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friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
42. Thanks. More people need to study the last years of M.L. King, Jr.'s life
Fri May 29, 2015, 09:58 PM
May 2015

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:

&quot N)o culture should be treated invidiously and that it’s 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 don’t 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.







Recommendations

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Bravo to those that are fighting for social change. I am with you every step. rhett o rick May 2015 #1
But they rarely actually do anything for that social justice BrotherIvan May 2015 #6
Politicians never are the leaders of social/economic justice movements BainsBane May 2015 #14
We're all with you on that, I think. Ken Burch May 2015 #43
Did you read the article? BainsBane May 2015 #10
I have not read one post saying Bernie is racist, there's PLENTY of post intimating he'll do the... uponit7771 May 2015 #2
This message was self-deleted by its author peecoolyour May 2015 #3
comma gain? Warren DeMontague May 2015 #4
comma comma comma comma comma chameleon lovemydog May 2015 #5
that was my other answer, by george Warren DeMontague May 2015 #7
I haven't seen any claims at DU that Sanders is racist gollygee May 2015 #8
Oh gee.. sendero May 2015 #18
OK gollygee May 2015 #19
Now African Americans are "neo-liberals" BainsBane May 2015 #9
You apparently did not get the memo. MohRokTah May 2015 #11
Yeah, well the OP has been touting this piece for some time BainsBane May 2015 #12
I notice that all references to purported awful things I've done come without links friendly_iconoclast May 2015 #24
That is the content of the article you posted BainsBane May 2015 #25
The article goes even further than that gollygee May 2015 #13
It's a thinly-veiled straight, while male supremacist argument BainsBane May 2015 #15
How about a comment from an African-American man? friendly_iconoclast May 2015 #21
That doesn't address your OP BainsBane May 2015 #23
You've provided no examples of this claimed "resentment of diversity" friendly_iconoclast May 2015 #26
The proof is the article in your OP. BainsBane May 2015 #27
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
I don't really know anything about Nancy LeTourneau gollygee May 2015 #30
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
very good bigtree May 2015 #22
The OP is a response to a repost of a neoliberal's attack on Sanders in GD friendly_iconoclast May 2015 #28
The article isn't about Sanders BainsBane May 2015 #31
This message was self-deleted by its author friendly_iconoclast May 2015 #32
You posted the article in the OP BainsBane May 2015 #33
This message was self-deleted by its author friendly_iconoclast May 2015 #35
Yeah, who knew? And "anti-racism" is just a tool of the capitalist overlords... DanTex May 2015 #37
Easy to say when it's not your rights: Starry Messenger May 2015 #16
That sort of rhetoric is absolutely right wing in nature. The other version is 'civil rights don't Bluenorthwest May 2015 #38
Amazingly ignorant, with no knowledge of the subject at all. Starry Messenger May 2015 #40
Yes please do! bettyellen May 2015 #45
The tenth-percenters don't give a shit about abortion or marriage equality. hifiguy May 2015 #46
Oh they give a shit. They are very effective for both distracting Teafools from the fact they are TheKentuckian May 2015 #48
While the article is a good discussion of neo-liberalism el_bryanto May 2015 #17
They're down on him because of the false accusation that he's indifferent to social issues. n/t. Ken Burch May 2015 #44
K&R woo me with science May 2015 #20
Wow... Rex May 2015 #39
Kick for calling out the Third Way smear machine. woo me with science May 2015 #41
Thanks. More people need to study the last years of M.L. King, Jr.'s life friendly_iconoclast May 2015 #42
Message auto-removed Name removed May 2015 #49
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