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One of these years

From Tom H. Hastings, The Invisible King, at truthout (2011-01-17):

You watch. Over the weekend and on Monday, the Hallmarked memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be sanitized and blackwashed until he is no more than a sentimental husk hoping that little children of all races will one day be able to play together. Then you’ll see shots of just that, as if to indicate, “Well, thanks, that’s all done, nice historical figure. Bye.” One of these years, they will probably launch the USS Martin Luther King Jr., a spanking new destroyer, or perhaps they will name a class of drone aircraft the “MLK Ground Dominators.”

But I am sure that if Dr. King were alive today, he would agree with all of my political objectives, including especially the most violent parts of my foreign policy agenda and all of my most accommodating moral compromises with the political status quo.

As a historical note on the rest of the article, King, SNCC, and other activists in the Freedom Movement certainly innovated and developed the understanding of nonviolent resistance beyond what Gandhi had done. But I don’t think it’s quite fair to Gandhi to say that he volunteered to help the British or stood aside without objection during Britain’s wars. Perhaps this is a fair summary of his attitude toward the Boer War, the Bambatha uprising, and World War I. But Gandhi’s thought was evolving throughout his life, too, and he later said that it was what he saw during the Bambatha war that really brought home the horrors of war and the need for a different approach. It is, in any case, not at all an accurate description of Gandhi’s attitude during World War II. It was in the midst of World War II that he drafted the Quit India resolution and called for non-cooperation with the British war effort. He also routinely criticized the Allied war effort as trying to defeat the Nazis by becoming as ruthless as they were. As a result, he spent 1942-1944 in prison, along with most of the rest of the Indian National Congress leadership, specifically for criticizing and calling for resistance against the War.

Wednesday Lazy Linking

Re: Jason Hribal: A Message From Tatiana

Jason Hribal: A Message From Tatiana. www.counterpunch.org (2011-01-19):

My purpose was singular: I wanted to understand history from below. That fall, I took a research seminar on the Gilded Age, and the topic I chose to write about was the Toledo Zoo. It could have ended up being a standard history: the zoo and its directors, their curatorial…

Until the lions have their historians….

As it happens, I am a vegetarian, but I do not believe in philosophical doctrines of animal rights, and I’m not especially keen on the political programs of animal liberationists. But I do think that human treatment of non-human animals is an issue of very serious moral concern, and, as a matter of historical understanding, it’s important to keep in mind that the institutions for corralling and controlling animals have a structure and a history. And understanding the structure and the history isn’t just a matter of human social developments, or how human cultures go about trying to harness blind natural forces. It is a matter of trying to understand what animals have wanted and what they have done.

Tu quoque (Cont’d)

LOL: Judith Miller criticizes Wikileaks' Assange for not verifying his sources. Boing Boing (2011-01-18):

Why is disgraced former New York Times reporter Judith Miller not fond of Wikileaks and Julian Assange? “Because he didn’t care at all about attempting to verify the information that he was putting out or determine whether or not it would hurt anyone,” she said.

Sometimes I am genuinely surprised when the cognitive dissonance doesn’t make somebody’s head explode.

Re: Guy Claims He Owns The Idea Of Oprah Visiting Australia, Plans To Sue

Guy Claims He Owns The Idea Of Oprah Visiting Australia, Plans To Sue. Techdirt (2011-01-18):

When you think that ideas are ownable, you get absolutely ridiculous scenarios, such as the idea that anyone could ever “own” the idea of Oprah Winfrey visiting Australia. And yet, a dive boat operator in Australia is planning to sue Tourism Australia, because of Oprah Winfrey’s recent visit. You see,…

The Australo-Galambosian strikes back. Hey, a man’s got a right to defend his Primary Property.

(Via Kevin Carson, who I will not be paying $5 for the idea. Sorry, dude.)

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