Marijuana Tax Stamps

Posts Tagged ‘Rights’

Obama Administration lawyers are likely still scratching their heads over how to respond to an extraordinary ruling in San Francisco. Last week, the chief judge of one of America’s most prominent federal courts ordered an Executive Branch agency to stop interfering with a court employee’s efforts to secure health insurance coverage for her wife. “The Office of Personnel Management shall cease at once its interference with the jurisdiction of this tribunal,” wrote Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. He gave the Administration 30 days to permit Karen Golinski, a lawyer employed by the Ninth Circuit, to include the woman she married under California law last year on her family health-insurance plan. “Some branch must have the final say on a law’s meaning. At least as to laws governing judicial employees, that is entirely our duty and our province. We would not be a co-equal branch of government otherwise.” (See a photographic history of the struggle for gay rights in the U.S.)By issuing such a stern challenge to the power of the Executive Branch, Kozinski managed to do what even the most sweeping state-court constitutional decisions on gay marriage have not: put the issue of equal treatment for gays to President Barack Obama in a way he will find hard to ignore. The unusual order is only incidentally about gay rights — the judge sidestepped the constitutional question about gays entirely — and is instead a fiery defense of the rights of the judiciary to manage its own employees. But if the Administration chooses to fight the order, it will have to tread carefully to avoid looking to gay-rights advocates like it is waging war in defense of a statute — the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — that candidate Obama had said should be overturned.Kozinski’s order comes at an interesting time in the Ninth Circuit. It was matched last week by an order by a fellow judge on the appeals court, who ruled that Brad Levenson, a public defender working for the federal courts, was entitled to back pay to cover costs associated with buying separate insurance policies he purchased for Tony Sears, whom he married under California law before last year’s Prop 8 made gay marriage illegal there. That state constitutional amendment will itself be on trial beginning in January, when a U.S. district judge in San Francisco will hold the first federal jury trial on whether the U.S. Constitution requires that gay couples be given the opportunity to be married. As chief judge of the circuit, Kozinski will then almost certainly hear the Prop 8 case when it goes on appeal. (Watch TIME’s video “Gay Marriage in the Heartland.”)Kozinski has been a colorful figure on the federal bench since his 1985 nomination to the powerful Ninth Circuit by Ronald Reagan, who saw him as a conservative corrective to that often liberal-leaning court. He has called efforts to end the death penalty immoral, but has also ruled in ways that spotlight a libertarian, Western view of the law. He was part of a panel of judges that ruled that the Bush Administration crackdown on California’s medical-marijuana laws was unconstitutional, though that was later reversed on appeal. More recently, he has had to apologize for posting sexually explicit images on a private website that was inadvertently made available to the public. He was given a warning by judicial ethics authorities, who found he had not violated any ethics rules. While his orders in the Golinski dispute make clear that the unequal treatment of gays raises significant constitutional questions for him, he did not tip his hand as to how he’d ultimately decide those issues.

Man is a prey to his emotions and untoward situation which many times come to him without a prior notice. He is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune which sometimes cause bad things happen to good people. No criminal is by birth a criminal but it is the circumstances which make him do so. There is a range of biological, psychological, and social causes that affect human behavior. There are many situations under which a person can do things that could be considered as crime. They can do an act or behavior that could violate or breach any rule of political, moral or criminal laws subjected to punishment or public prosecution.

However the law is all essential to maintain peace and order in the society, this is the law that sometimes punishes innocent people only because of this that the accused people find themselves unable to prove their innocence; either due to lack of evidences or due to their ignorance of the particular criminal law. The fact that the law is blind and there are many faults in law also depicts that many times there are different punishments for different people for the same criminal charge. Also there are many criminal charges that present possible punishment ranges of anything from probation to many years or life in prison depending on the severity of charges.

As there is nothing as scary as being charged with a criminal offense, any arrest, criminal charge or even a criminal investigation should be addressed immediately without waiting to see if they go away on their own. When you’re facing criminal charges, you can’t afford to take chances with your defense. With so much at stake â?? your job, your reputation, and also your freedom, you need a criminal defense attorney who could fight for you. Facing criminal charges is an extremely serious situation for a man that could also affect his whole life so it is very important to take professional legal advices to overcome. As every case is unique (depending on the facts of a case), there are a variety of defenses that an individual charged with a crime may have. There are many criminal defense attorneys who provide legal guidance to people who charged with legal offenses.

