Yes indeed. The argument is even more incisive when you ponder the fact that MLK jr. had had been seen as sort of washed up after the passage of Civil Rights and Voting Rights under Johnson. By the logic of Beck, MLK Jr should have looked in his in box and seen it empty after 1966 IF he was only concerned about racism.

After the passage of CRA, he got the Nobel Peace prize he spoke about how he had a bigger mission that transcended nationalism. If he had just been concerned *only* about racism, he wouldn’t have tweaked LBJ about Vietnam, and Hoover wouldn’t have gotten his back up about “The Poor People’s Campaign” which, lets face it, led to his assassination.

Amanda’s initial observation that people tend to believe lies even about their own experience is chilling. It’s for this reason that we need a return to the fairness doctrine in broadcasting. There is an imprimatur of authority when a big institution prints or broadcasts something. Germans aren’t stupid, yet the repetition of lies cowed them most effectively. That’s why FDR gave us the Fairness Doctrine, and why we need it back again.

Isn’t the whole idea of the “discussion” to frame the lies?
After all if they had brought in an expert of a biographer of Dr. King, their entire structure would be torn down around their ears.
It’s why companies like CNN and others don’t bother to fact check Fox’s lies.

Though I’m confused as to the justification other media companies use to enable this.
“Tonight on CNN; Clayborne Carson, noted author on Martin Luther King Jr., discusses why the struggle continues along with Rand Paul.”

KingElvis, I don’t think the Fairness Doctrine is enough.  As was pointed out on Stephanie Miller this morning, the fairness doctrine just said you needed to present “both sides.”

The Fairness DOctrine only holds that a licensed station be required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission’s view, honest, equitable and balanced.  The licensing part allows any media company that does not broadcast using public air waves, i.e. cable only, to skirt the rules.

But in 2003 Fox won case in Florida stating it can falsify any and all information it wants to.

I’m not sure which is worse: shooting someone like MLK or sniggering them off the national stage as “unserious”, the way villagers do today.

Of course people are willing to believe lies about their own experiences.  Confronting and accepting ideas and perspectives that force you to question your actions/beliefs is hard.  That’s how I came to be pro-choice, pro-marriage equality and take a liberal view on most other issues, after being raised in an ultra-conservative family and religion.  I accepted what I heard from my older family members and from the pulpit because I always thought, “Well, they must know.”  Eventually, however, the dissonance between what I was hearing and what I was experiencing and learning for myself became far too great for me to cling to the opinions that I’d adopted, and I instead started thinking for myself.  And thinking for yourself is hard.  It forces you to acknowledge the limits of your own background and accept that there are other people in the world that matter - “tribal” thought has to go out the window.  Beck’s audience ignore the dissonance because they’re desperately clinging to any train of thought that justifies what they’ve always believed, allowing them to stay safe in their protected little bubble of self-righteousness.

And sarcasm is best left to people who can apply it well.  Beck just comes off as whiny.

The good news is that Beck’s ratings have been slipping for a year, and he’s probably in for the high jump when his contract is up at the end of the year. Uncle Rupe likes his propagandists at the Ministry of Truth to have some youth appeal (“youth” in this case being the hip 45-60 crowd) and the ability to attract advertisers other than cut-rate gold scams.

There’s always hate radio as an alternative for Beck, of course. But I don’t think that his crocodile tears and blackboard act will translate well to an audio-only medium.

Any discussion of Beck reminds me of this new word I recently learned, “agnotology.”  It’s the study of the cultivation of ignorance.  Beck could fill volumes on the subject.

I am often asked, “Do you have to be so sarcastic?” When I was younger, I muffled myself. Nowadays, though, I respond, “Yes. I have to be so sarcastic. When the choice is between sarcasm and profane invective, I choose sarcasm.” (Most times, anyway. Sometimes profane invective is a delightlfully palate-cleansing choice.)

“Of course people are willing to believe lies about their own experiences.  Confronting and accepting ideas and perspectives that force you to question your actions/beliefs is hard.”

...as is accepting that, in many cases, not only were you wrong, but spectacularly wrong.  It’s so much easier to convince yourself that you were actually on the “good” side all along, and not that you changed history to suit yourself.  (See Haley Barbour’s claim to have attended an important MLK rally and not seeing any racism, when he either couldn’t have attended the one he claims he did, and/or it didn’t go down the way he claims.)

Which brings up a question I’ve had for years:  Given there exists film/video of identifiable people screaming at, taunting, and attacking civil rights marchers and Black kids trying to attend segregated high schools and colleges, how do these people (many of whom are probably still alive) explain this direct evidence of their mindless and evil racism?  Or do they just try and pretend that it couldn’t possibly be them and change the subject?

Inquiring minds want to know…

When I saw the headline here I was like “wait, Beck has a new album?”

Then I realized it was about Glenn Beck, that asshole who has ruined the name “Beck” for everyone.

I was considering a run for a local office last year but realized that my sarcastic nature would probably not be to my benefit: Sarcasm and politics do not well mix. To wit: Many many people thought Anthony Weiner’s righteous smackdown of the NPR defunding effort was serious. When done right, people are too stupid to understand that you’re being sarcastic*, and when done wrong you look like you’re too stupid to sit at the grown-up’s table.

* I was at a town meeting where some woman (who didn’t even live in our town) got up to complain that the teachers were getting raises when the economy was so bad and she was hurting and that since she wasn’t making any more money, neither should the teachers. Then she went on an anti-union rant about how we should dissolve the union contracts because they’re greedy with their raises and non-union teachers weren’t getting those fabulous raises. To which I loudly blurted out “Yeah, we should just hire our teachers right out of PRISON!” People were coming up to my friends afterwards (I had to leave early) and declaring that they had family who worked in the public schools and they didn’t appreciate having their loved ones compared to inmates. Le sigh.

How weird.  I just posted something on this very thing—and how infuriated it made me.

One of the things I most object to in the ritualization of required King veneration is that they have written the man’s radicalism out of the picture.  MLK was very much a man of the left, a social democrat through and through and someone who was moving ever more in this direction at the time of his death.  His support for the Memphis sanitation workers and the “Poor People’s Campaign,” his final substantive movement work, were illustrative of his deep concern for economic as well as racial justice.

Using sarcasm in service of lies is rarely, if ever, amusing.  It just makes you sound like a dick.

This is off-topic, but I have been wanting to call you out on this for a while. And the above quote is very relevant. Amanda, in your book “It’s A Jungle Out there” you had talked about domestic violence, and sarcastically commented that the pain of a man’s skinned knuckles is equivalent to a woman’s black eye.

Don’t have the book with me, but I can get it and find the exact quote if needed.

