What America is plagued with today is war between the Immoral Right vs the Intolerant Left. This is the clash of ironies.
Btw, I hasten to add that my use of the term 'Left' is breaking one of my cardinal rules here. For I have always distinguished between Liberals and Leftists. But in the context of this discussion, the distinction does not necessarily hold.
Why is the battle between the Immoral Right and the Intolerant Left a class of ironies. It is simply because the conservatives have for a long time portrayed themselves as champions of moral values whereas the Left has portrayed itself as champions of tolerance--especially tolerance of the marginalized. And what do we see today? We see that because many conservatives have reduced the pro-life label to that of opposing abortion, it has embraced the breaking of other moral values such as the murder and theft that occurs in our wars and interventions as well as in our domestic policies that favor the wealthy over all others. And when Christians do this, they show a flagrant disregard for Church history. For in the past, when Christians, especially Christian leaders, align themselves with wealth and power, as they did just prior to the French, Russian, and Spanish Revolutions, they brought unnecessary persecution on the Church and greatly damaged the reputation of the Gospel.
Likewise, as the Left has often portrayed itself as champions of tolerance, quite lately it has shown itself to be highly intolerant of free speech for conservatives. Here we should note that conservatives do have a significant amount to contribute to our nation's discussions on issues. However, the Left has used specific points of conservative hypocrisy and bad history to portray conservatives as a monolithic group.
The American Left has no excuse for the above behavior because one of its past champions is Martin Luther King Jr. And painting an opposing group as a monolith and then not allowing them to say their peace in public is not something that King would do. But then again, today's Left, is, for the most part, devoid of any disciplined study of King. And with that, the Left has joined conservatives in making any remembrance of King merely superficial, symbolic, and self-serving.
Unfortunately because the Left is correct in accusing the Right of immorality and the Right is correct in accusing the Left of intolerance, they both have an extra reason for ignoring the charges being brought against them besides the plague of tribalism. That those legitimate charges against the other has destroyed the ability of the members of each group from engaging in self-criticism.
Neither group can win this clash. For in fighting each other while denying the truth about themselves, it is the rest of us who turn out to be losers. That is because such fighting turns too many of us off from even wanting to learn about the issues promoted by each group. And because each group also has valid concerns, when we ignore the concerns of one or both group, we only ensure that we will be ignorant of our own demise until it is too late.
Of course there is one more irony. That in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that we seem to stuck in our ways to adapt to an ever changing future.
www.flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com
(Only one person pictured is a Christian Fundamentalist. And so which one pictured is not like the others)
Showing posts with label Leftists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leftists. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Two Days Before Christmas
'Tis the season to be jolly' or so they say. And yet, I feel as if I am stuck living in Mudville after the mighty Casey has struck out. Yes, there are things in my life to have joy in and be thankful for. But the world is much larger than who exists in my life and it seems as if it is bent on forever daring icebergs to hit it.
On the one hand, we have my fellow Conservative Christians. While some won't even acknowledge that our country still has a significant problem with racism, others won't acknowledge racism's accompanying problems such as materialism, militarism, and economic injustice. But perhaps the worst problem my fellow Conservative Christians have is that they want to tell the rest of society that without Christianity, our problems with racism will never end.
The problem with what my fellow Conservative Christians are saying about racism and sin is that it is only partially true. Yes, racism is a result of sin. But we need to be careful about the conclusions we draw from that claim. Does it mean that only Christianity can adequately address racism? I hope not because history has shown that many Christians have either supported some kind of racism or have been apathetic to it. In addition, we should note that, for a long time, many nonChristians have opposed racism.
And thus, not only is the conclusion that only Christianity can address racism tricky, such is a message of exclusion. It says to nonChristians that unless you get out of the way and let us lead, you cannot make any significant contributions in battling racism. Many more people will probably see the message stating that only Christianity can address racism as being manipulative.
But there is another problem with the Conservative Christian approach to racism. That problem is that it isolates racism from the systems and their problems that might contribute to it. This is particularly true of our economic system. For some Conservative Christians, our Capitalist economic system is based on Biblical principles. Thus, our economic system has become sacrosanct. If there are problems here, it is our duty, according to many Conservative Christians to adapt to our system and not the other way around. Changing or even replacing our economic system is completely out of the question to these Christians.
Here we have two reasons for considering either modifying our economic system or replacing it with another system. First, our economic system has not changed the wealth disparity between Whites and Blacks since the gaining of some civil rights through the political system back in the 1960s. We should note that when political freedom does not bring economic improvement, disillusionment sets in.
Second, our economic system, according to Martin Luther King Jr., is materialistic and has become a part of our thing-oriented society. This society of ours counts gadgets, profits, and property rights as being more important than people. So can our Capitalist economic system do anything else but help foster a thing-oriented society? For in such a system, the worker is disposable. As a result, those who are left behind economically feel deserted and devalued by society and thus are more likely to be hostile to it. In addition, since wealth and risk taking are more highly valued than work is in today's Capitalist economic system, more and more people, including those who are both Black and economically disadvantaged, will be taught to have a lower regard for work than those who preceded us.
On the other hand, my Leftist friends do not seem to offer a complete solution either. For though they correctly see the need for both structural changes and the implementation of new systems, they have their own ways of excluding groups from involvement just as my fellow Conservative Christians have. Some Leftists believe that for Conservative Christians to participate in any new kind of society, they must be unconverted from their faith first. While most Leftists seem to think that democratic decision making in our new political and economic systems can't possibly involve their opponents.
