This is not an attempt to twine the legacies of investigative reporter Jack Anderson and civil rights activist Martin Luther King. Nor is it an attempt to enshrine them in some sort of homage to human perfection. They had warts as all of us do. But, more often than not, especially so in regards to King, they chose the path of moral righteousness in their efforts to engender and maintain democracy in America.
Anderson recently died. In reading the various articles of his passing, this stood out:
“Anderson’s work enraged those in power. President Nixon tried to smear him as a homosexual, the CIA was ordered to spy on him and, according to the Watergate tapes, a Nixon aide ordered two cohorts to try to kill the journalist by poisoning. His tax returns were frequently audited by the IRS.”
No, the passage above isn’t pertaining to past or present day Russia, Mexico, Iraq or any number of South American countries where speaking or writing truth to the various forms of power can and does have life or death consequences. This was the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
And for those weepy uber-Nixonites who snarled at and smeared Mark Felt upon his recent admission as Deep Throat, well, just recall your Gestapo actions and fascist antics. You didn’t care about democracy–it was superseded by a pathetic quest for power and the consideration and use of any and all immoral acts to gain and retain dominion. Contritely and mutely parading around the rest of your lives in sackcloth and ashes is what you should be doing rather than bleating about the good old days and how nefarious Felt was in his duties. Keep dodging any and all mirrors.
Now, consider the following appalling tactics employed by those sworn to uphold the United States Constitution. Actions against someone who was simply attempting to get local, regional, state and national levels of government to fulfill the various promises of democracy being denied to millions of United States citizens. The FBI tracked, taped and videoed Martin Luther King in an effort to turn him away from his mission of civil rights for all.
Just imagine what these degenerates would have done to Jesus if given the opportunity!
King apparently was ‘captured’ failing to maintain marital fidelity. The FBI sent such documentation to both King and his wife, along with a note intimating that it would be best for King to commit suicide or his infidelity would be widely disseminated.
But there’s more. From the Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book III, Final Report, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, United States Senate, April 23, 1976:
“The FBI campaign to discredit and destroy Dr. King was marked by extreme personal vindictiveness. As early as 1962, Director Hoover penned on an FBI memorandum, “King is no good.” At the August 1963 March on Washington, Dr. King told the country of his dream that “all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I’m free at last.”‘ The FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division described this “demagogic speech” as yet more evidence that Dr. King was “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.'”
and
“No holds were barred. We have used [similar] techniques against Soviet agents. [The same methods were] brought home against any organization against which we were targeted. We did not differentiate. This is a rough, tough business.”
Was the FBI investigating a crime? No. Was the FBI investigating someone advocating violence? No. There was concern that King had ties to communism but the government report says this:
In any event, the FBI has stated that at no time did it have any evidence that Dr. King himself was a communist or connected with the Communist Party. Dr. King repeatedly criticized Marxist philosophies in his writing and speeches. The present Deputy Associate Director of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division, when asked by the Committee if the FBI ever concluded that Dr. King was a communist, testified, “No, sir, we did not.”
Yes, terrorism is real and there are and have been viable threats to this country. But all of the above is but additional perverse evidence of why we must implement a system of checks and balances in this country.Time, money and effort is spent investigating such fluff as gay kiss-ins and Quaker meetings, harassing and threatening a righteous individual seeking inclusionary democracy or a muckraking journalist while real terrorists are receiving flight training and being armed with horrific weapons. And security experts such as Richard Clarke and FBI agents like Colleen Rowley are ostracized for trying to bring attention to the actual threats.
This is the ignored but real pornography and actual debauchery that has and is harming this country–the vileness and rot coming from the inside. The law-and-order purveyors of yesterday and unfortunately today who desecrate our ideals, destroy our democracy and subvert our constitution in order to ‘save’ it.