The SRLC -- Stealing from "Slick"

Rainbows have long claimed, and with good reason, that so-called "white folks" steal all the good stuff from them, whether it be in music, dance, dress, or in many other modes of behavior.

Recently a large group of Republican mouths calling themselves the Southern Republican Leadership Conference -- the SRLC -- met in New Orleans and nattered to each other for several days. It's pointless to repeat anything that they said, because it was of less consequence than the opinions that would be delivered at a convocation of baboons meeting by the side of the Congo River, and, despite all the media coverage that they received, the only thing worth noting about this event was the name of the group. As others have already pointed out, it is entirely too close to the name of the strongest and most effective Civil Rights group of the great age of the 1960's -- the SCLC, also affectionately known as "Slick," the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was founded in Alabama way back in 1957, by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his constant sidekick, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy.

It's strange and also highly suspicious and even a little sad that the Republicans would be shameless enough to copycat the name of King's and Abernathy's group. But the Big Secret is that even more than in the matter of taxes, the Repubs owe most of their success to the carefully unspoken but still widely understood perception that they would forever and by any means possible stand in the way of the aspirations of Rainbows (more commonly called -- and I do mean "commonly," "blacks.").

If that were not so and if they were really into decency, then the Repubs would not parody the name of the group that, along with the NAACP, SNCC, CORE, and other organizations and people, including a sizable number of Jewish people, who, during the Civil Rights drive of the 1950's and 60's, combined to accomplish that rare feat of pushing the lumpy center of the U.S. populace into actually following this country's high ideals, as expressed in various documents but, like the advice of one Jesus Christ, rarely followed in actual practice. In recognition of this great achievement, the name of King's group, the SCLC, especially should have been retired from all future use, like the number or the jersey of an especially accomplished baseball player. But the Repubs are far too committed to keeping a large and ancient segment of the U.S. populace in a crippled state for that.

The suspicion that the SR Leadership Conference deserves is especially heightened when you try to find out about its origins. It looks to me as if they condensed out of nowhere just this year, from the vapors of thuggish tea parties and the rest. The author of an Alternet article claims that the SRLC was founded as long ago as 1969, but I wonder where he got that information. I did the ever-trusty Google search and could not find that or any other information on exactly when that group was founded or by whom, and through all that time I had never heard of them. . If the SRLC was steeped in glorious Republican history, maybe going back to Eisenhower or before, you can bet that Google would be badly larded over with mentions of its venerability and its deeds. But the great majority of the entries were all in this year, 2010, one of the Obama years when seemingly without undue effort and with real style he continues to make the Repubs look bad, beyond their own numerous contributions to that end.

Someone billed this meeting of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference as the most important political event that would take place until the elections two years from now. But instead it has all the earmarks of being just another of the con games perpetrated so far by those people, as shown most vividly by the open insanity with which fang and nail they opposed the health care reform bill and its recent passage.