Such Leftists should know better than to exclude groups of people from being involved the decision making process of any new kind of society. One of the all-time leading figures on the Left, Martin Luther King Jr., looked on opponents as those who were to be won over rather than be treated antagonistically. And those who refused to change their ways would have any unjust actions be controlled by laws.
But it seems that winning over opponents is the last thing on the minds of many of my fellow Leftists. For example, those of us in the Occupy Movement sought to have society punish and then abandon the 1%. We should have been trying to persuade the 1% to repent from their economic apartheid ways and join the rest of society. The fact that few, if any, did is a tragic testimony to the direction we are taking.
We live in very troubled and volatile times. The current saga of how our police relate to and patrol those in our Black communities illustrates that point. Just as too many people who shout 'Black lives matter' are succumbing to tribalism, so also do many people who shout 'Blue lives matter.' As the individuals on each side feel more threatened, they become more tribal as should be expected. And as they become more tribal, the more they adopt the ethic that right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. And the more that people embrace that ethic, the more they become cold to the suffering of those from the other side as they believe that only those on their side deserve to feel wronged and experience grief. Such tribalism can only contribute to furthering the rift between the Black community and the police.
In the face of such problems, we need to both make structural changes that do not exclude any group from democratic decision making processes. This is true even for those who oppose the necessary structural changes. For the last thing we can afford to do here is to designate a group to be either ignored or censored.
So in the light of these problems and others, what is gained by celebrating Christmas other than being distracted again by something else?
On the one hand, we have my fellow Conservative Christians. While some won't even acknowledge that our country still has a significant problem with racism, others won't acknowledge racism's accompanying problems such as materialism, militarism, and economic injustice. But perhaps the worst problem my fellow Conservative Christians have is that they want to tell the rest of society that without Christianity, our problems with racism will never end.
The problem with what my fellow Conservative Christians are saying about racism and sin is that it is only partially true. Yes, racism is a result of sin. But we need to be careful about the conclusions we draw from that claim. Does it mean that only Christianity can adequately address racism? I hope not because history has shown that many Christians have either supported some kind of racism or have been apathetic to it. In addition, we should note that, for a long time, many nonChristians have opposed racism.
And thus, not only is the conclusion that only Christianity can address racism tricky, such is a message of exclusion. It says to nonChristians that unless you get out of the way and let us lead, you cannot make any significant contributions in battling racism. Many more people will probably see the message stating that only Christianity can address racism as being manipulative.
But there is another problem with the Conservative Christian approach to racism. That problem is that it isolates racism from the systems and their problems that might contribute to it. This is particularly true of our economic system. For some Conservative Christians, our Capitalist economic system is based on Biblical principles. Thus, our economic system has become sacrosanct. If there are problems here, it is our duty, according to many Conservative Christians to adapt to our system and not the other way around. Changing or even replacing our economic system is completely out of the question to these Christians.
Here we have two reasons for considering either modifying our economic system or replacing it with another system. First, our economic system has not changed the wealth disparity between Whites and Blacks since the gaining of some civil rights through the political system back in the 1960s. We should note that when political freedom does not bring economic improvement, disillusionment sets in.
Second, our economic system, according to Martin Luther King Jr., is materialistic and has become a part of our thing-oriented society. This society of ours counts gadgets, profits, and property rights as being more important than people. So can our Capitalist economic system do anything else but help foster a thing-oriented society? For in such a system, the worker is disposable. As a result, those who are left behind economically feel deserted and devalued by society and thus are more likely to be hostile to it. In addition, since wealth and risk taking are more highly valued than work is in today's Capitalist economic system, more and more people, including those who are both Black and economically disadvantaged, will be taught to have a lower regard for work than those who preceded us.
On the other hand, my Leftist friends do not seem to offer a complete solution either. For though they correctly see the need for both structural changes and the implementation of new systems, they have their own ways of excluding groups from involvement just as my fellow Conservative Christians have. Some Leftists believe that for Conservative Christians to participate in any new kind of society, they must be unconverted from their faith first. While most Leftists seem to think that democratic decision making in our new political and economic systems can't possibly involve their opponents.
Such Leftists should know better than to exclude groups of people from being involved the decision making process of any new kind of society. One of the all-time leading figures on the Left, Martin Luther King Jr., looked on opponents as those who were to be won over rather than be treated antagonistically. And those who refused to change their ways would have any unjust actions be controlled by laws.
But it seems that winning over opponents is the last thing on the minds of many of my fellow Leftists. For example, those of us in the Occupy Movement sought to have society punish and then abandon the 1%. We should have been trying to persuade the 1% to repent from their economic apartheid ways and join the rest of society. The fact that few, if any, did is a tragic testimony to the direction we are taking.
We live in very troubled and volatile times. The current saga of how our police relate to and patrol those in our Black communities illustrates that point. Just as too many people who shout 'Black lives matter' are succumbing to tribalism, so also do many people who shout 'Blue lives matter.' As the individuals on each side feel more threatened, they become more tribal as should be expected. And as they become more tribal, the more they adopt the ethic that right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. And the more that people embrace that ethic, the more they become cold to the suffering of those from the other side as they believe that only those on their side deserve to feel wronged and experience grief. Such tribalism can only contribute to furthering the rift between the Black community and the police.
