[img]583|left|Eric L. Wattree||no_popup[/img]On July 10, the United States Postal Service issued two 44-cent postage stamps honoring the Negro Baseball League.
During the ceremony in Kansas City, Thurgood Marshall Jr., vice chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, spoke. While issuance of the stamps was a laudable gesture, the event was fraught with irony.
Considering the Postal Service's abysmal record of employee abuse, the gesture was nothing less than a slap in the face to both the Negro Baseball League, whose members were the victims of the worst kind of discrimination, and to Thurgood Marshall Sr., who dedicated his life to the struggle for human rights. The ceremony was perfectly akin to having the first born of Frederick Douglass honoring the work ethic of former slaves at a Sons of the Confederacy convention.
I'm virtually certain if the members of the Negro Baseball League were around today to see the deplorable conditions that the majority of postal workers are forced to endure, they'd say, “Never mind the stamp. Honor us by emancipating our people, all of the people, of every race, creed, and color. ” If Justice Marshall were alive, he would be overcome with shame to see the human degradation his son is presiding over.
Perhaps a greater irony is the blatant theft of employee wages, intimidation, physical and emotional abuse, and employees being forced to work between four and six hours a day without pay is going on in a government agency, and under an African American President. More than ironic, it is unbelievable.
After Slavery Ended…
President Lincoln was willing to go to war to end slavery on his watch, where President Obama could emancipate over 600,000 American citizens with a simple phone call. Yet, in spite of repeated White House contacts and extended articles on the Democratic National Committee website, President Obama has failed to make that call.
It is hard to believe that the administration can be so tone deaf. And they don't understand why the President is dropping in the polls. The President is so preoccupied with trying to win over people that he'll never get, that he is ignoring the people who put him in office.
It's like deja vu. President Obama is making the same mistake Tom Bradley did. After becoming the first black mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley failed to stand with his core constituency. After the unconscionable Eula Love shooting by the LAPD, Mayor Bradley came up missing in action. When he ran for governor he lost by a hair. That hair represented the main people whose vote he thought he could count on. I know because I was one of those voters. I didn't vote for Republican George Deukmejian, I simply decided to skip the gubernatorial race on the ballot.
He Saved Us
I like President Obama. He's one of the most intelligent Presidents we've ever had. He saved the nation from another Great Depression. He has accomplished more in his first two years in office than most Presidents manage to accomplish in their entire eight years in office. But there's more to being a good president than what he manages to do. We must also take into account what he fails to do. Obama is failing to protect the rule of law, and that can place all of us in jeopardy.
Even before he became President, he backpedaled on FISA and failed to hold Bush accountable for spying on Americans. When he became President, he turned a blind eye to Bush and Cheney's war crimes. Now he is allowing 600,000 American citizens to be mugged by a government agency. That's unacceptable.
Maintaining the rule of law is the most important function of government. Everything else hinges on it. The failure to maintain the rule of law allowed lynchings in the South. Without the rule of law you cannot maintain a democracy. That's why the president is made to swear in the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” in other words, the law.
Regardless of how much good you do, President Obama, if you fail to protect the people from government corruption, it ain't enough.
Mr. Wattree may be contacted at wattree.blogspot.com or Ewattree@Gmail.com
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