MLK quote that applies to fundamentalism

[bean]

Do whatever you want, Chad.

but do you mean to tell me that the agenda to make sure poor people have an equal chance is bad for America? I thought that is what you are saying. Or perhaps the agenda that challenges the status quo...

[Ricardo]

Communism. Nothing inherently good or inherently bad about it. Same as Capitalism.

That is, as long as we are talking about economic systems. And as long as you are not trying to ram it down our throats by dictatorship.

If you believe in one or the other, and can convince enough people to vote for it, go right ahead! (That would be Democracy.)

Affirmative Action was absolutely needed, to try to remedy the gross inequality that existed in the seventies. Yes, we can complain about the many abuses that it generated. (Many of these complaints were true.)

But you've got to remember, in the late sixties and early seventies, colleges were accepting less than one percent of qualified minorities. There were virtually no black doctors, no black lawyers, a miniscule black middle class. Today they were playing on TV the movie about Ernie Davis, First black to win a Heisman trophy. 1961. At that time blacks travelling in the South had to carry toilet paper in the car because it would be twelve hours, sometimes before they could find a restaurant in the hiways that would have bathroom facilities for blacks.

I'm fairly familiar with the Affirmative Action program at Boston University Medical School. The minority students had a really hard time surviving the academic classes. HOWEVER, when they hit the wards, and started dealing with patients, they seemed to have a way better handle on "bedside manners" than the average white students.

ANY government program, be it help for the poor or help for the rich may have a shining start, with great immediate results, only to be fraught with problems in the long run. The answer is not to condemn every program.

As my signature says, these are complicated issues that do not have simple, easily understood answers.

[Darren]

I don't think enough has been said about the failure of American fundamentalists in the 50s-60s (and even before) to take a stand for civil rights. Most fundamentalists, of course, were for the status quo or worse. I understand Andrew Himes has written about fundamentalism's relation to civil rights (I haven't had a chance to read it yet- it's on my wish list). Philip Yancey recounts chilling tales in "The Jesus I Never Knew" about growing up in a not-exactly-fundy-but-close mainline Southern Baptist church in Georgia in the 50s. Of course most of us are familiar with Bob Jones' shameful record on race (single black students were not allowed until 1975, and that's just the beginning). Most fundys were busy labeling "Martin Lucifer Coon" (yes, I have heard the term spoken in serious conversation) as all the things listed above and worse instead of standing up for human rights.

[RobMille]

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.


Although I prefer they way Cornell West said it better: Indifference to injustice is more insidious than the injustice itself.

[Tiarali]

Australia has a medicare system, as well as an extensive welfare system. I know we have our problems, but we've weathered the current financial situation better than America did.

As far as the fundies and civil rights go, they still haven't worked out that women are real people, or that children have a right to feel safe and loved in their own home. How on earth could they ever be expected to extend civil rights (let alone genuine love) to minority groups?

[RobMille]

To my knowledge the only social classes in America to go largely unaffected by the economic problems are the extremely rich and the elderly on Social Security/Medicare.

[Donb123]

(01-16-2012 11:55 PM)RobMille Wrote:  To my knowledge the only social classes in America to go largely unaffected by the economic problems are the extremely rich and the elderly on Social Security/Medicare.

My mother hasn't gotten a COLA raise in SS but inflation has gone up.

Rich people scaled back briefly on their consumption for about the first year or two of the economic collapse and then got back to business as usual. Undoubtably they lost money in investments and whatnot. Economic problems affect everyone- just some are more well insulated and it doesn't bother them like it does the rest of us.

[Donb123]

But back to MLK..

I wonder if fundies hadn't quit with the traditional church response of giving, building charities, hospitals, orphanages, etc., if people wouldn't have needed governmental assistance. And if they hadn't been rejected by religious racists then they wouldn't have necessarily associated with liberal Protestants, etc.

It just seems like the kind of things fundies were complaining about with regard to MLK were merely necessary consequences to the situations they created.

[bean]

Darren hits it right on the head.

Don B, Fundies would NOT have done the giving, building, charities, orphanages, hospitals unless it would have went to the "right" kind of people. The reason they do not get involved I see is two fold.
One is they don't want to have to give someone assistance they don't feel is worthy. Second, they actually see most poverty as "God ordained" and part of the order of things. Not quite the way I see it. But anyways...

[Chad Williams]

I am sorry but, it is hard to support the actions of a man that dealt with communists at a time when the Soviet Union was activily trying to undermine this nation. To me that would be the same as cozying up with the Nazis in the 1940's. Loyalty to one's country in a time of war (hot or cold) is more important than personal agendas and social discomforts. Just my two cents.