In the face of such problems, we need to both make structural changes that do not exclude any group from democratic decision making processes. This is true even for those who oppose the necessary structural changes. For the last thing we can afford to do here is to designate a group to be either ignored or censored.
So in the light of these problems and others, what is gained by celebrating Christmas other than being distracted again by something else?
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Real Dr King Is The One Telling Us To Change
Martin Luther King Day has just past and you know what that meant. It meant that he, like other cultural icons and authority figures, was remade and shaped so that if he were alive today, he would jump on the bandwagon of our concerns and causes rather than inviting us to join his. That is because he is in an elite group of people, like Jesus and Gandhi, whom we use to make us look better rather than study so we can become better. Thus, the irony here is that King has become so important that, in death, he has lost control of who he was. Instead, we must be in charge here. For if we are not, we would have to change to save face. So we must preside over what he looked like by painting revisionist portraits him. Some of these paintings show parts of him missing or amputated while others so disfigure him that his likeness will be barely recognizable if at all.
Who was Martin Luther King Jr? King was a man of three messages, two methods, and one theme. He had a message for each of the three evils which he could identify in his time and he saw these monstrosities as being intertwined. In other words, one couldn't pick and choose when addressing these crimes and still do justice to King's message.
Against Racism
Of course, King's first message was against racism. We have heard this and yet we often act as if we have not. Some of us will point with pride about how we no longer harbor prejudice against Blacks but we seem very fearful of Muslims and Arabs. And many of us are very accepting of all Israeli actions against the Palestinians while being so critical of their resistance while others will do just the opposite.
And if we don't discriminate against others based on race, we'll find other reasons. The current cultural war over same-sex marriage yields slippery slope arguments that make horrendous and fallacious comparisons between gays and others. These comparisons say more about those making them than about their targets.
And if our bigotry is not based on race or sexual orientation, then we feel free to zero in on people because of their ideologies. In particular, we wear the labels of 'Conservative,' 'Liberal,' and 'Leftist' so hard and tight that we claim that there is nothing to be learned from the other groups. In other words, many non-Conservatives believe that the Conservative view of personal morality could not contribute to society. And many Conservatives fear that the Liberal's view of those with wealth sharing benefits with those in need will kill our economy, freedoms and our morality. And Capitalists believe that all Leftists, because of their opposition to capitalism and support for collectivism, support tyrannical regimes such as those that existed in the Soviet Union or Red China. Nobody believes that those from the other groups have nothing to contribute to any politico-economic discussion.
Chris Rock said something to the effect that those who are conservative or liberal in everything belong to gangs (click here). Their minds are made up before listening to the issues and thus they are acting on blind loyalty. And Mr. Rock could not be anymore correct. Those who are prejudiced against people from other ideologies need to hear King's speech against the Vietnam War (click here for quote) when he spoke about the following:
So each group paints the others as monoliths and thus they see no need to listen to them. Yes, as a Leftist I have strong disagreements with Conservatives and Liberals about politics and the economy, but does that mean that I can't learn anything from them? The Conservative emphasis on personal morality can help raise our society upwards though their judgmental attitude against those who live by different standards tears apart societies and countries by allowing for the persecution of others. And the Liberal emphasis on a more libertarian society with regard to personal morality allows for some to overlook the humanity of the unborn and for others to look down on or even persecute Conservatives. And the Leftist opposition to Capitalism pushes some to see no redeeming qualities in either Conservatives or Liberals.
Thus, too many of us think that as long as the Black person is not a target of our fear and scorn, that we have healed ourselves of racism and bigotry. Those who think that way are in too much of a hurry to justify themselves and show either an inability or reluctance to escape literalism.
Against Economic Injustice
King did not preach against racism alone, he also spoke against economic injustice. He believed that we should have a guaranteed national income that lifted everybody from poverty. He believed in non-poverty wages for full-time work. But such are rather concrete ideas. His ideas of racial equality spread to his ideas of the economy and personal dignity. Overall, he was against an impersonal economy that revolved around consolidation of wealth by some and the distraction caused by new technology all of which is at the expense of people in general and the poor in particular. And when King talked about the poor, though he mentioned them by race, he didn't divide them that way. He considered all of the poor to be his brothers and sisters.
We should note that when King talked about economic injustice, he described it in speeches where he also spoke against both racism and violence. We can see this in his speeches from 1957 to 1968. We should also note what Martin Luther King Jr was doing when he was assassinated. He was in Memphis, Tennessee, campaigning for economic justice for the sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee.
What King said about economic justice challenges everybody. To the Liberals who try to legislate benefits and to the Conservatives who put all of the impetus for escaping poverty on the poor, which basically blames only the poor for their poverty, King declares that we also need to examine the edifice that puts people into poverty. That means that we shouldn't just accept the status quo, but that we should be willing to change the current economic system. And it isn't just our system, it is our basic ethic of putting people last before money and things which needs to reordered.
But with all of this, Leftists, like myself, can't assume that our system will provide enough of a fix. For Leftists who believe in worker-owned and democratically run workplaces, without a spirit of collectivism in the people, we could end up with similar results to what we have today. People might then ask, what good is the Leftist position? The Leftist position of extending democracy to places like where people work disperses power rather than consolidates it. The dispersing of power keeps exceptionally abled individuals from accumulating it and thus helps prevent them from using power to abuse others. The extension of democracy provides a structural checkpoint for wealth and power that the current system cannot do.
