Shockingly True

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

2005-01-17T07:13:00.000-05:00

In the so-called United States, the 1960s was a shameful decade of images of terrorfying church bombings, high-powered fire hoses, unleashed vicious dogs, and white supremacy gone amuck. Many white supremacists and segregationists (like the Rev. Jerry Falwell) were angered that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. refused to end his well-orcestrated and highly-disciplined nonviolent campaigns, demonstrations and protest strategies. In fact, his nonaggressive but powerful fight for racial equality resulted in his untimely demise at the age of 39 years old.

My maternal grandmother was a Civil Rights activist four decades ago. When I was eleven-years-old, she proudly handed me a copy of the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." I recalled my vivaciously reading Dr. King's famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." I would often spend my preteen years reading many documents and publications regarding Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement. Several years later, I consider the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." to be one of the greatest documents of all times.

I whole-heartedly embraced Dr. King's nonviolent teachings, which was based on the techings of Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi. As a progressive centrist Jew, I am very grateful for Dr. King's self-sacrificial contribution to humanity. (Dr. King, I truly love you, sir. You will not be forgotten.)

Eight Alabama clergymen

Representing Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Roman Catholic churches and Reform Judaism, the below-mentioned eight white Alabama clergymen were the most prominent religious leaders in the early 1960s, who publicly discounted Dr. King as an "outsider." Their infamous letter, Statement by Alabama Clergymen, elicited a courageous response from Dr. King... "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

The Alabama clergymens' names are:

C. C. J. Carpenter, D.D., LL.D.,
Bishop of Alabama

Joseph A. Durick, D.D.,
Auxiliary Bishop, Diocese of Mobile, Birmingham

Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman (Yikes! A Jewish rabbi? Oy!)
Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, Alabama

Bishop Paul Hardin
Bishop of the Alabama-West Florida Conference

Bishop Nolan B. Harmon
Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church

George M. Murray, D.D., LL.D,
Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama

Edward V. Ramage
Moderator, Synod of the Alabama Presbyterian Church in the United States

Earl Stallings
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama

As if things weren't tragic enough.... Commissioner of Public Safety (Police Commissioner) Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor was a KKKlown who tried to stop Dr. King and his brethren's nonviolent demonostration in Birmingham, Alabama. During the nonviolent demonostration, Connor rode through the streets of Birmingham perched a top of a white armored tank. He shouted obscenitites at Dr. King and his followers, using a bullhorn. However, Connor's silly efforts were in vain. O-rah!!!

Today I will be spending the entire day listening to Dr. King's speeches and reading his writings. Most people are familiar with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, but few have recalled reading the "Letter From a Birmingham Jail", which reveals Dr. King's genius as a nonviolent Civil Rights activist. Under the fair use copyright laws, I have posted the original "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (which includes grammatical errors) in its entirety:

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

April 16, 1963

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here In Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place In Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through an these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the stores humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes bad been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves : "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic with with-drawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoralty election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run-oat we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct-action program could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you no forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to ace the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "An Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this 'hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to 6e solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At fist I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do-nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.

If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides-and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we viii be. We we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime---the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jeans Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some-such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle---have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a non segregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who 'has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of Rio shall lengthen.

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leader era; an too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, on Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Walleye gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? l am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it vi lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom, They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jai with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham, ham and all over the nation, because the goal of America k freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation-and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if .you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handing the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in pubic. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face Jeering, and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My fleets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he k alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
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If you have read this far, I would like to thank you very much for reading this blog entry,

Ashleigh A. Anonymous

Andrea Yates is an Arrogant, Unrepentant Mass Child Murderer

2005-01-06T20:59:00.000-05:00

Still angered over the abduction of 12-year-old Kristian Walker, I have recently read another sad news story online, regarding crimes against children: A Texas appeals court today overturned the conviction of Andrea Yates. (Grrr! I am now angrier!)

As I visited various major news sites to glean information pertaining to the Yates child murder case, I broke down and cried uncontrollably. This is very, very worrisome because this case may set a very dangerous precedent. My sixth sense revealed that many so-called mentally ill mothers will use the lame "I did it but I was insane at the time I commited the crime" defense. (I am angry... very angry!)

