The civil rights movement was targeting by the FBI, and when MLK started to talk about organising alongside oppressed poor white people, he was assassinated.

So you can claim that 'they succeeded' - he became a martyr alright. And i accept that a democracy is about compromise, it is about making the best society we can for all the competing interests which people may have. But when the state institutions actively kills anyone who threatens state power, you do not have a democracy.

When they take active measures to reduce voter turnout, and disenfranchise the population. That is no democracy.

The civil rights movement was too powerful for the elite at the time to completely ignore, especially alongside the anti-war movement and the second wave feminism and the queer liberation movement. So they took the minimum and history declares that civil rights 'won'.

You can see it most clearly in the failure of radical queers to abolish marriage while conservative gay men (who likely would have been in the closet if not for the sexual revolution of the 60/70s and the massive changes they brought). But you can't call it a victory for the radical queers who started the movement.

I'm not saying compromise was a bad thing. I am just rather aware of the methods that powerful elites use to retain their power. Sometimes they must compromise, other times they will use their power to oppress - like the FBI. Sometimes they will compromise with one group while oppressing another - an effective divide and conquer tactic.

OK Now the FBI assassinated MLK jr.?

You know the Federal government has already passed the Civil Rights Act at that point, right?


How is abolishing marriage reflective of a true democracy?


"I'm not saying compromise was a bad thing. I am just rather aware of the methods that powerful elites use to retain their power. Sometimes they must compromise, other times they will use their power to oppress - like the FBI. Sometimes they will compromise with one group while oppressing another - an effective divide and conquer tactic."

Umm hmm. Look if they are that powerful an elite, then why again are they keeping us from peacefully protesting (but not) and why is it that the might assassinate somebody every decade or three (but maybe not)? And you play Diplomacy, right? You haven't ever expressed an outrageous radical platform all the while hoping for modest gains? Who is actively suppressing voting again? Everything I see seems to be aimed at getting more voters to the polls.

@CA i didn't make the claim that the FBI killed MLK jr. The claim i have heard is that they killed other organisers.

What i am claiming is the MLK jr. became a bigger threat to the status quo when he tried organising poor white people in solidarity with people of colour. It was one thing earning legal equality with poor white people, then they could all be exploited equally by corporate america - but if all the poor people got together and demanded better healthcare/education etc. that would cause serious redistribution of wealth from the most powerful. So they had MLK jr. killed.

That is my understanding at least. I don't know the details. Occupy was a similar kind of 'threat' - not to national security, but to the interest of powerful people and organisations - and we know the FBI has harassed and surveilled organisers in the past, and present. It acts as an arm for the most powerful, to protect their interests - because they say their interests ARE the national interest, and they are powerful enough to get away with it.

@"Who is actively suppressing voting again? "

Why is voter turnout in the US so low? Who benefits from it being so low? Who loses out from it being so low?

I don't need to claim there is a smokey room somewhere filled with a wealth elite conspiring to drive down voter turnout, but something is happening to do just that. Coorelation is not causation, but i'm willing to bet that there is a strong coorelation between voter turnout and wealth inequality. And my claim is that there is a causal relationship - mostly because a very few large media companies controlled by a small group of self-interested billionaires acting as the 'mainstream media' have provided major editorial decisions for decades.

And no, i personally know some radical queers who would prefer to see marriage abolished entirely. Actually i have a friend whose parents refused to get married (in 70s/80s America, well Seattle) because they were against the institution as a concept. I know irish individuals who think the marriage equality referendum we passed is a small step away from ever abolishing marriage...

There is diversity of thought in every political grouping, and when one side loses for the gains of the other you end up with splits (like the democratic ad republican parties splitting from one original party... Right?)

@orashee

“I didn't make the claim that the FBI killed MLK jr. The claim i have heard is that they killed other organisers.”



Okay, I must have misunderstood you here then.


“The civil rights movement was targeting by the FBI, and when MLK started to talk about organising alongside oppressed poor white people, he was assassinated.”


And here.