So we should note here that to understand what King was saying about economic injustice we must realize that no particular side or ideology can claim to have a monopoly on representing his views or to be above reproach.
Against Militarism
Much of what King said against militarism can be found in his speech against the Vietnam War (click here). It is here that, going back to economic injustice, he said that when profits, machines, and property rights are more important than people, then the evils of racism, "extreme materialism," and militarism cannot be defeated. That was toward the end of his speech. Toward the beginning of his speech he stated that those who honored him for his fight against racism but were perplexed over his opposition to the War never knew him. Why?
King listed most of his reasons in that speech. He knew that the more that was spent on the military and the war, the less that would be spent on helping those in need at home. He was against militarism because the war he opposed asked Blacks and Whites to kill, be wounded, and be killed together. He opposed militarism because it provided a role model for resorting to violence to solve problems to the young men in our cities. He opposed the Vietnam War because it sickened America's soul and compromised any integrity we claim to have for life. He opposed militarism and the Vietnam War because he believed in the brotherhood of man regardless of their nation, race, or creed. And he believed in this brotherhood because he believed that Christ died for His enemies. But he also opposed war and militarism because of the ominous future such brought us in the nuclear age.
King stated that we now of a choice between "nonviolence or nonexistence" in both 1960 and 1968 (click here and there). He picked nonviolence not just for how we should protest and promote social causes, but for how nations conduct themselves too. And it is in this latter sense that we see where King opposed militarism.
In addition to his 3 messages, King restricted himself to using two methods in promoting his causes. Those two methods were trying to win over his opponents and to be involved.
Winning Over Opponents
The goal for King's activism and words were not just to win concessions, but to facilitate reconciliation and win friendship, as was stated in the Montgomery Bus Protests (click here). The goal was not just to gain rights and dignity that were long denied to Blacks; it was to bring Blacks and Whites together in the spirit of brotherhood. This is the essential reason why King chose nonviolence. For even when violence wins the day, it causes bitterness and resentment afterwards.
All of this is because for King, the enemy did not consist of the people who were enforcing an unjust system, but the spirit of the system itself. King wasn't battling Whites but injustice. And as much as the Left would love to adopt King as its own, this is where we have fallen dreadfully short, at least we have in the Occupy Movement.
In separating the 1% from the 99%, our goal was to conquer rather than to win over the 1%. This is where King would confront and oppose us. And he would do that, not because we were wrong about what 1% was doing, but because we wanted to defeat and humiliate them. As a result, they used their resources to shut down the encampments and to carry on as usual with little public opposition. The Left's message was correct in analysis but dreadfully wrong in design. The design flaw was that the Left tried to create an extended democracy for the 99% only. A full democracy requires 100% of the people. And though we have had some legal victories here and there, the status quo remains and the global downward spiral continues.
Central to King's goal of winning people over was his preaching against violence. But King upped the ante here. He did that by opposing two kinds of violence. King opposed the most obvious kind of violence, external violence. Such is easier to do than what King added to the subject of nonviolence. King added that we must abstain from internal violence. He said that we cannot even afford to hate or insult those who are hurting us. Why? First, such people deserve dignity because they are people. Second, it is because we cannot castigate others and win their friendship at the same time. Again, King's strategy in defeating unjust systems was to be reconciled and win friendship. This did not mean that his tactics relied on libertarianism. He felt that the law was important in controlling the behavior of those who would not control themselves. But the end game was to win people over.
To Be Involved
We could summarize King's other method for promoting his messages was to get everybody involved. Those who did nothing were complicit in the evil of the status quo. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that when he said (click here for quote):
King also stated this principle when he interpreted Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan (click here). King understood the reaction of the priest and the Levite as being "what will happen to me" if, on this dangerous road, I stopped to help this man. According to King, the Good Samaritan reversed the question. The Good Samaritan got involved because he dared to ask, "what will happen to him," if he neglected the man who was beaten and robbed. This kind of thinking went into King's discussion of the poverty of India (click here) and how we are all interrelated.
There are a number of ways to be involved with those in need and individuals from all of the groups mentioned here do help others. And though we don't see eye-to-eye on what that involvement should consist of, we should acknowledge how those who are from other groups try to help those in need. Perhaps this is another reason why we should not look to conquer others.
King's One Theme
We could sum up King's messages and methods into one very short statement. That statement is: Everybody counts. This everybody includes the wealthiest of the 1% to the poorest of the 99%. It includes everybody from one's own creed to everybody from all of the other creeds. It includes everybody from one's own race to everybody from all of the other races. And, what should be noted in our present time, it includes everybody from one's own ideology to everybody from all of the other ideologies. The same is true about those from different nations.
That King's theme of everybody counting does not mean that the road together or our dialogue will always be smooth and conflict-free. But this theme should be our theme too even when we realize that nobody carries out this theme perfectly, not even King carried out this theme perfectly. Nonetheless, that is the theme of his message and those who would use a partial or distorted picture of King so as to get street cred for being like him need to be corrected. But those who correct others must also realize that to encounter the real Martin Luther King Jr. is to be confronted with a myriad of one's own personal and group's faults. This is true for every person and every group.
Who was Martin Luther King Jr? King was a man of three messages, two methods, and one theme. He had a message for each of the three evils which he could identify in his time and he saw these monstrosities as being intertwined. In other words, one couldn't pick and choose when addressing these crimes and still do justice to King's message.