In my most humble opinion, Yates is an arrogant, unrepentant child killer. Despite the fact she had a highly questionable history of mental illness (schizophrenia and postpartum depression), she was legally sane when she mercilessly drowned all of her children - Mary, 6 months old, Luke, 2, Paul, 3, John, 5, and Noah, 7 - in the bathtub of the Yates family's Houston, Texas, home.

Andrea Yates is an arrogant, unrepentant child killer. Moreover, she is also a blantant liar! Any reasonable person does not believe her claims of her receiving "orders from Satan" to snuff the lives of five defenseless children. She is merely using the "I did it but I was insane at the time I commited the crime" defense.

Yes, Yates is an unrepentant mass child murderer! She admitted killing Mary (a 6-month-old infant), Luke, Paul, John and Noah! She is utterly guilty of first degree murder of her five children. She deserves the death penalty! That child killer is not insane! Yates is guilty of first degree murder!

Andrea Yates is an abominable monster from hell! She is a woman who is full of hate! Moments proior to my posting this blog entry, I was plague of intuitative visions of Paul, John and Noah Yates begging for ther lives as their mother methodically drowned one child after the other in the bathtub of the Yates family suburban home in Houston, Texas.

This human tragedy is utterly amazing! If Scott Peterson received the death penalty for killing his unborn son, Conner Peterson, why should the American people give Andrea Yates a pass? Andrea Yates is an admitted mass child murderer! She deserves the death penalty!

It is women like Andrea Yates and Susan Smith who I despise the most. A mother not only bears her own child she is also one of her child's best friend (the child's other best friend is his or her father). My maternal grandmother told me several years ago when I was a preteen girl: "The person who could hurt you the most is the person whom you trust the most."

Yates! Smith! You two were your children worst enemy!

I am so angry I cannot bear elaborating any further.

If you have read this far, I would like to thank you very much for reading this blog entry. Please pardon my grammatical errors and my revealing strong emotions in this blog entry.

Ashleigh A. Anonymous

Child Traffickers May Have Kidnapped a 12-year-old Tsunami Survivor

2005-01-05T19:41:00.000-05:00

I became enraged upon reading the following news story online:

Child traffickers may have abducted a 12-year-old Swedish child from a Thailand hospital. (Grrr! Unfortunately, the lowest forms of human life always take advantage of every type of human tragedy!)

Child prostitution is uncontrollably rampant in the areas affected by the recent tragedy in South Asia. Thousands of recently orphaned children are prey to child traffickers. Moreover, many white American and European boys and girls, who were vacationing with their families in the affected countries when the tragedy occurred, are now missing. Many child advocates fear the missing children were kidnapped. I am very saddened. This is truly a sick world in which I live!

I hope many concerned people will learn about the recent abduction of Kristian Walker and support rescue operations, many of which are rescuing endangered children who have survived the Asian earthquake-tsunami disaster. If you are not outraged upon reading the aforementioned abduction of a 12-year-old Swedish child, you are a cold-hearted fiend. If you have a heightened sense of humanity, please get involved in the Tsunami disaster relief effort today!

If you have read this far, I would like to thank you very much for reading this blog entry,

Ashleigh A. Anonymous

Is Secretary of State Colin Powell Sadly Wrong?

2005-01-04T21:36:00.000-05:00

Secretary of State Colin Powell said today the United States' involvement in the South Asian tsunami disaster relief effort may improve the nation's image among Muslims. However, many Islamic clerics are secretly saying quite the opposite.

Mr. Powell stated today:

"We'd be doing it regardless of religion. But I think it does give the Muslim world and the rest of the world an opportunity to see American generosity, American values in action."

"America is not an anti-Islam, anti-Muslim nation. America is a diverse society where we respect all religions. And I hope that as a result of our efforts, as a result of our helicopter pilots being seen by the citizens of Indonesia helping them, that value system of ours will be reinforced."

Meanwhile, terrorists assassinated Ali al-Haidari, the governor of Baghdad Province today in all-out effort to thwart Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30.

I have psychic visions in which I can vividly see that Al Qaeda-trained terrorists and Saddam Hussein's loyalists are planning to methodically assassinate many high-ranking Iraqi officials and execute many civilians, including Americans (Sigh! Unfortunately there will be more beheadings).

Also, my visions have revealed to me that the United States will contribute our troops to "a large United Nations-led peacekeeping operation" to occupy Iraq, which could drag on indefinately.