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm “This bibliography examines 275 scholarly investigations”

Given that domestic violence is committed equally by women “women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men”

And women do not commit their violence mostly in self-defense “half the violence was reciprocal.  In non-reciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators 70% of the time”,

and that women’s violence is far from harmless “With regard to injuries results reveal that women inflict serious injuries at least as frequently as men.  For example 1.8% of men and 1.2% of women reported that their injuries required first aid, while 1.5% of men and 1.1% of women reported that their injuries needed treatment by a doctor or nurse”

So given your two quotes regarding sarcasm and domestic violence, do you retract one of them? Or will you double down?

This is kind of a tangent, but I clicked on the link to the article regarding the age of Beck’s audience and of course it states that he’s lost nearly half his audience in the 18 - 49 demographic. So naturally the first comment was from some Beck apologist talking about how wise older people are unlike all those still-suggestible whipper-snappers. He actually said that the reason that the 18 - 49 age group is important to advertisers is because that group is impressionable and gullible, completely ignoring the real reason, ie, more disposable income and the age when people have kids at home who need a lot of stuff. Yep, 40-somethings like me sure are impressionable, unlike those all-wise, can-totally-see-through-the-bullshit elderly Beck fans.

Concern troll is concerned

So concerned!

I guess this is implicit in the initial post, but it occurred to me that the very effort to divorce race from other issues like worker rights is, in essence, ‘racist.’

Beck is implying that MLK’s project was inspired simply by allegiance to his race - it would just be the apartheid in reverse instead of moving on to a truly cosmopolitan, just, liberal society. Since Beck’s listeners hold tightly to the concept of white allegiance, then they figure that it just applies in reverse to blacks with black allegiance - as if MLK would have damned the crackers and spics or whatever.

This effort of Beck’s is to compartmentalize minimize and ghetto-ize MLK, his struggle, and his place in American history.

I don’t think it’s at all some kind of sophistry to conclude that the right wing effort to frame MLK as only a black leader and not an American leader is itself, racist.

The reactionary pose of a ‘post racial’ world is, itself, racist in conception and execution.

I know I shouldn’t speak to the troll.  But the troll might want to look at the Bureau of Justice statistics for more information if it seeks to make claims that women are more violent than men.  For instance, I was able to find within a few moments that of spousal murders, 59% were husbands and 41% were wives.  Further, I was able to find that 44% of wives who kill their husbands exhibited evidence that they were being assaulted by their husbands at the time of the killing, yet only 10% of husbands who kill their wives can claim the same.  I’m sure the troll would find all sorts of interesting stats on the BJS website.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/SPOUSFAC.PDF

Reverse Discrimination.

So momentous it requires Superfluous Capitalization.

Amanda,
  I was reading your article, and enjoyed it.  Well researched, argued and thought out.  Good, then I got to the little aside at the bottom.  You made me laugh out loud.  YEAH TEAM SARCASM.  I often feel sarcasm is like a sword.  If the wielder is able and deft, the sword honed with intelligence, it cuts a fine sharp line, delinating and wounding swiftly with little effort.  If the wielder is, um like Beck, with little skill, intelligence or wisdom, the blows are hasty, clumsy and often misaimed.  You are a master and I bow in awe of your skill!  Please continue to wield your epee in defense of reason and intelligence.  There are few that have your skill and wit. 
  P.S.  Love your food blogging, it has really helped me learn how to feed my oldest’s sons very vegan, must be purchased within 100 miles girlfriend.  Learning to make new foods that actually taste good is very good for my “earth mother” spirit.
Teri

Hey, I’m not concerned.  Beck used to be half a wack job, now he’s 3/4 a wack job.

So what the fuck is a full wack job?  They can’t see you wearing your underpants on your head on radio.

The reactionary pose of a ‘post racial’ world is, itself, racist in conception and execution.

Yep. Amanda has said this many times before, but it bears repeating: conservatives who claim that we live in a post-racial world as really saying “I want to say racist shit without being called on it.”

@17 So basically “not being a good husband” (just a cheater, or an abuser? Don’t know much about the man’s private life, and google doesn’t seem very informative) is the only wrongdoing from the perspective of someone likely to come to this site.

I’ve long passed the point where I can make heads or tails of wtf comes out of Beck’s mouth.  It all sounds like the adults in Peanuts cartoons. Mwah wha-bra-wah-wah-wahbwah.

Hey, I’m not concerned.

They were talking about Celda, who was so concerned over the epidemic of abusive women that the point of Amanda’s sarcastic remark about the skinned knuckle sailed right over his head.

Beck used to be half a wack job, now he’s 3/4 a wack job.

What’s the 1/4 that makes sense to you?

As to wingnuts trying to embrace King:

1.  He was a socialist.

Teabaggers think that’s different from being one of them thar evil “soshalists,” so it’s easy to get that one by them.

2.  He was not a good husband (see how I softened that).

I’d think that would only increase your average GOP pundit/politician’s sympathy for him.

3. Anyone who thinks he would not have “evolved” to favoring Reverse Descrimination is deluding themselves.

Have you visited the parallel universe where King lived on? Do you have documentary evidence to back that up? Or has Beck inspired you to make up historical “facts” of your own?

From what I’ve read, King saw what we now call affirmative action (and what Libertarians call: “Reverse Discrimination wah-wah-wahhhhh”) as a tool for inclusion in a society that had not treated African-Americans as people worthy of certain jobs or education. In one interview he likened such a programme to the GI Bill, which gave millions of veterans who could never have accessed a college education due to class issues (and note that racism is often a cover for classism in the U.S.) access and inclusion in academia.

@19

Police figures and crime statistics are neither scientific nor accurate. If we went by crime report figures for the prevalence of rape, it would be a very low number.

Sorry, a collection of over 200 scholarly works is superior to the Bureau of Justice stats. You are in denial of the truth.

Again, would like to see Amanda address the hypocrisy between her two statements.

The Google ad that keeps coming up in this thread is “Hotels in Memphis.” Oh dear.

They were talking about Celda, who was so concerned over the epidemic of abusive women that the point of Amanda’s sarcastic remark about the skinned knuckle sailed right over his head.

Where did I say or imply that I was concerned about abusive women? I have no desire to address that.

I am interested in Amanda’s response to the contradiction and hypocrisy between her two statements though, and want to see if she will retract / apologize one of them or if she will double down.

Celda, if you would like to have a conversation with Amanda about a topic that has nothing to do with this comment thread, you know she has an email address, and Twitter, etc, right?

In other words, stop derailing.

Where did I say or imply that I was concerned about abusive women?

Gee, maybe your entire post at #13, where you describe how women are much more vicious abusers than men.

