The Weekly Watch - Open Thread
By Nordette Adams
I remember him in the misted vision of toddler years
and again in girlhood, the booming voice on TV,
someone grown-ups talked about, eyelids flapped wide.
Elders huddled ''round the screen enraptured,
in fear for him, in awe.
I remember him.
His words swept the land, singing our passion.
Dogs growled in streets. Men in sheets.
Police battering my people. (Water, a weapon.)
Yet my people would rejoice... And mourn.
I remember him, a fearsome warrior crying peace,
a man--blemished by clay, the stain of sin as
any other, calling on the Rock--
Death''s sickle on his coat tails,
yet he spied glory.
Shall we walk again and remember him,
not as the Madison Aveners do,
but in solitude and hope
with acts of courage and compassion,
with lives of greater scope
carving fresh paths of righteousness?
I remember.
Tomorrow is MLK day. Here in Alabama, the wake of his passing is still felt. You can almost hear his echo in Montgomery, a city where life's contradictions seem magnified. You can stand on the steps of the Capitol in the same spot Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the confederacy, and look down Dexter Ave... the last leg of the march from Selma... at the end of which was once a fountain where Zelda allegedly skinny dipped one night...up the hill from that site is the bus station where the freedom riders were greeted with violence. Dr King's church still stands near the capitol, and another block down Dexter Avenue is the State Supreme Court where Chief Justice Roy Moore illegally placed a statue of the ten commandments (both he and the statue were removed, but Moore was re-elected to be removed again when he refused to permit same sex marriages in the state). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Moore Behind the courthouse is Morris Dee's Southern Poverty Law Center and the civil right memorial created by Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer Maya Lin https://www.splcenter.org/civil-rights-memorial
The Civil Rights movement was the first to touch my life, but others followed - the peace movement, the women's movement, the environmental movement, back-to-the-land movement and others, but I think Dr King had it right with his last movement, The Poor Peoples Campaign. The campaign demanded economic and human rights for poor Americans of diverse backgrounds. After presenting an organized set of demands to Congress and executive agencies, participants set up a 3,000-person protest camp on the Washington Mall, where they stayed for six weeks in the spring of 1968.
The Poor People’s Campaign was motivated by a desire for economic justice: the idea that all people should have what they need to live. King and the SCLC shifted their focus to these issues after observing that gains in civil rights had not improved the material conditions of life for many African Americans. The Poor People’s Campaign was a multiracial effort—including African-Americans, whites, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans—aimed at alleviating poverty regardless of race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People%27s_Campaign
There will be plenty to read about Dr King as his holiday approaches, and I'll use some of the quotes from his DC memorial in this piece. But, I've been thinking about all the people it takes to create a movement … so many forgotten or unknown. Great leaders can inspire, but it takes us all to create a movement. Today I want to offer a small sampling of folks that helped in our struggles, and remind us all that it will take us all to move forward.
There are so many unsung heroes of the Civil rights movement. One that comes to mind is E. D. Nixon. He helped propel Dr King into his leadership position. Mr. Nixon was the head of the local NAACP. He worked as a Pullman porter, and so couldn't be fired by the Montgomery business establishment (the usual trick for people who stepped up to lead the movement). The bus boycott was his idea. After Parks' arrest, Nixon called a number of local ministers to organize support for the boycott; the third man he called was Martin Luther King Jr., a young minister who was newly arrived from Atlanta, Georgia. What was expected to be a short boycott lasted 381 days, more than one year. Despite fierce political opposition, police coercion, personal threats, and their own sacrifices, the blacks of Montgomery held the boycott. It took unity across the community. They walked to work; the people with cars gave others rides. They gave up some trips. Bus ridership plummeted, as blacks were the majority riders in the system, and the bus company was on the verge of financial ruin. In late January a bomb was set off near the home of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and on February 1, 1956, a bomb exploded in front of Nixon's home.
After the boycott, in a speech in NY Nixon said, “I'm from Montgomery, Alabama, a city that's known as the Cradle of the Confederacy, that had stood still for more than ninety-three years until Rosa L. Parks was arrested and thrown in jail like a common criminal.... Fifty thousand people rose up and caught hold to the Cradle of the Confederacy and began to rock it till the Jim Crow rockers began to reel and the segregated slats began to fall out.”