A Minneapolis criminal attorney is one such person, who can assist you throughout the legal system. While there is never any guarantee as to the outcome of a particular criminal case, skilled representation of Minneapolis criminal lawyer can often help in navigating the legal system, and avoid the pitfalls people without the skill and knowledge of legal system may find themselves faced with.

Intelligent, aggressive, and experienced, Minneapolis criminal defense attorneys possess each and every quality that a professional criminal defense lawyer should have. A Minnesota Criminal Lawyer is your best defense to pot charges against you. Equipped with their research tools they have the expertise to find applicable statutes and case laws to support your case. If necessary, they can even hire a private investigator to gather statements from witnesses, to visit the scene of the crime and to obtain expert opinions.

Ken White is a medical marijuana activist and in this video a law student. Ken White has since become a lawyer and has run for public office. If you are stopped by law enforcement, what do you do? Ken tells Al Olthof and Red your rights to keep the police from terrorizing you into confessing to a crime. Cannabis was made illegal because the paper industry was split between the hemp and the wood pulp factions. The wood pulp people had more money and won, which caused a negative ripple effect in our society such as the loss of a valuable medicine. Since the prohibition of cannabis began the cancer rates have grown at an alarming rate. Cannabis is used for thousands of purposes and it’s loss of use has caused great hardship to everyone. It is time for truth to prevail and prohibition to stop.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

RUBBISH! FREEDOM OF RELIGION ALSO MEANS FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. DO YOU THINK THAT AN ATHEIST COULD BE ELECTED PRESIDENT? BUSHâ??S APPOINTED MINISTER OF JUSTICE FROM THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT HAD A PARTIALLY NUDE STATUE IN THE HALLS OF JUSTICE THAT HAD BEEN THERE FOR GENERATIONS, COVERED UP. CHRISTIAN FAITH ORIENTED SCHOOLD RECEIVE GOVERNMENT FUNDS. WHY WAS STEM CELL INVESTIGATION BANNED? HOW COME THE GOVERNMENT PROSECUTES RELIGIOUS CULTS THAT ARE NO CRAZIER THAN THE FORMAL RELIGIONS?

FREEDOM OF SPEECH? RUBBISH! TRY CALLING SOMEONE A RACIAL NAME. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS SO PREVALENT THAT YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL MAKING A JOKE IN PUBLIC. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SUED FOR MAKING DISPARAGING REMARKS ABOUT THE PRODUCTS IN A SUPERMARKET. NOBODY IS CRIPPLEDâ?¦THEY ARE DISABLED. CANâ??T SAY SALESWOMAN, IT HAS TO BE SALESPERSON. A FEW YEARS AGO REAL ESTATE AGENTS CAME UNDER FIRE FOR ADVERTISING A RESIDENCE AS â??EXCECUTIVEâ? AS IT COULD BE CONSTRUED TO EXCLUDE BLACKS. ALSO THEY WERE ADVISED NOT TO USE THE PHRASE â??WALKâ??IN CLOSETâ? AS IT COULD OFFEND SOMEONE WHO COULDNâ??T WALK. AS SALMAN RUSHDIE QUITE RIGHTLY SAID, â??IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DEFEND THE RIGHT OF PEOPLE TO SAY THINGS THAT YOU PERSONALLY FIND EVEN ABHORRENT, THEN REALLY YOU DONâ??T BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH, YOU ONLY AGREE IN PEOPLEâ??S RIGHT TO AGREE WITH YOU.â?