<blockquote>I am interested in Amanda’s response to the contradiction and hypocrisy between her two statements<blockquote>

Since you’re having your usual issues with reading comprehension, I’ll try to explain it to you. Amanda’s sarcastic statement in the book was placed in the context of mocking a patriarchal society’s reaction to a male abusing a female (this situation does occur now and then)—always assigning some sympathy to the male, even if he is the perpetrator (e.g. a husband who sustains a skinned knuckle by socking his wife in the eye).

Now I understand things work differently over there in your universe (probably the same one Libertarian lives in, where MLK lived to evolve into Al Sharpton). Over in the Bizarro World of MRAs, it’s it’s the racial minorities and femi-nazis and non-Christians and Teh Gayz who historically oppressed the always put-upon straight white Christian males.

Here in the real world, though, it’s not a lie to say to say that, in a given dispute between a member of a dominant class (e.g. men in a patriarchy) and an oppressed class (e.g. women in a patriarchy), other members of the dominant class will strive to give the former some sympathy or benefit of the doubt, even in the former is clearly the perpetrator.

Thus, Amanda’s sarcasm in the book was not operating in the service of lies. No contradiction or hypocrisy to address—at least not for members of the reality-based community.

Derail troll is concerned.

2.  He was not a good husband (see how I softened that).

Comment #17: Libertarian

I’d think that would only increase your average GOP pundit/politician’s sympathy

Comment #26: Gracchus

Nah, after all, with leaders like O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Gingrich, etc. (hell, DailyKOS has a wiki on it) just means that they are better than the good Dr. King because they have so many more wives than he did.  Plus Dr. King was black, so it’s automatically a BAZZZZILLION TIMES worse than white guys cheating, beating or leaving their wives.

Sorry, a collection of over 200 scholarly works is superior to the Bureau of Justice stats. You are in denial of the truth.
Comment #27: Celda

Ah, but you don’t show your work.  The bibiolgraphy is not linking to the main article which may or may now support the title of the thesis.

This is what’s know as “Cherry Picking” or “Lies of Omission”

Now to reconnect with the topic, Thanks for being so concerned about your perception of Amanda’s “hypocricy”.  /sarcasm

Celda-

Men are conditioned from birth in US society to be entitled, abusive pricks, and if they get injured because of blowback for all the emotional and physical abuse they cause, then it tells me that men need to learn their lesson and be kind to and respectful of their mates.

Unfortunately too many men stop learning anything past the age of two, so it’s always going to be about them, and they’ll need to be bounced off a sidewalk more than a few times so before there is any chance they’ll become house-broken and domesticated.

Ah, but you don’t show your work.  The bibiolgraphy is not linking to the main article which may or may now support the title of the thesis.

This is what’s know as “Cherry Picking” or “Lies of Omission”

What main article are you talking about? The bibliography is a collection of over 200 scholarly studies, there is no main article. The professor who reviewed it, who has also down his own research and studies, came to the conclusion that “women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men.”

So you deny both the collection of studies and the professor’s analysis?

Amanda’s sarcastic statement in the book was placed in the context of mocking a patriarchal society’s reaction to a male abusing a female (this situation does occur now and then)—always assigning some sympathy to the male, even if he is the perpetrator

First of all, society sympathizes with a man who beats his wife? You must be joking. Do you have anything to support that?

As for that interpretation of Amanda’s words, I am 90% sure that was not what she meant, but instead she sarcastically and falsely implied that women’s violence against men was a non-issue. I will go to the library and get the book to confirm.

Celda, if you would like to have a conversation with Amanda about a topic that has nothing to do with this comment thread, you know she has an email address, and Twitter, etc, right?

Calling someone out to expose their contradictions IN PRIVATE defeats the purpose.

Guyz, guyz, don’t feed him.

1.  He was a socialist.

You say that like it’s a bad thing. Quick! Bomb Europe!

Ah, but you don’t show your work.  The bibiolgraphy is not linking to the main article which may or may now support the title of the thesis.

From Prof. Fiebert’s site, here’s an LAT article that summarises his positions. After reading it, I’m not sure if Celda will be so anxious to cherry pick from a source who disagrees with him on a number of key points (e.g. Fiebert acknowledges the existence of patriarchal culture).

Needless to say, he’s also wrong in his interpretation of Prof. Fiebert’s views on physical violence by female abusers. Probably because he was too eager to do some cherry picking.

First of all, society sympathizes with a man who beats his wife? You must be joking. Do you have anything to support that?

Countless instances of “she must have done something to provoke him” or “it takes two to tango” and other benefit-of-the-doubt statements made on behalf of male perps by men and even some women. Strangely, when a woman abuses a man, she doesn’t even get this token measure of sympathy from men (who, I’ll note again for the benefit of our visitor from MRA-World, still dominate society)—they’re either more interested in mocking the “wimp” victim or, in the case of MRAs, using it as an example of the evils of feminism.

As for that interpretation of Amanda’s words, I am 90% sure that was not what she meant

I’m 100% sure that’s exactly what she meant, because she talks about this stuff all the time here. On a related note, you haven’t demonstrated that your interpretation of anything (see e.g. this howler) is particularly credible.

Guyz, guyz, don’t feed him.

All right, all right, I’m done with him. More interesting and on-topic to discuss Libertarian’s alternate universe than watch Celda act out his personal anxieties about women anyhow.

Celda is getting more concerned by the minute.  I also like how he (or she) blithely disregarded blitzgal’s statistics from the DoJ, as if the fact that husbands murder their wives at a 50% higher rate isn’t a bit more concerning than the relative incidences of other domestic violence, or that vastly more women kill in self defense than men.  I wouldn’t deign to justify domestic violence by anyone or against anyone, but most sane people would probably agree that murder is the most serious form that that violence can take.  So, Celda, you don’t even make a terribly convincing concern troll.  I give you a 4/10.

In addition, Amanda mentions frequently that The Patriarchy Hurts Men Too, and domestic violence is no exception.  One way patriarchy poisons men’s brains is that they are often afraid to report abuse because they would be ridiculed as weak, or they wouldn’t be believed.  And if you were capable of checking Wikipedia you would see that there are some serious questions about the methodology of the studies that purport to show that women commit domestic violence at higher rates than men.

This is off-topic,

Right-o.

Moving on…

Guyz, guyz, don’t feed him.

But it’s so much fun!  Besides, it’s more like giving him a shovel and letting him dig.

“Quick! Bomb Europe!”

No, Europe in general doesn’t have oil.  No point in bombing them no matter how much we hate the French.

