Courage to do the right thing. Not the possible thing.

Sometimes a man just has to stand up and do what's right. Not to do what he thinks he can get done in the present. Not the path of least resistance. Not the politically expedient thing. Not the big compromise. Just stand up for what's right, and fight for it. Make a stand and take it to the people. Damn the consequences.

I was thinking about a man of just such convictions the other day. He's forgotten for the most part these days, but he left an irreversible mark on history during his lifetime. I'm thinking about a man named Hubert Horatio Humphrey.

I got to remembering him when I had my flabby ass on the treadmill at the gym. After I turned off the tv in front of me, with the obligatory Faux News on, I pulled out the e-reader my lovely wife bought for my birthday, and opened up a book by one of the most inspirational men I've ever listened to. It was "Moyers On Democracy", a collection of some of his speeches over the years. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Moyers calls Humphrey's speech at the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the first thunderclap of the coming storm that was going to reverberate across America. The South had change little since the Civil War. Institutionalized racism was the rule of law in the South. Lynchings were still commonplace. I still remember hitch hiking through the Carolina's in 1972, and still seeing billboards along the highway, advertising for the Ku Klux Klan.

In July, 1948, the Republicans had just nominated Thomas Dewey for President. Truman was foundering. Earlier in 1948, Truman had demanded that Congress pass strong civil rights legislation, but he was backing down because Dems in Congress were afraid of pissing off the South, and kill Truman's slight chance to win the election. The last thing they wanted was a big divisive fight on the convention floor. Especially since this was the first time a convention would be televised. The party leaders backed away from a strong civil rights plank, and instead wanted to offer something more acceptable to the South.

Humphrey, the 37 year old Mayor of Minneapolis disagreed. Strongly.

After graduating magna cum laude at the University of Minnesota, Humphrey and his wife went to Louisiana to earn his Masters Degree. They were shocked at the "daily deplorable indignities" heaped upon blacks in the South. These experiences shaped his future views on racial relations in America. He returned to Minneapolis and was elected Mayor on his second bid. Under his leadership, the city formed the first enforceable Municipal Fair Employment Practices Commission. He sent 600 volunteers door to door, and to businesses, schools, and churches to expose discrimination previously ignored. They exposed discrimination against Indians, Jews, and Blacks. He established a human relations course for police officers.

"What Hubert Humphrey preached about civil rights, he practiced. And what he practiced, He preached".

He arrived at the 1948 Convention as a spokesman for the liberal wing of the party, and was named to the Platform Committee. After a ferocious fight the Committee voted down a strong civil rights plank, in favor of a weaker one, inoffensive to the South, and supported by the Truman White House.

"Humphrey agonized over what to do. Should he defy his party, and carry the fight to a showdown on the convention floor? The leadership of the Democratic Party said no. "Who does this little pip squeak think he is"?, asked one powerful Democrat. Truman refered to him as "one of those crackpots", who couldn't possibly understand what would happen if the South left the party. If Humphrey forced the convention to amend the platform in favor of a stronger civil rights plank, the delegates might refuse, not only setting back the fledgling civil rights movement, but making a laughingstock of Hubert Humphrey, and spoiling his own race for the Senate later that year. On the other hand, if he took the fight to the floor and won, the southern delegates might walk out, and cost Harry Truman the Presidency."

Humphrey, in his diary, said the decision should have been easy. His plank was both morally and politically right and it would have "grave repercussions on our lives". It would make many people political outcasts and it could have ended his career in politics and public service.

He didn't want to split the party. He didn't want his career to end, as he called it, "from Mayor, to pipsqueak, to oblivion". But, he also understood that he had to make a clear cut commitment to civil rights.

This was "radical" back in 1948. The plank read "We call upon Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental rights: 1) The right of full and equal political participation. 2) The right to equal opportunity of employment. 3) The right of security of person. 4) The right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation."

Really radical stuff there. The South was a different country back then. It still is in many ways. South of the Mason-Dixon line, or as some blacks called it back then, The Smith-Wesson line, segregation was the law of the land. Upheld, and protected by violence, whether necessary or not.

