If you look at the footage of the first march on Washington, the people were carrying signs saying "We Want Jobs". It was about being the underclass - not just about civil rights, but about economic participation and equality. Civil rights wasn't an "end in itself" so much as a means to an end - what did people want to DO with those rights? They wanted to be part of American life, fully and not separately - to live in the same good neighborhoods and go to the same good schools, and advance just as much in life. That takes economic parity, which is what civil rights were meant to achieve. Ending poverty was always a co-primary goal of Dr. King's, along with civil rights. And you're right, his strong stand against poverty is always ignored, isn't it?
Today, on his birthday, it's more fitting than anything else could be, to bring that back into focus.
The garbage workers' strike he gave his life for, wasn't about the workers being predominately black, it was for economic justice for all, of all races. He was a labor leader that day, rather than a civil rights leader. And he knew about the death threats. He was well aware of them, in that specific location, at that time. He considered the cause too important, and his presence in support of it too necessary, to put his own individual safety ahead of it. We have his own words and thoughts on that. He knew it was important to that cause for him to be there EVEN WITH the death threats.
Today, there are more poor whites than poor of any other ethnic group. If Dr. King were alive today, I know good and well he would be continuing the struggle against poverty just as he did then. As he knew and said then, we have a class problem, not just a race problem.
The corporatists don't care who they're persecuting as long as they have a large number of people to be their underpaid labor force. This issue of poverty is where the rubber meets the road today. It is THE primary issue IMO. It's especially egregious today because we have dropped so far backward from where we were when Dr. King died. At that time, the disparity between rich and poor was at a low point, even though conditions were still bad; today the disparity is overwhelming. We have a HUGE undertaking now to make up this lost ground and progress beyond where we were then.
When people have economic justice, they can look after their civil rights - they have the money and leisure time to be active politically. One of the reasons why civil rights was pushed so far in the '60s, was the fact that the middle class was so strong then and had a conscience... for those among us who were NOT yet ok. That was the conscience Dr. King tapped into, to have the groundswell following he did, among both black AND white... just as PE Obama has now too.
Now, we have a similar opportunity or crossroads in front of us. Except that now, the middle class is weakened. But maybe now it is starting to awaken the same way it did before, but out of necessity and its own survival this time. Obama's election and his leadership in involving people again in community action provides this opportunity. And I believe that the nation as a whole will rise to it. As in Dr. King's day about civil rights, this issue has to build into a consensus momentum, it doesn't spring into existence full-formed. And this is the primary reason why I think we need to give PE Obama a chance. He knows how to do this, he is after all a community organizer, and I believe he WILL lead us to do this... organize ourselves, to change poverty in America once and for all, for all of us.
It will take some time. But it most of all takes DETERMINATION and FOCUS and INSISTENCE on changing it. That, we can supply now, and steadily continuing forward - as it has to be.
Thanks OP, and to all the posters in this poverty series. You're all doing a bangup job on this! And as you pointed out, awareness of these issues really needs more highlighting. And misconceptions created by decades of propaganda need uprooting with facts, as the writers of this series are doing.
As we mark this historic progress since 1963 which we're so aware of with this inauguration, we need to as we were doing then, always reach back and bring forward those who are still today, as then, impoverished and forgotten among us. And if we could do THAT, really "complete the mission" this time and eliminate class impoverishment too, then we would have something the world wants to emulate. Then we would be back on the side of justice, to advance that same cause everywhere in the world for all people. It CAN be done. This isn't something impossible. All it takes is the right priorities... "butter" instead of "guns".
It's really time for us to go back to where we had advanced to on economic justice in Dr. King's time in the '60, and take up again the goal we had then of ending poverty in America, which Dr. King, and Bobby Kennedy, and yes even Lyndon Johnson advanced. This economic nightmare started with the diversion and waste of the VN war (and its successors), and its time we got our heads back on straight and move in a positive direction again.
We used to at least know that poverty was the target issue; now even that is unclear. The poor didn't advance with the middle class over the last four decades, they got left behind. They need the most help now. And the BIG REASON why our economy is faltering is that they have been shut out of it. Too many are too poor to participate. It's hurting all of us now, it's time to wake up and do something significant about it. Did you know that even most of the low-cost housing we had decades ago is now vanished? (Section 8s have expired, been privatized, or demolished). We have a lot of work to do to rebuild, and most of the focus of it needs to be on the poorest among us. We have a lot of neglect and abuse to make up for and reverse. It's in the interest of all of us, not just the poor, that's what we need to understand most of all.
A rising tide really does raise all boats. It still does - as long as there is a level playing field among all participants. We can't do better as individuals and go on our merry way, leaving a third of our population behind. A bill eventually comes due for that, and we're paying it now - it's cause and effect, not even a matter of morality. It won't get better until we turn around and go back the way we came here. And then keep going. But to accomplish that this time will take a clear understanding among our whole population about where we want to go. It has to be clear enough that people won't be talked out of it halfway there by RWers again.
edit to add: Here's the problem, the source of the opposition we're ALL up against. Maybe a better understanding of THAT would open some peoples' eyes too.
"The Corporation"...
Part 1
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3969792790081230711Part 2
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7365345393244917682Notice the irony especially on this day, MLK's birthday... the corporatists' first tool they used to leverage their domination over us was the 14th Amendment! The corporations claimed to themselves the protections meant for freed slaves. And now we have this legacy of economic slavery from it. How sick is that?
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