Hey bebes, it’s still here. MLK EDITION FOR YOU!

SHREDITORIAL 4

HAPPY MLK DAY

So……here we are in 2010 on MLK day. Alright, we got a healthcare debate being viscously and luxuriously moralized (what’s your penis’ stance on abortion?). We have ideologues worrying about some bizarre meta-constituency they “represent” so they can feel good about themselves at night, we got Haiti happening, and Congress shit the bed on T.V. all day.

Loose and wild: Fucking in every room of the house.

Throughout the Dubs (00s), we had our tongues ripped from our brains and had to learn baby talk, and now we are angsty meta-teens trying to solve real problems that affect real people from a clique standpoint a.k.a. ego factions that are scared of fighting. So, Forever Young asked me to write something for MLK day, so I’m going to.

Loose and wild: Fucking in every room of the house.

Great men like MLK get marginalized from our minds and lives because they did something “great that I can’t do” or something “isolated to a time or field of study.” Or because arming people with excellent talking points that accomplish goals in a non-violent fashion would TOTALLY fuck up the power structure even in your social circle.

Well, fuck that, I’d rather take existential advice from MLK than the newest leather clad bourgeoisie passive hate machine who’s on my low, low, level because I secretly hate myself and don’t want to take responsibility in regards to utilizing the arbitrary delegation of my existence. Whoo. I’m going to pick apart “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” and see if it relates to anything in the lives of me, my friends, or family. Let’s see:

Here’s a link to it: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

So, if we live in post-racial America for real, I suppose we could re-read MLK’s letter in terms of general interpersonal relationships, or like, human dignity, and not just think that the letter only applies to the Civil Rights Movement from a period of history more interesting than our own. In fact, now might be more interesting because the problems are harder to articulate than: “all people are equal, duh.”

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Alright, it’s so like Avatar. So, maybe like, in my life, things that I do or indirectly do by doing NOTHING, will affect people. So, maybe I should be aware of how my actions, or silence, could perpetuate either good vibes, or bad vibes in the lives of people I care about. Alright, so it’s like living outside myself. Wait, I thought that was uncool? Oh, wait, it’s only uncool if it bums people out, or rocks the dreamboat.

“Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.”

You trying to tell me that people wouldn’t want to actually talk something out and would rather just try to be right by being louder? Now that you mention it, I notice that on the news, and in my social life! Talking always derails the gravy train!

“I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Duh, people have been telling me that since I was a kid. And…..uh….I really believe it? I feel weird in my chest….shit….who wants to party?!

“An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal.”

But what about my 21st Century Divine Right of Kings’ slippery slope argument!? What about gay animal socialists getting married on the steps of Congress?! What about evil people lying to insurance companies about preexisting conditions like “getting sick?” What about socializing health care instead of just making that illegal?

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Yep. And then he talks about “negative peace.” That seems pretty relevant today. And all this time I thought homeless people were just lazy because I hate being uncomfortable. I thought what we all had in common was the slithering cynicism that comes with getting older because all those ideals we had are just ironic now because we betray them all the time, because they aren’t practical, because we made shitty decisions.

“Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.”

Woah, slow down Einstein. You know I hate using my brain to confront myself!

“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

Human dignity? How can I even TALK about that? Bonerkill! You can’t quantify that, so I can ignore it. It must just be some lofty ideal. Everyone knows that part of being alive is surrendering your OWN human dignity so you can speciously leach it off other humans like a psychic vampire. You just half-ass your friends to keep the game board set in your favor. It’s like playing chess with death in your own movie where you are the hero no mater what! Oh yeah, “negative peace!” Now I get it!

“I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?”

Man, this guy sounds real high maintenance. They had to give him his own room in a private jail just to write a letter. I bet talking to him would have been exhaustive cuz he like, really would’ve talked to you and stuff, like as a human and not just a projection of purchased “values” and “attitudes.” So uncool.

Well, I GUESS MLK is still relevant today. It’s funny that you would have to go back in time to seek solace in human beings talking, acting, and arguing for people acting like human beings and not bizarre post-human ideologues on a bourgeoisie crusade for wrist-cutting Caligulan consistency.

Consolidated media, go figure.

MLK was a grown ass man. He lived once, just like all of us.

Even the Devil Himself stole my mother’s puppy the day he got shot.

Hope I said, “fuck” enough to hold your attention,

Daniel Pujol