Savant's Research

Let us set the record straight during this last week of Black History Month.
I've heard black Republicans say that King was a conservative Republican.
But I almost always get silence when I ask them for evidence. Yet this absence of evidence doesn't stop them from repeating the claim.
I point out that the KIng estate in Atlanta has stated it knows of NO evidence that King was a Republican.
Moreover, my own research into writings by King scholars and by KING HIMSELF have thus far turned up on evidence.

In fact, my readings of King's own writings--upon which I based a philosophical analysis at the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History--shows quite the OPPOSITE!!!

If anything it shows that Dr. King was a LEFT progressive and maybe even a DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST, who saw economic injustice, racial oppression, militarism, poverty and imperialism as part of one UNJUST SYSTEM.

So where is the evidence that King was a conservative?

How do you reconcile this view of Dr. King with his radical LEFT critiques of CAPITALISM and Imperialism?

Kindly explain

And what about Dr. King's idea of an ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS?
How was that compatible with a conservative agenda.

Now tha the Conservative Age is passing, maybe it's time to rediscover the RADICAL and PROGRESSIVE legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Debatable. They had issues, but Jesse Jackson was given important responsibilities by King. Interestingly enough, some scholars point out that King thought Jesse Jackson was TOO CONSERVATIVE, Historian Thonas F, Jackson mentions tha in his book FROM CIVL RIGHTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE.


-Savant

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EkDesiLadki wrote:

Dr. Savant,
May be you can watch this funny bollywood movie called Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Most of the Hindi movies are now available with English subtitles from netflix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lage_Raho_Munna_...
This is about a don who get transformed because of Gandhi's principle. I heard that this movie made great impact in India.
In India there are occasional linguistic/ethnic violence. There were incidents in which Maharastrian(central Indians) mobs beat up north Indians. Usually this will result in Maharastrians living in north getting beaten up too. The movie seems to have inspired people so much that most north Indians welcomed few Maharastrians with garlands when they visited north instead of beating them up. Seems like eye-opener, and prevented large scale violence, also sending a strong signal.
I feel, people can be inspired. We just need that inspiration or that little spark which will cause the "forest" fire.

Thanks for the info. I wish Dr. King had as much moral and spiritual influence in America as Gandhi seems to have still in India.
What I was specifically thinking of was the suggestion made by King (and in one of your posts) that India could perhaps lead the world in the move toward disarmament. Since, as Dr. King suggested, neither America nor the Soviet Union had any inclination to give up the arms race and work for peace, maybe India (in spirit of the Mahatma) could lead the way.
I'm wondering if that's still possible as King thought it was in 1959.
I wish King's influence could be used to both reduce violence within our African-American communities, as well as violence between racial groups....But that's another discussion.

KIng and Labor

If you read King's writings, especially in collection called A TESTAMENT OF HOPE, you will find that Dr. King was always pro-labor. Labor was a part of the alliance forming the Civil Rights Movement. And King's final campaign was an effort in solidarity with Memphis' impoveriahed sanitation workers in their struggle for decent wages, the right to unionize, and collective bargaining. Some of those who were a part of the movement in Memphis in 1968 can now be found marching with public workers in Wisconsin.
And yes, Dr. King would be in Wisconsin fighting the good fight for working people against the corrupt and oppressive plutocracy which Scott Walker represents.



-Savant



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Barros Serrano wrote:

Why else would the rulers after the liberation movements of the 60's make sure that education was dumbed down and ignorance glorified?

When Bob Moese vistied Bmore 2007, he was speaking on behalf of the ALGEBRA PROJECT which he helped to found, and which is fighting for QUALITY EDUCATION as a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT.
While chair of SNCC during the 60s campaign in Mississippi, he noted that in those days lack of education was used as a pretext (with Literacy requirements) to exclude Blacks from the right to vote. And, of course, the racist authorities had taken careful measures to insure that most Black Mississippians would be just barely literate.
Now the rulers use poor education to dupe people into movmements (like Tea Party) which are harmful to themselves and mainly sureve the interests of the privileged classes.
Also, people are just easier to control if they're ignorant. Even though Blacks mainly have the NATIVE INTELLIGENCE to avoid the Tea Party charade, many are still dispirited rather than energized. Even if they can smell a rat when some very right wing movment comes at them, that doesn't mean they can easily visuallize a positive alternative. Hence many--not just blacks--become demoralized or cynical. It requires VISION to be able to imagine a better future for which one is willing to sacrifice.
I fear that the dumbing down of education has largely dulled our vision, and the Machiavellian machinations and propaganda of the Right has eroded the healthy idealism of many.

-Savant


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MAX JOKER wrote:

Unions are for SOCIAL JUSTICE..........lol
You mean keeping the lazy employeed, right?
They want the world while regula

Thanks for displaying your IGNORANCE of the history of American labor. And your STUPIDITY in believing the old capitalist myth (spread by IDLE RICH) that laziness is the cause of unemployment.
At any rate, we're going to build a more JUST America regardless of what you and other moronic Neanderthal reactionaries say.
And thanks to that fascistic goveernor in Wisconsin, our efforts are getting a remarkable boost.

-Savant

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CaptainDelight wrote:

You guys need a messiah so baaaaaaaaaaad.

A messiah didn't win the victories of the Civil Rights Movement. The PEOPLE did. A messiah didn't win the rights of labor earlier in the 20th Century. Militant workers did.
We leave YOU to your reactionary messiahs like Glenn Beck, Ronald Reagan, George Wallace, Pat Robertson and others who are being left behind by history.

At any rate, the working people were RIGHT to honor King on April 4. He was one of the few who recognized the inseparability of civil rights and economic rights, and who noted long ago that economic injustice is the inseparable twin of racial injustice.
61% of the American people have at least the good sense to side with working people fighting for their rights against the corrupt tyranny of the plutocracy represented by Scott Walker.
The Struggle continues.

-Savant

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CaptainDelight wrote:

It will always be a struggle when you depend on government for everything in your life.

This is the typical disingenuous comment and duplicitous attitude of the Right.
The reactionaries make no bones about using GOVERNMENT POWER to defend corporate interests in Iraq. They don't mind corporate pirate having their bought and paid for politicians from both parties in their hip pocket. They don't mind using big government to strip workers of their rights to collective bargaining. They don't mind using "big government" to deprive women of their rights to make choices about their own reproduction. But let abused working people, oppressed people of color, women or any other subjugated group demand government action on THEIR behalf, on behalf of SOCIAL JUSTICE---and the rightist and racist cry against the "tyranny" of big government is trumpeted throughout the land by venal or deluded partisans of the status quo.
Those without boots are instructed to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Those who enjoy all the advantages of class privileged are showered with all the generous largesse "big government" has to offer.
The victims of corporate piracy are told to fend for themselves which rightwing officials court and serve corporate interests with all the dubious integrity of well paid political courtesans.
But thankfully, at least 61% of the American people are with the righteous fighters fo workers rights in Wisconsin. And I do believe we can win this struggle.
There will be justice for all, especially those whom King called "the disinherited children of God," and whom Jesus called "the salt of the earth."

-Savant

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CaptainDelight wrote:

I am a patriot who believes in destroying government leeches, communist.

Your pseudo-patriotism is is MAKS behing which you conceal your fascism and racism, Herr Captain. Your call for the MASS EXECUTION of trade unionists is in the tradition of Franco and Hitler. My defense of the rights to collective bargaining and freedom is in the tradition of humanism and democracy.

-Savant



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