MLK's birthday should be more than another day off

On Monday, millions of school children across the country will get a day off to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. While it is certainly right that we should pause to honor Dr. King, I think his birthday should represent more than just another day off. To truly honor the man, we should use the day to learn more about him and to put his guiding principles of non-violence into practice.
   There can be no denying that what King accomplished in just a dozen years was monumental. In that short time, he rose up and challenged the system of "separate but equal" legal segregation that had been in place for almost a century. Through his advocacy of non-violent civil disobedience, he broke the back of that corrupt system and shepherded through both the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Those two pieces of legislation finally made "Jim Crow" illegal and ushered in a new era of equality that had been unimaginable just a few years before. Clearly, he is a modern-day hero worthy of being celebrated.
   But the King that we celebrate today is far different than the real man. Today, he has become more myth than man. We regard him as some kind of modern saint, someone who spoke beautifully and lived some kind of blameless life. But did you know that King originally didn't even want to lead the Civil Rights movement? He tried to back out of organizing the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott that brought him to national prominence. Did you know that he was a bit of a womanizer who cheated on his wife, Coretta?
   King hardly was a saint. He was a man with his doubts and his human failings. He also was a man with extraordinary gifts of oratory and leadership, someone who stepped into a movement that was hungry  for a leader, who was in the right place at the right time.
    It's easy to raise King to the level of sainthood. What he accomplished was extraordinary, and he did die too young. One can only wonder what might have happened if he had survived. One wonders what he would have thought of everything that has happened since, what message he might have for us today. But to truly honor him, we need to put an end to Martin Luther King Jr. the Myth and learn about Martin Luther King Jr -- the Man. He wasn't a modern-day saint. He was an ordinary  man, one with both extraordinary gifts and ordinary flaws. It's those flaws -- the fact that he was just an ordinary man -- that make what he accomplished so very extraordinary.
   To honor the man, we also should put his principles of non-violent civil disobedience into practice, not just on his birthday, but every day. King accomplished a great deal, but there are many issues today that he could never have imagined. It's those issues -- the continued presence of racism and issues of racial profiling, among others -- that could benefit from King's non-violent philosophy.
    Dr. Martin Luther King was a great American, one worthy of our respect and honor. But we do him a disservice when we ignore the realities of his struggle in favor of perpetuating the modern-day myth.

Catching up on the latest happenings in Washington and elsewhere

   It's been awhile since I've updated this blog, so there's a lot that's happened that bears comment. Let's start with the biggest and most obvious:

Midterm elections: It was with real dismay that I viewed the victory of Republicans in recent midterm elections. Have we forgotten what a disaster it was the last time Republicans controlled both houses of Congress? In 1994, we witnessed the "Republican Revolution" led by Newt Gingrich. What followed was 20 years of incompetence that saw us engage in a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the passage of the USA Patriot Act, which gave our government unprecedented power, the detainment and torture of hundreds of inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the wiretapping of our own citizens and economic disaster. It was the Republicans who led the last government shutdown. And now, we want to put them in charge again? Oh, brother.
   If Republicans have proven one thing, it's that they don't know how to govern. They are flat out incapable of it. Of course, it's not like the Democrats have done much better while in charge. One thing we can look forward to now, though, is a long two years for President Obama. If he thought he had a hard time passing legislation before, now he's going to find it almost impossible, as Republicans gear up for the presidential election in 2016.
   Personally, it makes me nervous when one party controls Congress. I don't like it when one party runs everything. As painful as it is to watch, it's always better when we have a split Congress. It means that both parties get a voice. It means neither party gets everything it wants. Both parties are forced to compromise, and we get better legislation as a result. It's going to be a long two years.
Hillary Clinton: The former first lady, New York senator and Secretary of State made news again recently, and it wasn't just a possible 2016 presidential candidate. In a speech last month at Georgetown University, Clinton suggested that we should (gasp) try to understand our enemies. The outcry from the Right was predictable, but you know what? She was absolutely right.
   If we are going to continue to wage the doomed "War on Terror," the least we could do is try and understand our enemies. Specifically, we need a reality check on why they hate us so much. And make no mistake. In much of the world, we are not "the White Knight," always on the right side of every issue. In much of the world, we are "the Great Satan."
   Here's a dose of reality. The "War on Terror" is doomed to failure, just like the "War on Drugs" before it and Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty." Why? Because we are not fighting a traditional war against a traditional enemy. We are waging war on a philosophy. The people we're fighting are fanatics who are willing to die for their cause. And for every terrorist we kill, for every terrorist leader we capture or take out of commission, there are 10 more ready to take their place.
   Here's another dose of reality: Our foreign policy does not happen in a vacuum. The actions we take on the world stage do have real-world consequences. Does that excuse the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001? Of course not. Nothing can ever excuse that type of violence. But it's high time we stopped holding ourselves blameless for what happened on Sept. 11. The 19 terrorists who attacked us had their reasons. They were twisted and wrong, yes. But they had their reasons.
Mary Landrieu: A little closer to home, Louisiana voters made a big mistake when they voted to send Mary Landrieu home after 18 years in the U.S. Senate. Landrieu wasn't perfect. But she was the victim of a negative campaign that was full of outright falsehoods. "Mary Landrieu is working against us?" Hardly. Did she support her party line most of the time? Of course, as does every politician. But Landrieu was notable for bucking her party on many issues and voting as her constituents would have her vote. She was hardly a "Nancy Pelosi liberal." She was, in fact, a conservative Democrat. And she was a senator who had slowly worked her way up the ranks into some fairly influential positions. If she had been allowed to stay, who knows how far she might have gone? Without a doubt, she could have proven a real boon to our state. And now we have to start over at the bottom of the ladder with a junior senator who has hardly distinguished himself during his time in Congress.
   It's not a surprise that Bill Cassidy won. Louisiana has been trending Republican for years, and it's really more of a surprise that Landrieu was allowed to stay for so long. But in the long run, I think we're going to miss Mary Landrieu. I think we're going to miss the benefits she could have brought home to Louisiana. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.