Myths of Martin Luther King

www.lewrockwell.com ^ | January 18, 2003 | Marcus Epstein

[rdb3]

We are, at this site, mostly conservatives. Mostly Republicans. We don't buy into their disease.

Most of us don't. But there is a small, shrill group that most certainly does.

Birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
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[TaZ]

"Huey was a great man with many of King's appetites. I understand that Roosevelt was scared to death of him."

Even though I despise FDR just as much as Long, you can't seriously say that Long, the man who held absolute dictorial control of Louisiana with his JBTs, was anything but an imbecile and goon?

[maica]

Re your post #27:

Terrific synopsis of the 50s and 60s in explaining the complicated vocabulary of 'democrat', 'republican' 'conservative,' 'liberal', etc. as they related to the plight of the black person in America.

I printed it out so I can refer to it often. Thanks for the post.

[eddie willers]

The only equality that I seek is equality before the law. Other than that, get out of my way and I'll be fine.

"I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing, (Open the Door, I'll Get it Myself)"
- James Brown

[rdb3]

...is it your small group of anarchists that you are referring to??

Anarchists.

Huh?

Birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.

[Bella_Bru]

You are incredible. To put up with some of the slime on this thread without blowing your cool is admirable. Thank you for quoting in italics some of the removed comments. It's good to know where some people really stand.

[rdb3]

You are incredible.

Naa... But it means a lot for someone like YOU to think so. That made my morning! ;-)

To put up with some of the slime on this thread without blowing your cool is admirable. Thank you for quoting in italics some of the removed comments. It's good to know where some people really stand.

I'm glad I did copy those remarks. For the record, I did not hit abuse at any time. I would have been satisfied moreso if they would have remained as they were.

Birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.

[Red Jones]

very interesting article; I read some quotes from MLK in some memos he wrote to jesse jackson where he opposed racial quotas and was chastising jackson for supporting them. Who knows where MLK would've been on all the issues if he'd lived.

[Arkinsaw]

I'm glad I did copy those remarks. For the record, I did not hit abuse at any time. I would have been satisfied moreso if they would have remained as they were.

I wish I had been around for this thread. I always seem to end up here after the fact.

[Restorer]

I of course remember the attacks on his people, the bombings that killed the little girls, the people that were beaten. All of the good people would say, of course thats terrible, but... Always a "but". Racism is terrible but... The Klan is terrible but... the killings are terrible but...

Notice the parallel to the defenders of Palestinian terrorism today.

Terrorism is awful, but...

A dead giveaway that the speaker is more sympathetic to the perpetrators than to the victims.

[Bella_Bru]

I always seem to end up here after the fact.

Me too. I need a pager to let me know when I am missing a good thread.

[Restorer]

Me three. Looks like I missed a lot of the good stuff. Have to sleep sometimes.

I was having an interesting discussion with a lady once about the decline in the moral standards of American entertainment.

Then she trotted out, as her prime example, a movie about an interracial love story. To her that was the ultimate in immorality. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I realized that we were coming at the issue from very different perspectives.

[Restorer]

Why was someone like King needed in the first place?

I'll take a whack at it.

Because most Americans did not think of blacks as fully human, and therefore their oppression was not taken really seriously.

The magnificent ideals MLK articulated so well forced most of us to realize that blacks are indeed human, and that their oppression was a great betrayal of American ideals. He led, and to a large degree forced, a huge change in American attitudes towards race.

One of the greatest and most influential Americans of the 20th century.

[x]

Good discussion. There's much that's true in this. King was neither a conservative nor a free-marketeer. As a member of the civil rights establishment he could have been expected to follow its drift to affirmative action and quotas. And he was a plagarist.

MLK Jr's attitudes towards Christianity and Communism can only be understood in the context of his times. Of course he wasn't a Christian Coalition Christian, but that's hardly the only kind. He was in the liberal tradition of the mainline Churches of the 1950s and 1960s. That Christianity seemed almost to evaporate into secular social activism, but it had the imprimatur of the churches at the time. King had been on record against Marxism in the 1950s, but also grew increasingly anti-anti-Communist. The variety of positions on the left in those days all tend to look the same now, but there were distinctions, especially between those who were philosophically Marxist and those who weren't. As the 1960s developed, some who had earlier opposed Marxist materialism were drawn into a kind of "popular front" with Marxists.

I question whether King deserves his own national holiday, but still affirm his generally positive influence on American life, in spite of many of his ideas. King pursued his vision non-violently and allowed us to pick and choose which parts of it we wished to realize. Perhaps as a representative of a repressed minority he didn't have so much choice. But contrast King with the Confederates that this Rockwell site so often celebrates and one can see the value and praiseworthiness of his willingness to work peacefully and within the system. One can question Martin Luther King's elevation to a national and conservative icon and still respect his demonstration that there are other ways to effect change or defend one's rights than taking up the gun.

[Arkinsaw]

I don't know if I'm one of his "cronies" or not, but I would like to consider him a friend.

You might be surprised that one of my primary agenda items over the last few years has been working to keep Confederate flags flying at battle fields, historical displays, and on the shirts of school kids if they want to wear them. I'm a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Am I the type of "crony" you expected?

But another of my primary agenda items has been to support fellow conservatives like Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes, J.C. Watts, and yes rdb3 who remain true to principle not just in the face of calumny from the left, but face it from supposed conservatives here on this forum and from supposed members of their own ethnic community. Man, even the crap I face as a supporter of the Confederate flag pales in comparison to the crap I see black conservatives face from all directions, even from alleged "friendly lines".

So you may have some mental picture of who rdb3's "cronies" are. You might add to your mental picture a pale Southern guy with a Robert E. Lee t-shirt on.

[rwfromkansas]

I wonder.......unless he spoke from the grave.