There was an essay printed in the January, 1969, "Playboy" by Dr, Martin Luther King entitled "The Testament of Hope""" I would certainly ***hope*** that every Dickey of the world would have to read this essay from front to finish but...

...in this essay Dr. King says some things that could very much describe where our country still is today:

"If we look honestly at the realities of our national life, it is clear that we are not marching forward; we are groping and stumbling; we are divided and confused. Our moral values and our spiritual confidence sink, even as our material wealth ascends. In these trying circumsatnces, the black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rightd of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws- racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals sustemic rather than superficial falws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."

This, folks, is what many of us have been talkig about here... I've used the "r" (revolution) myself... Yes we will not become a just nation where everyone has the promised laid down in the preamble to the Constituion without a "revoltuion" of sorts... It is my hope that the rich will get it before it gets them... But there is no assurance as the rich historically haven't gotten it...

No one here is asking foer the rich to give up there wealth but their stanglehold on wealth... Yeah, the Bushite richies, if this country is going to survive itself, will have to take a pay cut butm hey, they have been on the gravy tr4ain way too long and "For what?" I might ask...

I mean, like these folks and their families have never had it so good but their spoils are at the expense of those at the bottom...

This isn't rhetoric... It's reality... Dr. King saw it when the programs were being funded.... Now that the programs have been gutted or discontinued entirely the observations that Dr. King made 38 years ago look like the good old days and...

that, my friends, is a sad commentary on the state of our country but worse...

...telegraphs the sadder state of our future nation...

This ain't "Sky is falling stuff".... It is, however, the ticking time bomb that the ruling class continues to ignore... There will come a tipping point and when that occurs this nation is going to be in the biggest trouble it has been in since 1776... It will make the War for Southern Independence look like a picnic because it will be fought through out our country and rich people will have to retreat to their compounds like in Haiti...

Yeah, this discusssion is about poverty in the wealthiest nation on earth but it is this divide between the haves and the have-nots that has the greatest potential to bring this nation down... Not the bin Ladens...

Class warfare, Dickey??? It's not too far down the road and now that Boss Hog is Hell bent on screwing over the middle class, it is not too far-fetched...

We have not moved since Dr. King's esay in 1969... Yeah, we did move a little forward and now we are in *full* retreat...

Too bad that rich people don't study history... Voltaire observed that "those who don't know3 history tend to repeat it"... Guess the rich are too busy stealin' to learnt up on that ol' dusty stuff...

Bobert