Now if you want to accomplish something similar, bomb Russia or Kazakhstan where they have oil.  Plus, according to Wikipedia, Kazakhstan is 2/3 Mooslim, so there’s that for American war pr0n fans…

In one interview he likened such a programme to the GI Bill, which gave millions of veterans who could never have accessed a college education due to class issues (and note that racism is often a cover for classism in the U.S.) access and inclusion in academia.

Indeed. And folks should keep in mind that the GI Bill was written in such a way as to exclude African-Americans from eligibility.

The study on spousal murder is interesting, but seems to contradict some numbers I got out of the US murder statistics, in which approximately 1/4th of all intimate partner murders have male victims. Unless the rate of lesbian murders is amazingly high, or the rate of unmarried men murdering their non-married female partners is vastly higher than the rate of married men murdering their wives, it sounds like the study quoted may have found a non-random sample.

Mind you, 1/4th of all intimate partner murder victims being male is not chump change! One does have to consider the possibility of self-defense, which the raw murder stats won’t give us but we can infer from the fact that the rate of *male* victims went down, as well as female victims, when DV shelters for *women* were established, that at least some male victims were spared death because their abused wives had somewhere to escape to and didn’t have to kill them in self-defense. However, 1/4th is still a whole lot and probably not mostly explainable as self-defense. It is, however, a *lot* smaller than 41%.

(It’s also possible, that given that the numbers I was looking at were raw murder statistics from the 2000’s, and the study comes from 1988 data, that a significant number of those 44% of wives who killed in self defense that appeared in the study are now going to shelters or escaping via strengthened DV laws instead, and what we have left are mostly women who kill their husbands for the same evil reasons anyone kills anyone. 44% of 41% is 18%... a lot closer to 25% than 41% was, and the study I viewed did not and could not control for gay men or lesbians murdering or being murdered by their same-sex partners.)

Ah, any stats that don’t support the troll’s preconceived notions of the world are therefore wrong.  Let’s just pretend that it wasn’t the troll who brought up spousal murder to begin with, which is why I chose that specific subject to counter its argument.

Sorry Alara, that was not aimed at you.  I didn’t see your post.

What’s weird to me is he has her book, I like pandagon, feminists and amanda’s writing style and I haven’t read her book but the guy who hates her wants to cite from it.

But to say something Beck related I think my all time favorite outrageously stupid Beck lie is that the Nazis were a left wing group because socialist was part of the name.

All the same wasn’t King’s assassin some nutjob who thought he was going to be paid big bucks by southern racists? Or at least I remember hearing some history guy who wrote a book about him on the radio say that. Which isn’t to say they didn’t hate him for being a leftie as well as being popular and black

Celda stopped being amusing some time ago.

After reading it, I’m not sure if Celda will be so anxious to cherry pick from a source who disagrees with him on a number of key points (e.g. Fiebert acknowledges the existence of patriarchal culture).

Needless to say, he’s also wrong in his interpretation of Prof. Fiebert’s views on physical violence by female abusers. Probably because he was too eager to do some cherry picking.

Oh really? First of all, the “source” is 200 different studies, not Fiebert. Fiebert is merely the one who collected the studies and came to a conclusion after reviewing them.

The article you linked has Fiebert saying that women are as violent as men and that “women are more likely to be injured, but not a lot more” because “they are more likely to use weapons.”

So, your own link not only reinforces what I said, but DISAGREES with you, saying that “no one laughs at abused women, but abused men are mocked.

Men are conditioned from birth in US society to be entitled, abusive pricks, and if they get injured because of blowback for all the emotional and physical abuse they cause, then it tells me that men need to learn their lesson and be kind to and respectful of their mates.

Unfortunately too many men stop learning anything past the age of two, so it’s always going to be about them, and they’ll need to be bounced off a sidewalk more than a few times so before there is any chance they’ll become house-broken and domesticated.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming. Not a single person called this out, which was literally condoning violence and blaming the victims of said violence. I guess you failed to read the part where I said that studies show the majority of female violence is NON-RECIPROCAL (i.e. the man is non-violent but the woman is).

I also like how he (or she) blithely disregarded blitzgal’s statistics from the DoJ, as if the fact that husbands murder their wives at a 50% higher rate isn’t a bit more concerning than the relative incidences of other domestic violence, or that vastly more women kill in self defense than men.

No, I disregarded the DoJ because crime figures are unscientific and inaccurate. Or do you agree that police report stats are accurate representations of rape prevalence?

Ah, any stats that don’t support the troll’s preconceived notions of the world are therefore wrong.

This is ironic, coming from you. I change my mind to fit the facts. You on the other hand, have already shown your willingness to dismiss any evidence that don’t support your preconceived notions.

Let’s just pretend that it wasn’t the troll who brought up spousal murder to begin with, which is why I chose that specific subject to counter its argument.

This is a lie that no one called out. I never mentioned spousal murder or any murder. I said violence. You were the one that brought it up.

What main article are you talking about? The bibliography is a collection of over 200 scholarly studies, there is no main article. The professor who reviewed it, who has also down his own research and studies, came to the conclusion that “women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men.”

So you deny both the collection of studies and the professor’s analysis?

You really have no clue about how reseach is done.
Fist, there is no analysis.  You state that in your first sentence.
Second, there is no analysis so there can be no conclusion.

What you have is a bibliography with no paper, or analysis to draw a conclusion from.

Tell you what I’m going to Google Scholar and type in “Politically right wing leaning people are douchebags”  Then I’ll compile the list in APA format and publish it in a blog.  It will be just as pertenant as your ... thingy… with stuff.

This is ironic, coming from you. I change my mind to fit the facts.

Comment #52: Celda

Liar troll is lying.

You know, this reminds me of James Von Brunn… you could call him a neo-Nazi, but why bother when he was old enough to be the original recipe?

WRT some of the disparities on who kills and who is killed in domestic violence, there can be more than just a couple involved in a domestic dispute. I don’t know how representative MD is of the country as a whole, but from here http://www.mnadv.org/DV_Stats/dv_stats.html you can see that a lot of the men that died during domestic disputes were killed by ex-boyfriends or in a murder suicide were the vast majority of women were actually killed by their significant others.

That being said—Celda, get your own motherfucking blog. And If you set up some sort of organization that helps male victims of intimate violence, I will even support you—provided that helping victims and not using victims as a way of metaphorically pulling Amanda’s hair on the playground is your goal.

Those Maryland stats actually look somewhat close to the raw data I saw; if 95% of female victims of DV-related murder were killed by their SO, and 28% of men were, that says that of all people who were killed by their SO, 77% were female and 23% were male. Pretty close to that 1 in 4 figure.

There’s obviously a lot of noise in the data on men because men are killed a whole lot. The other thing I saw in the raw data is that 90% of all murderers, in general, and 80% of all murder victims, in general, are male. The reason we can get appalling statistics like “65% of female murder victims are murdered by their SO or their ex” is, in part, because such a huge number of men are killed by strangers or acquaintances.