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS? RUBBISH! HAVE YOU SEEN A SINGLE PHOTO IN THE AMERICAN PRESS OF A DEAD WOMAN OR CHILD IN IRAQ FROM THE THOUSANDS WHO HAVE BEEN KILLED? THE US PAYS PEOPLE TO PUT FAVORABLE ARTICLES IN THE IRAQI NEWSPAPERS AND UNDERREPORTS ANY CIVILIAN CASUALTIES. THEY TAKE AWAY CELLPHONES FROM DOCTORS IN THE HOSPITALS SO THAT THEY ARE UNABLE TO RELAY THE TRUTH. ANY REPORTER WHO IS HONEST ENOUGH TO ASK THE GOVERNMENT EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS WOULD NEVER BE INVITED TO A PRESS CONFERENCE AGAIN. AN INTERNET SITE, â??IF AMERICANS KNEWâ? FOCUSED ON THE DISTORTED NEWS PROVIDED BY AP WHERE IT REPORTED THAT THE NUMBER OF PALISTINIAN CHILDREN KILLED AS 27 WHEN THE TRUE FIGURE WAS 179.

RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE? RUBBISH! IN SOME STATES YOUNG CITIZENS ARE CONFINED TO THEIR HOMES DURING CERTAIN HOURS. GROUPS OF PEOPLE ARE BANNED FROM GATHERING TOGETHER. TO PROTEST ONE NEEDS A LICENCE FROM THE GOVERNMENT OR STAND THE RISK OF BEING ARRESTED.

Amendment II A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

RUBBISH. AFTER HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF ALLOWING CITIZENS TO BEAR ARMS, THE GOVERNMENT IS NOW TRYING TO CONVINCE THE PUBLIC THAT THE INTENTION OF THIS AMMENDMENT WAS THAT ONLY MILITIAS COULD HAVE ARMS.

Amendment III No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

RUBBISH! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE THE OWNER OF PROPERTY? IN ACTUAL FACT YOU RENT YOUR PROPERTY FROM THE GOVERNMENT. THEY DONâ??T CALL IT RENT; THEY CALL IT PROPERTY TAX BUT TRY NOT PAYING IT AND SEE FOR HOW LONG YOU ARE THE OWNER.

Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

RUBBISH! SWAT TEAMS INVADE PEOPLES HOMES REGULARLY SOMETIMES GETTING THE WRONG ADDRESS AND KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE (WHICH THEY NEVER SEEM TO HAVE TO ANSWER FOR). THE POLICE AND VARIOUS OTHER GOVERNMENT ENTITIES CAN STOP AND INVESTIGATE YOU AT ANYTIME WITHOUT ANY TYPE OF WARRANT. IF YOU ARE SUSPECTED OF ANYTHING THE POLICE WILL SEARCH YOU WITHOUT ANY WARRANT AND ANYTHING THEY FIND WILL BE USED AS EVIDENCE AGAINST YOU. IF YOUR CAR IS STOPPED AND THE POLICE SEE A LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY IN IT, THEY WILL CONFISCATE IT.

Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

RUBBISH. IF THE GOVERNMENT LOSES A CASE THEY ARE LIKELY TO RECHARGE YOU WITH THE SAME OFFENCE. OFTEN, AFTER CHARGING YOU WITH A STATE CRIME THEY WILL RECHARGE YOU FOR THE SAME OFFENCE WITH A FEDERAL CRIME. IF YOU OWN A HOUSE, CAR OR BOAT ETC IN WHICH EVEN A TINY AMOUNT OF ILLEGAL DRUGS ARE FOUND, THE GOVERNMENT WILL SEIZE THAT PROPERTY.

Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

RUBBISH! PEOPLE ARE KEPT FOR YEARS WITHOUT A TRIAL AND WITHOUT BEING CHARGED WITH ANY OFFENCE ALA GUANTANAMA BAY. MANY TIMES THE ACCUSED ARE TRANSPORTED OUT OF THE DISTRICT WHERE THE CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED. VERY OFTEN GOVERNMENT WITNESSES ARE NOT AVAILABLE TO THE ACCUSED. AS TO HAVING THE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL, ANYONE WHO HAS INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE US CRIMINAL SYSTEM KNOWS THAT THE PUBLIC DEFENDERS PROVIDED FOR THEM ARE USUALLY TOTALLY USELESS. MANY OF THEM HAVE NEVER BEEN TO TRIAL. THEIR SOLE PURPOSE IS TO PURSUADE THE ACCUSED TO ACCEPT A PLEA BARGAIN FROM THE PROSECUTOR, WHETHER THEY ARE GUILTY OR NOT. THESE LAWYERS ARE COMMONLY KNOWN AS PUBIC DEFENDERS OR PUBLIC PRETENDERS!

