Judd Legum makes a good point: One-sided portrayals can rival comic books in their simplicity but are often unreliable. If you can see his (16) tweet thread, you'll see that Legum notes (emphasis his) "the idea that today, MLK would advocate IGNORING racial and economic inequality is absurd."
We would do well to remember- heck, even merely to acknowledge, as the mainstream media strives to avoid- that King believed that racial and economic justice are interwoven. In the video below from eleven years ago, journalist John Nichols makes that point. Thus referring in 1961 to right-to-work laws, Reverend King stated
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard
against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to
rob us of our civil rights and job rights.
Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of
collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working
conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower,
job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to
let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our
vote.
In its 2017 decision in Janus whose majority opinion was written by Antonin Alito, the five GOP Justices ruled "states and public sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from non consenting employees." The number of states with right-to-work laws has grown from 20 to 27. Elizabeth Warren has thrice submitted bills to outlaw such laws, the latest last autumn and co-sponsored by several Democratic senators.
The failure of legislation to gain traction, combined with the Supreme Court decision, should underscore continuing opposition by Republicans to the rights of workers. And that the GOP remains hostile not only to Martin Luther King's vision of racial, but also of economic, rights.
Raw Story had the story yesterday about Bill Finlay at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention claiming (video below) Manufacturing racism for political purposes is a big business in the USA, and manufactured racism has been used to hurt the Tea Party from Day 1. There’s no doubt in my mind that if Martin Luther King Jr. was alive today the liberal left would spit in his face because he would be such a threat to their political agendas. We are the people who practice Dr. King’s dream. It is the Tea Party where people are not judged by the color of their skin, and it’s Tea Party Americans who believe that character still counts. So today, I am officially announcing that the Tea Party is taking Martin Luther King away from the liberal left. And to you race-baiting promoters of division and hatred, you’re not getting him back until you renounce your shameful skin-color politics and start practicing the politics of character.
In his book "Why We Can't Wait," Reverend King maintained "Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic."
So Reverend King advocated what has become known as "affirmative action." However, while Wild Bill is not terribly significant, on the same day as his statement, Rush Limbaugh remarked
I mean, given all this controversy out in Hollywood, showing up here on Martin Luther King Day could be seen as an act of disrespect. What I'll do is just fall back on the idea I had no idea, the staff didn't tell me again that this was a celebrated Monday holiday, and I've got history on my side. I don't take too many Monday holidays. Besides, Dr. King wanted everybody to work. That's what separates him from the modern-day Democrat Party.
In 2014, then-Senator John Walsh (D-MT) introduced the Bring Jobs Home Act, which was supported by every Democratic Senator but which fell short of the 60 votes needed to end the GOP filibuster. According to Bloomberg News, it
would have denied U.S. companies a tax deduction for the costs of moving out of the country and provided a tax credit for companies bringing operations home. It wouldn’t have affected the trend of companies moving their legal addresses to other countries through transactions known as inversions.
Senate Democrats in 2012 had introduced a nearly identical bill, which fell because only two Republicans voted for it. No one recalls Rush Limbaugh promoting the legislation nor any legislation which would create jobs.
Limbaugh also is opposed to increasing the minimum wage, arguing in August, 2013
To a lot of people, what I'm going to say next and what I did start to say with Sean is the first time that they've heard any of this. The people who say, "Hey, $7.25 is unfair! That's not fair. They need at least $10, $15. It isn't fair," don't have any idea how the market works. They're not taught how the market works -- and if you don't like $7.25 an hour, then go work somewhere else. If you're not qualified to earn more than that, then go get qualified. That's how things work.
That doesn't sound like Dr. King, who commented "We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage." Congress responded, raising the minimum wage the following two years, from $1.25 in 1966 to $1.40 in 1967 and $1.60 the following year. When Dr. King spoke in 1967, the $1.25 was worth $6.05 in constant/1996 dollars; at $7.25 in 2014, it is now worth $4.82 in 1996 dollars.
A year ago in his State of the Union Message, President Obama called for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour (the level to which he himself raised it for workers on new federal contracts). A bill to that effect was blocked in the U.S. Senate with every Democratic Senator (except Majority Leader Reid, for procedural reasons) and only one GOP senator voting for it.