Against Racism
Of course, King's first message was against racism. We have heard this and yet we often act as if we have not. Some of us will point with pride about how we no longer harbor prejudice against Blacks but we seem very fearful of Muslims and Arabs. And many of us are very accepting of all Israeli actions against the Palestinians while being so critical of their resistance while others will do just the opposite.
And if we don't discriminate against others based on race, we'll find other reasons. The current cultural war over same-sex marriage yields slippery slope arguments that make horrendous and fallacious comparisons between gays and others. These comparisons say more about those making them than about their targets.
And if our bigotry is not based on race or sexual orientation, then we feel free to zero in on people because of their ideologies. In particular, we wear the labels of 'Conservative,' 'Liberal,' and 'Leftist' so hard and tight that we claim that there is nothing to be learned from the other groups. In other words, many non-Conservatives believe that the Conservative view of personal morality could not contribute to society. And many Conservatives fear that the Liberal's view of those with wealth sharing benefits with those in need will kill our economy, freedoms and our morality. And Capitalists believe that all Leftists, because of their opposition to capitalism and support for collectivism, support tyrannical regimes such as those that existed in the Soviet Union or Red China. Nobody believes that those from the other groups have nothing to contribute to any politico-economic discussion.
Chris Rock said something to the effect that those who are conservative or liberal in everything belong to gangs (click here). Their minds are made up before listening to the issues and thus they are acting on blind loyalty. And Mr. Rock could not be anymore correct. Those who are prejudiced against people from other ideologies need to hear King's speech against the Vietnam War (click here for quote) when he spoke about the following:
The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
So each group paints the others as monoliths and thus they see no need to listen to them. Yes, as a Leftist I have strong disagreements with Conservatives and Liberals about politics and the economy, but does that mean that I can't learn anything from them? The Conservative emphasis on personal morality can help raise our society upwards though their judgmental attitude against those who live by different standards tears apart societies and countries by allowing for the persecution of others. And the Liberal emphasis on a more libertarian society with regard to personal morality allows for some to overlook the humanity of the unborn and for others to look down on or even persecute Conservatives. And the Leftist opposition to Capitalism pushes some to see no redeeming qualities in either Conservatives or Liberals.
Thus, too many of us think that as long as the Black person is not a target of our fear and scorn, that we have healed ourselves of racism and bigotry. Those who think that way are in too much of a hurry to justify themselves and show either an inability or reluctance to escape literalism.
Against Economic Injustice
King did not preach against racism alone, he also spoke against economic injustice. He believed that we should have a guaranteed national income that lifted everybody from poverty. He believed in non-poverty wages for full-time work. But such are rather concrete ideas. His ideas of racial equality spread to his ideas of the economy and personal dignity. Overall, he was against an impersonal economy that revolved around consolidation of wealth by some and the distraction caused by new technology all of which is at the expense of people in general and the poor in particular. And when King talked about the poor, though he mentioned them by race, he didn't divide them that way. He considered all of the poor to be his brothers and sisters.
We should note that when King talked about economic injustice, he described it in speeches where he also spoke against both racism and violence. We can see this in his speeches from 1957 to 1968. We should also note what Martin Luther King Jr was doing when he was assassinated. He was in Memphis, Tennessee, campaigning for economic justice for the sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee.
What King said about economic justice challenges everybody. To the Liberals who try to legislate benefits and to the Conservatives who put all of the impetus for escaping poverty on the poor, which basically blames only the poor for their poverty, King declares that we also need to examine the edifice that puts people into poverty. That means that we shouldn't just accept the status quo, but that we should be willing to change the current economic system. And it isn't just our system, it is our basic ethic of putting people last before money and things which needs to reordered.
But with all of this, Leftists, like myself, can't assume that our system will provide enough of a fix. For Leftists who believe in worker-owned and democratically run workplaces, without a spirit of collectivism in the people, we could end up with similar results to what we have today. People might then ask, what good is the Leftist position? The Leftist position of extending democracy to places like where people work disperses power rather than consolidates it. The dispersing of power keeps exceptionally abled individuals from accumulating it and thus helps prevent them from using power to abuse others. The extension of democracy provides a structural checkpoint for wealth and power that the current system cannot do.
So we should note here that to understand what King was saying about economic injustice we must realize that no particular side or ideology can claim to have a monopoly on representing his views or to be above reproach.
Against Militarism
Much of what King said against militarism can be found in his speech against the Vietnam War (click here). It is here that, going back to economic injustice, he said that when profits, machines, and property rights are more important than people, then the evils of racism, "extreme materialism," and militarism cannot be defeated. That was toward the end of his speech. Toward the beginning of his speech he stated that those who honored him for his fight against racism but were perplexed over his opposition to the War never knew him. Why?
King listed most of his reasons in that speech. He knew that the more that was spent on the military and the war, the less that would be spent on helping those in need at home. He was against militarism because the war he opposed asked Blacks and Whites to kill, be wounded, and be killed together. He opposed militarism because it provided a role model for resorting to violence to solve problems to the young men in our cities. He opposed the Vietnam War because it sickened America's soul and compromised any integrity we claim to have for life. He opposed militarism and the Vietnam War because he believed in the brotherhood of man regardless of their nation, race, or creed. And he believed in this brotherhood because he believed that Christ died for His enemies. But he also opposed war and militarism because of the ominous future such brought us in the nuclear age.