Amendment VII In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

RUBBISH! IF A COMPANY IS SUED AND LOSES, THEY WILL APPEAL AND RE-APPEAL AD NAUSIUM.

Amendment VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

RUBBISH! OFTEN AN ORDINARY CITIZEN IS GIVEN BAIL AND FINES FAR IN EXCESS OF THEIR ABILITY TO PAY. MANY TIMES THE REASON GIVEN IS THAT THEY CONSTITUTE A â??FLIGHT RISKâ?. HOWEVER THIS AMENDMENT MAKES NO MENTION OF BEING ALOWED TO USE THAT EXCUSE. IF EXCESSIVE BAIL WAS NOT REQUIRED, WHY ARE THERE HUNDREDS OF BAIL BONDSMEN MAKING MONEY LENDING BAIL MONEY TO THE ACCUSED?

Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

RUBBSIH! TAKE ILLEGAL DRUGS FOR INSTANCE. WHAT BUSINESS OF THE GOVERNMENT IS IT WHAT PEOPLE PUT IN THEIR MOUTHS OR UP THEIR NOSES? IF THEY WISH TO DESTROY THIR LIVES, SURELY IT SHOULD BE THEIR OWN DECISION..

Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

RUBBISH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DICTATES TO THE STATES. TAKE THE SALE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA FOR INSTANCE. SOME STATES ALLOW IT BUT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OVERIDES THEM AND ARRESTS THE SELLERS.

THE NIGHT I LOST A SECOND BROTHER  – WRITTEN APRIL  4, 1968

 

     I finally made friends with a black man at school.  He talks funny not because heâ??s black, but because of a once-broken jaw.  I donâ??t know how his jaw got to be broken.  Sometimes he comes into the office where I work , and when he does, he turns the big standing lamp so that its bulb shines directly into my face.  He wants the lamp to light up the whole room, which he considers smoky and gloomy.  Then he takes off his jacket and hangs it loosely across a chair and sits down and talks politics.

   I never used to be very interested in politics.  When I was about twenty, Kennedy was shot and somebody in the office said â??Iâ??m glad, the bastard.â??That shocked me, because to me Kennedy was almost a brother  — Kennedy was fine and handsome and we laughed at jokes made on records about him, we laughed at the cartoons.  When he died, a long-drawn-out sighing sound seemed to cover the whole nation like a sheet, and suddenly there was a cloud hanging just over my right eyebrow, just hanging there, that wouldnâ??t go away, and I called it politics and tried to remain disinterested, but it was harder after that.

    Charlie yammers constantly about the marijuana problem.  The old jerks who run the country now more or less grew up with the idea that marijuana is bad, that it leads to perversions and the use of really frightening drugs like heroin.  Whatâ??s funny is that practically everyone I know who has used marijuana is smarter, kinder, more open-minded and interesting than anyone who guzzles beer on Saturday nights.  The marijuana user doesnâ??t get a hangover, either.  Yet the old folks are so afraid of it, and frankly, they seem out to punish us who did not endure the Great Depression, the World Wars, and other assorted evils â?? o we who have nice, bright clothes, college classes, and maybe even a second-hand car, and good food anytime we want â?? this gives them unhappy regretful feelings.  We must be punished for our wild and comparatively carefree lives â?? and so here come the men with the truncheons, literally.

  They rounded up twenty-seven just the other night, got them up out of bed and hustled them to jail â?? girls and boys sleepy in the gray fore-dawn, young men and women who had been quietly lying together in the same bed, perhaps, privately and bothering nobody â?? they booked them on morals charges, but what the geezers were really after was the grass  — the marijuana.  They found a little, but most of the kids had to be charged with vagrancy.  After all, you have to charge a kid with something if you haul him off to jail and beat him up a little.  The fact that the kids were vagrant in their own rooms, in their own paid-for beds, the fact that many had jobs and were students, did not make any big impression.  The unfortunates who did not throw their stuff down the toilet fast enough â??if they had any of it â?? must go to trial and try to avoid five years in jail and ten thousand in fines.  If you steal a car, if you beat your child to a bloody pulp, maybe you deserve that kind of treatment.  But for a quiet hour of smoking on your front porch?

