236
The Lesser Evil (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/the_dunk_tank@hexbear.net
139 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 58 points 2 years ago (16 children)

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

  • MLK, Letter from a Birmingham Jail
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 16 child comments
    •
  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    This is a great quote, it has been some time since I read up on MLK so I forgot who had said it. I agree with it completely.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 14 child comments
    •
  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (13 children)

    MLK was a fucking legend

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
    •
  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    mostly, he also had some bad takes

    I’m not talking about communism. What I’m talking about is far beyond communism. My inspiration didn’t come from Karl Marx; my inspiration didn’t come from Engels; my inspiration didn’t come from Trotsky; my inspiration didn’t come from Lenin. Yes, I read Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital a long time ago, and I saw that maybe Marx didn’t follow Hegel enough. He took his dialectics, but he left out his idealism and his spiritualism. And he went over to a German philosopher by the name of Feuerbach, and took his materialism and made it into a system that he called “dialectical materialism.” I have to reject that.

    What I’m saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    What I’m saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.

    centrist NOOOOO

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Cornel West is the same. You sometimes hear him talk and you think "what a wonderful human being" and then he says something that makes you want to poke your eyes out...

    I'll stick to Lenin for inspiration, thank you very much.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'll stick to Lenin for inspiration, thank you very much.

    Lenin used to have struggle sessions with his own wife where he argued (a bit like a modern STEMbro) that librarians and teachers weren't legitimate workers and should be somehow phased out of society. His wife changed his mind over time.

    I never forgot that once I learned about that.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    He was literally a professional theologian and his beliefs were instrumental to his activist work. And when was this quote from? He became more and more fervently anti-capitalist as time went on and he realized that the United States was a "burning house" due to its broken economic system.

    He spoke a few times saying that Communist states hadn't aligned themselves to the same freedoms as America is supposed to, etc. etc. It's pretty bread and butter appealing to red scare America rhetoric, and it's much less anti Communist than almost anything else that was remotely mainstream from the time. So I say he gets a pass.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Where Do We Go From Here? August 1967, 8 months before being assassinated

    pointing out a bad take doesn’t diminish his accomplishments, being a demsoc is still good, he knew the feds were after him and what his audience needed to hear and definitely gets a pass

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Yeah, sad that schools teach such a watered down version of him.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •