Extra Wisdom

I'm talking about the WORKING CLASS, the proletariat, not the lumpenproletariat whom both Cabral and marx called declasse. The vast majority of Black folk are proletarians. Rosa Parks, like my mom, was a seamstress. Not an educated petty bourgeois nor a capitalist. Dr. King himself states that the MASS of his supporters in Montgomery and other campaign were common laborers--not lumpen characters like Little Melvin or even Malcolm before he became X. That is also what I said in the post to which this screed of your is a reply. Sorry, that even simple terms and basic analysis is beyond the reach of your comprehension.
-Savant

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I'm pretty much ignoring that pimp, that pseudo-Nkrumahist hustler. What interests me nowadays is something King and Nkrumah did share in common--the end of racism and class oppression, and liberation of Third World countries from poverty and imperialism. And his philosophy of COMMUNITY--the core of his ethical thought--which is markedly anti-capitalist and pro-socialist. Naturally, since capitalism is anti-community, antihuman, and a scourge upon the Earth.

-Savant

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Right and Left are historical in meaning, and by the standards of THAT time, Lincoln was centrist with left leanings. Actually, he was opposed to slavery as the Kennedy's were later opposed to Jim Crow, But Lincoln, like Kennedy, was a POLITICIANS. He had to be pushed into taking an anti-slavery stand. For while his speeches and letters reveal an anti-Slavery sentiment, Lincoln like all politicians first think of political interest. Abolitionism and the requirements of war did push Lincoln--after Gettysburg victory--to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. This DID give the North now a MORAL advantage, both nationally and internationally. Northern armies were just invaders but--as one Union soldier put it in a letter to his family--"we are now the ARMED LIBERATORS of millions." Southerners couldn't just say that they were defending themselves and their "way of life" from invaders, for now they were clearly defending slavery.(In fact, they always were but could no longer hide this fact in the court of world opinion). European countries were undecided about how to respond; conservative privileged classes were sympathetic to the South, and the laboring classes--always mroe advanced than American workers--clearly sided with the North.(I've read some letters by European workers to Lincoln in which they clearly saw slavery and the most degrading exploitation of labor, and the defeat of the Confederacy as in the interests of all working class people. Also, read Karl Marx's letter in support of Lincoln and the Union. Marx was not supporting a right wing cause). Lincoln had to be PUSHED to the left. That I will agree with. But the REAL right coldn't be pushed to end a system of bondage than enriched them. They had to be CRUSHED.

-Savant

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That “states rights” line you heard from Southern apologists. Confederats. The “right” those states wanted was the right to own slaves. The issues of tariffs and all other BS they bring up all was dependent on slavery. Tariffs disproportionately affected the South because of slavery. Face it, many white Southerners were evil enough to put the country through a prolonged bloody war in order to preserve their evil bloody slavery system. -Ish Tov



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Tom Tancredo, speaker at a recent Tea Party gathering, suggested that Literacy Tests be resumed to exclude people who lack civic literacy. We know that because of such literacy tests Blacks were denied the right to vote in the South. But maybe we can turn this against Tancredo and some of his cohorts. After all, he indicated as evidence of a LACK of civic literacy the election of a "socialist ideologue" to the Presidency. But isn't a man who can't tell the difference between a socialist and a CENTRIST LIBERAL like Barack Obama, lacking basic civic literacy? And assuming that Tancredo had more than a high school education, shouldn't we expect him to be able to distinguish between liberal and socialist thought, especially given the severe tensions (often outright animosity) between liberals and socialist in much of modern history for the past 200 years? Shouldn't Tancredo have read Obama's writings (and those of other liberals) and the writings of both Marxist and non-Marxist socialists, and thus be better informed. His is a case of willful ignorance.

(Or if he really knows better, then he is liar and opportunist.) I mean, really! If historically literacy tests were unjustly used to denied people of color the right to vote, why not use such a las (since Tancredo is so keen on it) to eliminate right wing ignoranti like him from the ballot? I see more reason for banning people on grounds of intolerable, WILLFUL ignorance than banning people on grounds of race. No right to vote for Tancredo.

No right to vote for those racist nincompoops who claim--despite DECADES of research to the contrary, that Blacks have contributed nothing to American and world history. (Ignorance of historical achievements of Blacks helps fuel racism and racial polarization. And as Alexis de Tocqueville warned long ago in his class DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, the racial divide could bring the death knell of the American Republic. Therefore, people should bone up on their AA History or lose the right to vote on grounds of "civic illiteracy"--to use Tancredo's words!)

-Savant




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 The hatred seems to be coming from the Right, from Tea party, milita men, white Christian right and others. Even during the Presidential campaign, you didn't hear Obama's people shouting "Klll him!" and "terrorist". You didn't hear his people trying to pretend that the opposition were Commies, Nazis or what have you.. You didn't hear claims that McCain was somehow not really "one of us" or not really American. (Indeed, one study was reported during the campaign that while 75% of Obama's ads were about his vision of the country and only a small number directed against McCain, most McCain ads were about attacking Obama, and only a small number about any positive position or vision,} And even though Obama's obviously tepid support for progressives causes has disappointed much of his base, even now you find his supporters to be overwhelmingly MULTIRACIAL and MULTICULTURAL. Is is merely a coincidence that the Tea Partiers are almost lilly white, with about 1% black memberships (and not much better among Hispanics)? Is it Obama's past or present supporters who are attacking mosques? Was it his supporters who disrupted public hearings on health care in the summer of 2009 with their clownish, semifascist hooliganism? Who were the ones making threatening calls and attacks on offices and homes of congressmen after the passage of an actually quite watered down health care package that would be deemed psltry by the standards of most industrialized democracies? No, the hatred and madness is coming from some other corner than that of Obama---a dark corner in American history, culture & psyche where xenophobia and rabid racist panic reigns supreme. The politics of paranoia, as one historian called it, seems to constitute the lifeblood of the contemporary Right.

-Savant

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