President George W. Bush's legacy will prove disastrous if his plans for "a safer and freer Iraq" should fail. Unfortunately, I have many visions from which I discovered that Iraq will increasingly become less safer and freer. Many citizens of Iraq will eventually be misled by their leaders, resulting in a major breakdown in Iraq's national security and political system. An disturbing vision reveals that a few Iranian and Iraqi Muslim leaders are hoping that President George W. Bush's political goal for a safer and freer Iraq fails. They secretly are planning to form a theocracy in Iraq, which exactly what President George W. Bush fears. (Sigh!)

President George W. Bush's success will solely depend on soon-to-be-confirmed Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice's future ability "to earn" our allies' respect and "to covince" them to contribute their troops to "the largest and most costliest United Nations-led peacekeeping operation in history."

On January 20, 2005, President George W. Bush will take the Presidential Oath of Office at the West Front of the Capitol. It will be the second time for him, at the same location where his father, former President George H.W. Bush, was sworn in once as president and twice as vice president. The Presidential Inaugural swearing-in ceremony will take place at noon. This will be President George W. Bush's last chance as President to prove to the world that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a justified war. Personally, I know President George W. Bush was right.

In the name of humanity and patriotism, let us all whole-heartedly support President George W. Bush and soon-to-be-confirmed Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Their success in achieving a goal which could result in political and religious stability in the Middle East... And the United States' global reputation will be finally restored.

As I had posted (on Saturday, January 01, 2005) 2005 will not be such a happy year for Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Unfortunately, I realize there is a minority of so-called American patriots who are planning her political demise. Shame on you fool. RWTEIS (Remember who the enemy is, stupid!) You partisan fools should whole-heartedly support President George W. Bush and Support Dr. Condoleezza Rice!

If you have read this far, I would like to thank you very much for reading this blog entry,

Ashleigh A. Anonymous

The Glass Ceiling is a Lie!

2005-01-03T20:51:00.000-05:00

A Former Feminist Speaks up

Many radical extremist feminist leaders (most of whom are lesbians) have frequently lied and overstated about the existence of a "glass ceiling" in the corporate world. What a bunch of crap!

The "glass ceiling" is just one of many deceptive recruiting lures to swell their global radical extremist feminist network of unsuspecting women and girls. (Despite these radical extremist feminist leaders' lies and overstatements, there are truly legitimate women's issues like: sex/gender discrimination, sexual harassment, job discrimination, etc.)

As a former "foot soldier" of this destrutive hate movement, I am appalled by the extortion tactics that these partisan demagogues employ to promote the radical extremist feminist ideology. From divorce laws to rape shield laws to parental custody rights, radical extremist feminist organizations are blatantly destroying the lives of many innocent men and boys. The radical extremist feminist movement's operandus modi is to unethically use activist judges and lawyers to further their agenda in courtrooms around the world.

Do you remember how the radical extremist feminist movement heavily influenced a biased jury to convict Mike Tyson? Mike did not raped Desire Washington (a former Miss Black America beauty pageant contestant)... Mike Tyson's accuser and the radical extremist feminist movement raped him... of his civil liberties! The man did not received a fair trial. Why am I not surprised? After all, he is an uneducated and undesirable African-American man. Watch out, Kobe Bean Bryant, you are next, dude!

Having been involved in the radical extremist feminist movement since I was 12, I can authoritatively opine that shamelessly self-centered radical extremist feminist leaders are enriching themselves at the expense of middle class white women, who are the "backbone" of the feminist movement. In fact, many poor African-American and other women and girls are often overlooked and avoided like the bubonic plague. A radical extremist feminist professor once told me: "The longetivity of the feminist movement solely depends on young white women like you. Our movement must actively recruit intelligent women who whole-heartedly share our feminist ideology."

The radical extremist feminist movement is actually a a combination of a white female supremacist and a sexist movement, which is dominated by mostly white female lesbian supremacists/sexists.

The movement movement primarily and aggressively recruit white women and teen-aged girls. It is a well-known fact that the leaders consider their white "foot soldier" to be "intellectually superior" to women and girls of other races and/or ethnicities.

Wealth, ignorance and power are the three main avenues on which the white female supremacist leaders goose-step defiantly to global dominance.

