More Great Research

Savant wrote: Well....Marx's atheism would be hard to reconcile with the Bible. But his pasion for social justice would fit the spirit of the Old Testament prophets And even Dr. King, who's philosophically at odds with Marx---King's Peronslism being a form of Idealism--wrote that "Communism challenges us to be mor concerned about social justice." And he notes that "The COMMUNIST MANIFESTO was written by men aflame with a passion for social justice."(See STRENGTH TO LOVE, p. 172) Noting Marx's Jewish parentage allgedly of "rabbinical stock," King speculates that Marx's passion for social justice was probably of Hebraic, prophetic origin even if he later became an atheist. Moreover, King describes Marx's idea of a classless society as a "noble end" even Communists have adopted ignoble means to attain it (p.168) In short, King's real problem with Marx (and also Fanon) was his philosophical objection (as an Idealist) to their materialism, and their willingness to resort to armed violence to achieve a more just society. But for King, tha aims of a Marx were quite compatible with Christianity and the teachings of the Hebrew prophets. Socialism, democratic and democratically achieved by nonviolent revolutinary struggle, was precisely what King was up to during the Poor Peoples Campaign. I guess J. Edgar Hoover and his COINTELPRO goons figured that out. Which may be why Dr. King is not with us today. 

-Savant


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EkDesiLadki wrote:

I support occupy movement. Yet, I feel poverty and unemployment is not just the real problem in black community.
In US blacks are systematically discriminated and decimated by new drug laws after slavery and Jim crow. The statistics suggest that drug laws are just NEW Jim crows(in mask) because 90% of black men are jailed for non-violent crime like possessing small amount of drug for personal use. Also, only 5% of white for similar crimes are send to jail. Rest are just send to counseling whereas blacks are send to prison. Some even for 5 years.
Statistics also suggest that there are more blacks in jail compared to the number of slaves in the height of slavery. Once you get arrested irrespective of you getting convicted or not, your chances of landing in good employment, housing or any govt services is NEGLIGIBLE. This drug law or NEW Jim crow Laws have created a NEW system of labor who can be hired without paying minimum wage and benefits.
Anyone want REAL social change should protest against NEW Jim Crow. May be it's time for us to ask if we've real democracy FOR ALL ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch...

By the way, Ekdesiladik's comments here are very important to the future of the 99% Movement. It must attack anti-Black racism as well as poverty, and it must be cognizant of the tight interconnection between exploitation and racial oppression. If not, then the ruling class of the 1% will eventually divide the Movement as it has divided other progressive movements in the past. The Movement must also stand against anti-Hispanic racism, especially in light of the attack on immigrants. If not, the ruling class will divide native born workers from workerr born elsewhere, and thereby destroy our Movement. We must think in terms of unifying all the dispossessed as King intended with the Poor Peoples Campaign.

-Savant

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While you're looking at Frantz Fanon's critiqe of colonialism, here are some interesting words by King on what Black Panthers and others in the 1960s called "domestic colonialism."
COLONIALISM AMERICAN-STYLE:

"The Northern ghetto had become a type of colonial area. The colonay was powerless because all important decisions affecting the community was made from the outside. Many of its inhabitants even had their daily lives dominated by the welfare worker and the policeman. The profits of the landlord and merchant removed and seldom if ever reinvested. The only positive thing the larger society saw in the slum was that it was the source of cheap surplus labor in times of economic boom. Otherwise, its inhabitants were blamed for their own victimization."(p. 301, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR).

As a former resident of the East Baltimore ghetto, I can tell you that King's description definitely squares with my experience and my memory of the sitution.
Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, scholar Robert Allen (author of BLACK AWAKENING IN CAPITALIST AMERICA) and many other critics saw the ghetto in similar ways.
Think about this while reading Dr. Fanon's THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH and his description of the "native town" and the "settler town". Similarities are scary. Resentiment bred by these conditions are scary.

-Savant

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During a visit several years ago by Bob Moses (former Mississippi SNCC leaser), a school teacher (and socialist of European descent) suggesed to me why our educational system is so bad even in liberal "blue" states like Maryland (not to mention backward red states like Mississippi)is because the ruling class know jobs are not available, and they want folk who are POOR to be EDUCATED. It was reported back then that 65% of all available jobs in Bmore were low wage jobs with no security. A highly educated peopole under those conditions would be dangerous. So the demand of Bob Moses and the ALGEBRA PROJECT for the right to a QUALITY education for all ss a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT is a potentially revolutionary demand. Bu tthis was one of the demands that was to be a part of the POOR PEOPLES CAMPAIGN which Dr. KIng was to lead if he'd not be slain. WE must take up that demand again.

 -Savant


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  BROTHERS. I recently saw that flic, a quite old one based on the events surrounding the Soldedad Brothers and Angela Davis. Apparently, it's an old film. But the names of Angela Davis and George Jackson character are changed. When one compares BROTHERS to BLACK AUGUST (apparently made BEFORE Obama's election but not earlier than the GW administration), Brothers seems more "Hollywoodish ." BLACK AUGUST begins with George Jackson, and talks about his tow books SOLEDAD BROTHER and BLOOD IN MY EYE. The Actors play George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson, Georgia Jackson and Angela Davis while using their names. In BROTHERS, Angela Davis is name Paula JOnes. George Jackson Character is named Davis, and the little Jonathan character is called Joshua. The REAL names are kept in BLACK AUGUST. More of George Jackson's thinking is revealed in BLACK AUGUST. Passages from SOLEDAD BROTHER are read in that film, though not at great length. That doesn't happen in BROTHERS. George Jackson's membership in the Black Panther Party, and the membership of little brother Jonathan is made explicit in BLACK AUGUST, but merely hinted at in BROTHERS. In BLACK AUGUST there emphasis on Angela Davis's affiliation wtth the Black Panther Party, in fact her connection is exaggerated. But no mention is made of her longer association with the Che'Lumumba club of the Communist Party, I notice that in BROTHERS the Angela Davis character is a philosophy professor, and is depicted briefly in her academic milieu. In BLACK AUGUST, you would not know Angela was an academician, but you would know that she was a revolutionary. Interestingly enough, Vonetta McGee who plays the Angela Davis character (but named Paula Jones) in BROTHERS, appears as Georgia Jackson, mother of George Jackson, in BLACK AUGUST. BROTHERS has a nice musical background in the voice of singer Taj Mahal. BLACK AUGUST has a hip hop musical background, but I don't remember the name of the rap group (which does an interesting remake of Marvin Gaye's "Make me wanna Holler."

 -Savant


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 Fortunately, the Tea Party is destroying itself. Nest to the KKK, Nazis or the white militias (one of which I believe was part of one Tea Party gathering) the Tea Party is probably tne most racist formation in the country, but concealed within the Republican party 

 -Savant


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King was not a Communist, but a REVOLUTIONARY Christian, a socialist, and a supporter of liberatory struggles by the oppressed both in America and abroad.

-Savant

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