They are the measure of your standing in the community and your family, and hence, the world. They were integral elements in the make-up of all great men and women. Now, it seems, even character and dignity are “For Sale”.
Archive for April, 2009
UNFIT FOR A KING
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009THE ELEVENTH HOUR
Monday, April 20th, 2009As is so often the case in modern-day America, it takes a rattling and thrashing at our very door to get us up off the couch. September 11th, 2001, was a good example. The most graphic example of an “in-your-face” wake-up call in recent history, it provided an expensive rallying cry for Americans. We were united, even the smallest American flag was unavailable, scooped off of shelves in the manic aftermath of that dreadful day, by people reaching out for anything, for a way to give the country a hug.
So, as the scent of tea wafted across the land on April 15th, otherwise known as Wednesday, it was refreshing to see so many regular folks taking to the streets to air their exasperation. I have written here before of my amazement at so many “cause-of-the-day” groups, and their ability to rally thousands of people at the drop of a hat. The Gay-Rights groups, PETA, you name it. Think “Extreme Networking”. Even the call to people to show support for tougher laws protecting our children seems to fall on deaf ears. However, make too frequent, or too deep, a grab at the average American’s wallet, and I guess all Hell will break loose. Better late than never. Better the eleventh hour, than no hour at all.
And it is a sensible complaint. Finally, decades too late, the faces of America are making themselves known. Not the new faces we have been led to believe overwhelmingly comprise our population, but the types of faces that most of us have grown up seeing our entire lives. Working people. Many, if asked five years ago, if they could ever imagine themselves at any kind of protest, would have laughed. No time for that. I can’t count the events, over the years, that I would have attended were it not for the demands of steady income. I suspect that many who attended these “Tea Parties” may have been recently unencumbered of the need to be at a job somewhere. Many more, I suspect, considered it more important to air their views.
It is reassuring, in some back-handed kind of way, to see these folks waving signs and stomping their feet. In nearly every major city across the country, and many small towns as well, people marched in the streets, demanding change. They are correct in their fears. In just 90 days the current administration has quadrupled our national debt. We have created a legacy of debt, the manifestation of unbridled corruption and greed, to hand down to our children and grandchildren. It leaves no room for whatever national or international emergencies that may arise between now and forever. For every American who took to the streets on Wednesday, at the very least, you can tell your heirs that you tried. That you didn’t just leave your head in the sand…that you finally stopped assuming someone else would fix it…that in a moment of clarity, you decided to take action.
We can also be grateful for the unintended consequence of the national Tea Party. Anyone on the planet who may have had any remaining doubt regarding the flagrant bias of the overwhelmingly liberal media in this country, should be able to put that argument to rest. Rumors are reported as fact, innuendo reported as theory. Fox News orchestrated the Tea Party? Laughable. The “hard-right” are a bunch of Timothy McVeigh’s, waiting to blow up buildings, using their election loss as a foundation for some kind of military coup? It is remarkable isn’t it? All the protests under President Bush, over the war, over the NSA, over everything, basically, touted by the press then as being “patriotic dissent”. Now? Not patriotism this time, just a bunch of conservative nuts.
Most fascinating about the news coverage of this event, is that not a single reporter from anywhere besides Fox considered the crazy possibility that maybe…just maybe…people are just simply fed up. Working families clipping coupons to buy groceries, forgoing simple pleasures like movies with the kids or pizza night, while our government spends us into oblivion, not only showing no restraint, but a recklessness that is truly frightening. Bending over backwards to give our earned money to non-citizens who do nothing but take from this country. No longer happy with 40% of our paycheck, they want more than half now. They tease us with the idea of a $400.00 tax rebate, while legislating the death and estate taxes in such a way that most people will lose everything they’ve worked their lives for when they die. Hand it down to your children? I don’t think so. Uncle Sam needs it to buy shoes for the Juarez family.
Note to CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and all the others. See ya later. This wasn’t a one-day stand. It’s the beginning of something bigger, I believe. People are realizing that we are no longer free, and we have an administration that wants to take away what little is left. Working half of every week for the government, is not freedom. It’s not even close. And it certainly is not what our forefathers had in mind. Thomas Jefferson, I suspect, took a brief respite from spinning in his grave, to smile just a bit, no doubt flattered that all these years later, the scent of tea was in the air, once again.