The Perversion of Dr. King

Mark Twain noted, “The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.”

I am reminded of this quote whenever I read how conservatives try to use part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech" against any attempt to realize social justice for African-Americans through the type of collective action we have available to us through federal legislation and governmental policy. Conservatives fixate on the line from King's speech.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

They try to argue that all government policy which attempts to help those in need is a violation of what King stood for.

This sort of King "proof texting" ignores that fact that King worked for economic justice as part and parcel of his work for political rights. In fact, his last act was to take part in a sanitation workers' strike in Memphis. Dr. King felt that some attempt had to be made to address the economic injustices that fell most heavily on people of color in this country.

Conservatives have not only tried to adopt King as one of their own, they have also tried to pervert King's essential message.

Livin' in Wonderland?

by Steve Benson

The Banana Republic of Oklahoma

New Flag of Oklahoma?
The present Republican dominated Oklahoma legislature seems bent on seeing our state attain Third World status ASAP. Not only are they trying to give corporations blanket amenesty in personal injury lawsuits, they also want to inject politics into the Workmen's Compensation process, and strip public school teachers of any academic freedom and due process rights they might have.

It is all a part of the attitude that if we make the powerful more powerful, and reduce the working population to something akin to modern day serfdom, everything will be not only hunky but very, very dorry too. Once our betters are free from those bothersome obligations to respect the human dignity of those who service their needs, then we will obtain capitalistic Nirvana.

I really am having trouble giving my students a reason to remain in Oklahoma after graduation.

I Was Liberal Before Liberal Was Cool!

from Talking Point Memos

Over the weekend, Mark Leibovich had an interesting an entertaining piece in the Times on how "socialism" has become the Republicans' new all-purpose smear word attacking Obama in particular and Democrats generally.

Now, you can have a whole conversation about whether ramping marginal tax rates back to where they were in the go-go 1990s really constitutes socialism. But a different point occurred to me when I read the piece. I think this is probably the best evidence there is that the 'liberal' label simply doesn't have the punch that it had going back a good thirty years in American politics.

If it did, they'd still be using it, since it at least has some relationship to reality. But it doesn't, so they're not.

--Josh Marshall