Martin Luther King Jr: "This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor"

[FourScore]

I am trying to embed this tweet of Bernie Sanders and seem unable to do so. Can someone tell me how it's done? Thanks!

Martin Luther King Jr: "This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor"
by VL Baker
9:46 AM - 28 Jul 2015

Bernie SandersVerified account
?@SenSanders

"This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor." - Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.



9:46 AM - 28 Jul 2015
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/626071175840534528

Eugene Robinson, in the Washington Post has written about Martin Luther King's Jr. visionary achievement in articulating inequality as a focus for his advocacy before he gave the ultimate sacrifice on that tragic day April 4,1968 in Memphis, TN.

Nearly five decades later, King’s words on the subject still ring true. On March 10, 1968, just weeks before his death, he spoke to a union group in New York about what he called “the other America.” He was preparing to launch a Poor People’s Campaign whose premise was that issues of jobs and issues of justice were inextricably intertwined.

“One America is flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality,” King said. “That America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits. .?.?. But as we assemble here tonight, I’m sure that each of us is painfully aware of the fact that there is another America, and that other America has a daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair.”

Those who lived in the other America, King said, were plagued by “inadequate, substandard and often dilapidated housing conditions,” by “substandard, inferior, quality-less schools,” by having to choose between unemployment and low-wage jobs that didn’t even pay enough to put food on the table.

The problem was structural, King said: “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”

my emphasis

Lest We Forget...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/05/1408980/-Martin-Luther-King-Jr-This-country-has-socialism-for-the-rich-rugged-individualism-for-the-poor

[HFRN]

1. yup - pretty much sums it up

the wealthy looooooooove socialism

just part of it, though - their part

[cantbeserious]

2. There Is A Class War - My Class Is Winning - Warren Buffet

eom

[daybranch]

4. For now

but tomorrow, not so much! Go Bernie. Join us and do something great for America, take control of our government out of the hands of Billionaires and put it in the hands of the people. Volunteer for Bernie and we will all win!

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Echol Cole and Robert Walker

http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/memphis-tennessee-sanitation-workers-strike-1968

In early February two black employees were killed when taking sanctuary from a rainstorm in the barrel of their garbage truck. Because city policy did not allow for black workers to shield themselves from the elements on the porches of white individuals, the two workers were forced to hide in the truck which malfunctioned and crushed them to death. The families of the workers received only token payments from the city government who said that the employees were not covered by Tennessee’s workmen’s compensation law.

Local 1733 held a strike meeting on February 11, where Thomas Oliver “T.O.” Jones, explained to over 400 workers that the city refused to provide decent wages and working conditions and that for changes to occur immediate action was needed. On February 12, fewer than 200 employees showed up for work, and only 38 of the 108 garbage trucks continued to move. By February 14, more than 10,000 tons of garbage were piled up.

On February 16, the local chapter of the NAACP endorsed the sanitation workers strike, asking the City Council to intervene. The newly elected mayor of Memphis, Henry Loeb, III, declared the strike illegal. Though he refused to meet with black officials from Local 1733, he did agree to a meeting with the national officers of AFSCME who were in Memphis to support the striking workers. The meeting, which took place on February 18, quickly turned into a verbal fighting match wherein Loeb refused to give the workers the rights they demanded. On February 22 sanitation workers and their supporters performed a sit-in at city hall where they pressured the City Council to recognize their union and recommended a wage increase. Loeb rejected the Council’s vote, however, and protestors found themselves once again back where they had started.

By the end of February, what had been a local labor dispute was transforming into a civil rights struggle. Though Loeb put garbage trucks back on the street manned by white supervisors and non-strikers with police escorts, over 1,000 blacks were striking. On February 23, the same day that Loeb ordered the city attorney to prepare an injunction against the strike, union leaders and black ministers held a protest march through downtown Memphis. The first reported instance of police brutality occurred that day.

I wonder if they had been white male union workers for the city - if all of this would have been avoided? IE - would the two men's families have received compensation under a state governments workers comp?

The labor fight had to become a civil rights for blacks fight - because well . . . Americaaaa!


Here's a post I did in the AfAm Group regarding MLK's final battle to have black males recognized as American MEN!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/118716251#post1

This is Robert Walker - remember his name - he's one of the men who died -


Let's end this now - for these kids -

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. I say let's repeal the January 15 nat'l holiday....

... since he CLEARLY was NOT speaking explicitly and exclusively to structural and institutional racism 100% of the time.

Yeah! He's got no right to a nat'l holiday.

Yeah!