 

   It doesnâ??t matter.  Someday we will come to power.  And from my experiences, I can understand a little, therefore, of how black black Charlie must feel.  I wonder how he can come in and yammer to me.  I always wonder if heâ??ll come again and yammer again in his almost unintelligible crisscrossed syllables, the stabbing of his black powdery hand up and down on the desk, telling tales of the FDA and IRS and all those other monolithic triumvirate initialed Powers who rule unseen but with the computerâ??s dreadful nose diving into all our business any old time.

   He talks and I watch fascinated, thinking half the time he talks heâ??s to me a Negro, to others a black man, or a nigger, and Iâ??m actually talking and listening to a black man, and now I can say I know a black man.  But I donâ??t know him.  We meet here to almost spy on each other.  We feel friendly and half-ashamed that color enters our thoughts, and I know they enter his thoughts as well as mine because once he was staring at my hands, and he said they were beautiful hands, regretfully, as though he were ashamed of his own, so that he added  –they should have been black hands : then I could say theyâ??re really beautiful.– 

   He only talked like that once.  But sometimes I have heard him say â??Black is Beautifulâ??  about my fountain pen, or my dress, laughing about it and giggling like an imbecile, really, in his conmingled fierceness and embarrassment.  So he sits across from me and wags his head back and forth while I listen and respond and listen, and weâ??ve got into some roaring arguments that have put both of us at a silent and specially restful ease with each other.  That we can argue gives us hope that we might become friends someday.  Of course, Charlie is my friend.  But because, primarily, he has received the special consideration of his blackness, which made me listen to what he had to say out of curiosity and a paternal, sympathetic  Iâ??m-really-better-than-you-are interior  secret â??  So ! Tell me all about yourself!

   You build up a whole elegant ideal, too: you want to convince him you are the best white person in the world, and at the same time, that ALL white people are like you, so please donâ??t hate us for trampling on you most of your days.  And am I kidding about that?  –What the cops are doing to you kids nowâ??he says â?? they do to us just for kicks.– 

   –Thatâ??s what they do â?? I answer â?? to us, too â?? just for the kicks.â??

    –Remember meâ??I said to him once, half-joking.  â??if I remember you, and you remember me, one or the other of us can help the other sometime.  Like if one of us gets thrown in jail.â??

 – Pooh â?? Charlie said, –Iâ??ll remember you, but you go to jail awhile, thereâ??s not one thing I could do about it.  And you stay there long enough, youâ??ll come out different, and thereâ??s nothing I could do about that, neither.â??

   –You mean â?? I said â??if you get put in jailâ??

 –Anybody â?? he said â??punish them enough, and youâ??ll turn a puppy into a weasel.  First thing Iâ??d do is let everybody out of jail and start fixing the mental hospitals so they can take the killers and treat them and all.â??

   Our new President lied on several occasions â?? surely other presidents have lied â?? but not with so many fine communications and so many educated people.  The old words donâ??t fit together right.  They call it a credibility gap, but the president and his top men, in short, lied to us, and in doing so, made it very hard for us to trust them.  Which forces the old folks to fall back on blind faith â?? that our President didnâ??t mean to lie â?? that lies were necessary because we canâ??t be told the whole truth, because we have no right to know absolutely everything.  And so on.

  Yet all the time, itâ??s 1984, Orwellâ??s misery-chant and that regimented life closing in on us, like some disease affecting the heart, which then spreads to the bones and muscles, until it reaches the very will to live.  The manipulation of our lives by the Grand Puppeteers: so it spreads.    It is a leprous horror, with grotesque forces in play against each other: the war that destroys better jobs, better education, better homes, in favor of slaying our bright youth in muddy rice-paddies for stinking ideals out of date and guaranteeing the squaring off of black and white against each other at home.  They crash together, and begin to burn our cities.  That is not quite how our situation is described in the news stories.  The news stories speak of riots, looting, and fires, and predict more for the coming summer.  But all this long winter of our discontent, the burning brand smoldered. 