So I think that if someone truly desired to help men who are facing the possibility of being murdered, the thing to focus on is the appallingly high rate at which men die at the hands of other men! I mean, 90% of murderers, 80% of murder victims? Sure, some of that’s going to be self defense or criminals killing each other, but how many innocent men are buried in that statistic, who died because they were a man who encountered the wrong other man at the wrong time? And the MRAs are all on about *women* killing men? Come on, that’s like complaining about the mosquitoes while the hyenas are eating you.

Men need to own up to the fact that they are the murder class. Men kill and men are killed. It’s almost invisible; we notice when women are killed because women aren’t typically killed (20% of all murder victims). This is *not* a problem women caused, that feminism supports, or that anyone except for men can fix. Men need to stop treating other men as disposable; men need to take note of the gendered nature of violence and work on what they can do to stop killing people *and* prevent themselves from being killed. I mean, if men want to treat rape as a female problem because mostly only women get raped, then do we get to treat murder as a male problem?

There is no parity here. 90% of murderers. 80% of victims. The statistics speak for themselves. Women cannot possibly be as violent as men, in domestic violence, because they are not remotely as close to as violent as men in other contexts. Even child victims are killed by men more often than they’re killed by women (women commit more physical abuse, but not when you factor in the proportion of time women spend with children versus men, and women commit much less murder of children despite the fact that the women are with the children more often than men and children are as vulnerable to women as they are to men.)

Are we fully derailed now?

1.  He was a socialist.
2.  He was not a good husband (see how I softened that).
3.  Anyone who thinks he would not have “evolved” to favoring Reverse Descrimination is deluding themselves.

One good thing, but a biggy.

Trolls are as trolls does.  I have to answer this though it’s been answered before.

1.) Socialism isn’t bad, in fact in most of the successful western world socialism is the dominant argument.  Socialism operates within capitalism due to the world markets, the rugged individualism argument falls short if only for the fact nobody is able to operate outside of the market so in effect we are merely tools of said system.

2.) Who really cares if he was a philanderer?  Honestly?  When does it deprive a social agent of their authority?  If we discussed the poor level of monogamy amongst our political leaders well over half of them would be removed immediately from consideration.  The FBI illegally recorded his affair which is a statement of just how powerful he was to the establishment and your conservative friends. 

3.) Reverse racism is egalitarianism.  Learn what “reverse” and “racism” are then we can talk, if you’re discussing black-on-white racism then you’re a fool because MLK jr. made it very clear he never wanted to rule over whites, in fact it’s interlaced in his speeches countless times.  Malcolm X came closer to this argument but he largely wanted an independent entity for blacks to exist in with in the US to give them power to control their own future.  Even then, at the end of his life Malcolm X changed and started to share the world view of MLK jr. 

Frankly the argument smacks of all libertarians, the belief that because they are shallow hateful imbeciles that everybody else is like them.  Turns out nobody is like you, that’s why so many of us are liberals, we believe in sharing the wealth and doing the right thing.

Heh, reading the title of this post, I thought it was about the musician, Beck.

Fist, there is no analysis.  You state that in your first sentence.
Second, there is no analysis so there can be no conclusion.

What you have is a bibliography with no paper, or analysis to draw a conclusion from.

Wow, are you an idiot?

I didn’t say there was no analysis. I said, there is no “main article.” This is a bibliography compiled by a professor at CSU. It is a collection of over 200 studies on DV, and presumably he read each one. Each study has its summary / abstract shown next to it so that people can see the results of each individual study.

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

After reviewing each study, this is his summary of them:

“SUMMARY:  This bibliography examines 275 scholarly investigations: 214 empirical studies and 61 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.  The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 365,000. “

Women cannot possibly be as violent as men, in domestic violence, because they are not remotely as close to as violent as men in other contexts.

This would seem to be logical, yet the evidence shows otherwise. We cannot disbelieve the evidence simply because it seems counter-intuitive.

Celda—http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog

Ban hammer time.

“So, I’m sure that the fact that they were black and in Memphis had nothing to do with his mention—with his, uh, message.”

Why is that every time a conservative like Beck tries to A. pretend they are not racist or B. blame liberals as the “true racists”, they just sound even more racist.  My favorite is the whole “liberal plantation” bullshit they bring up.

Only took four times to actually get the concern troll to show “his” work.
Poor, lazy troll

Too bad it has nothing to do with his original post which was a James O’Keeffe style gotcha.
Nor does it relate in any way to Amanda’s supposed hypocrisy.

I’ll never understand conservatives/repub’s trying to adopt MLK.

Conservatism/Republicans are all about fostering resentment and creating a society where “everyone knows their place.” MLK, Jr. was concerned about poor people and the afflicted and creating a more egalitarian, just society—groups that conservatives and Republicans believe exist specifically for the purpose of creating fear about in order to get votes from everyone else… but it’s that latter part that’s important when it comes to MLK, Jr.: you can’t convince “swing voters” to support you if you’re ranting and raving against MLK, Jr. You have to pay lip service to equal rights.

I mean, it’s kind of like how Republicans need to pay homage to Lincoln, even though the modern day republican party is a Confederate revival party concerned with nullification and the like—they might hate Lincoln, deep down, but you can’t run a campaign attracting swing voters by bad mouthing one of America’s greatest presidents.

Celda, both you and Mr. Fiebert are shockingly ignorant of the methodological approaches that would actually be required to back up the assertion you are trying to make. The bibliography you’ve cited is a) worse-written than a freshman comp annotated bibliography, and b) contains no actual analysis. Mr. Fiebert (I certainly hope it’s not Dr. Fiebert) has not done the required meta analysis needed to back up his assertions, which means they are useless to him and useless to us no matter how many individual observations were included across 200-odd studies (a “review” is not a study, it’s a re-analysis of previously existing work, so 61 of these must be excluded from consideration). Not that 36,000 observations across 214 studies is all that impressive anyhow, that doesn’t even allow for statistical significance using some methods. However, this is immaterial, since there is no analysis done.

I know you socialists think socialism is good, but my point was why should conservatives and repub’s want to adopt a guy who was a socialist?

It could be compared to how modern politicians embrace Thomas Jefferson even though he believed America should be a relatively insular agrarian society—such views were relatively mainstream at the time. I don’t really think many Americans in MLK, Jr.‘s time had much of a problem with progressive taxation, more widespread access to health care, and unionization and the rest of the consensus of modern western civilized society. Even though the most radical faction of the right wing is ascendant now, it’s in their political interest not to burn their bridges with the past, in the same way that there isn’t a concerted effort to demonize Abraham Lincoln, either. But that’s why the Republicans are a major political party and 97% of Americans disagree with libertarianism.