As with his support for affirmative action and increasing the minimum wage, so too did Dr. King oppose militarism, the massive divide between rich and poor, and practically everything else Rush Limbaugh and the Repub Party promote. Aside from the movie Selma to add a little, largely inconsequential, twist to Martin Luther King Day in 2015, it was the same old, same old, with Repubs claiming Reverend King while fighting everything he stood for.
George Condon of The National Journal wrote Wednesday
Here he was, an African American twice elected to the nation's highest office. Half a century ago, that was beyond the imagination of those who gathered on the Mall. They were fighting for the right to vote, the right to ride buses, the right to get work. They dreamt (sic) of winning city council seats. But a little boy who had just turned two, liberated by the gains won by those who marched, dreamt (sic) bigger. Because he did – and because they marched – Obama did not have to say anything. Fifty years from now, few will remember what he did say. But they will remember that he was there to represent the country.
Martin Luther King is remembered less today (or at least the past few days) for having been at the March on Washington than for the speech he gave. While President Obama will be remembered for having been there on Wednesday, he would have been remembered even more vividly if he did not appear. At least, I think so and-given that he did appear- we'll never know otherwise.
But we do know that in the most meaningful portion of Obama's speech the President declared
For over a decade, working Americans of all races have seen their wages and incomes stagnate. Even as corporate profits soar, even as the pay of a fortunate few explodes, inequality has steadily risen over the decades. Upward mobility has become harder. In too many communities across this country in cities and suburbs and rural hamlets, the shadow of poverty casts a pall over our youth, their lives a fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects, inadequate health care and perennial violence.
The graph below (period of 1948-2011) from the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates that growth in productivity has far outstripped the growth in wages, even without accounting for the lag in total compensation, which has been even more severe because of a relative reduction in employee benefits through time.
The President could have used the occasion of his speech to call for a higher federal minimum wage which at $7.25 per hour is $1.12 lower than it would be today ($8.37) if it were adjusted for inflation. And if it were adjusted for productivity growth, the minimum wage would be $16.54 in 2012 dollars, according to Dean Baker. And he might have informed the nation that economic mobility in the U.S.A. now is exceeded by that in Europe.
Yet the President could have ended on an uplifting note, applauding the thousands of fast food workers who went on strike Thursday in dozens of cities across the country. And that, more than any speech given by Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, or anyone (save possibly John Lewis) is a greater way to celebrate the the life of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King who, we are supposed to forget, was assassinated while in Memphis, Tennessee, supporting striking sanitation workers.
If Dr. Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries weren't obsessed with liberals, "political correctness," and the devotion to Christianity of the Founding Fathers (the slaveholders, presumably, among them), he'd be onto something.
Dr. Newcomberecently complained, legitimately, that the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C. omits any mention of God or reference to King's devotion to his Christian faith. But it does contain this tidbit: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."
This is problematic- and not only because Dr. King never made such a statement, which was lifted from King's sermon, "The Drum Major Instinct." In context, it would appear as
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.
A couple of months ago, The Washington Post's Rachel Mantueffelcommented
This quote is awfully self-aggrandizing for a man who so often symbolized the strength in humility. It’s akin to memorializing Mahatma Gandhi with the quote, “Don’t you know who I am?” Even if the Mahatma said that once, it’s not as though that is what we remember him for.
Manteuffel, noting omission on the memorial of "if you want to say," quips "An “if” clause is an extraordinarily bad thing to leave out of a quote. If I had to be a type of cheese, being Swiss is best." Frankly, if I had to be an animal, I'd want to be a gazelle; I understand they're awfully fast. (Admittedly, the cheese reference is better.)
