He agitated for civil rights for a decade, but once he started the Poor People’s Campaign and pivoted to talking about class instead of just race, he was killed within months.
When someone is in control of a movement large enough to potentially rise up to threaten the lives of those in power, they stop him by any means necessary. Once he’s dead, though, they can point to him as the prime example of how nonviolence totally solves all the world’s problems! Put that guy’s name on a street in every town! They always thought he was great!
Makes one wonder why those in power keep using violence to get what they want, and always have.
Totally agree except for the dig on nonviolence. Nonviolence nearly brought an end to the rampant racism in the US that has existed for hundreds of years. Violence was used to extend White Supremacy for another century in the US with the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
Clearly violence is the solution. /s
There are certainly solutions to many problems that don’t involve violence, but there are also situations where such options don’t exist. The “violence doesn’t solve anything” mantra has allowed us to become passive to the point where we honestly think that holding signs that say we’re mad is enough to make politicians who have no intention of representing us at all magically change their mind. There are times that call for violence - the country was founded on it.
That last bit is key to understanding US society. Violence has rarely worked in favor of the common US citizen, but has been used effectively to suppress them time and time again as we saw with the Civil Rights movement.
Violence only solves things in one way and that way is the exact opposite of what the majority of people want who are looking to improve society. The violent nature of the US brought through war and neoimperialism has perverted the entire world ushering in a new age of global fascism.
I shudder at the stupidity of people who think a violent revolution is going to fix things. That their rhetoric will magically rise from the ashes to create a better society. There are zero examples of this and most revolutions, saving perhaps the Haitain, were just wealthy groups using citizens as pawns.
Anyone’s rhetoric of a better society is preferable to fascism. We literally can’t do worse, and can’t wait any longer. Whether or not violence can help doesn’t depend on your country.
Aren’t you forgetting about the Black Panthers and the “violent” side of the civil rights movement? Violence is just a tool, it can be used for good or evil. And as much as I’d prefer to see the world improve without violence, I think any movement that gets too powerful will be forced to adopt violent countermeasures as a response to violent attacks from the ruling class.
No, the Black Panthers were not a terrorist group and were far less violent than a typical biker gang. Violence is not a tool of good. Defending yourself with proportional violence is an unfortunate reality that people are faced with. This is more about survival though and not about advancing rights.
I think you are romanticizing violence. Please explain how violence has advanced the cause of human rights. When has violence solved our social problems.
It is about survival, but it absolutely can also be about advancing human rights. What about the violence used by slaves to overthrow their masters in the Haitian Revolution? What about the violence used to end the Holocaust? What about the violence in the French and October revolutions, which resulted in the creations of completely new economic systems? All of these resulted in an advancement of human rights in some way or another.
You bring up a great example of the Haitian revolution which is the only truly revolutionary revolution in my assessment. The end results of this revolution are disappointing to say the least. One could argue this is more about how other nations shunned Haiti due to their violence. While violence solved one problem it created another. This is actually pretty complex subject so I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter.
Ending the mass murder of people was great but even though violence stopped the slaughter it didn’t stop genocide. Violence can perhaps stop an act, but it can’t stop a behavior. Certainly not one that is itself violent in nature. Violence is the cause, not really the solution.
The French Revolution ended up killing far more commoners than anything else. It is a poor example of a revolution that amounts to one wealthy class taking out another wealthy class and using the citizens as fodder. It gave birth to a truly violent fascist nation that has gone on to produce weapons of destruction that currently kill civilians around the globe.
I am not as concerned with rhetoric as much as I am with the results of policy. I think you perhaps view humans rights as progressive force, but I do not. Things don’t get better without putting a lot of work into it and currently no one is doing this and instead are often resorting to or aiding violence.
The abolition of Slavery
The workers rights movement <— Those guys are the reason we have any weekends at all
The violent overthrow of monarchs by liberals
The only reason we have it so good in terms of life quality is because our ancestors put their lives on the line for our rights
There is more slavery now than at anytime in history. Try again. Violence didn’t solve it.
Most of the violence happened against the workers. Try re-reading history. It was ultimately the wealthy deciding to play along not worker violence forcing them to. Violence didn’t solve it.
You are seriously saying the terrorists that went on to commit genocide and spread fascism around the world were the good guys!? Violence didn’t solve it, it created it.
Keep reaching.
Only if you ignore all of the riots going on at the same time. Sure.
During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.
“Dear Dr King, kys” - FBI
USA deifies someone seeking for change in class equality, after ignoring them, mocking them, vilifying them, making their life miserable and then when the history is written, they write their efforts being synonymous to “merican values” like everyone forgets how most of the country hated their guts.
You can literally see it happening currently with ICE protestors. The population is either detached, apathetic or want them to suffer harshly, just for protesting.
But one day everyone would have been against this and it’ll be part of “merican values” not how the whole country didn’t give a flying fuck about human rights and how it treats people in their country and around the world.
I certainly hope that’s how it ends up, and not a massive collective national guilt over what ICE does next.
The whites in America *
The mayonnaise whites in America *
ftfy
The white moderates in America *
ftfy
I mean obviously they hated him, they were white
Black people on the other hand overwhelmingly (84% in 1966) approved of him: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/16/politics/martin-luther-king-jr-polling-analysis
Yeah, especially all those people who weren’t alive yet.
Name one person who isn’t alive yet
Zhang Wei
Even sadder :Amerikkka: have given up violently challenging the quo.
Then you get people like Malcolm X who was so successfully demonized that his name still scares white folks, if they hear it said out loud.
Assassinated by the US government.
And then there’s Fred Hampton. A name that they pretty successfully kept from becoming well known to begin with. Which is truly such a fucking shame.
Brutally assassinated by the US government while asleep in his bed.