He expressed resentment that King and Abernathy had received most of the credit for the boycott, as opposed to the local activists who had already spent years organizing against racism. But King admired Nixon, describing him as "one of the chief voices of the Negro community in the area of civil rights," and "a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the long oppressed people of the State of Alabama."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._D._Nixon
http://www.themilitant.com/2005/6946/694661.html
The Women's movement
Today’s activists can learn valuable lessons from the first protest outside the White House that took place 100 years ago, on Jan. 10, 1917. The activists were part of the National Woman’s Party, a group that was fighting for women’s suffrage. It took three more years before women won the right to vote, but the ongoing protests at the White House played a crucial role in that victory.
http://www.alternet.org/activism/anti-trump-protesters-lessons-first-whi...
Alice Paul was the main leader and strategist of the 1910s campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote. Along with Lucy Burns and others, Paul strategized the events, such as the Woman Suffrage Procession and the Silent Sentinels, which led the successful campaign that resulted in its passage in 1920. The National Woman's Party led by suffragist Alice Paul became the first "cause" to picket outside the White House. Paul had been mentored by Emmeline Pankhurst while in England, and both she and Lucy Burns led a series of protests against the Wilson Administration in Washington. Wilson ignored the protests for six months, but on June 20, 1917, as a Russian delegation drove up to the White House, suffragists unfurled a banner which stated: "We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national enfranchisement". Another banner on August 14, 1917, referred to "Kaiser Wilson" and compared the plight of the German people with that of American women. With this manner of protest, the women were subject to arrests and many were jailed. On October 17, Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months and on October 30 began a hunger strike, but after a few days prison authorities began to force feed her. After years of opposition, Wilson changed his position in 1918 to advocate women's suffrage as a war measure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Paul
Like today, Movements tend to feed into one another. Many leaders of the Women's movement also campaigned for labor and progressive social policies.
This 1918 photograph shows Rose Pastor working with activists Eugene Debs and Max Eastman. Pastor fought for labor rights and women's rights, and against war. Creative Commons/John P. Diggins, from "Up from Communism."
http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/rose-pastor-a-progressive-era-hero-of-the-...
Jane Addams' commitment to the needs of others and her international efforts for peace were recognized in 1931 when she became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
http://www.voanews.com/a/honoring-unsung-hero-of-womens-rights-movement-...
The Labor movement
In the city of Chicago on the evening of May 4th 1886, a protest meeting was held in the Haymarket Square. The meeting was organized by the anarchist community to protest the murder and wounding of several workers by the Chicago police the day before. Only 4000 people came. By ten o'clock a storm was blowing in and the crowd was down to only a few hundred listeners as Samuel Fielden was finishing up his speech. Having been informed by one of the many undercover officers in the crowd that Fielden had urged the crowd to "throttle the law," captain Bonefield marched his police force into the crowd and demanded they disperse. Fielden pleaded "but we are peaceful" and anyway he was just finishing up, he started to climb down from the wagon that was being used as a stage for the speakers. Just then someone (nobody knows to this day who) threw a bomb into the ranks of the police. What ensued was a police riot in which many civilians and several police were shot dead and wounded.
As a result of the bombing, eight anarchists, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, Oscar Neebe, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis Lingg, were arrested, tried and convicted of murder.
The major media of the day, mainly of newspapers, convicted the defendants before the trial even began, and helped create an atmosphere of hatred and hysteria against them. The media conveyed the feeling to the public that neither life nor property would be safe until these anarchists were hung. The New York Times offered the following solution to the anarchist threat, "In the early stages of an acute outbreak of anarchy a Gatling gun, or if the case be severe, two, is the sovereign remedy." The St Louis globe said, "There are no good anarchists except dead anarchists." The Chicago Daily News, stated, "The anarchists are amenable to no other reason except that taught by the rifle and the club."
Let us not forget that the Haymarket Affair was about the struggle of workers for a better life... a life free of the bondage of a system of wage slavery. Regardless of the consequences we must find within ourselves the same kind of spirit, dedication and resolve as those Anarchists, who gave their lives in the name of social justice and freedom and anarchy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
http://www.iww.org/branches/US/CA/lagmb/lit/haymarket.shtml
Following her husband's 1887 execution in conjunction with the Haymarket Affair, Lucy Parsons remained a leading American radical activist as a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World and member of other political organizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Parsons
Maida Springer Kemp (1910-2005) was an American labor organizer who worked extensively in Africa for the AFL-CIO. Nicknamed "Mama Maida", she advised fledgling labor unions, set up education and training programs, and liaised between American and African labor leaders. In 1945, traveling to England on a labor-exchange trip, she was the first African-American woman to represent U.S. labor abroad. She was also active in the civil rights movement, and advocated for women's rights around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_Springer_Kemp
Chavez is a familiar name in the farm labor movement, but like all movements it took many people. Gustavo Gutierrez, born in Arizona to a migrant farming family, was a labor organizer and social activist who helped found Chicanos Por La Causa. He called Cesar Chavez his mentor, although they had different approaches to the undocumented. Gutierrez didn’t see the difference between undocumented and documented workers. “They’re all suffering the same no matter whether they have papers or whether they don’t.”
