Can Obama dare promise an America envisioned by King?

Can Obama dare promise an America envisioned by King?

EDITOR:

Forty years ago a leader rose from the black community and declared that he had seen “the promised land.” The land he saw was America. Not the America of his time, but an America where all men are created equal and will be judged, “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Since his death, most white Americans have heeded his call and strove to make his vision and America’s promise a reality. But what have black Americans done?

The character of the black community has fallen into a subculture of moral and economic decay. Too many African-Americans abandon school for the illusion of freedom only to discover the tyranny of poverty. Young girls have babies, not in a union sanctioned by God, but in the arms of transient lovers. Fathers too quickly abandon their children to the welfare state. And the music of the inner city reeks of bravado, self-hatred, disrespect and repression.

Black leaders have too often handicapped the minds of their followers with messages of hated and paranoid. They demand reparations, affirmative action, political correctness and a perpetual fount of welfare entitlements. Liberal politicians eager to buy black votes feed off their messages of oppression and victimization. A generation of African-Americans has been thrown to the wolves so that a generation of liberal leaders can feast on their bones.

Now a new leader emerges, Barack Obama. But he carries with him a checkered past: the likes of Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers. They are the products of a racist past. Their experience taints their rhetoric. Yet, it is not that their rants are without validity. It is that that their rants are without solutions. It is not enough for Barack to just renounce the rhetoric or distance himself from the orator. He must eloquently instruct his followers that the rhetoric and the orators are wrong. But to do that, he must believe they are wrong.

America is a great county, not because it is free of racism but because it has torn down the obstacles to the success of black Americans that were erected by its racists. It has provided a legal environment in which people, all people, can prosper. That is what I believe. That is what I believe Dr. King envisioned. What does Mr. Obama believe? Does he intend to take up Dr. King’s banner and lead a march out of the past and into that “promised land.” Is he up to that challenge or is he just more of the same? What I have heard so far is not promising.

THOMAS MASKELL

Poland

Selling out to China

EDITOR:

For years the Chinese have been stealing military and trade secrets, ignoring copyright and patent protection. The Bush blessing is to promote trade as our brainless State Department negotiates to “give away the store.”

However, an even greater threat is the CEOs, CFOs and boards of directors of multi-national and international corporations and military sensitive corporations. When they go to China to get their products manufactured they supply the technology, equipment and know how that was the mix that made the United States the world leader and afforded a standard of living that was unknown in the world before.

In order to get their huge bonuses based on sales over costs they could care less about the future because they will be part of the very rich. They are creating another Mexico once they destroy the middle class.

GEORGE R. HOLKO, Sr.

Warren