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In reply to the discussion: False claims of racism against Sanders are coming from neoliberals who fear his message [View all]friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)42. Thanks. More people need to study the last years of M.L. King, Jr.'s life
Did you notice all the distortions of what Michaels's (and my) positions?
Which is, in short: Diversity and anti-racism are undoubtedly good things that should be supported
by all, but these good things are being used as a sop by certain economic elites to mollify
the masses. As Michaels put it:
"
N)o culture should be treated invidiously and that its basically OK if economic differences widen as long as the increasingly successful elites come to look like the increasingly unsuccessful non-elites. So the model of social justice is not that the rich dont make as much and the poor make more, the model of social justice is that the rich make whatever they make, but an appropriate percentage of them are minorities or women."
In other words, people who would like to pretend the last year of
Martin Luther King's life never happened. As Bill Moyers so eloquently put it:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2010/04/03/dr-kings-economic-dream-deferred
Dr. King's Economic Dream Deferred
...A year before, at Riverside Church in New York, he had spoken out -- eloquently -- against the war in Vietnam. King said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death," a position that angered President Lyndon Johnson, many of King's fellow civil rights leaders and influential newspapers. The Washington Post charged that King had, "diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people."
With his popularity in decline, an exhausted, stressed and depressed Martin Luther King, Jr., turned his attention to economic injustice. He reminded the country that his March on Washington five years earlier had not been for civil rights alone but "a campaign for jobs and income, because we felt that the economic question was the most crucial that black people and poor people, generally, were confronting." Now, King was building what he called the Poor People's Campaign to confront nationwide inequalities in jobs, pay and housing.
But he had to prove that he could still be an effective leader, and so he came to Memphis, in support of a strike by that city's African-American garbage men. Eleven hundred sanitation workers had walked off the job after two had died in a tragic accident, crushed by a garbage truck's compactor. The garbage men were fed up -- treated with contempt as they performed a filthy and unrewarding job, paid so badly that 40 percent of them were on welfare, called "boy" by white supervisors. Their picket signs were simple and eloquent: "I AM A MAN."...
...This is a perilous moment. The individualist, greed-driven free-market ideology that both our major parties have pursued is at odds with what most Americans really care about. Popular support for either party has struck bottom, as more and more agree that growing inequality is bad for the country, that corporations have too much power, that money in politics has corrupted our system, and that working families and poor communities need and deserve help because the free market has failed to generate shared prosperity -- its famous unseen hand has become a closed fist.
...A year before, at Riverside Church in New York, he had spoken out -- eloquently -- against the war in Vietnam. King said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death," a position that angered President Lyndon Johnson, many of King's fellow civil rights leaders and influential newspapers. The Washington Post charged that King had, "diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people."
With his popularity in decline, an exhausted, stressed and depressed Martin Luther King, Jr., turned his attention to economic injustice. He reminded the country that his March on Washington five years earlier had not been for civil rights alone but "a campaign for jobs and income, because we felt that the economic question was the most crucial that black people and poor people, generally, were confronting." Now, King was building what he called the Poor People's Campaign to confront nationwide inequalities in jobs, pay and housing.
But he had to prove that he could still be an effective leader, and so he came to Memphis, in support of a strike by that city's African-American garbage men. Eleven hundred sanitation workers had walked off the job after two had died in a tragic accident, crushed by a garbage truck's compactor. The garbage men were fed up -- treated with contempt as they performed a filthy and unrewarding job, paid so badly that 40 percent of them were on welfare, called "boy" by white supervisors. Their picket signs were simple and eloquent: "I AM A MAN."...
...This is a perilous moment. The individualist, greed-driven free-market ideology that both our major parties have pursued is at odds with what most Americans really care about. Popular support for either party has struck bottom, as more and more agree that growing inequality is bad for the country, that corporations have too much power, that money in politics has corrupted our system, and that working families and poor communities need and deserve help because the free market has failed to generate shared prosperity -- its famous unseen hand has become a closed fist.
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False claims of racism against Sanders are coming from neoliberals who fear his message [View all]
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
OP
Bravo to those that are fighting for social change. I am with you every step.
rhett o rick
May 2015
#1
I have not read one post saying Bernie is racist, there's PLENTY of post intimating he'll do the...
uponit7771
May 2015
#2
I notice that all references to purported awful things I've done come without links
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
#24
You've provided no examples of this claimed "resentment of diversity"
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
#26
So far you've slagged me, you've slagged W.B. Michaels- but not yet discussed...
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
#34
No, it says that *some* who talk about diversity are neoliberal third-wayers...
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
#29
It was about *certain* neoliberal Third-Wayers using diversity and anti-racism as a cover
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
#36
Concerns about diversity are in no way assumed to be neoliberal, the exclusion and hostility to all
TheKentuckian
May 2015
#47
The OP is a response to a repost of a neoliberal's attack on Sanders in GD
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
#28
That sort of rhetoric is absolutely right wing in nature. The other version is 'civil rights don't
Bluenorthwest
May 2015
#38
Oh they give a shit. They are very effective for both distracting Teafools from the fact they are
TheKentuckian
May 2015
#48
They're down on him because of the false accusation that he's indifferent to social issues. n/t.
Ken Burch
May 2015
#44
Thanks. More people need to study the last years of M.L. King, Jr.'s life
friendly_iconoclast
May 2015
#42