http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/resources/resources-glossary/11/
http://www.divinecaroline.com/life-etc/culture-causes/ten-african-american-women-who-changed-world
Notice the arrogant ignorance of the infinitesimal mind. The psychologically impaired mind of a pos is actually unaware of the world-historical importance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and his legacy. Yet the whole world acknowledges and admires Dr. King. There are statues of Dr. King in Europe. When I travelled there I noticed that "Martin L. King" is a household name. He was one of few persons whom even the Russians dared not deny when he wanted to deliver a sermon in a Church in EAST GERMANY. He virtually received the red carpet treatment in the Vatican. And, of course, he was hailed as a hero in western Europe during this recetpion of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. His name is known in Latin America, in the West Indies, in Canada, China, and --not surprisingly--in his ancestral homeland of Africa.
He was esteemed by people like Vlac Havel(a fellow Personalist), a Czech dissident who survived USSR's repression of the Prague Spring, becoming later the President of the liberated new Czech democracy after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Stephane Hessel, Attai's courageous compatriot and hero of La Resistance, hails King along with Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as a prophet of nonviolent revolution. And progressive Muslims in the Baltimore/Washington area helped fuel the Arab Spring--mainly a NONVIOLENT REVOLUTION---by translating into Arabic films on and writings by Dr. King, and disseminating them throughout the Muslim world. The "boring" Dr. King as idiocratic "pos" labels him, had a tendecny while alive that has transcended his death, of sparking the unboring and remarkable fires of REVOLT in the hearts and minds of oppressed people everywhere. Oppressed Latin American peasants sing Civil Rights songs. Oppressed Irish folk resisting British oppression are inspired by King---the Irish wife of a local AA man remarking to me how often one finds pictures of Dr. King in Irish homes over there--marched while singing our black freedom songs and emulating our techniques of nonviolent civil disobedience.
And needless to say, the FBI wasn't so frightened of Dr. King because he was about to bore the public to sleep. They knew better. That's why he was KILLED. But leave it up to a Nazi untermenschen like "pos" to be so out of touch with the REAL WORLD. We may be entering into a new era of democratic revolutions on a global scale. And "pos" seems to be one of those people who will be, in Dr. King's words "sleeping through a revolution." But that's her problem. I will be among those fighting to change the course of history, to begin a new Dawn of Freedom for the whole of humanity. Let's do it, compatriots! FREEDOM RISING!!!
-Savant
_____________________
In fact, capitalism is even destroying labor without which even the wealth of the capitalists is impossible. Capitalism has always been known for its technological revolutions, which are partly what Marx may have had in mind when he spoke of capitalisms endless "revolutionizing of the instruments of production." These revolutions have hitherto resulted in the creation of labor saving devices; for example, the tractor to replace the plow.. In so doing capitalism has been able to maximize profit by achieving greater wealth production with less labor. But it is labor which created the technology which diminishes labor. Now as a certain point the revolutionization technical instruments of productions takes a qualitative leap. Now only do we have labor saving devices, we have LABOR REPLACEING devices. One or two robots can replace thousands of auto workers. There are ven robots that do hip replacement surgery. Once you turn that corner capitalism is doomed. Maybe not in quite the way Marx thought. Maybe not some "proletarian revolution." And yet somewhat AS he imagined--the negation of labor and the concentration of moer and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands. This could lead to revolution--or fascism---as even the upper middle classes are impoverished, and the corporate state is forced to increasingly restrict civil liberties in order to protect the interests of the masters of wealth. The system implodes from within.
Once labor is abolished or marginalized laborers cannot purchase. if they can't purchase, profits are lost. The system collapses from within. But it doesn't pass away quietly, nor do the common people quietlyu sit by as their lives are destroyed. Repression will be neeed to protect capital from the people. The people have the option of surrrender and death, or some form of resistance. We are left with the option of either a new, more democratic and COOPERATIVE society, or fascism and barbarism. The collapse of civilization, or the rebirth of the human world. A "new humanism" as fanon called it. A new world. FREEDOM RISING!!!
-Savant
_______________
At the bare minimum Obama should have settled for nothing less than the public option. The problem is that he failed to push for universal single payer. Had he done that then he could hav4 at least negotiated down (if need be) to the pubiic option.
Obama's centrism is self-defeating.