“I think there was that conservative bent that Chavez organized the UFW (United Farm Workers) in a very bureaucratic structure and didn’t always allow for sort of local organizations to run their own affairs.” Gutierrez was more liberal and some people called him a communist. In 1977, his Maricopa County Organizing Project put together a successful strike of undocumented workers near Arrowhead Ranch in Glendale.
http://kjzz.org/content/372734/arizonas-unsung-hero-farm-labor-movement
The new young leaders of the environmental movement
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/08/top-environmental-leaders-us_n_...
An early hero of the environmental movement was Senator Gaylord Nelson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaylord_Nelson
Nelson distinguished himself as Wisconsin governor by combining economic concerns with environmental issues. "The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around," he declared. After learning that Wisconsin was a popular tourist destination for Chicago residents, Nelson developed an Outdoor Recreation Act Program, imposing a one-penny tax on cigarettes to purchase conservation easements on over a million acres of wilderness land. He also took aggressive action to reduce the water pollution caused by detergents.
In 1962, Nelson ran for the U.S. Senate and won, bringing his enthusiasm for environmental issues to the national level. Though he also championed such causes as civil rights, the "war on poverty," prescription drug safety, family planning, ending the war in Vietnam and small business growth, he is perhaps best known for putting environmental issues on the national agenda.
In 1965, Nelson introduced the first legislation to ban the pesticide DDT. He successfully fought against the use of the deadly defoliant Agent Orange. He supported landmark legislation like the Wilderness Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
The 1960s ended with a blowout and a fire—symbols of an environment on the brink. First, in January of 1969, an oil well off the coast of Santa Barbara, California erupted and spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil, covering 35 miles of beach with tar. Then in June of 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio caught fire. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga as the river that “oozes rather than flows” and in which a person “does not drown but decays.” The flames, fueled by oil and chemicals in the river, topped five stories. This was all in 1969, the year that humans saw footage of Earth from space for the first time, thanks to the Apollo program. Suddenly, the Earth seemed very small, smaller than ever before.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in 1970 and charged with the task of protecting human health and the environment, aiding Congress in enacting into law the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. The 1970s also saw the establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Greenpeace, the Worldwatch Institute, and the Land Institute.
One of Nelson's greatest contributions to the environmental movement was the creation of Earth Day. Inspired in part by the large number of protests and teach-ins that were occurring worldwide during the 1960s, Nelson proposed in 1969 that there could be a coast-to-coast grassroots demonstration on behalf of environmental concerns -- and in Nelson's words, "The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters."
On April 22, 1970, twenty million people across the country celebrated Earth Day with teach-ins and protests. The event “achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders.”12 Shortly after Earth Day, environmentalists created the Dirty Dozen, a list of 12 political incumbents that had terrible environmental records. As a result, seven of the representatives were defeated in their elections, and politicians could no longer ignore environmental issues—green votes proved to have power.
And so many more... so many forgotten and unknown people who added to the struggle... many who dedicated and gave their life for movements. I'm sure you might suggest others in the comments today.
So, what's the big news of the week? The big story seems to be the cabinet nominations and hearings... amidst T-rump's press conference and Obummer's farewell address.