Libertarian, unless you can show me the piece of roadway or highway that was specifically built with your tax dollars, the inevitable conclusion is that you live in a socialist society as far as road-building and maintenance is concerned.

Again, Celda stopped being amusing sometime ago.

Conservatives adopt MLK because MLK is widely seen as “good.”  The way tribalism works, every “good” person is in your tribe, while every “bad” person is outside your tribe.

So if someone is inescapably in your tribe, they’re “good” even if they tie babies to train tracks.  And if someone is inescapably “good,” they are magically in your tribe.

Oh, and I got agnotology into UD.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=agnotology

Also, why the heck would a self-described Libertarian hang out on a feminist blog?  The whole point of Libertarianism is to create an elaborate rationalization set for harming icky women, who have cooties.  Libertarians are, fundamentally, 14 year old boys who are still angry with mom for making them eat their vegetables and don’t realize that they can move on.

Thank you, Punditus, Maximus.

Punditus, thank you, thank you, thank you! I run an atheist meetup, and have about eight libertarian members,who, when even one or two show up, hijack the conversation with their nonsense. I don’t often read on blogs that there is a hidden agenda of libertarian men—that they want to be able to do with their perceived subordinates whatever they see fit. Government regulations that protect employees, women and children are to be erased.

The eight are all middle class white males. Three of them are retired, and seem to have forgotten how government helped them along the way—and of course they use Social Security and Medicare! The other five are all of them in some kind of computer software situation, and don’t seem to understand how much of society’s infrastructure makes it possible to do what they do. Some of them have stated that they don’t need society or even other individuals to do what they do, oblivious to the give-and-take that happens in their own software community.

To a man, these eight guys are completely lacking in empathy, and oblivious to how a society works.

After all that, I’m going to steal your line about 14 year-olds and mommies for the next time it’s necessary.

Punditus:

Well, you see, a lot of trolls are 14 year old boys of many ages…

The other five are all of them in some kind of computer software situation, and don’t seem to understand how much of society’s infrastructure makes it possible to do what they do. Some of them have stated that they don’t need society or even other individuals to do what they do, oblivious to the give-and-take that happens in their own software community.

To a man, these eight guys are completely lacking in empathy, and oblivious to how a society works.

You have just described like every nerd I have ever met on the internet.

Well actually you barely insulted them at all compared to how I would describe them but it was close.

My point was that reverse discrimination is the opposite of that, conservatives oppose it, and MLK probably would have grown into it.

If Celda hadn’t have been waving his metaphorical dick around this thread for the majority of it that would easily have been the most hilariously stupid thing said here.

Beck rewriting the history that people still remember

Beck is rewriting the history that people are old enough to remember, but I bet many of them weren’t paying attention at the time.

Not that Beck isn’t being a bald-faced revisionist dick, but I think there isn’t so much willful ignoring of history on his audience’s part as there is just never having known it (and not bothering to find out now.)

The point is that conservatives and repub’s like Beck talk about MLK’s phrase: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” My point was that reverse discrimination is the opposite of that, conservatives oppose it, and MLK probably would have grown into it.

Well no, conservatives don’t really agree with or like that passage. They like and agree with their misinterpretation of it.

Indeed; conservatives’ worst nightmare would be if that came true and their unearned privilege would be torn to shreds.

King was a progressive. Conservatives need to acknowledge this.

But so were Senators Fullbright, Pepper, and Gore, not to mention Gov Faubus. The rest were almost all New Dealers and economic populists like Gov Wallace. One ascended to Senate Majority Leader as a unrepentant segregationist while another became the Speaker of the House in 1987 (I’m not sure if and when he repented).  Hardly any of them switched to the more conservative party, despite the popularity of this myth.

Progressives need to acknowledge this.

With that in mind, it is deeply problematic for Union supporters, a group that had no small part historically in maintaining American racism, to appropriate MLK for the purpose of Collective Bargaining rights. That’s not what the Memphis Sanitation Workers strike was about. ,I short, “two black sanitation workers had been crushed to death when the compactor mechanism of the trash truck was accidentally triggered.”

You can read about it here:

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/memphis-v-mlk/

I understand Beck (and MLK’s Niece) use the Civil Rights Movement’s Religiosity and Social Conservatism as an excuse for claiming him as one of their own. There’s an element of truth here as the abolitionist movement had deep religious roots going back to the days when they took on slave owning liberal Thomas Jefferson on Separation of Church and State, of all things.

I’m not socially conservative or religious so this doesn’t make me happy. But just because you share some characteristics with King, doesn’t mean its appropriate to use his name for all your pet causes. Collective Bargaining for public unions is a stretch. I’m not aware of MLK speaking to that issue. Progressives should stop acting like Beck and cut it out.

Manju, MLK Jr.‘s last big march he was organizing which he did not live to see was called “The Poor People’s Campaign,” not, “the campaign for lower marginal taxes on top incomes.”

Tyro, perhaps part of the problem is someone can read sentances like “King was a progressive. Conservatives need to acknowledge this” and conclude the author belives King stood for “lower marginal taxes on top incomes.”

Black and white narratives like this are what Beck traffics in, as do someof his critics like Media Matters, who couldn’t figure out why civil rights scholars thought Clinton’s narrative of it taking an LBJ to get the CRA thru was problematic (hint, it took the same guy to stop it). 

Beck uses the Movement’s social conservatism to conclude King was oppossed to abortion. Its plausible. He was a religious man and held many beliefs that would be in line with social conservatives. To this day, af-ams are the most socially conservative memebers of the democratic party, as dr boyce watkins stated in realtion to the very issue we are discussing. But afaik king didn’t address it. It wasn’t his most salient issue.

Likewise, Progresives use his interest in eradicating poverty to assume he took postions he simply never did, like collective bargaining rights for public unions. King was very skepitcal of white progressives like LBJ, Faubus, etc for obvious reasons. His minimal income idea actually found an audience with Richard Nixon, who advocated it.

Civil rights history is very complex and counterintuitive. You don’t do it justice. Stop acting like Glenn Beck

Manju, you’re being both disingenuous and engaging in a lot of false equivalences. To say that Martin Luther King, Jr. Was not concerned about workers rights is pretty much the height of dishonesty in order to make yourself appear clever and draw attention to yourself. And to compare those who point this out with Glenn Beck is hateful and insulting—to us as well as to MLK, Jr.

Tyro,

King was concerned about workers rights.

He was also concerned about the traditional black family. But we can’t conclude from there that he would support the schemes of those who are now most vocal about this issue. King was concerned about the spread of communism, but he didn’t support the Vietnam war as we know.