King stated that we now of a choice between "nonviolence or nonexistence" in both 1960 and 1968 (click here and there). He picked nonviolence not just for how we should protest and promote social causes, but for how nations conduct themselves too. And it is in this latter sense that we see where King opposed militarism.
In addition to his 3 messages, King restricted himself to using two methods in promoting his causes. Those two methods were trying to win over his opponents and to be involved.
Winning Over Opponents
The goal for King's activism and words were not just to win concessions, but to facilitate reconciliation and win friendship, as was stated in the Montgomery Bus Protests (click here). The goal was not just to gain rights and dignity that were long denied to Blacks; it was to bring Blacks and Whites together in the spirit of brotherhood. This is the essential reason why King chose nonviolence. For even when violence wins the day, it causes bitterness and resentment afterwards.
All of this is because for King, the enemy did not consist of the people who were enforcing an unjust system, but the spirit of the system itself. King wasn't battling Whites but injustice. And as much as the Left would love to adopt King as its own, this is where we have fallen dreadfully short, at least we have in the Occupy Movement.
In separating the 1% from the 99%, our goal was to conquer rather than to win over the 1%. This is where King would confront and oppose us. And he would do that, not because we were wrong about what 1% was doing, but because we wanted to defeat and humiliate them. As a result, they used their resources to shut down the encampments and to carry on as usual with little public opposition. The Left's message was correct in analysis but dreadfully wrong in design. The design flaw was that the Left tried to create an extended democracy for the 99% only. A full democracy requires 100% of the people. And though we have had some legal victories here and there, the status quo remains and the global downward spiral continues.
Central to King's goal of winning people over was his preaching against violence. But King upped the ante here. He did that by opposing two kinds of violence. King opposed the most obvious kind of violence, external violence. Such is easier to do than what King added to the subject of nonviolence. King added that we must abstain from internal violence. He said that we cannot even afford to hate or insult those who are hurting us. Why? First, such people deserve dignity because they are people. Second, it is because we cannot castigate others and win their friendship at the same time. Again, King's strategy in defeating unjust systems was to be reconciled and win friendship. This did not mean that his tactics relied on libertarianism. He felt that the law was important in controlling the behavior of those who would not control themselves. But the end game was to win people over.
To Be Involved
We could summarize King's other method for promoting his messages was to get everybody involved. Those who did nothing were complicit in the evil of the status quo. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that when he said (click here for quote):
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
King also stated this principle when he interpreted Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan (click here). King understood the reaction of the priest and the Levite as being "what will happen to me" if, on this dangerous road, I stopped to help this man. According to King, the Good Samaritan reversed the question. The Good Samaritan got involved because he dared to ask, "what will happen to him," if he neglected the man who was beaten and robbed. This kind of thinking went into King's discussion of the poverty of India (click here) and how we are all interrelated.
There are a number of ways to be involved with those in need and individuals from all of the groups mentioned here do help others. And though we don't see eye-to-eye on what that involvement should consist of, we should acknowledge how those who are from other groups try to help those in need. Perhaps this is another reason why we should not look to conquer others.
King's One Theme
We could sum up King's messages and methods into one very short statement. That statement is: Everybody counts. This everybody includes the wealthiest of the 1% to the poorest of the 99%. It includes everybody from one's own creed to everybody from all of the other creeds. It includes everybody from one's own race to everybody from all of the other races. And, what should be noted in our present time, it includes everybody from one's own ideology to everybody from all of the other ideologies. The same is true about those from different nations.
That King's theme of everybody counting does not mean that the road together or our dialogue will always be smooth and conflict-free. But this theme should be our theme too even when we realize that nobody carries out this theme perfectly, not even King carried out this theme perfectly. Nonetheless, that is the theme of his message and those who would use a partial or distorted picture of King so as to get street cred for being like him need to be corrected. But those who correct others must also realize that to encounter the real Martin Luther King Jr. is to be confronted with a myriad of one's own personal and group's faults. This is true for every person and every group.
Friday, August 30, 2013
One Man's Dream Is Another Man's Nightmare
The good news is this week is the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom. But the same is also bad news because of how we use Martin Luther King's words. For rather than letting his words challenge our hearts to change, we use his words to exercise our fingers. Yes, unfortunately, it seems that many of God's children in America, Conservatives and Liberals, Republicans and Democrats, and children of all colors, creeds and classes, use King's teachings to point the finger of blame at their opponents while raising the finger of pride because of their inflated views of themselves.
Before his speech, King was introduced as "the moral leader of America." But it is the approach of the pharisee from Jesus's parable of the two men praying (Luke 18:9-14) who interprets a message from a great moral leader as a personal communiqué of congratulations. And, to adapt the words of Spock, it is only human arrogance that would assume that voices appealing to values and principle can condemn others only. But this is how King is celebrated by many today. Too many who commemorate him on birthdays and anniversaries are the self-righteous who claim to share his dream while King would call their dreams his nightmares.
In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?, King summarized what he had been saying all along. He said that as long as things, profits, and property rights were more important than people, we could never abolish the real threats to our well-being. Those threats are "racism, materialism, and militarism." Note that each of these threats is an ism that possesses those who embrace them which leads them to oppress, threaten, and kill. And also use King's criteria listed here when examining the claims of following King's Dream made by others. Do they value things, profits, and property rights more than people or do put the welfare of others first?