If he were not blinded (or perhaps blindsided) by his eagerness to make a (conservative) political point, Newcombe, too, might have noticed the unfortunate mangling of one of Reverend King's extraordinary statements. If he had, Newcombe, who pals around with Dr. D. James Kennedy (what's good for Palin, is good for the left) might have explained that as inscribed on the memorial, the quotation obscures the humility that King was extolling. He might, from his Christian perspective, have explained that as a believing Christian, Dr. King understood that he should avoid self-promotion and vain conceit, as the apostle Paul urged in the second chapter of Phillipians:
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Instead, it is left to the editors of The Washington Post (to the right, inaccurately considered part of the "liberal media") to have observed in September
Dr. King argued that the instinct can be harnessed for noble ends, but only by doing good works and not by seeking accolades for doing them. Notably, he sought no such accolade himself. “If you want to say I was a drum major,” he said, “say that I was a drum major for justice.” Remove that “if” — as the architects of the monument did — and you are perversely left with the sort of bragging that Dr. King decried.
She's not even Lutheran, though she is a Protestant. But Katie Couric's obituary should read, "like Martin Luther...."
Martin Luther, a man of many character flaws- not the least of which was blatant anti-Semitism- nevertheless sparked one of the greatest social movements in world history, the Reformation.
And so it is with Katie Couric, a woman of many professional flaws, one of them on display on last Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes. Couric and Gates discussed "weapons of mass destruction" in this segment of the interview described by CBS News:
"What scares you the most? What worries you?" Couric asked.
"I think what I and most of us would say, it would be a terrorist with a weapon of mass destruction," Gates said.
"In this country?" Couric asked.
"Yes," he replied.
"Or anywhere in the world?" Couric asked.
"Well, anywhere, but especially in this country," Gates said.
Asked how likely that is, Gates said, "For years, we've received intelligence that they're trying to acquire a weapon of mass destruction. So far, they've been singularly unsuccessful, as far as we know. But it is the one thing that could be a huge challenge."
The flavor of this puff piece can best be appreciated by watching the video itself, available on the CBS website, though apparently not on youtube.
But the most significant part of the interview, which no one will recognize, is Gates' repetition of the term "weapons of mass destruction"- with no explanation or definition, and no request for clarification from Couric.
We've passed this way before. (Video of song by Seals and Crofts, which has nothing to do with this post, below. As to this issue, they were wrong. And on abortion, which is even more unrelated.) Dick Cheney referred to "weapons of mass destruction." George W. Bush emphasized "weapons of mass destruction."Secretary of State Powell, even in his detailed, albeit horribly misleading, address (transcript here) to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003, employed the term "weapons of mass destruction" at least six times. The media repeatedly referred to "weapons of mass destruction" repeatedly and without clarification, helping lay the groundwork for public support of the war President Bush launched.
Repeat a phrase often enough and it becomes part of the lexicon, whether or not the individuals using the phrase, or their audience, know what it means or has any meaning at all. Presumably,if most members of the media had understood the phrase, they would have offered an explanation or at least asked the policymakers what they were referring to. Even now, many Americans regrettably believe chemical and biological weapons are of mass destruction.
This is not inconsequential because there was much evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and/or biological weapons but little reason to believe he had, or intended to develop or acquire, nuclear weapons. Moreover, Administration sources conflated biological/chemical weapons with nuclear weapons in part to exaggerate the destructive capacity of the former. In a post entitled "Saddam Does Not Have 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'," Timothy Noah on 8/27/02 explained
(Noah) That chemical and biological weapons don't deserve to be called "weapons of mass destruction" is a point long familiar to arms control experts. Here, for example, is Gert G. Harigel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
The term "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD), used to encompass nuclear (NW), biological (BW), and chemical weapons (CW), is misleading, politically dangerous, and cannot be justified on grounds of military efficiency. …Whereas protection with various degrees of efficiency is possible against chemical and biological weapons, however inconvenient it might be for military forces on the battlefield and for civilians at home, it is not feasible at all against nuclear weapons.
(Noah) Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky spells out the comparative lethality of nuclear versus chemical and biological weapons in the April 1998 issue of Arms Control Today, in an article headlined "Dismantling the Concept of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' ":
The weapons detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed about a quarter of a million people, had an explosive power about one-tenth that carried by a modern nuclear weapon. … If a 1-megaton thermonuclear warhead exploded at optimum altitude over a large city, little would be left standing or alive within five miles. A firestorm could be ignited, further extending the range of destruction. In a large-scale exchange, lethal fallout would cover an entire region.