Likewise, the assumption that he would’ve supported collective bargaining rights for public unions is an assumption, and one that betrays igonrance about organized labor’s role in maintainig segregation. 

Collective bargaining for example became federal law under the new deal. Now a union selected by a majority of employees had monopoly bargaining power. But this effectively banned blacks from joining some unions. Unions would strike to obtain their exclusive right to bargain, and then to close the union to black workers.

Also, regarding false equivalences. Its not like I’m alone in taking on the liberal happy-land narrative on civil rights, which redefines this history as an ideological battle, ie conservative/segregationists vs liberal/progressive.

There has been a major pushback against the first version of civil rights history pushed by white liberals like arthur schlessinger jr, who whitewashed JFK.  Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement have a website up now where they try to correct this version, and make specific references to JFK and LBJ.

Its revisionism so I don’t blame you all for being skeptical. But its high level (non-RW) academic revisionism. I am surprised that progressives aren’t aware of this, as much of what I say is indeed by now the academic consensus. It also takes into account the opinions of those who were actually in the struggle, which mainstream white liberal historians did not do at first.

We got a taste of this during the primary, when one the nations leading civil rights historian (William Chafe) tried to explain to Media Matters and others why saying it took an lbj was wrong. Probably the most well-known work is Robert Caro’s trilogy on LBJ. LBJ used to be portrayed as a low-level segregationist, if liberals portrayed him as one at all. His support of Truman was often cited as evidence of being pro-civil rights. But Caro discovered hair-raising documents where LBJ trashed Truman on segregation and tried to cover it up. His behavior and the entire liberal establishment’s during little rock 9 has also been re-examed. Ike has been transformed in this new version into a much more formidable civil rights advocate, though far from totally committed. 

There is no way to get around the fact that Jim Crow survived as long as it did because liberals were in active collusion with the regime. The left needs to own this failure.

Likewise, the assumption that he would’ve supported collective bargaining rights for public unions is an assumption

Well, let’s see…

Our needs are identical with labor’s needs — decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.

-Martin Luther King Jr.
AFL-CIO Convention, December 1961

As I have said many times, and believe with all my heart, the coalition that can have the greatest impact in the struggle for human dignity here in America is that of the Negro and the forces of labor, because their fortunes are so closely intertwined.

-Martin Luther King Jr.
Letter to Amalgamated Laundry Workers, January 1962

At the turn of the century women earned approximately ten cents an hour, and men were fortunate to receive twenty cents an hour. The average work week was sixty to seventy hours. During the thirties, wages were a secondary issue; to have a job at all was the difference between the agony of starvation and a flicker of life. The nation, now so vigorous, reeled and tottered almost to total collapse. The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over our nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Illinois AFL-CIO Convention, October 1965

Platsmantx, Manju is a fierce believer in the “harmless” modern version of MLK, Jr., not the real one.

Manju is determined to show us how clever he is, while remaining without understanding. Collective bargaining is, of course, part and parcel of unionization—without it, there’s very little point. He was on the side of labor. One of MLK, Jr’s statements about communism is that he thought it was tragic that the west had basically lost the “revolutionary spirit,” which we can see in these whitewashed narratives of MLK, Jr., as the harmless man politely asking for equality. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the one taking up the mantle of the revolutionary spirit, here. How anyone can point to his leadership in the Sanitation Workers’ strike in Memphis and then claim that he had no interest in labor and unions is, really, beyond me.

Platsmantx,

FDR was pro-labour too. But as we know he was opposed to collective bargaining rights for public employees. Ergo, you can be one without supporting the other.

Your quotes demonstrate what I first mentioned: “King was a Progressive”. In his later years he increasingly tied civil rights to larger progressive causes. Labor and Blacks were logical allies, he argued, since most blacks were working folks, But that doesn’t mean they were actual ones. Indeed, conservatives make the same mistake you’re making when they appropriate King, since this logic parallels his constitutional argument.

For him, the philosophy of the founders, “those magnificent words”, put the American creed in complete alignment with Black Liberation. King was a philosopher and a theologian, and thus very comfortable in the theoretical plain.  Because he was a defender of the American creed, its easy, based on “a little knowledge” to conclude he was some sort of traditionalist. I recall adam serwer (I think) recently noting that King was in theory Scalia-like. He believed in a version of constitutional originalism.

But theoretical alignment is not the same as an historical one. King’s support for the founding in theory does not translate into him supporting it in reality, obviously. Likewise, Progressives need to be careful about interpreting King’s progressivism, given the racist history of the progressive movement, the liberal establishment, and their party vehicle. Given that these forces were in active collusion with the Jim Crow regime, their racism even transcended that of movement conservatism. And Barry Goldwater was no walk in the park either. 

Case in point…here is the NAACP on collective bargaining rights under the new deal:

Seeking to avail itself of the powers granted under section 7A of the NRA, union labor strategy seems to be to form a union in a given plant, strike to obtain the right to bargain with the employers as the sole representative of labor, and then to close the union to black workers, effectively cutting them off from employment.

The Memphis Sanitation Workers were receiving preposterously low wages, were subjected to extremely dangerous conditions, and were denied equal access to public accommodation and even the right to vote, at the hands of a TN Senator who President Clinton labeled a progressive icon.

The issue I take with you is failing to acknowledge this reality and whitewashing the role progressive played in maintaining it. Once one has an awareness of these facts, I would think one would trend mush more carefully when invoking MLK.

How anyone can point to his leadership in the Sanitation Workers’ strike in Memphis and then claim that he had no interest in labor and unions is, really, beyond me.

Its beyond me too. I would be very interested in reading such a claim.

Platsmantx, Manju is a fierce believer in the “harmless” modern version of MLK, Jr., not the real one.

Perhps Tyro as a fierce believer in the harless version of liberalism, not the real one.

Manju is making assumptions about what blacks felt and thought while looking at them through his non-black frame of reference- “If I were black…”.

FDR was pro-labour too. But as we know he was opposed to collective bargaining rights for public employees. Ergo, you can be one without supporting the other.

Of course you can be for one without supporting the other, but where have you demonstrated that MLK was opposed to collective bargaining rights for public employees? It’s much safer to assume that because he was for collective bargaining in general, he was also approved of it for public employees.

Your quotes demonstrate what I first mentioned: “King was a Progressive”. In his later years he increasingly tied civil rights to larger progressive causes. Labor and Blacks were logical allies, he argued, since most blacks were working folks, But that doesn’t mean they were actual ones.