   I distrust our lives held in the good hands of big business, of state-run schools where kids are marched from grade to grade as illiterate as at first.  A man lives in a five-room walk-up flat, works hard at menial labor all his life, sends his six kids all to school and watches them grow up, despised by themselves and by the affluent whites, or the affluent blacks even, he watches them grow up and begin the same dreary life he had striven through in order to give them a better one.  The cycle, repeated over and over: only the hideous flat remains unchanged, until itâ??s knocked down one day by bulldozers and machinery, and $200 â??middle classâ? apartments are raised in its stead, and the old man moves into a three-room flat in an unrazed, uncondemned, but even more despicable tenement than he had before.  His children are grown: they produce children, and hate and despair grow up with them.

   Charlie grins.  Behind his grin maybe he would after all not mind killing me.  I would almost not blame him.  When the big-earlobed President said — we are going to have peace talks, and I am not going to run for President —  I thought — at last, I can relax a while!  I can stop writing letters and carrying a picket sign for peace, and I can stop ruining days and nights arguing about the war, about its immorality. The negroes next, but first, just let me relax.  It was the slimmest, shiniest glimmer of hope, and the whole world seemed to relax as if a tourniquet had finally been placed over a mortal wound.  â??Now just for awhile Iâ??ll go to parties and stuffâ??I thought. â??Iâ??m young, and want to have some fun, too.â??

    Vague in my mind was the threat of black rioting to come again this summer: but just for now, for a few hours, I walked down the street with my husband â?? he had been the first man I loved, and he could have been the only man I loved , but for a twist of fate.  Tonight we hoped to be entertained, but the first movie was worthless.  The second was better: I began to forget about all the troubles out there, felt it all slipping away.  We laughed.  We forgot for awhileâ?¦

   I was working as a volunteer on an underground newspaper, because of all the fear I had, and some of the things Iâ??d seen the police doing.  The police, my friends: a very kind policeman had pushed my little car to get it started.  He dented his own carâ??s fender to give me that push.  He was a very fine man and a very fine policeman.  But later the same policeman saw me marching for peace with some hippies, and thought it was okay to pull my hair as I walked past him.  What could I do? If I stopped and protested, I could have been arrested.  You keep on walking and wonder if being white has any advantages after all.  I was not a White Racist, and therefore, I had no white rights. 

   Martin Luther King, who is for non-violence, and the last black man the militants want around when they are chanting burn, baby, burn, is still listened to.   He has been leading marches for years, and has been in jail for it.  Martin Luther King has a very round face, heâ??s very Negroid, yet whitish enough that he can command respectability on all fronts, including among all the old darkies.  He is planning a march, and there will be demonstrations, because an advanced version of President Kennedyâ??s Civil Rights bill is once more before Congress, there on that high green hill where beauty abounds.  Jack Kennedy, your  body is not far away:  you overlook many graves, as Lincolnâ??s statue and Washingtonâ??s memorial must look upon you.  And you would have thrilled at Martin Luther kingâ??s words: the bill must pass, that people might see that  non-violent means in the form of peaceful petition can also be heard, can be better heard, than the rampages that caused the destruction of Watts, of Chicago, of Detroit, of Birmingham and Selma and L.A. and Houston and Jacksonville.

   My husband had never met Charlie, so I was going to introduce them, but when Charlie saw me, he spat.  He spat between my feet, accurately putting with that slab of foaming liquid a message of hate and disgust, and I looked up startled at him, but he was stalking past us and I was ashamed to say, –Thatâ??s Charlie, honey, and I wanted you to meet him.â??

   I couldnâ??t understand, even when I heard the sirens wailing, and it was only later when we got home, that I heard a sniper had killed gentle Martin L. King.

—————-Judyth Vary Baker———————–

   Martin Luther King died April 4th, 1968, due to an assassinâ??s bullet that was probably not fired by James Earl Ray. The true assassin was never captured: a court trial, decades later, proved both facts to the King family and to the jury that exonerated Ray.  Most people donâ??t know that.  And most people donâ??t know that just one week after Kingâ??s murder, on April 11, 1968, President Johnson signed the expanded Civil Rights Act King died for, after a week of rioting throughout America.