The Corporate cabinet http://www.corporatecabinet.org/
Senate committees are set to begin confirmation hearings on President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for key Cabinet positions. (3 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TIarw9fiKo
On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general faced more than nine hours of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which he denied being a racist and tried to distance himself from Trump’s most extreme promises. As he faced questions, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama was repeatedly disrupted by protesters (6 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALliCGJ1yuI
David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, is set to testify at Sessions’ Senate hearing, and with Kyle Barry, policy counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and co-author their report opposing Jeff Sessions’s nomination. (15 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4qVWYnsnHg
Luis Gutiérrez (D-Illinois), co-chair of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP and Moral Mondays leader discuss Sessions record. (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpZgF8mjGfk
Deja vu all over again. “How Big Oil Bought the White House and Tried to Steal the Country” is the subtitle of a book that tells the story of a presidential election in which a candidate allowed money from big oil companies to help him win office and then rewarded them with plum appointments in his cabinet. Ironically, this is a description of “The Teapot Dome Scandal,” a book that tells the story of a corruption scandal that rocked the term of President Warren G. Harding’s administration in the 1920s. In the context of Tillerson’s controversial appointment, history is a useful guide to understand the rising political power of Big Oil.
https://theconversation.com/exxons-rex-tillerson-and-the-rise-of-big-oil...
At the Senate confirmation hearing for secretary of state nominee and former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, he refused to answer questions about the oil giant’s long history of denying the science of climate change, telling Senators that scientific literature on climate change is "inconclusive.” Tillerson refused to label Saudi Arabia a human rights violator, and avoided condemning Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte over thousands of extrajudicial killings. (17 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9xCuRuxJmQ
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, James "Mad Dog" Mattis, faces his Senate confirmation hearing. Mattis reportedly received his nickname "Mad Dog" after leading U.S. troops during the 2004 battle of Fallujah in Iraq, where he is accused of carrying out war crimes (4.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqb9j2LeMaM
Betsy DeVos pushed school choice for two decades in her home state of Michigan to improve education, with disappointing results. She is a supporter, lobbyist and financial donor to causes that directly support school choice and school vouchers. It doesn't bode well for public schools.
https://theconversation.com/who-is-betsy-devos-70843
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/will-betsy-devos-restart-the-educ...
What is next?
Is it T-rump vs deep state? Chris Hedges discusses the future of the United States in the hands of Donald Trump and what is next for the neoliberal supporters of Hillary Clinton. (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4wlc1XK3H0
Wesley Clark Jr explains how he learned that big oil conspiracies sometimes become reality when the truth of corruption takes hold in state legislatures. (1 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHuTtDjXbOA
Richard Seymour takes a looks at the gig economy. The business model allows companies like Uber or Deliveroo to make profits without recognizing their workers as employees and without actually producing anything (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3z3SDe4ccE
When all seemed to be falling apart for Trump this summer, one shadowy billionaire offered up his own massive political infrastructure, which included Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, and saved Trump’s campaign from demise (25 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7anI_t8Xw
Occupy Inauguration is a mass rally and protest taking place in Washington D.C. during the Presidential Inauguration and the seven year anniversary of the Citizens United ruling. January 20th-21st, 2017. We believe another world is possible, to achieve it we will need to build a united struggle for the 99%, to put people and the planet over profits.
http://www.occupyinauguration.org/
Media
The U.S. is obsessed with Russia's alleged involvement in its elections. But, the U.S. is no stranger to meddling with other nations and their electoral process (1.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoEEn38csE8
Abby Martin responds to the NYT fake news about her (2.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJijjqzBpAw
Journalism professors weigh in on the future of their craft in the age T-rump.
https://theconversation.com/experts-roundtable-the-future-of-journalism-...
During his press conference on Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at reporters. He slammed CNN as "fake news," called BuzzFeed a "failing piece of garbage" (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SspMP2USi7o
Richard Engel provides insight for everyone to not believe in the recent Donald Trump blackmail by the CIA. (11 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMZLf3AUz_s
Glenn Greenwald provides historical evidence to CNN that proves that information from US intelligence agencies must be met with skepticism. (8 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJQf50jsFKU
Bye bye Barack!
On Jan. 10, President Barack Obama delivered a farewell address to the nation in his adopted hometown of Chicago. As he often did during his presidency, Obama struck a middle path, one that had moments of real power but ultimately fell short of a full-throated defense of Democratic Party policies
https://theconversation.com/in-racially-divided-times-obamas-farewell-ad...
Foreign affairs
A new exposé published in The Intercept about the elite military unit SEAL Team 6 reveals a darker side of the group best known for killing Osama bin Laden. National security reporter Matthew Cole spent two years investigating accounts of ghastly atrocities committed by members of the unit (18 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWMenIVM7dk
Lee Camp discusses our world wide military presence (2 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiimqmMhv9w
Ramping up for a war as troops and equipment move to Russia's European border (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge_DuOy-CUM
The Planet
A Massachusetts judge has refused to excuse Exxon Mobil Corp from a request by the state’s attorney general to hand over decades worth of documents on its views on climate change, state officials said on Wednesday. (8 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtwpp18mTr8
Kathy Mulvey of the Union of Concerned Scientists says the Exxon oil giant is continuing to avoid accountability for its disinformation campaign (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E00XrzOhAXk
An asteroid the size of a 10-story building moving at nearly 10 miles per second came within close distance with Earth. Scientists just discovered the asteroid two days before it came closer to us than the moon. (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-v9RzD42KE
I'm off playing a dance weekend, so you'll have to carry on without me. I look forward to reading your comments this afternoon. Please share any stories or ideas you have!
