TIME: Blog: Charlotte Alter: Here’s What All Successful Student Protests Have in Common

Source: TIME: Blog: Charlotte Alter: Here’s What All Successful Student Protests Have in Common

What separates the student protest movements of the 1960s from today, is that the 1960s protesters were protesting for freedom. Protesting for civil and equal rights for all Americans. Protesting in favor of free speech on campus and in general. Protesting against an unjust war that they hated and so they wouldn’t have to go fight in that war themselves. The so-called student protesters today are protesting in favor of political correctness over Freedom of Speech. They want a special new right for minorities. The Right Not to be Offended. No American currently has that right in the U.S. Constitution, but these New-Left protesters feel that minorities in America are entitled to it.

So you have the 1960s student protesters, the Baby Boomers the hippies, the real Liberals from this era who wanted the ability to be left alone, live their own lives and live in freedom, before the New-Left emerges in the late 1960s, that wanted to tear down the American establishment and our form of government and move to a socialist system. The 1960s hippies marching for individual freedom for all Americans and not have to fight wars they think are immoral. And you have the sons and daughters, perhaps even grandsons and granddaughters of the New-Left of the 1960s and 1970s, protesting today against free speech. And create a new right for minorities that doesn’t exist for anyone else.

The hippies, were successful, because America was politically changing in the 1960s and becoming that country that we really are today. Of people who believe in the right to be left alone and be free to live our own lives and even freely express ourselves. While the New-Left, represented a fringe in the 1960s that believed capitalism was immoral and even racist, that our form of government was even undemocratic and completely wanted to change the American way of life and impose their socialist and even Marxist values on the rest of the country. And today you have the New-Left still representing a fringe that sees free speech as dangerous and that minorities deserve the right not to be offended. The 1960s protesters were successful, because in many cases they had the country with them. The New-Left protesters today don’t have that.

Read Full Post »

Lenny Kravitz: Dream, Martin Luther King Day

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat Plus

I think it is pretty clear that within the last few weeks, months if not year of Dr. King’s life that he knew his time was coming to an end and it was just a matter of time. That he already had been sentenced to death by Anglo racists and if wasn’t James Ray that assassinated him, some other racist asshole to put it frankly was going to nail him. And that Dr. King wasn’t going to do whatever possible to simply stay alive, because he wanted to use his time to get his message out as much as possible. He made that clear in his last speech the night before he was killed about he’s seen the promise land and that he might not get there with you. But his dream is still alive thanks to him and over forty-five years later we’re closer to racial quality and racial tolerance than we ever have been as a country.
Lenny Kravitz: Dream- Martin Luther King Day Video

Read Full Post »

Merv Griffin Show: Martin Luther King (1967)

Source:Merv Griffin Show– Dr. Martin L. King in 1967.

Source:The New Democrat

“Merv Griffin Interview with Martin Luther King, Jr.”

From St. Stephen Church

One of the things I respect most about Dr. Martin L. King is that even though he must have had a lot of at least inside anger because of all the racism and racial discrimination that he and the African-American community endured in this period, that because he had so much class, intelligence, and was such a peaceful man, that he generally did not show it. And instead used his intelligence based on the facts to bring so many people of multiple races behind his cause.

Instead of using his anger and dividing the country even further, Dr. King was a true leader and used whatever anger he must felt in a positive sense as a motivator to stay on course and move his movement in the right direction. And get the people behind him to accomplish his goals. And this was from people of multiple races and not just of African and European descent. But people of all races behind him.

Read Full Post »

SPOT-TV: Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday to Martin Luther King

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat

I can’t think of someone more qualified to sing Happy Birthday to our most effective and greatest American. At least when it comes to equal rights in America and applying our United States Constitution and the constitutional rights that we all have as Americans and applying the principles of our Founding Fathers to all Americans equally than Stevie Wonder singing Happy Birthday to of course the late, but still great the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

There will be plenty of more posts on this blog in the future about what the rest of the life of Dr. Martin L. King could’ve looked like. Had he been able to live a normal life at least as far as years. But what we would’ve seen is phase two of his national campaign for equality and justice in America. The Poor People’s Campaign would’ve had a real agenda and policy initiatives behind it that was sort of dropped after he was assassinated that would’ve moved onto into the 1970s. Giving millions of Americans a very good idea of what Dr. King’s complete political brain would’ve looked like.