“What I am claiming is the MLK jr. became a bigger threat to the status quo when he tried organising poor white people in solidarity with people of colour. It was one thing earning legal equality with poor white people, then they could all be exploited equally by corporate america - but if all the poor people got together and demanded better healthcare/education etc. that would cause serious redistribution of wealth from the most powerful. So they had MLK jr. killed.”

Is “they” the FBI or the smokey room of elites that you aren’t claiming exists? Are you making the claim that corporate America had MLK jr. assassinated? That’s a pretty significant vague pronoun there. I am uncertain that there is much evidence to support any of it.


“Occupy was a similar kind of 'threat' - not to national security, but to the interest of powerful people and organisations - and we know the FBI has harassed and surveilled organisers in the past, and present. It acts as an arm for the most powerful …”


By not warning people when nobody appears to be trying to assassinate them, I think I understand that part.


“Why is voter turnout in the US so low? Who benefits from it being so low? Who loses out from it being so low?”

Okay, so let’s apply Occam’s razor here. Why is voter turnout low? A conspiracy of the ultra-wealthy for which there is scant (if any) evidence or people not seeing the difference between the two parties platforms or candidates. Assume no entity when a simpler solution can be assumed, right?


“I don't need to claim there is a smokey room somewhere filled with a wealth elite conspiring to drive down voter turnout, but something is happening to do just that.”


As far as I can tell that basically means- I don’t need to claim it but I am claiming it nonetheless, or at least that some other nefarious powerful group is to blame.


“Coorelation is not causation, but i'm willing to bet that there is a strong coorelation between voter turnout and wealth inequality. And my claim is that there is a causal relationship - mostly because a very few large media companies controlled by a small group of self-interested billionaires acting as the 'mainstream media' have provided major editorial decisions for decades.”


Correlation isn’t causation, unless you really, really want it to be? The problem isn’t that the media is calling the shots on elections (more than half the time they are wrong anyway) The problem is that the two parties have been giving us terrible choices.


“There is diversity of thought in every political grouping, and when one side loses for the gains of the other you end up with splits (like the democratic and republican parties splitting from one original party... Right?)”

Wrong. The Republican party was formed out of the remnants of the Whigs in 1854, The democrats and republicans were never the same party (unless you want to go back to Andrew Jackson and count the National Republican / Whig / and modern Republican parties as if they were the same). There was a Democratic-Republican party (Jeffersonian Democrats) that splintered into the Jacksonian Democrats and the National Republican parties. This National Republican party didn’t last long and was later replaced by the Whigs (that grew out of the Democratic Republicans). Not really sure what that had to do with anything anyway, but here is a chart for you :-)

Federalist v. Democratic-Republicans (Jeffersonian Democrats)
(National) Republicans v. Jacksonian Democrats
Whigs v. Democrats
(modern) Republicans v. Democrats

democratic and republican parties did not evolve from one another

Federalist -> Whigs -> Free Soilers/abolitionist parties -> Republicans

Anti-Federalist -> Democratic-Republican -> Democrat (splintered into Northern and Southern Democrat)

Um wrong,

Whigs came from the democratic republicans they saw themselves as true jeffersonians. The continuity from Whigs to free soilers is also much more complicated than you present, the Feds and the Whigs blew up, their followers took many different political mantles.

Santa - pay no mind. Brad is still living in 1879. He doesnt know that the Democrat party will go on historically to both champion civil rights and reign in massive job growth.

He's not living in 1879, if he did he'd actually know that history

@"
Is “they” the FBI or the smokey room of elites that you aren’t claiming exists? Are you making the claim that corporate America had MLK jr. assassinated? That’s a pretty significant vague pronoun there. I am uncertain that there is much evidence to support any of it."

So how did he die?

@"Okay, so let’s apply Occam’s razor here. Why is voter turnout low? A conspiracy of the ultra-wealthy for which there is scant (if any) evidence or people not seeing the difference between the two parties platforms or candidates. Assume no entity when a simpler solution can be assumed, right?"

The politicians job in the US has become that of a full time fund raiser. Making phone calls - basically telesales.

They aren't calling the shots, arenmt deciding that the party platform should be so similar, that is down to donors, and they are perfectly happy to donate to both sides and make the choice seem less important - because the less people who vote the more power to the wealthy, and the more they can push for tax breaks.

Of course Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump break this mold. Because Bernie actually appealed to people, and went out of his way to get many small donations rather than a few large ones. And Donald Trump is the wealthy guy. Has never done telesales in his life, i'd bet, but he knows how to golf and put his name on million dollar deals.

Apologies for my misunderstanding of US political party history, it is... Not the most exciting. But you did say the republicans came out of the remnant of the whigs who came out of the democrats... It is a little more detailed than i thought, and i was wrong about my assumption regarding the Jeffersonian Democrats (Democratic Republicans could have done with a better name maybe, at least in light of the modern dem-rep split).

Have you done your research on Cointelpro yet?

"Democratic Republicans could have done with a better name maybe, at least in light of the modern dem-rep split."

You do know that history goes past -> present, right? Maybe try those history books again, perhaps they won't be so boring.

@Santa, nicely played.

@CA, i presume that at this point all i have done is reinforce your previous beliefs. Because that is what usually happens when people are presented with conflicting views.

So let me propose an alternative. Most of the positions i have taken seem extreme, for two reasons, 1) the majority of the time you don't hear them, thus in comparison they appear extreme, and 2) they are extreme, because i have been presenting (or attempting to) a case, all the facts and opinions and conlusions have been of the most extreme sort - ie only facts which support my case.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Because of 2) the case i presented is not unbiased or complete - it doesn't show all the complexity of the situation, because i'm only trying to get a single narrative across. And because of 1) you seem to think that nothing i've said is true - which also isn't the case.

Hence somewhere in the middle. Do you think we can meet there, or is there any point in continuing this conversatio ?

@Orashee
“So how did he die?”

He was shot by James Earl Ray. Ray confessed and recanted his confession (not too uncommon for a guilty man). He was found guilty in a criminal case where the standard for judgement is “beyond a reasonable doubt”. There was a civil court hearing (which has a lower standard of judgement only requiring a preponderance of evidence) in 1999 where the verdict was “That a conspiracy involving ‘government agencies’” was involved in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. There are serious problems with that case though the defense, including Jowers who was the only one named in the suit didn’t give any testimony). It was a civil suit that was settled for $100. When you are the only one giving testimony because the defendant gets to save money by not showing up it is pretty much assured that the preponderance of evidence is going to be on your side. The defendant also admitted to making the claims, twenty-five years after the assassination, to make money (books, movie-deals, etc.). Snopes gives that one a mostly false.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/mlktrial.asp

@"Okay, so let’s apply Occam’s razor here. Why is voter turnout low? A conspiracy of the ultra-wealthy for which there is scant (if any) evidence or people not seeing the difference between the two parties platforms or candidates. Assume no entity when a simpler solution can be assumed, right?"

“The politicians job in the US has become that of a full time fund raiser. Making phone calls - basically telesales.”

That sounds pretty good, what is your evidence? I have watched C-Span and they aren’t on their phones being full-time fund raisers. Even so, you portray “the donors” as a unified entity trying to keep people from voting by donating to both sides. If they are so self-interested what of their competition with one another? I mean it is easy to get someone who might be going through a rough time to become angry at some shadowy conspiracy and tell them who is responsible for their troubles. It has happened many times in history and rarely has it been a good thing. So, I am intensely skeptical of how you don’t seem to have any real evidence for any of what you are saying. I mean you make a statement like.

“They aren't calling the shots, aren’t deciding that the party platform should be so similar, that is down to donors, and they are perfectly happy to donate to both sides and make the choice seem less important - because the less people who vote the more power to the wealthy, and the more they can push for tax breaks.”


and then immediately contradict yourself to allow for reality

“Of course Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump break this mold. Because Bernie actually appealed to people, and went out of his way to get many small donations rather than a few large ones. And Donald Trump is the wealthy guy. Has never done telesales in his life…”

One of those guys actually won the White House and the other would have if he wasn’t screwed by his own party.



Have you done your research on Cointelpro yet?