What are you calling his “later years”, in terms of his civil rights activism? 1961-1962 were’‘t his “later years”. The speech and the letter I cited up there are from before he “increasingly tied civil rights to larger causes” like the Vietnam war. White labor unionists and blacks may well have been more logical allies than actual ones at the time, but that doesn’t mean that King and other black leaders didn’t support the unions, regardless. I think you presume they didn’t because your view of black people doesn’t allow for the possibility that blacks could support a movement that discriminated against blacks, in hopes of joining it and benefiting from it in the future.

Platsmantx, Manju is a fierce believer in the “harmless” modern version of MLK, Jr., not the real one.
Ah yes- like those who were upset by the model of the proposed statue of MLK because he looked “too mean”. Gotcha.

Manju is making assumptions about what blacks felt and thought while looking at them through his non-black frame of reference- “If I were black…”.

I haven’t the slightest idea what you’er talking about. i haven’t talked about “blacks” or their feelings. Like you, I’ve spoken about one individual who is black.

I also referenced an organization (naacp) on their opinion of how new deal collective bargaining was being used. The closest I’ve come to referencing blacks as a whole is the “veterans of the civil rights movement” who collaborate my argument of a schism between the mainstream liberal narrative on civil rights and the movement itself. William Chafe collaborates this as well. I would add that this version is now mainstream (particularly after Caro) and I’m frankly surprised so many reader on a progressive blog are stuck in the old version (not just referencing this thread, but others as well).

Of course you can be for one without supporting the other, but where have you demonstrated that MLK was opposed to collective bargaining rights for public employees?

Well, I’m not the one appropriating him. I would think the burden of proof would be on those who are.

It’s much safer to assume that because he was for collective bargaining in general, he was also approved of it for public employees.

i can see how you get to that place but the linkage is not as strong as the current rhetoric in WI implies. 

At the end of the day, King never spoke to the issue and extending collective bargaining to public unions is not that intuitive.  Governments are not for profit enterprises and are already controlled by the people via their reps, so you are theoretically undermining democracy. Indeed, this was the consensus among union leaders themselves, up until states started to allow for collective bargaining (1960 I believe, and the state was WI).

Look at it by way of analogy. King wrote about his opposition to communism. He didn’t like the anti-religion part, was philosophically opposed to dialectic materialism, and saw it as necessitating totalitarianism. Anti-communists may then conclude that King would therefore favor the Vietnam war, becase they make a connection between the two positions. But as LBJ found out, even delivering to him the 64cra wouldn’t make MLK take that position.

I think you presume they didn’t because your view of black people doesn’t allow for the possibility that blacks could support a movement that discriminated against blacks, in hopes of joining it and benefiting from it in the future.

Actually, what I find fascinating about civil rights history is precisely that: its very counterintuitive and rarely aligns the way one would think.

For example, Orval Faubus once took home 80% of the black vote while running against a pro-ciivil rights republican (a Rockefeller). This was after Little Rock and the 101st airborne and before he renounced segregation. Orval Faubus!!! One of the great racsits in American History. Black leaders stood up to denounce him but still black folks voted for him. The truth is Faubus was a genuine economic progressive, and although he objected to (or demagogued the issue of) racial integration in the schools, he had a long history of fighting discriminatory economic policies, such as some of the stipulations within the New Deal.

This is one of the reason I said earlier that framing civil rights history as an ideological conservative vs liberal narrative does not do it justice.

I haven’t the slightest idea what you’er talking about. i haven’t talked about “blacks” or their feelings. Like you, I’ve spoken about one individual who is black.

You talked about someone who wasn’t just a literal representative of a lot of other black people, but someone whose political philosophy reflected that of the black community, generally speaking.

Actually, what I find fascinating about civil rights history is precisely that: its very counterintuitive and rarely aligns the way one would think.

I think it’s more the case that it often doesn’t align with what you would think. The fact that you think it’s counterintuitive supports what I said before- you’re looking at it through a non-black frame. That’s why you find it so “fascinating”.

This is one of the reason I said earlier that framing civil rights history as an ideological conservative vs liberal narrative does not do it justice.

Well see, there you go again. I think the person on this thread who has come closest to doing that is you, because you’re doing what you accusing others of- viewing King, and black America in general through your definition of “liberal” and “conservative”, which doesn’t precisely apply to most black people in this country.

At the end of the day, King never spoke to the issue and extending collective bargaining to public unions is not that intuitive.

You made a switch there:

With that in mind, it is deeply problematic for Union supporters, a group that had no small part historically in maintaining American racism, to appropriate MLK for the purpose of Collective Bargaining rights.

You didn’t start out specifying collective bargaining rights for public employees. In any case, you admit you have no evidence that MLK wouldn’t have supported them, even for public employees. As far as I can tell, you’re assuming that he wouldn’t support them because some white Southern liberal and/or populist politicians gave in to the racism of their white constituents in order to be elected. You seem to think that MLK would have resented this so much, it would have kept him from championing collective bargaining for public employees. I suppose I can see how someone could make that assumption, if they don’t consider that especially in the South, many, many blacks who didn’t work for themselves as storekeepers, morticians, barbers, etc. worked for governmental entities. They were public employees. In fact, it was about the only path to middle-class status if one didn’t own their own business. Beyond that, his support for labor unions in general, even though they did discriminate, is a pretty strong indication that he supported labor unions in general. You have no real argument as to why he wouldn’t support public employee unions, other than the (presumed) inability to get past his displeasure with some Southern politicians, and some vague idea that he would see it as “undermining democracy”, with no words from him that would even begin to back up that assertion.

You say liberals are wrong in “appropriating” him on the issue of collective bargaining rights. The fact that he supported the union movement does give liberals the right to hold him up as someone who…supported collective bargaining

You say liberals are wrong in “appropriating” him on the issue of collective bargaining rights. The fact that he supported the union movement does give liberals the right to hold him up as someone who…supported collective bargaining

Unless, of course, you were a clever 16 year old trying to get attention by showing how contrarian you are.

I’m sort of stunned how someone can take a man who allied himself firmly with labor, who represented a constituency that was heavily represented by unionized public employees and died while speaking out in support of striking public employees (a strike is a form of collective bargaining) and go on to compare liberals to Glenn Beck in their use of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a model for inspiration in the cause of labor.

But I think your take on things is the most accurate, Plantsmantx, in arguing that Manju finds this so “fascinating” because things don’t fit into his own simple-minded model of reality.

“Beyond that, his support for labor unions in general, even though they did discriminate, is a pretty strong indication that he supported labor unions in general.”

Of course, I meant to say it’s a pretty strong indication that he supported public employee employee unions as well. Anyway, the question of whether or not he supported public employee unions is a strawman. He supported unions. Period. That makes liberals’ use of him as a champion of organized labor valid. Obviously.