(Noah) Biological and chemical weapons, though certainly very nasty, are not nearly so deadly:
If virulent BW materials were to be widely distributed over an exposed population, then the ratio of potential lethality to the total weight of the material could be comparable to that of nuclear weapons. However, for this horrifying scenario to occur, the materials cannot be dispersed by a single-point explosion, but instead must be spread by an appropriate mechanism such as spray tanks or by "fractionating" a missile's payload and dispersing separate mini-munitions over a wide area. Moreover, survival of BW material depends critically on local meteorological and other conditions which define the delivery environment. The survival of agents is generally of short duration and effects are delayed for days. … There is little question that the lethality of chemical weapons—as measured by per unit weight of delivered munitions—is lower by many orders of magnitude than it is for nuclear weapons or the undemonstrated and inherently uncertain potential of biological weapons.
Noah's piece is infinitely (o.k., much more; "infinitively" is like referring to chemical and biological weapons as those of "mass destruction") more informative than Couric's adoring interview. Still, if Katie Couric continues to be a substandard journalist, she will have performed in her professional career a service, though dwarfed by that of Martin Luther, which will have overshadowed any of her deficiencies.
For it was Katie Couric who ever will be remembered as the media personality who asked Sarah Palin what Supreme Court decisions, other than Roe v. Wade, she disagreed with and what newspapers and magazines she "regularly read(s)." Palin's response to those questions helped transform her image as a bold, candid maverick into an immature and unsteady running mate for a 73-year old man. Unfortunate statements and erratic behavior have followed, but Couric's interview helped sink the McCain-Palin ticket, thus shielding the nation from the risk posed of Palin being first in succession to the Presidency. The political career of the former Alaskan governor continues on a downward spiral. And however a McCain presidency might have turned out, that is a major contribution to civilization
The dismal fiscal situation in many states is forcing governors, despite their party affiliation, toward a consensus on what medicine is needed going forward.
The prescription? Slash spending. Avoid tax increases. Tear up regulations that might drive away business and jobs. Shrink government, even if that means tackling the thorny issues of public employees and their pensions.
Ironic it may be that the article, "Budget Worries Push Governors to Same Mind-Set," was published today, the day the nation supposedly celebrates the life of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It would have been helpful if, as the left and the right (the latter illegitimately) scurry to claim the legacy of Dr. King, some Times' reporter had mentioned how contrary these politically correct efforts are to the life work of the slain leader. Dr. King's mission was not only civil rights but also the rights of workers, including unionized workers, and he lost his life while fighting for them. The Nation's John Nichols takes us back:
It was to that end that King made his last journey, at the age of 39, to march with and campaign on behalf of members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union in Memphis, Tenn., in April of 1968.
The sanitation workers of Memphis had experienced not just racial discrimination but the disregard and disrespect that is so often directed at those who perform essential public services.
No one should miss the fact that AFSCME, the union that they joined and the union with which King worked so closely, is now under attack by right-wingers who would have us believe that public workers are to blame for the problems that occur when policymakers blow the budget on tax cuts for the rich, bailouts for big banks and military adventures abroad.
King did not fall for the fantasy. He stood at the side of public employees, telling a Memphis congregation on the night before he died: "Let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on … the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them."
King was proud to rally with public workers, and proud to make the connection between their struggle and the broader struggle for a fair and equitable economy that served all workers — public and private.
Nichols cites GOP governors such as New Jersey's Chris Christie and Wisconsin's Scott Walker as the most egregious examples of abuse of public employees but, in a limited way, President Obama has joined in the fun. He has proposed a pay freeze for federal employees, of whom there is a disproportionate number of blacks. The attack on federal employees has delighted his Republican supporters (what- you mean he doesn't have Republican supporters?) while the attack on public employees by state governments across the country is closing a source of mobility for many individuals, minority and white alike. Government employment rarely has made individuals wealthy, but it has gotten many into the middle, or at least lower-middle, class. Today would have been a propitious time for a Democratic president to remind the country of just that.
Washington Post Metro columnist Marc Fisher in his column of May 11, 2008 draws our attention to a nearly-forgotten matter, the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and its centerpiece, the Stone of Hope.