-Savant
___________________
Dr. King's perspective on Frantz Fanon is interesting. He notes in WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE (p.55)that within radical left Black circles of the late 1960s, many youth were no longer quoting Gandhi or Tolstoy, but Fanon's THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH. Despite his disagreements with Fanon, who proposed armed insurgency to end racist oppression and colonialist exploitation, Kind admits that Fnaon's book is "well written" and "with many penetrating insights."(p.55). Indeed, King apparently admires Fanon's revolutionary call to maek "inventions" and "discovering", to create a new social order with radically new values leading to the self-transformaton of the human being. King clearly admires Fanon's call at the end of Les Damnes de l Terre: "For Europe, for ourselves, and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, a try to set afoot a NEW MAN." NOw King actually admires these challenging words from Fanon's WRETCHED OF THE EARTH. And on p. 66 of WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE, King replies: "These are brave and challenging words; I am HAPPY that young black men and women are quoting them.But the problem is that Fanon and those who quote his words are seeking to "work out new concepts" and "set afoot a new man" with a willingness to imitate old concepts of violence." King's attitude toward Fanon, as largely also toward Marx, is to embrace the humanistic end but not the violent means. In STRENGTH TO LOVE, King describes Marx's idea of a classless society free of exploitation, poverty and racism as a "noble end," while regarding as ignoble the call for an ARMED proletarian uprising. King agrees with Fanon that humanity must end radical inequalities of wealth or be torn about by it.
He agrees whe Fanon writes "What we want to do all the time, night and day, is to go forward in the company of Man, in the company of ALL men..." In essence, King says "Bravo, Fanon. That is precisely what we want. But we cannot go forward together in the company of all men if we take a violent path to get there." Of course, even Fanon argued (as I mentioned in an essay I sent you) that there were SOME situations, some societies, where radical change may be achieved by peaceful means. But what about situations in which this is not possible. Relatively peaceful deconolinzation was possible in Ghana, but not in Algeria according to Fanon. And what about America? Is revolutionary onviolent change possible in America? Can we end plutocracy and racism withou armed struggle? Does the Occupy MOvement offer us an historical possibility of radical nonviolent transformation? Like the ultimate outcome of the Arab Spring, the jury's still out on that. But we must strive, must push forward, to achieve a more just society withut drowning the land in blood. Heaven help us all if we fail.
-Savant
________________________
Notice the arrogant ignorance of the infinitesimal mind. The psychologically impaired mind of a pos is actually unaware of the world-historical importance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and his legacy. Yet the whole world acknowledges and admires Dr. King. There are statues of Dr. King in Europe. When I travelled there I noticed that "Martin L. King" is a household name. He was one of few persons whom even the Russians dared not deny when he wanted to deliver a sermon in a Church in EAST GERMANY. He virtually received the red carpet treatment in the Vatican. And, of course, he was hailed as a hero in western Europe during this recetpion of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. His name is known in Latin America, in the West Indies, in Canada, China, and --not surprisingly--in his ancestral homeland of Africa. He was esteemed by people like Vlac Havel(a fellow Personalist), a Czech dissident who survived USSR's repression of the Prague Spring, becoming later the President of the liberated new Czech democracy after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Stephane Hessel, Attai's courageous compatriot and hero of La Resistance, hails King along with Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as a prophet of nonviolent revolution. And progressive Muslims in the Baltimore/Washington area helped fuel the Arab Spring--mainly a NONVIOLENT REVOLUTION---by translating into Arabic films on and writings by Dr. King, and disseminating them throughout the Muslim world. The "boring" Dr. King as idiocratic "pos" labels him, had a tendecny while alive that has transcended his death, of sparking the unboring and remarkable fires of REVOLT in the hearts and minds of oppressed people everywhere. Oppressed Latin American peasants sing Civil Rights songs. Oppressed Irish folk resisting British oppression are inspired by King---the Irish wife of a local AA man remarking to me how often one finds pictures of Dr. King in Irish homes over there--marched while singing our black freedom songs and emulating our techniques of nonvioleet civil disobedience. And needless to say, the FBI wasn't so frightened of Dr. King because he was about to bore the public to sleep. They knew better. That's why he was KILLED. But leave it up to a Nazi untermenschen like "pos" to be so out of touch with the REAL WORLD. We may be entering into a new era of democratic revolutions on a global scale. And "pos" seems to be one of those people who will be, in Dr. King's words "sleeping through a revolution." But that's her problem. I will be among those fighting to change the course of history, to begin a new Dawn of Freedom for the whole of humanity. Let's do it, compatriots! FREEDOM RISING!!! -Savant __________________________
