Rather than mimic the bland memorial MLK coverage that establishment media (and local parades) gave us for the MLK week/weekend, I’d encourage folks to work to deal with LOCAL issues of injustice. And there are plenty: whether in the jail, the mental health system, the courts, at City Council, on the streets with the police, or in wage slavery shops.

I did not attend the parade or the Civic Center event (though I did get some HUFF flyers addressing First Night censorship, the Sleeping Ban, hypocrisy in (local) high places, and the war). But I'm told that there were virtually no speeches and signs about contemporary issues, much less local issues of poverty and injustice.

I'm sure many who celebrated MLK stuff are working on one local issue or another more quietly. Perhaps they're just not visible from my cave, though I do read indymedia. MLK, however, brought those issues out into broad daylight (and moonlight too).

Is it the corrupting influence of Democratic Party politics(and the Anyone-But-Bush crusade of last season) that has diverted and demoralized activists?

If the Democrats had won, I suspect the Republicans would have been attacking the war with both barrels, calling it "Kerry's War". All we've gotten so far from the Democrats is the belated (though hopeful) Woolsey letter that (finally) Sam Farr signed on to.

MLK was organizing a Poor People's March before he died. I'm afraid more than half the folks involved in MLK commemoration wouldn't be caught dead involved in such a thing.

Check out this recent article published on Counterpunch: www.counterpunch.org/gray01172005.html