About MLK’s birthday today keep in mind he would’ve been eighty-five today had he lived. And not saying he would’ve still been alive today had he not have been assassinated, but a lot of men in his generation are not only still alive in their eighties, but a lot of them are still working as well. And it is very likely he still would’ve been a major political force at least into his seventies. Had he not have been assassinated in 1968, or not have been assassinated at all.

Read Full Post »

The Young Turks: ‘Martin Luther King Was a Republican?’

Source:The Young Turks– Dr. Martin L. King was a Republican. Also in the news: Reverend’s Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, have both come out in favor of same-sex marriage. And have announced they’ve been in love with each other for years. LOL

Source:FreeState MD

“Many people talk about the “fact” that King was a Republican. It is asserted incessantly by conservatives on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet, especially in the lead up to today’s 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The claim is most prominently advanced by King’s niece, Republican activist Alveda King. Over the years, conservative groups have purchased billboards making the claim. Second, Martin Luther King Jr. was not a Republican. Or a Democrat. King was not a partisan and never endorsed any political candidate…”.* Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, John Iadarola (host of TYT University and Common Room), and Dave Rubin (host of The Rubin Report) break it down on The Young Turks.”

From The Young Turks

Pre-1964 or so I could see why Martin King was a Republican. Lets face it, the GOP was home to an overwhelming amount of African-Americans. Because of the Civil War, the freeing of the African slaves, Abraham Lincoln, etc. And then go up to the 1950s and 60s, which party is the civil rights party? The Republican Party and their Northern Progressives, especially in Congress. Who without the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Law doesn’t pass. Those laws would’ve not of passed in the House and Senate without Northern and Midwestern Progressive and Conservative Republicans. Like Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.

Ideologically except for civil rights, its hard to imagine how MLK would’ve fit into the Republican Party. They did have a progressive faction, but that was about civil rights, infrastructure, environmental protection and to a certain extent the safety net for people who truly needed it. But MLK was much more social democratic in nature, especially economically and when it came to civil rights and racial equality in general. And he was a dove and non-interventionist when it came to foreign policy and national security. And consistently spoke out against the size of the American defense budget and our involvement oversees. But without putting down American serviceman and women. Unlike the New Left of the late 1960s.

I can’t imagine Dr. King as a Republican or Democrat back then and perhaps not today. Today I could see him putting down Democrats as giving up on the poor and less-fortunate over things like Welfare to Work. And not doing enough to address the income gap and eliminate what he and others see as the Military Industrial Complex and Prison Industrial Complex. If Dr. King were a Democrat today, he would’ve been a member of the Progressive Caucus and perhaps one of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street, or creating his own social democratic movement. Or perhaps not a Democrat at all and a member of the Green Party or Democratic Socialists USA. He was very Left on economic policy and when it came to national security as well, for a lot of center-left Democrats.

Read Full Post »

Research Channel: ‘Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture in Social Justice’

Source:Research Channel– Reverend Jesse Jackson appearing at this lecture.

Source:FreeState MD

“An annual event during University of Pennsylvania’s celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. King; each year, it highlights a scholar of African descent who is committed to the field of social justice. The 2004 guest was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in conversation with the Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, moderated by Dr. Tukufu Zuberi.”

From the Research Channel

Martin L. King was a true Social Democrat. Not a Marxist, or a Communist, but someone who believed in using government to redistribute wealth from the wealthy and use that money through government to provide for low-income people who lacked the basic tools to live well in America. Which in many ways is what democratic socialism is about, to see to it that a few people don’t do so well, while so many others live without the basic necessities.

Had Dr. King lived past 1968 and wasn’t assassinated at thirty-nine years old in 1968, the next stage of his movement would have been about poverty in America economic and social justice. And perhaps would have been the modern Bernie Sanders, or Henry Wallace of his generation. And perhaps we would have seen the Green Party emerged in the 1970s as a true Social Democratic Party that could compete with Democrats and Republicans.

Economically speaking, I see Senator Bernie Sanders as the Martin King of his generation. Depending on how you define generations and would Senator Sanders and Dr. King, be in the same generation, or not. But two men who are essentially anti-wealth. That being wealthy and economically independents are bad things in their view, when others go without. So in their view, you need a big government to take from the well-off, to give to the less-fortunate, so no one has to live in poverty.

Read Full Post »