Comments
A celebratory essay for the weekend!
It takes special people who may never be recognized but all act with resolve. Toward a goal for the common good.
We can sense a change in the air. And division. Uncertainty. This week will be interesting.
Well-written. Thank you, Lookout.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Thanks RL
I don't know about your NY weather, but it's been 70 here this weekend and beautiful. Snowed last Friday (1/6) and summer like weather now - wild. Hope your day was a good one.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Judi Bari
Best day of my life the day I met Earth Firster Judi Bari. I was doing pro bono tech work for a group in Santa Rosa when the phone rang and it was Judi sending out a call for bodies to show up to an action in Boonville, so I went. About half way there, she called back to say the action was cancelled but come over. So we did. She had a special setup in her van so she could drive because her hip was destroyed, but wow what a spirit! We got a verbal history of The Headwaters, she was an amazing fount of positive energy, a uniter of people and earth.
Thank you Lookout. Peace & Solidarity
She sued the FBI and won, I think that is still a first. At the Oakland court house once I showed up to show support, it was my (recently deceased) brother's birthday and Starhawk did a really powerful spirit invocation. It was transformative, and then they came out and announced the case would go forward. Woo!
Edit to add: "If they were trying to shut me up, they blew up the wrong end" we laughed so hard because it was true. She was full of great humor too. Thanks.
Mendocino County proclaims May 24 as Judi Bari Day
Today I live in Cloverdale, the sawmill is always at max capacity still cranking out lumber. There are not enough sawmills left to deal with the dying and burned forests, that is ironic.
The Secret History of Tree Spiking - Part 1 By Judi Bari - Anderson Valley Advertiser, February 17, 1993
Thanks
Thanks for the reminder...
about Judi. Sounds like a great experience getting to know her a little. That's a joy in life...connecting with people. I appreciate the story.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good Sunday morning, Lookout and folks!
Great, informative essay, Lookout - thanks for the research. We are now in interesting times - will the people carry on with their lives, heads buried in the sand, or will they be ready to tackle any injustice to come from this administration? The people must be willing to step out of their comfort zones - that is what activism requires, as proven in your essay.
It's sleeting here, this early morning, we need the moisture. Rain/sleet/snow expected most of the day; a prediction, I hope, that will hold.
Have a beautiful day, everyone!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Ain't that the question, RA?
will people stand up this time? We have in the past. Good luck with the rain. We still need more. We finished the year 20 inches behind...and the forest is not happy. All the best!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks lookout for giving c99
its very own and excellent Sunday section. I read through it all the day.
Help Wanted: The Tuesday morning open thread is looking for a new editor. gulfgal is picking it up on a temporary basis, but she doesn't want it long term. If you are interested in this spot, please let me know. Thanks.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
That's what the weekly needs....
a help wanted section!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
badly_beaten92 epiphany
This made me LMAO, hope it strikes others same way, it is reddit ya never know
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/5o0oq9/dog_park_politics_my_epiphany_moment_today/
the other thing that makes me LOL is when other people can't stop laughing. Who knows why Carrie Fisher chose that Prozac urn? There's a part of me that really wants to know. Anyway, the Chewbacca mask lady omg she cracks me up. I grew up not far from Lucas Valley Rd., before George Lucas brought all his whatever to Marin County, it was not named for him back then. My neighbor didn't even crack a smile watching this so it doesn't work on everybody. Good meds if it does.
thanks
edit: Subject spell check
That goes to show you...
It is a dog eat dog world. I recently saw the great AL biologist E O Wilson talking about tribal/social evolution in the backdrop of an Alabama Auburn football game...he makes a compelling case that our species evolves like bees or ants or termites... as a social/tribal entity.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Beautiful essay again, Lookout. MLK penned socialist econ plan.
