Conservatives Slap Seniors, Endorse M.L. King and Federal Civil Rights Acts

isplaying the upside-down priorities that plague America's failed conservative movement, the right-wing Republican news weekly Human Events attacked senior citizens and denounced as "socialist" an administration plan to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, but later enthusiastically endorsed major, wide-ranging socialist civil rights legislation that stripped Americans of basic property rights, concentrated unprecedented power in federal hands, and subverted the U.S. Constitution. A front-page article by neo-conservative immigration advocate Linda Chavez praised radical left-wing Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who, during the Vietnam War, compared the U.S. to Nazi Germany, and denounced his country as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

In a headline surprising for its callousness by even the standards of tin-eared conservatives, Human Events' June 23rd edition attacked senior citizens in a story addressed to America's elderly, telling them in harsh terms, "Buy Your Own Drugs, Grandma." The paper, which Republicans use to convince conservative voters like senior citizens that the GOP is on their side, worried that America would become a "socialist country" if ailing seniors on slender fixed incomes received federally-subsidized prescription drugs as part of their existing Medicare benefits.

"America would become a socialist country ... of people struggling to pay taxes to cover the ... medical costs of other people's grandparents," the paper warned.

The following week Human Events of June 30th found nothing "socialist" about unprecedented sweeping federal civil rights legislation that permanently destroyed the American federal system.

Praising a speech Rev. King delivered during a black power rally in Washington, D.C., in 1963, Human Events boasted that "These words launched a civil rights revolution that was embraced by the American people and led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. As a result, America is today a more just nation."

Endorsing King's radical political agenda, Human Events falsely claimed that Rev. King favored a "color blind" society and opposed affirmative action. But the historical record contradicts the right-wingers' claims. In fact, King explicitly supported the use of anti-white bias to help transfer social and economic power to blacks, which he called "compensatory programs."

It was King who initiated the first "affirmative action" programs in cities around the country, although the term was not then in use. Under King's leadership, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference gathered data on the employment practices of corporations in Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia and lobbied companies there to hire blacks in proportionate numbers to the communities where they conducted business.

But that's not all. King wanted racial preferences embedded in law. In a 1965 Playboy interview, King explicitly recommended special treatment. The interviewer asked, "Do you feel it's fair to request a multi-billion dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro, or any other minority?"

King's response: "I do indeed... Within common law we have ample precedents for special compensatory programs ... And you will remember that American adopted a policy of special treatment for her millions of veterans after the war.... They could receive special points to place them ahead in competition for civil service jobs..."

Stephen Oates, in his book Let the Trumpet Sound, notes that King backed special legal benefits for blacks. "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro," King said.
Some subscribers were shocked to see the paper praise King.
"I can't believe Human Events did that. King had a lot of Communist connections. They should know better," one subscriber told Middle American News.

King had been the object of intense FBI scrutiny because of his close association with Stanley D. Levinson, a major figure in the Communist Party and an important link to its controllers in Moscow, as well as other Communist operatives in the U.S.
As documented by the Council of Conservative Citizens in its booklet, “The King Holiday and Its Meaning," older conservatives like Sen. Jesse Helms, R-NC, are not as quick as today's beltway right-wingers to praise King. In debate on the Senate floor over creating a holiday for the slain radical, Helms detailed and then summarized King's Communist past.

"Throughout his career," said Helms, "King ... associated with the most extreme political elements in the United States. He addressed their organizations, signed their petitions, and invited them into his own organizational activities. Extremist elements played a significant role in promoting and influencing King... King's patterns and associations and activities ... show that he had no strong objection to Communism, that he appears to have welcomed collaboration with Communists, and that he and his principle vehicle, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were subject to influence and manipulation by Communists."

But to Human Events-style conservatives, radical leftists like King are heroes, while America's senior citizens are enemies.