(Thoughts and memories inspired from Jonah Goldberg's Liberal fascism)
Goldberg explains that in the 1960s many "mainline" churches were seduced by radical politics. "The Methodist youth magazine motive - a major influence on the young Hillary Clinton - featured a birthday card to Ho Chi Minh in one issue and advice on how to dodge the draft in others."
I knew one of those Methodist activists in 1968, and he figured prominently in one of the most bizare experiences of my life. I was director of a counseling center in the Kansas City Kansas ghetto (officed in a Lutheran church). It was the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. I was driving my car with my wife in Kansas City, Missouri, where we had gone for dinner. A police car pulled me over. After taking what seemed like an eternity, the officer finally approached my window. He told me he was taking me to jail for "booking." He said it was about unpaid parking tickets. I rarely came across the Missouri River to Kansas City, Mo., and had no tickets of any kind.
When I got to the jail and my possessions were taken from me, I was booked into a holding pen in the jail. I learned that the parking tickets had been accrued by a teen, whose mother was on welfare, and for whom I had co-signed on an automobile a year or so previously, so he could get a job!
During that time in the bullpen, I witnessed severe police brutality, which I had heard was a problem at that time in K.C. Mo. A very drunk black man was brought in by a policeman, who wound up and slugged the man as hard as he could in the man's stomach.
I used my one phone call to call (at 2 or 3 a.m.) the Methodist minister activist friend, who I knew was counseling Chief Kelly, the Chief of Police in KC, MO. I was released; the cop was fired. The Methodist minister was one of the key clergy involved in Saul Alinsky's community organizing in KC, MO. There was, I believed, a definite need for the community to tackle issues like police brutality.
Remarkably, today in the United States a "movement" is blossoming from the other side of the political spectrum. Although encouraged by t.v. and talk radio show hosts, the movement has no paid organizers, like the left has in its billions of dollars of funding to the ACORN organizers. It will be really interesting to see the Tea Parties which are taking place in thousands of cities across America today.
2 comments:
That's a great story, Bob.
Interesting how churches have been involved. I have heard speculation that, during the 60's, some folks the more liberal, upper and upper-middle class environment sent their sons to seminaries in order to evade the draft. This may have contributed to the liberalization of mainline churches as well.
I hope the spark that fueled the tea parties lives on to "take our country back." I went 2 yesterday which were well attended for as small an area as I live in. It was heartening to see young, old, vets, young moms, all united. But I did find myself wanting to shout power to the people, ha.
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