Fortunately, there are many reasonable people of all races and ethnicities, who will unite, confront and combat these crazed lunatics. Today's white female supremacists/sexists have obviously inherited the gift of gab from
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, master Nazi propagandist of the Adolph Hitler's murderous regime.

If you have read this far, I would like to thank you very much for reading this blog entry,

Ashleigh A. Anonymous

Earthquake, tsunamis and floods devastate South Asia.

2005-01-02T13:06:00.000-05:00

I have recently discovered Wil's Domain, a uniquely simple human-edited and categorized blog (Weblog) directory. It is also has it's own search engine and a blog resource. Cool!

I was delighted to discover that the Wil's Domain editors opted to add my blog, Shockingly True, to their blog directory. Awesome!

Wil Ford, a former disabled Marine veteran, founded the site in 2002. He and his global staff of volunteer editors have done a wonderful job in maintaining and promoting Wil's Domain.

In fact, I have recently noticed my blog traffic nearly doubled since my blog's inclusion in Wil's Domain. Thanks, Wil.

Wil's Domain is truly one of my favorite blog directories. I am very pleased that the blog directory heavily promotes many popular and little-known bloggers, like me. I am very impressed! Wow, I am very flattered.

I urge you to visit Wil's Domain. While you are visiting Wil's Domain, click on the Disaster Relief link on the homepage, which is directly linked to an very informative Disaster Relief resource page. The links on the Disaster Relief resource page is directly link to many little-known non-profit organizations. This resource page will assist you in making an informed decision regarding to which non-profit organization should you send your donation online. (Hint: If you are looking for an viable alternative to the controversy-prone, shameless Red Cross, click on the link below. Here's the direct Disaster Relief link:

http://www.wilsdomain.com/earthquake-tsunami.html

Help the earthquake, tsunamis and floods survivors in South Asia. Please join me and many others in helping those affected by this recent tragedy. Help make a difference. Support the relief effort. Donate today. In fact, send in an additional donation in advance for future disaster relief efforts. You will be glad you did.

If you have read this far, I would like to thank you very much for reading this blog entry,

Ashleigh A. Anonymous

2005 Will Not Be Such a Happy Year for Dr. Condoleezza Rice

2005-01-01T01:58:00.000-05:00

It is very sad but true. Some conservative, moderate and liberal pundits have collectively deemed Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be the most grossly incompetent NSA (national security advisor) of all times.

These so-called political pundits had vehemently opposed Dr. Rice's appointment to serve on the National Security Council within the Executive Office of the President. Because Dr. Rice's appointment to be the NSA to President George W. Bush did not require Senate confirmation, her opponents had suggested her appointment was partially a result of Affirmative Action. Bollocks!

To prove my point, I will poise the following question: Has anyone ever heard of former national security advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger?

Unlike Dr. Kissinger, who was also a brilliant NSA, Dr. Rice had both managerial and government experience prior to her being appointed as NSA. Would you consider Dr. Kissinger a product of Affirmative Action? Of course not! However, it is no secret that Dr. Rice's academic credentials surpasses Dr. Kissinger's outstanding academic credentials. (Dr. Rice had graduated from college at age 19 and became an assistant college professor at age 26.) Dr. Rice is absolutely NOT a friggin' product of Affirmative Action! She is a highly-intelligent non-white American female. So, get over it, you narrow-minded maggots!

It is unfortunate that Dr. Rice's opponents had the audacity to wrongfully blame her for "suppressing" Osama bin Laden's plans to attack the United States. It is amazing that Dr. Rice's opponents had apparently forgotten former CIA Director George Tenet and the so-called controversial PDB (the president's daily briefing).

To prove my point, I will poise the following question: Does anyone remembers Tenet or the PDB, entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."? On August 6, 2001, Tenet personally briefed President George W. Bush about Osama bin Laden's plans to terrorize the United States. President George W. Bush was aware of Osama bin Laden intentions. Unfortunately, the CIA nor other foreign intelligence agencies had accurate intelligence reports to determine what Osama bin Laden's exact plans were prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. So, stop blaming Dr. Rice. Remember an adage, of which I am the author: RWTEIS (Remember who the enemy is, stupid!)