http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TGR7NOC6C0A1A5PFR/p348
Yes. I certainly had no doubts about King being socialist, at the time, based on his speeches. To me it just sounded like he crafted his words for mainstream consumption, yet never misled, always was clear about what he wanted, which I interpreted as, to put it simply: social justice. That meant economic justice and King was explicit about that. I mean, what the hell does a rally called “Poor Peoples' March” tell us exactly? And now that Fox News has everyone confused about what “socialism” means, let's keep in mind that a hell of a lot of LBJ's domestic policy was DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM oh yes it f'ing was! If it hadn't been for Vietnam... he'd have been re-elected and things would have been different. King was demanding that it go further than LBJ's “Great Society”... he wanted to go right after the corporations (as FDR had done), which I've seen no Democrat since FDR and maybe Truman really attempt. As to what is obvious to us, that Dr. King was very interested in economic issues and from a leftist perspective, but which others like to deny (oh no he just wanted to sit in the front of the bus!), I can offer further testament in that in the UFW we were hearing a LOT as we were educated into the ways of that nascent Union about GANDHI and KING. Gandhi and King, all the time, non-violence, non-violent struggle for justice for WORKERS, and so on, and I could repeat another dozen common phrases used all of which expressed a continuity with Gandhi and King and were oriented toward social justice, as the UFW seldom dealt directly with issues of discrimination against Mexicans, though that was rampant in California. Their focus was on Unionizing farmworkers, whether they were Mexican or Philippino or whatever. 99%!!!!!!!!!
Let me also say this about King's heroism. He steadfastly insisted on non-violence. Some black “militants” saw this as cowardice,“letting the white man beat you down” and so on. But King knew that with persistence the image of the non-violent people asking for merely their rights, yet being beaten, was powerful and would cause the cause to prevail in the public mind.
He also knew that one had to be very diligent in maintaining one's stance. Was not King tempted at times to lash out, kick a cop or whatever? Certainly as he was human he was so tempted. But he was one impressive leader, one inspirational philosophic guide for those of us who wanted justice, and as anyone around in the 60's can tell you, he had this powerful effect on all the movements, not just SCLC, voting rights in Montgomery, etc.
I know that I philosophically agree with Dr. King, and in political action I have managed to maintain non-violence as a tactic. But I am ANGRY. I suppose y'all can see that. I have also been in marches taunted by crowds of angry racist rednecks. I have friends who've been tortured and killed. I have been tortured. I am pissed off. I am very pissed off.
But if you see me at an Occupy event or other such action, I will be non-violent. I will think about King and Chávez (César Chávez, with Dolores Huerta co-founder of the UFW) and remember what it is we're fighting for and how we do it.
Dolores Huerta was beaten by SF cops to the point of internal injuries and prolonged hospitalization. César and her and all of us were reviled and spit upon. The rednecks in Salinas even spit on Ethel Kennedy for coming to support the UFW.
I bring this up to emphasize how important and powerful Dr. King was and is as a teacher and leader, and I want also that everyone be aware that the UFW was following exactly the same precepts, and its history like that of the civil rights movt in the South is quite a tale of perseverence and courage.
Let's do keep the faith, eh?
-Barros Serrano
_____________
Fanon, living in the 20th Century, was aware of how manipulatable is the European proletariat, not to mention the far less mature American proletariat.
I think that PEOPLE POWER has to somehow emphasize media-consciousness and savvy about corporate-funded talking points to the progressive masses.
Generally speaking, Savant, I suspect that the higher the educational level, the easier it is to get people to realize how they are being manipulated by external stimuli. However, even people with years of post-high school education can be successfully played for fools by a well-honed corporate media machine which has all sorts of studies on communication and psychology to draw on, and which can shamelessly spout all manner of disinformation and outright lies to drive home a particular message or "talking point."
I think that Fanon and Marx alike probably underestimated just how divisible and gullible the proletariat can be.
On the other hand, they can be refreshingly progressive and open-minded at times too, which is why we must never completely give up on them.
.
.
.
.
