50th anniversary of murders of 3 civil rights workers in Mississippi for Freedom Summer

[Peter Lemkin]

The real 'take-away' IMHO of the 50th anniversary to a very horrible event in my life and that of our Nation is 1] that it took over 40 years to even get a manslaughter conviction of someone who was NOT present at the murder - when many persons [even in 'law enforcement'] knew exactly who was involved and covered up for them - and do to this very day! 2] over half of the states have since 2000 introduced new legislation to LIMIT voting participation, mostly based on race and class! The battle is far from over - even if a 'vote' means little now, the right of everyone to vote is the very basis of a democracy. They also control who can run and which party is allowed [we now have only one, with two minor variants]. Very sad then. Very sad now. Forward into the past is sadly where America is heading now full speed ahead. Cover-ups of assassinations of progressive speakers, thinkers, and actors in the USA are legion. American 'exceptionalism' in my mind is that the Nation is, as it has been, exceptionally bad - and that the greatest 'rot' has been top-down all along. A little progress was made, but new evils have always countered that progress. Those who really run America are anti-democratic, racist, sexist, classist, war and hate-mongering, anti-environment, anti-equality, anti-life, anti-justice, anti-truth, and just plain evil. The People who in theory are sovereign [but in reality are nothing but indentured servants] would need to take back the Country and their power over it - from those hidden manipulators - always there; but making new strides since 9-11-01 and since they assassinated JFK, MLK, et al. [with thousands of other operations in between, before, and since.]