Humphrey knew he would be strongly opposed. But, he said that Southern Whites needed to hear his words as much as Southern Blacks. He had a reputation for giving many long winded speeches. Moyers said that when God passed out glands, Hubert got two helpings. He set records for subjects he could approach simultaneously with an open mouth. This one took less than ten minutes. His conscience took over. He knew that the way to get ahead was not to go against your party. He decided to appeal to the best instinct in man, instead of basest instinct.

"To those who say we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say we are 172 years late". "For those who say this is an infringement on states rights, I say this, the time in America has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states rights, and to walk forthrightly in the bright sunlight of human rights".

When he finished, there was a deafening roar. Delegates cheered and shouted. A 40 piece band marched the aisles, playing. Order was only restored when Sam Rayburn ordered all the lights dimmed. The delegates overruled the Platform Committee by a wide margin.

Mississippi's entire delegation walked out along with half of Alabama's. They moved on to form the Dixiecrat Party, with a platform for "segregation, and racial integrity". They nominated Strom Thurmond for President, and he carried South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

Even by losing the South, Humphrey so energized the Democratic Party, that Truman won the election, which he was supposed to lose badly.

What Hubert Humphrey teaches us, is what real leadership and vision can accomplish. You don't have to compromise your morals to get support from the amoral. Why do we have to kow-tow to racists, corporatists, and criminals to get their support.

If you make a stand on moral principal, the people will back you all the way. Even if it's not the most politically expedient thing to do. Their talking heads and apologists, and various corporate subversives might say nasty things about you. Make up lies, or even make jokes about you. But, when you want to do what's right. Take it to the people, and they'll have your back.

First post

I was sitting here thinking about what my first post should be about. The Banksters? Health Care reform? The war(s)?

But, then I ran across a post by mari333 at Democratic Underground, which captured most of my feelings, but expressed much better. She kindly gave me permission to repost it here.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Dear Mr. Obama,
It is late at night, I cannot sleep, and I decided to write you a letter.
I have been meaning to write you a letter for quite a while, but have been putting it off, waiting for some miracle to occur that might, just for a moment, stop me.
I have been waiting for something tangible to occur, anything, that might , just for a moment, make me smile.
Alas, my dear Mr. Obama, I can no longer wait. This is the first, and probably the last letter I will write to you in my lifetime.
It is a Hail Mary pass. It is a letter that will not be written all that well, because it is late, and I am tired.
Well, let me start my letter.
I am a woman who lives in the United States. I was born in Gary Indiana, in 1951. My father was a union man, a railroad engineer, and my mother was a housewife.
My dad worked every day, sometimes two shifts, to make ends meet. He had been a tailgunner in WW2 and suffered shell shock after the war. He flew missions over Italy.
I grew up in a family of 6 children, and we were not wealthy, nor were we poor. We always had food on our table, and a garden, and both of my parents worked very hard to make sure of that.
I grew up when there were small businesses in my hometown. Mom and Pop stores where you could go to buy your bread or milk, shoe repair shops, butcher shops and five and dime stores.
People had hope.
The men had come home from the wars ready to start over.
The GI bill provided them with work. We had been through a great depression, a great war, it was time to create a new vision of what the USA could be.

But, as with many nations throughout history, we chose poorly.
Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex.
We had a choice , after the war, to become a nation of peace and prosperity.
We , instead, chose to feed a war machine that to this day is destroying this country, and will continue to destroy it.

I grew up and watched the Joe McCarthy's of this world try to destroy the Constitution, and I grew up watching the Vietnam war unfold as the cold war gripped the nation.
I recall in great detail the never ending pounding of propaganda as we were warned of far off communists and evildoers who were ready to murder us in our beds .
I cringed under my desk at school, assured that nuclear bombs would hit us at anytime.

Of course, I did not know at the time, what propaganda was. I was a child. I did not realize that people like Goebbels and men of history have propped up and justified their wars using propaganda and outright lies to gain power, money, and prestige.

I suppose it took Vietnam to wake me up, and wake us all up, indeed, to the lies and deceit that we were listening to. The war machine of the United States, evidently, had been going on for quite some time, and did not want to give up it's lucrative holdings, business, chemical companies, defense contracts, and anything else that fed the coffers of those who demanded it.

Generals, commanders, and the powerful men who ran this machine were not going to give it up.
They sent memos to us about how wonderful the war was going in Vietnam, we heard the sound bytes and yet, thanks to a free and unfettered press, we were allowed to see the truth.