We all must always remember that Osama bin Laden is the person responsible for planning the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Osama bin Laden is guily of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity... not Dr. Rice! RWTEIS (Remember who the enemy is, stupid!)

In my most humble opinion, I believe that some of Dr. Rice's opponents are a bunch of white racist, sexist hypercrites! If Dr. Rice were a middle-aged white man, she would not have been subjected to so much political hatred. RWTEIS (Remember who the enemy is, stupid!)

To prove my point, I will poise the following question: Does anyone remembers Robert Philip Hanssen? Hanssen was a veteran FBI agent/spy/traitor who had stolen (unlawfully removed) and sold highly classified information to Russia dating back to the Cold War era. Compared to Dr. Rice, Hanssen is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, yet he was entrusted with our nation's highly classified secrets for which he had never received a security clearance to obtain. His traitorous act resulted in the deaths of our brave Russian allies, who secretly joined the United States in winning the Cold War. Would you consider Hanssen a product of Affirmative Action? Of course he is, morons! Just check his academic credentials. I often wonder why he was not given the death penalty. Moreover, I often wonder why his "darling" wife Bonnie was allowed to continue receiving her husband's annual $40,000 pension. Why haven't anyone investigated Bonnie's brother, an Opus Dei priest living in Rome. Have anyone heard of Opus Dei? I bet you evangelical Christians know where I am trying to imply. (If you are Catholic, do not bother flaming me. I have not stated any thing remotely anti-Catholic. I am only posting facts that are available online.)

To prove my point, I will poise the following question: Does anyone remembers former national security adviser Sandy Berger? Years after he was replaced as NSA, Berger had the Kobe-sized balls to steal (unlawfully removed) highly classified documents from the National Archives, some of which documents remains unaccounted for. What was he attempting to cover up? Hmmm! Let's see... What was he attempting to cover up his sins while he was NSA for former William "Bill" Jefferson Blythe III... er, I mean Bill Clinton? Why haven't President George W. Bush ordered Berger's security clearance to be revoked? To date, many highly classified national security issues regarding the September 11, 2001 tragedy remain "unresolved."

Dr. Rice is simply a "non-white American female" NSA many affluent white American pundits love to hate. Shame on you, you pundit creeps! Leave Dr. Rice alone! She will never be your scapegoat! RWTEIS (Remember who the enemy is, stupid!)

Regarding Berger, I had visions that the highly classified documents that former national security advisor had stolen (unlawfully removed) from the National Archives revealed highly-sensitive information regarding Osama bin Laden. I am not surprised that Berger have not been duly convicted and imprisoned for his blatantly stealing (unlawfully removing) highly classified documents from the National Archives.

Am I suggesting President George W. Bush should bear some of the blame for the September 11, 2001 attacks? Absolutely not! Despite the fact President George W. Bush had personally received reliable intelligence briefings regarding Osama bin Laden's intentions, I do not blame him for the September 11, 2001 attacks. RWTEIS (Remember who the enemy is, stupid!)

I also had visions, in which Dr. Rice will suffer one failing foreign policy after another as Secretary of State. I fear Dr. Rice's nomination as SOS (Secretary of State) will only cement her political fate. After reading this blog entry, it should be obvious to you that Dr. Rice's opponents will set her up for failure during her term as SOS. She is highly qualified to be our SOS. So, you morons should support her. RWTEIS (Remember who the enemy is, stupid!)

If you have read this far, I would like to thank you very much for reading this blog entry,

Ashleigh A. Anonymous

It's New Year's Eve 2004!

2004-12-31T22:11:00.000-05:00

What does the future hold for the United States' national security?

Because I have continual visions about the United States, I would like to engage in brutally honest but civilized, open dialogue online with any open-minded ordained minister, certified psychic, rabbi and any other open-minded person. If you are not deemed an open-minded person, please leave now. With all due respect, I do not desire to be drawn into an online debate with closed-minded people, namely ultra-conservative Christians/Muslims and ultra-liberal atheists/agnostics.

I am curious about my continual visions. Please help me. My visions greatly disturb me. I fear some or all of my visions will come to pass. Please help me! I am just an ordinary person sincerely seeking truth. If you truly know the answer to my question regarding the United States' national security, please feel free to submit your answer, comment and/or opinion.

Thank you very much,

Ashleigh A. Anonymous