.
P.S. As a brief aside, I predict that President Obama will carry Ohio and Pennsylvania this fall and that huge swathes (if not an outright majority) of the white-working-class electorate will reject Romney's campaign of obfuscation and nonsense...and recognize that Obama's origins are far closer to their own (economically) than Romney's.
But he seemed to believe the the majority of the poor of the Third World, especially under colonialism, were still revolutionary or potentially so. He distrusted the native bourgeoisie of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Marx was convinced of the revolutionary potential of the Western working class. He was not aware of the extent to which the 1% would in the 20th Century develop means for capturing or deluding the consciousness of the Western proletariat.
The global crisis of capitalism may be creating new opportunities to create a revolutionary movement of working class and poor people. But it will be a long struggle. And we must still overcome the racial divide among the poor in America.
-Savant
_______________
But it's important that progressives don't throw in the towel. The adversary learns from us in order to defeat us, and we mush learn from him/her in order to win the fight for democracy and to end the plutocracy. More and more creative use of social media, and learning how to "play" the corporate media must be part of our strategy.
A disturbing situation indeed, and I would point out that many of those who now will vote GOP to screw themselves, I'm talking about these white workingclass folks, a few decades back would have been voting for Hubert Humphrey at least, not exactly my model for radical change, but at least a moderately pro-Union Democrat. Now they go teapartying and will vote for whichever fascist reprobate Bill O'Reilly endorses.
And THEREIN lies the problem... the right learned that if they have news actually reporting events, and people see bodybags from Vietnam, and Dr. King speeches, and demonstrations, and SDS and Black Panthers, and the radio is full of protest songs and conscious rebellious music from Beatles to Marvin Gaye, and the tradition of folk music is strong... well, then you end up with college students riotting and a President like LBJ enacting social change from the White House!!!
Can't have that!!! And so along comes the Reagan Revolution with GOPAC tactics and Rush and O'Reilly, and now the white worker repeatedly votes to have his own rectum thoroughly reamed and calls it “patriotism”!!!
This media mind control is our biggest obstacle. The corporate feudal owners-of-our-a___ have done a real good job at tying up the minds of the populace, far better than had ever been done when the 60's happened. We have a big problem...
Most importantly, we must have an inspiring vision of a better world. Our dreamers and visionaries are indispensable. It can just be about defeating the right.
How did Robert F. Kennedy put it? "Some men look at things as the ARE and ask "why?" I envision things as they COULD BE and ask "Why not?"
-Savant
____________
Dr. King's SON's Observation
I happened to have switched the channel yesterday evening when Dr. KIng's son, MLK III was speaking.
He said (so many words) "My dad was not killed for the his efforts at desegregation or the fight for the ballot. He was probably killed because of his efforts to economically empower the poor and working people." \
Martin L, King, III also gave props to the OCCUPY MOVEMENT, which he suggested was continuing the same fight for economic justice as his father.
This is the point that I, Savant, has been trying to stress by starting this thread.
This is the great battle of the 21st Century.
-Savant
_______________________
King's advice in his April 4, 1967 speech "A Time to Break Silence", if heeded, might have allowed us to avoid most of the disasters of the past 45 years. Imperialism and peace, militarism and democracy, are diametrically opposed and irreconcilable. Sooner or later--but probably sooner than we think--America will have to choose. You cannot have imperialist aggression and exploitation abroad ,and social justice and peace at home. You cannot have have militarism abroad and democracy at home. And, ss Dr. King once said "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."(THE TRUMPET OF CONSCIENCE, P. 32) Eventually, we Americans --and others---will have to make a choice, a choice that may determine the future of civilization; or determine whether civilization will have a future. As an American I would rather we were the most JUST society than the more powerful. And to paraphrase words of Obama which Obama seems at times to forget,
I would prefer America inspire others by "the power of our examples" rather than intimidate others "by teh example of our power." For thousands of years human beings and societies have resorted to war to resolve differences. But those differences remain, often magnified, as wars continue. Continue as they have for THOUSANDS of years, and yet war continues. Perhaps it's time that we consider another path. Could it be that "impractical dreamers" like Dr. King, the Mahatma and even Asoka are really the most "practical" after all? Maybe we should listen more to the "dreamers" and less to the practical hawks. Just a thought.......
-Savant
No comments:
Post a Comment