Thanks for such a wonderful trip through the ages of our lesser-known brethren in this long fight. Thoroughly inspiring and enjoyable to read this morning before MLK Day. Very evocative opening paragraph the way you painted the picture of the Alabama statehouse and its immediate environs.
My studies of the People's History of this country have led to some of the people you venerate, but not all. I think the subtext is, like Tolstoy's, in from what I understand about War and Peace, that true history is not the exclusive domain of single high-minded warriors or knights in shining armor coming to save the day or by supermen singularly possessed of higher powers, but the manifestation of countless small acts of empathy, courage, nobility, compassion and solidarity by everyday average people who walk along us without distinction, decoration or accreditation. Thanks to visionary scholars like Howard Zinn for dedicating his life to telling these imperative stories. For these are the greatest inspiration, the realization that one can effect the world every day in one's own call pathway, despite being told that it won't matter to account for anything by the propagandists and the defenders of the status quo, and most erroneously our education system, where only the dates and names of singular "heroes" are given to explain the history of the world.
Which leads me to the "Freedom Budget for All Americans," another entry in history, like the powerful "Poor People's Campaign" you mention. It was amazing to me how many of the high profile black folks at TOP never mentioned these things, and could not see the moral imperative of this direction as a confluence to fight racism better than anything being proposed today. While reading and researching these two projects of King's I kept compiling stuff to refute their bizarre support of HRC, compared to Bernie's campaign in which there was a direct continuation of both of these economic plans rooted firmly in socialism, of which the co-authors Bayard Rustin and A Philip Randolph were big proponents. There's a wonderful book I picked up at a sociology conference by Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates on the subject.
Here's an article the wrote recalling a report by I.F. Stone on the meetings:
Stone's report is italicized.
King once wrote to his wife Coretta that Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" was one of his favorite books, which was a socialist utopian view of the future written in the late 1880's imagining a time in which all were cared for and lived in the prosperity of an egalitarian society.
Leaves me thinking a lot about how we sanitize history, or as Cornel West puts about MLK, the "Santa Claus-ification," and similar radical revolutionaries, which serves the interests of the powers that be (remember all the fawning reports of Nelson Mandela when he died, in complete ignorance of how the CIA considered him a dangerous threat and the US had official policy against him?) to completely neuter their effect on the imagination of would-be dissenters and antagonists.
But mostly I'm reminded by your excellent essay that we have it in us, ordinary people not on the podium or leading marches or in elected office, to truly be the changes we want to see in the word, and that is perhaps the only way we will.
I leave you with an example of a friend, mentor, fellow activist and Occupy-supporter in my neighborhood, who in a rare moment of state political magnanimity, was just awarded Ireland's Presidential Distinguished Services Award.
Sometimes one's efforts are recognized as the right thing in their time, which is rare, representing the compound result of the many nameless who came before but laid the groundwork and you were answering the call just as they were. But somebody with a conscience and some "authority" noticed, no doubt bent by the inexorable power of the movement, and there you were, yourself, ready to stand tall for the many who had come before and you inspired to come along.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Amen brother!
What a lovely comment. Didn't know about Brendan Fay. Your mention of Zinn made me think it is so much about which/whose history you know that shapes your world view.
Case in point...
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
― Winston S. Churchill
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks LO
I would say more, but my lips are tired from reading.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
After the weekend...
I'm brain dead from activity and sleep deprivation....but I think a good time was had by all. I did.
All the best to you and sweetie. Thanks for dropping in!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks, Lookout. I am tempted to sarcastically call Dr. King
racist for his last campaign. As the Democratic Party mainstream and Team Hillary were at no pains to constantly point out, economic concerns, and concerns for economic equality and opportunity are both racist and sexist, hence Dr. King ...
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I can see...
your logic there, el.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Not a watch, but a listen.
Here's a half-hour radio interview from KCRW in L.A. The topic is the new Cold War and the insanity thereof.
Robert Scheer interviews Sergei Plekhanov, truthdig
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Excellent talk. Well worth the time.
Thanks Azazello!
I look forward to listening. I find Scheer worth hearing...appreciate the link.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Everything that has made America great has been accomplished
by the blood and sweat of its citizens working in unison against its very own government. Then, when victory is finally assured, these very same governments subsequently lay claim to them.
Duped again
I keep thinking it's not that corporations are influencing government...they have become government. We now have a corporation in chief...complete with a corporate cabinet board and the majority of the rest owned lock stock and barrel by the Koch brothers,et al. So in order to revolt we will have to overthrow the corporation?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”