Your Email:

Subject:

Message:
Entry: Down the Memory Hole Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/down_the_memory_hole#29827 Post contents: In response to Ploni Almoni's comment about the harmlessness of having neocons turn MLK into an American saint, whom we can now celebrate because the actual historical figure has been safely reconstructed, unfortunately things don't work that way. First off, King, who sounded much like Michelle Obama, was too radical a black reformer to be plausibly transformed into the wimpy centrist that the neocons have created. His written record, on affirmative action, reparations,and his general revulsion for the American white past stands as testimony to the incompatibility between what he wanted and what the neocons intend to make of him. Second, when the neocons start sermonizing about King, they soon start sounding like Sharpton, by dwelling fitfully on how racist this country was before the black savior came along. King hagiography is not of the innocent kind, like telling kids that Washington never told a lie. It is more of a revolutionary myth, like the cult of Lenin that operated in Communist countries. Sent at: 2008 12 02