The outcry was immense. 58,000 young soldiers dead, for no reason whatsoever. 58,000 sons of mothers and fathers who went to a battle for nothing.

Well, Mr. Obama, here we are.

I am almost 60 years old, I am at the beginning of the end of my life in the United States.
I voted for you, now, ask me why.
Okay, I will tell you why.
When Mr Gore was handed his ass on a plate by the Supreme Court of the United States, and George Bush became president, I was on the front lines in DC protesting that.
When George Bush decided to invade Iraq, with his PNAC friends, I was on the front lines, right from the beginning, well read and well researched , knowing their intentions, knowing their need to secure the oil fields of Iraq to acquire lucrative contracts for large corporations.

Mr. Bush started a war, Mr. Obama, that was illegal, and he has yet to be investigated.

Mr. Bush allowed the United States to torture and hold people without due process, Mr. Obama, and his administration is not being investigated.

Mr. Obama, I watched when President Reagan destroyed the unions of this country. I watched when he lied through his teeth and told the U.S. public that huge tax breaks to corporations would mean more jobs for workers. Instead, corporations fled the country with their new money, and set up factories in China, Mexico, India, and anywhere else where they could find the cheapest labour possible.

I watched President Clinton accede to NAFTA, and further destroy the working class of the USA. I saw him accede to republican welfare to work programs, which were a disaster, and threw even more people into the streets then Reagan had done when he cut social services to the poor and dispossesed , creating a homeless problem we have to this day.

I watched as Clinton signed DOMA into law to deny civil rights to hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens.

So, why did I vote for you? Lets face it, Mr. Obama, George Bush did not set the bar very high.

I was marching, back in 1970, against the Vietnam war. I marched for civil rights, and for women's rights.

I guess my mistake was, and is, that I am an idealist. I wanted to believe that you and yours were intent upon rectifying the past . I wanted to believe, that, finally, the United States of America would actually become that peaceful and prosperous nation it could be.

Where everyone had a chance. Where people could form healthy strong unions, where corporations did not have a chance to sway politicians to vote in favour of their policies by showering them with gifts and money. Where children had access to free education, where people had access to a public option for health care, where gay folks could be considered free and EQUAL citizens of this country with the same rights as everyone else.

I had hoped we would not be a nation where our vision was to occupy other nations and force our power on them.

We are not stupid out here, Mr. Obama. Many of us are well aware of the Oil pipeline routes through Afghanistan, the need to secure those places to protect the flow of oil. We are very well aware that this is not at all a 'war on terror', as you and your predecessor put it.
We are not swayed by that line of propaganda, we heard that same drumbeat during Vietnam, and we are actually amazed that you think we would buy it now.

I watched my stepson go to Iraq, I saw it destroy his father. My husband died out of grief and sorrow knowing his son was there. He could not bear it.

I watch my grown children now, bright, intelligent young men and women who cannot find jobs to feed their family. I have dipped into my retirement savings to help them.

I have watched my friends, who cannot afford health insurance, suffer needlessly.

I do not think , Mr. Obama, you have a clue as to what is going on in the rest of the United States. I do not think that the politicians in the beltway of DC have ever tried to live on 7.25 an hour, or had to choose between medicine and food, or watched their children cry in hunger.

I have not seen you demand that corporations quit outsourcing jobs.

I have not seen you stand up and demand that George Bush and his administration be held accountable for what I consider war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

I have not seen you demand that lobbyists are thrown out of DC.

I have seen today you are asking for 33 billion dollars more for war, however.

I have seen you bail out Wall Street Banks and not demand an ounce of accountability from them, or demand regulations be placed on them.

I have actually not seen you do much of anything this year, except continue the same policies as the Bush administration, surrounded by many of his people, and a lot of DLC pundits who are beholden to corporations and the malfeseance surrounding them.

I really wanted to believe in you, Mr. Obama. I was foolish. I had a modicum of hope, anyway.

I am now at a point where, with what little time I have left in this United States I have called my home all these years, I am giving up on hope.

I wish I didnt have to, for the sake of my children, and my grandson.

I suppose, Mr. Obama, that hurts the worst.
That my grandson will have no hope in this country.

Thank you for listening, Mr. Obama. That is, if you ever get this letter.