Radical journalist and author Alexander Cockburn, who passed away July 21, 2012, was celebrated at a memorial in New York last September attended by (among others) Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and the extended Cockburn family. Laura Flanders has put together a very nice tribute video from the memorial. It includes many of the Kopkind extended family like Kevin Alexander Gray, JoAnn Wypijewski, Najla Said and some great pictures.
Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy in his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It’s always good to have your closest friend and associate say something good about you. And Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world.
I’m delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.
As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of picking a general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” — I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.
But I wouldn’t stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn’t stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn’t stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I’m named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.
But I wouldn’t stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.
I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but “fear itself.” But I wouldn’t stop there.
Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, “If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.” Continue reading
WALTER LIPPMANN
Los Angeles, California
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
Jaribu Hill, Exec. Dir. of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights speaking on the panel “Perpetual War or Rule of Law?” October 17, 2009 at The National Lawyers Guild Law for the People 2009 Convention in Seattle.
http://demdan.org/actions/?id=3563 – White House, DC
http://ny4cg.org/actions/index.php?id=3568 – West Point, NY http://ny4cg.org/actions/?id=3590 – NYC
http://mapjen.org/actions/?id=3567 – Boston, MA
http://demdan.org/actions/?id=3570 – Baltimore, MD http://paactionnetwork.org/announcements/?id=708 – Philadelphia, PA
http://calaction.org/announcements/?id=704 – Berkeley, CA
http://calaction.org/announcements/?id=673 – San Francisco, CA
http://calaction.org/actions/?id=3575 – Los Angeles, CA http://icjpe.org/actions/index.php?id=3413 – Chicago, IL
http://wiscaction.org/actions/?id=3533 – Madison, WI http://wiscaction.org/announcements/?id=696 – Milwaukee, WI
http://michiganpeacenetwork.org/announcements/?id=701 – Detroit, MI http://michiganpeacenetwork.org/actions/?id=3443 – Saginaw, MI
http://ncactionnet.org/actions/?id=3597 – Charlotte, NC
http://ncactionnet.org/actions/?id=3592 – Chapel Hill, NC
http://ncactionnet.org/announcements/?id=689 – Greensboro, NC
http://gpjn.org/actions/?id=3593 – Atlanta, GA
http://vpan.org/announcements/?id=703 – Richmond, VA
http://ohiopeacenetwork.org/actions/?id=3600 – Cleveland, OH
http://cnpjs.org/announcements/?id=710 – Denver, CO http://mpjen.org/actions/?id=3481 – Maine (Bangor & Portland)
http://cripjen.org/announcements/?id=692 – RI & CT (Hartford, New Haven, Prov)
ISS | Institute for Southern Studies Black Politics via blogfeeds DemocracyNow! NPR | Top Stories The New York Times All Things Considered BOOKMARK THE NEW LIBERATOR! Dave Zirin’s Edge of Sports The BBC The Los Angeles Times The Washington Post
The New Liberator