[Rich]

Which side are you on: Malcolm X or the government loving filth from the National Rifle Association who were supporting gun control?

This is the question that should be answered before we get into any details of MLK or X's beliefs.

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X argues for assertion of an individual's rights.

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King argues for Constitutional rights. But of course the Constitution didn't guarantee individual rights. It was quite clear that the founders allowed States to ban abolitionist literature for example. This is why I find gutless, cowardly lowlife like Ron Paul so contemptible. They will never answer the simple question. Do you support the Constitution or do you support Lincoln's smashing of the Constitution? Lincoln was to the American Constitution what Hitler was to the Weimar.

[Sithsaber]

Reported for the most ridiculous post I have ever read.

[Quantum]

When did that happen? Seriously, who thinks MLK was a right-winger?

Conservatives apparently, unless they know they're full of shit.

Oh, well, yeah, but that's just conservative spin. No one actually believes that, do they? MLK wasn't really a leftist either, even if he was sympathetic to certain socialist viewpoints.

Regardless if he were a leftist or not, he was for social justice and that means that he wouldn't have aligned himself with either party today.

On another note, it's pretty funny that conservatives who criticise Jackson and say that he has betrayed MLK's legacy. Looks like they were cut from the same cloth.

[janlyn48]

Back in the 50s and 60s, there was not the deep chasm that there is today between Democrats and Republicans. Today's Dems and Repubs are not your grandfather's.. etc. To me, MLK was "conservative". He was a Republican, I was a Democrat. I don't think it hijack's MLK's legacy to view him as a conservative, in the same way it doesn't hijack Republican's legacy to recognize them as the party that first tried to pass civil rights legislation (Eisenhower) but was blocked by the senate majority leader (LBJ).

[Paradigm]

Sarcasm aside, MLK's biggest problem was that he thought if he asked nicely the capitalist system would start acting nicely. Now he's worm food with a bullet in his dome, and capitalists just have to slightly change their rhetoric against him, but not his followers.

While I certainly think MLK was too reformist, I don't think it's fair to describe his approach as "asking nicely." The civil disobedience he engaged in may have been "non-violent"(a very poor framework for a movement, as violence is always defined by the oppressor), but it was very deliberately confrontational. Anyway, I'll take Huey Newton over Martin or Malcolm any day.

[Rainbow Crow]

Very disappointing. I guess he had no fucking idea what he was doing after all, then.

Wow, you didn't know this stuff? You really do have no idea what you're doing. His change of heart towards emphasizing Islam towards the end of his life is one of the most central things about Malcolm X, who was a leading member of the Nation of Islam movement.

[Rei Murasame]

I assumed that he was shot by them because he drifted away from their position over time and started doing socialism. However, since people maintain that this is not the case and that he was actually going to stop being a nationalist, I don't really see any reason to praise his position any more.

It would have been best if he had stayed the way he was (nationalist and socialist) in the quote that I gave on the previous page, but I suppose people do stupid things.

[Quantum]

Evolution of mainstream conservative thought on MLK:

1960's:



Today:


Which one is it? You can't pick and choose.

[Paradigm]

^^^ That makes me want to start a communist caucus within the Republican party, just to fuck with them.

[Ambroise]

This assimilation of MLK by American conservatives is by no means completely recent. The contemporary bunch of Tea Party people, the Glenn Becks, and conservatives at large are simply taking the requisite cues from William F. Buckley and his National Review, which was initially completely and unreservedly hostile to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement -- a hostility they maintained for years, decades in fact (until the late 80's at least), until they eventually caught on to the fact sometime in the 90's that if they intended to be a part of polite society they could no longer go on as they had, so since that time they have been hailing him as a hero, and a conservative. Sometimes they even weaponize his legacy in order to attack Obama; I believe there was an article in the National Review a while back in which they were lamenting, "if only Obama was a real leader like MLK". Apparently the irony was lost on them.