David > Recent Status Updates

No one ever elected J. Edgar Hoover to any office and yet this erstwhile librarian wielded about as much power as the president -- but in clandestine and corrupt fashion.

With the the JFK administration the FBI held the upper hand -- and that was very wrong.

The NAACP's Roy Wilkins comes off as egotistical and petty in this account. There must be another perspective. Or not. Maybe MLK really is all-virtuous and Wilkins small and invidious.

I admire MLK for seeing through J. Edgar Hoover's shameful strategy of trying to get MLK to sever ties with essential aides on the unsubstantiated charge that the aides were communists. Even if they were communists, so what? That's the part of McCarthyism and witch hunts I've never understood. The accusations, even if true, are inconsequential!

I've long known the broad outlines of the civil rights movement but this is first time I've read about the struggle on almost a day-to-day level of granularity. There was so much uncertainty, whereas, looking back, there seems to have been so much inevitability.

Stupid paradoxes: J. Edgar Hoover thinks MLK is a Communist or is being duped by a Communist in order to get JFK to issue an executive order against segregation, which the Soviets are "exploiting" to make the US look bad.... Well, the US doesn't just look bad: it *is* bad! The criticism is legitimate! If MLK were a Communist tool then he would be *helping* the US.

"Shame ate him alive." Sometimes all I can do is close my eyes and try to imagine...

Landing a man on the moon was easier than getting James Meredith into Ole Miss.

Many moments in this history are just stunning. A man physically attacks MLK on stage and MLK responds not by defending himself but by praying for the man. It's absolutely genuine.

The takeaway? Ultimately it's about egotism and narcissism. Individual egos are at the critical points of history. It's both pathetic and simple to understand.

"By the peculiar logic of racial politics, King raised a cry about restaurant courtesies while accepting death threats quietly as a hazard of his work."

"It is history's wry paradox that when Negroes win their struggle to be free, those who have held them down will themselves be free for the first time." So said MLK, and the same could be said in regard to GLBT, women and every other oppressed group.

Every time I read about 20th century American history I find J. Edgar Hoover subverting, perverting and casting an unseen pall over everything. This damned closeted one-time librarian may have had more of an effect on history than presidents and other elected politicians. The whole Communist paranoia was irrational. I suspect it was really auto-homophobia.

It's funny that Jay joked (to uncomprehending me) about live-blogging this book by Taylor Branch. But actually it's terribly dramatic, the moment-by-moment, mortal struggles to protest segregation.

I can't help but be curious about the whites who not only attacked black Freedom Riders but who also beat up white reporters. I think they were simple, angry, stupid people: there's not much to be curious about, in a sense. Psychologically, I guess it's about egotism and narcissism: trying to *be* someone within a very small world.

"I think you should -- had better be getting in touch with Mr. Greyhound...." RFK really was a tough SOB -- which must have been a good thing when he was on the side of good.

What a moment! Republicans could have captured the "Negro" vote in the 1960 campaign but the slightest of gestures by JFK and RFK made all the difference.

"He never shouted. But he preached like someone who wanted to shout, and this gave him an electrifying hold over the congregation."

Coretta Scott had to have nerves of steel to go through a courtship with MLK, jr -- and, more daunting still, MLK, sr.

What if separate but equal really were equal -- scrupulously equal? Definitely a hypothetical question: no point in being separate unless there's a better and a worse.

A bullshit religion for a bullshit industry. It's amazing to think that such ignorant, gullible people could gain such wealth, fame and influence.

Much about the church is terrible but plausible. Not this: "He was made to run around a pole in the searing desert heat for twelve hours a day, until his teeth fell out."

Mitt Romney's favorite novel? Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. Yikes. Imagine a White House with him and Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan in charge.

Keeping people imprisoned in a dungeon? Yes, it might be a legitimate religion after all.

This is amazing! Scientology had spies in governments (Europe and the US). For instance, they stole IRS files on Jerry Brown and Frank Sinatra!

"If it was all a con, why would he bother?" It wasn't a con exactly. LRH was genuinely insane.

LRH believed in SMERSH (the spy organization in the James Bond novels). He abused children as well as adults. He was bat-shit crazy! His cult was more successful than I thought; I always thought it was a cynical scam, but, no, there were true believers.

"invocation of wand with material basis on talisman": the founder of Scientology engaging in a whacking off ritual. Some religion!

L. Ron Hubbard was a pathological narcissist and egomaniac -- that much is *clear*.

What a great explanation of the Big Bang and the creation of the elements.