The 28-foot statue is to be displayed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is being carved in mainland China with quarry from the tyrannical Communist nation under the aegis of the King Memorial Foundation, an arrangement pleasing to its president, Harry Johnson. But while King was alive, the Chinese government referred to him as "a revolutionary running dog" because he advocated nonviolent protest. Fisher cogently argues that the memorial should "be designed and executed by those who live in the country that King so inspired and changed."
Unfortunately, the columnist maintains also "so far, opposition to outsourcing the sculpture has come mainly from African Americans and the U.S. granite industry." Mainly, yes, but not completely. This is from a portion of a segment, which included a resport by CNN correspondent Lou Tucker, on the May 3, 2008 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight:
The last monument to be built on the Mall was the World War II memorial. That memorial, which opened to the public in 2094, built using 100,000 cubic feet of granite. The primary contract supplier for the memorial: New England Stone. It placed a bid, by the way, we're told, to build the Martin Luther King memorial, but never received a response from the Martin Luther King memorial people.
The company says, quote -- "Given that there are over 50 active granite quarries domestically offering a full palette of colors, it boggles one's mind to think the selection committee couldn't find an American stone to represent one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century."
We found there is, in fact, plenty of granite produced in this country. In 2005, the United States produced 416 metric tons of the stone, valued at more than $100 million. And by the way, this building we're broadcasting from tonight, the Time Warner Center, home to our studios here, built with granite from New England Stone. Not exactly a small project either.
Americans -- well, they've got plenty to say about plans to honor one of America's greatest civil rights icons with a memorial made in communist China. The groundbreaking for the monument is set for December 2008. We'll continue to bring you all of the latest developments.
Credit goes to Fisher, Dobbs, and the other individuals who remind us that the sculpture depicting the U.S.A.'s greatest civil rights leader ought to be made in America, by Americans.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Reverend Wright vs. Reverend King
"The eleven o'clock hour on Sunday is the most segregated hour in American life." -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian." (emphasis mine) -motto of Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, Illinois
Perhaps Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., would like to explain why he believes the segregation deplored by Dr. King is now acceptable, even laudatory.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
The son of sharecroppers, John Robert Lewis graduated from American Baptist Theological Seminary and Fisk University, both in Nashville, Tennessee.
A Freedom Rider, John Lewis was beaten bloody by an angry mob of Klansmen on Saturday May 20, 1961 at the bus terminal in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech . Less than two years later, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, as John Lewis, Dr. King and 600 civil rights marchers headed east from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama, they were severely beaten at Edmund Pettis Bridge, by state police and sheriff's department officers, with their complement of billy clubs, tear gas, and bully whips in what became known as "Bloody Sunday."
Mr. Lewis was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1986 and has been reelected every two years, facing no opposition since 2002. As a U.S. Representative, he is a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention and on October 12, 2007 endorsed for the Democratic nomination for President Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he supported through Georgia's primary on February 5. When in January, according to ajc.com (Atlanta Journal-Constitution website), a Repub political consultant used an anonymous, automated phone call to criticize Lewis' support for Clinton over Obama, Lewis reportedly said of switching allegiance "It's unthinkable. "You make a commitment, you keep that commitment."
Now John R. Lewis telling the New York Times, as reported on 2/14/08, “something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap” and that he could “never, ever do anything to reverse the action” of the voters of his district, who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in the primary. On February 15, Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the report by the Times' Jeff Zeleny is "inaccurate"- but the reporter adamantly maintains that Lewis' intent was clear. The same day, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a black South Carolinian whom Lewis serves as chief deputy, says "John is wrestling with this."
We all can sympathize with the weighty decision facing John Lewis. Yet, when party rules added Democratic officeholders, members of the Democratic National Committee, and activists as delegates, they were not designated in order to ratify the vote in their district, their state, or the nation as a whole (in which many Independents and Republicans have voted). They were expected to exercise independent judgement which, especially given John Lewis' long record of service to nation and party, is a right and privilege, as well as an obligation. Those individuals who decided long ago to endorse either Democratic candidate may have been premature, even foolish. But they did make a commitment. And just as Senator Edward Kerry, Senator John Kerry, and Governor Patrick Deval, all Massachusetts officeholders/superdelegates who endorsed Obama before a primary which Hillary Clinton won convincingly, have not questioned their decision, neither should Lewis.