What my fellow Leftists and Occupy Movement members and I must remember about King is that as much as he had opposed the previously mentioned threats, he had a passion for winning over his opponents as well as preaching against and abstaining from using violence, both external and internal. These passions of King are where we have failed horribly. Whether it is by our war of words waged against the police or the scapegoating of the 1 percent, not only have we shown ourselves to be ignorant of King's words and spirit, we have preferred targeting opponents for wrath rather than trying to change the world by longing for their repentance and conversion. And though we might legitimately lack affection for those who have brutalized us with batons and slandered us with false accusations, trying to win our opponents over is a mandate from King's dream, not an alternative strategy.
And by scapegoating the 1 percent, we have sabotaged our efforts to make a new world possible. For a new world must include 100 percent of the people and not just 99 percent. In addition, though we might not be caught up in the sins of the 1 percent, we should not conclude that we are better people. It could be that we are innocent of those sins because we lacked opportunity.
Regardless of why we don't share the sins of the 1 percent, we should note that we have sins of our own and thus need the compassion and patience of others to continue to change. And if that is what we need from others, shouldn't we show the same to our adversaries without compromising our message and diluting the legitimate complaints we have?
This approach of exercising compassion to win over the 1 percent may seem counterintuitive to what is needed to get what we want. For historically speaking, elites who abuse the rest must be compelled by pressure and demands in order to change. But why must we make winning over and pressuring to compel change an exclusive-or choice? Why can't we try to win over whom we can and peacefully pressure the rest?
To the conservatives who have either claimed to join King's cause or attempted to provide expert testimony as to why King's dream has failed, I would like to ask these questions. How much of King have you read? Do you realize that for as long as you make the plight of Blacks King's only concern, you have adorned his vision with myopia?
And have you read his statements on economic justice? Do you realize why he predicted that the programs of "social uplift" initiated by President Johnson would fail? Do you know that, according to King, they started to fail when LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam? Did you know that King believed in a guaranteed income for all? Do you really think it was welfare, which would be supported by King, by itself that hurt Blacks and not the absence of additional programs that kept Blacks down?
Furthermore, why are you silent about the role that the private sector has played in sabotaging King's dream? Do you really believe that King himself would be a supporter of neoliberal capitalism regardless of the content of the character of its managers? Haven't you noticed from the outsourcing of jobs, the exploitation of foreign labor, and the destruction of the environment, that when you maximize profits, you sacrifice people? And have you ever read King's criticism of capitalism in general? He said that that capitalism denies the reality of collectivism.
Neoliberal capitalism, which is the capitalism du jour, seeks to sever almost all social, economic, and moral responsibilities of both big business and the rich from the rest of society. At the same time, it seeks to prohibit government from serving its people so that private sector elites can profit by filling the void. Were these disconnections ever a part of King's dream? What did King say about things and profits being more important than people? And how does the neoliberalism inspired disregard for the environment fit into King's dream? How does free-trade policies that destroy the ability of smaller nations to produce their own food by forcing their local farmers to compete with our subsidized Big Agribusiness fit into King's dream?
And what about all of the wars you supported in the name of patriotism? Did you think King was bragging or lamenting when he called the U.S. government the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world"? How could those who share King's dream so wantonly wage war let alone do so while declaring that they are accountable to nobody? And how could those who share King's dream justify a rush to war based on lies? Didn't you read where King told us that our choice is not between "violence and nonviolence" but between "nonviolence and nonexistence"?
But we have to give some conservatives credit for stressing the importance of personal morals. And we have to give all conservatives credit for not being liberals. For most of what can be said about conservatives and their love for neoliberal capitalism can also be said about liberals except that liberals try to cover their tracks. And this is why liberals bear a greater judgment than conservatives. For while liberals consistently claim to champion King's dream, they disguise their passionate embrace of neoliberal capitalism and American imperialism by tossing a few social justice issue bones out to us dogs just to prove that they are a faithful master.
But consider the attacks on the Occupy encampments, the war on whistleblowers, the expanded wars in the Orient with its climbing civilian death toll, America's increasing imperial reach into Africa, the forever failed promises to close Gitmo, the failure to criminally prosecute those from the financial institutions who committed fraud and money laundering, and the soaring claims to more authority and power paired with the even greater urge to void themselves of accountability. When liberals combine all of that with their love of neoliberal capitalism, realize that they are using a magic mirror when they tell themselves that they and King have the same dream.
We all have questions of conviction to consider when we read or listen to King's messages. We all have questions because we have all played sabotaging roles in derailing The Dream. Sure, some of us have also contributed to The Dream's realization. But if we are honest, we must admit that all of us have too many failures to point the finger of blame at others only. I know for myself that how I conduct myself in debates, especially on blogs, sometimes employs an internal violence that King opposed. I also need to be more involved with people in the area where I live.
If we really want to realize King's Dream, the first step we will take will be to look at our own failures and sins. And then we can reach out to help our fellow saboteurs who are also failing.
Before his speech, King was introduced as "the moral leader of America." But it is the approach of the pharisee from Jesus's parable of the two men praying (Luke 18:9-14) who interprets a message from a great moral leader as a personal communiqué of congratulations. And, to adapt the words of Spock, it is only human arrogance that would assume that voices appealing to values and principle can condemn others only. But this is how King is celebrated by many today. Too many who commemorate him on birthdays and anniversaries are the self-righteous who claim to share his dream while King would call their dreams his nightmares.
In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?, King summarized what he had been saying all along. He said that as long as things, profits, and property rights were more important than people, we could never abolish the real threats to our well-being. Those threats are "racism, materialism, and militarism." Note that each of these threats is an ism that possesses those who embrace them which leads them to oppress, threaten, and kill. And also use King's criteria listed here when examining the claims of following King's Dream made by others. Do they value things, profits, and property rights more than people or do put the welfare of others first?
What my fellow Leftists and Occupy Movement members and I must remember about King is that as much as he had opposed the previously mentioned threats, he had a passion for winning over his opponents as well as preaching against and abstaining from using violence, both external and internal. These passions of King are where we have failed horribly. Whether it is by our war of words waged against the police or the scapegoating of the 1 percent, not only have we shown ourselves to be ignorant of King's words and spirit, we have preferred targeting opponents for wrath rather than trying to change the world by longing for their repentance and conversion. And though we might legitimately lack affection for those who have brutalized us with batons and slandered us with false accusations, trying to win our opponents over is a mandate from King's dream, not an alternative strategy.
And by scapegoating the 1 percent, we have sabotaged our efforts to make a new world possible. For a new world must include 100 percent of the people and not just 99 percent. In addition, though we might not be caught up in the sins of the 1 percent, we should not conclude that we are better people. It could be that we are innocent of those sins because we lacked opportunity.
Regardless of why we don't share the sins of the 1 percent, we should note that we have sins of our own and thus need the compassion and patience of others to continue to change. And if that is what we need from others, shouldn't we show the same to our adversaries without compromising our message and diluting the legitimate complaints we have?
This approach of exercising compassion to win over the 1 percent may seem counterintuitive to what is needed to get what we want. For historically speaking, elites who abuse the rest must be compelled by pressure and demands in order to change. But why must we make winning over and pressuring to compel change an exclusive-or choice? Why can't we try to win over whom we can and peacefully pressure the rest?
To the conservatives who have either claimed to join King's cause or attempted to provide expert testimony as to why King's dream has failed, I would like to ask these questions. How much of King have you read? Do you realize that for as long as you make the plight of Blacks King's only concern, you have adorned his vision with myopia?
And have you read his statements on economic justice? Do you realize why he predicted that the programs of "social uplift" initiated by President Johnson would fail? Do you know that, according to King, they started to fail when LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam? Did you know that King believed in a guaranteed income for all? Do you really think it was welfare, which would be supported by King, by itself that hurt Blacks and not the absence of additional programs that kept Blacks down?
Furthermore, why are you silent about the role that the private sector has played in sabotaging King's dream? Do you really believe that King himself would be a supporter of neoliberal capitalism regardless of the content of the character of its managers? Haven't you noticed from the outsourcing of jobs, the exploitation of foreign labor, and the destruction of the environment, that when you maximize profits, you sacrifice people? And have you ever read King's criticism of capitalism in general? He said that that capitalism denies the reality of collectivism.
Neoliberal capitalism, which is the capitalism du jour, seeks to sever almost all social, economic, and moral responsibilities of both big business and the rich from the rest of society. At the same time, it seeks to prohibit government from serving its people so that private sector elites can profit by filling the void. Were these disconnections ever a part of King's dream? What did King say about things and profits being more important than people? And how does the neoliberalism inspired disregard for the environment fit into King's dream? How does free-trade policies that destroy the ability of smaller nations to produce their own food by forcing their local farmers to compete with our subsidized Big Agribusiness fit into King's dream?
And what about all of the wars you supported in the name of patriotism? Did you think King was bragging or lamenting when he called the U.S. government the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world"? How could those who share King's dream so wantonly wage war let alone do so while declaring that they are accountable to nobody? And how could those who share King's dream justify a rush to war based on lies? Didn't you read where King told us that our choice is not between "violence and nonviolence" but between "nonviolence and nonexistence"?
But we have to give some conservatives credit for stressing the importance of personal morals. And we have to give all conservatives credit for not being liberals. For most of what can be said about conservatives and their love for neoliberal capitalism can also be said about liberals except that liberals try to cover their tracks. And this is why liberals bear a greater judgment than conservatives. For while liberals consistently claim to champion King's dream, they disguise their passionate embrace of neoliberal capitalism and American imperialism by tossing a few social justice issue bones out to us dogs just to prove that they are a faithful master.
But consider the attacks on the Occupy encampments, the war on whistleblowers, the expanded wars in the Orient with its climbing civilian death toll, America's increasing imperial reach into Africa, the forever failed promises to close Gitmo, the failure to criminally prosecute those from the financial institutions who committed fraud and money laundering, and the soaring claims to more authority and power paired with the even greater urge to void themselves of accountability. When liberals combine all of that with their love of neoliberal capitalism, realize that they are using a magic mirror when they tell themselves that they and King have the same dream.
We all have questions of conviction to consider when we read or listen to King's messages. We all have questions because we have all played sabotaging roles in derailing The Dream. Sure, some of us have also contributed to The Dream's realization. But if we are honest, we must admit that all of us have too many failures to point the finger of blame at others only. I know for myself that how I conduct myself in debates, especially on blogs, sometimes employs an internal violence that King opposed. I also need to be more involved with people in the area where I live.
If we really want to realize King's Dream, the first step we will take will be to look at our own failures and sins. And then we can reach out to help our fellow saboteurs who are also failing.
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