Yeah, a bit. It seems like it can be summed up in one name, “J. Edgar Hoover”. The man never should have been able to sit as the head of the FBI for so long (48 years until his death). You said yourself that the FBI “hasn’t felt the need to assassinate anyone since the Civil Rights Era”. J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972 and he was still the head of the FBI when he died. Fourty-Eight years in office can have a tendency toward abuse of power and it certainly did with him. In 1975, Cointelpro was investigated and found unconstitutional. All of J. Edgar Hoovers secret files are on display at the national archives if you want to see a study in abuse of power. Not only did he keep files on civil rights and anti-war figures, but also on political figures and celebrities. And no FBI director has been allowed to amass the kind of power that Hoover did or stay in office anywhere near as long since then.

“Apologies for my misunderstanding of US political party history”

No worries. It seemed like a red herring anyway.

Note to self - hit refresh before you post

@Orashee

Honestly, I wasn't really too worried about the conversation in terms of convincing you or anyone else. You came up with thoughts and with some evidence sometimes to support it. I looked into is and most of it didn't seem that compelling. Mostly conspiracy theory stuff. The narrative seemed to be the whole Illuminati variety of "somebody is behind it all making things happen to the detriment of {you and people like you}" conspiracy theory. It is a dangerous type of narrative in that many, many people are laying in graves marked and otherwise because someone with sufficient persistence and charisma used it to good advantage. It rarely comes to a good end, and usually has an even worse middle. So, no I don't really think that I can meet you in the middle [pun intended].


1) the majority of the time you don't hear them, thus in comparison they appear extreme.

or the majority of the time you don't hear them because there is insufficient evidence to place them alongside more well documented and substantiated opinions.

2) They are extreme, because i have been presenting (or attempting to) a case, all the facts and opinions and conclusions have been of the most extreme sort - ie only facts which support my case.

Card Stacking- yeah we all do that a bit, but it is still a propaganda technique.


2) the case i presented is not unbiased or complete - it doesn't show all the complexity of the situation, because I'm only trying to get a single narrative across.

Sure, but the narrative is the thing that I have begun to seriously question. Usually when somebody comes along and tells you that this group (or that group) is responsible for your problems, it is basically a crock. I have found that most of my problems stem from my own choices and are not due to any shadowy conspiracy.

1) you seem to think that nothing i've said is true - which also isn't the case.

No, there is truth to any side of an argument. It isn't that I think that you are lying in any case. I do think that you appear to be sold on (or at least are arguing in support of) a line of reasoning that is dangerous. Gathering support for political change through anger and suspicion is a horrifically dangerous way to go about it. It has lead many people to their graves. There is quite enough of that going about in our country right now and we don't need anyone sitting in the safety of their room across the pond fanning any flames thank you very much.

A little vague on that last paragraph sorry.

Enough relying on anger and suspicion to put forth a political viewpoint -not implying an atmosphere of violence or political unrest.

@"and then immediately contradict yourself to allow for reality" yeah, see reality refuses simplicity, the point that the most recent election broke the mold is interesting, but it doesn't change my thesis.

For decades.... blah... was happening, then in 2016 the failure of political parties to cater to the needs of the poor allowed Trump and Sanders to gain huge amounts of support where the parties traditionally would not have dared.

I would actually say this supports my position, at least in the fact that voters have felt unrepresented. My narrative that they haven't felt represented because they haven't been, and that is what the powerful want is kinda self-evident.

Ok, so taking what we (mostly) agree on (re:cointelpro), isn't it possible given the abuses of the FBI that they also arranged the assassination of MLK jnr? You gave a good summary of the case, more detailed than i was aware of. But you seem to assume his confession was true.

The trial didn't go to a jury, so his confession would have been more or less enough to convict (assuming there was no reasonable doubt brought up). And he confessed to avoid execution.

It is also possible that he did kill MLK but was influenced to do so by the FBI, because they wanted MLK dead.

Regardless of what actually happened in that specific killing. You can see how activists in the anti-war movement would have seen the FBI's abuses as symptoms of a oppressive society. They were engaged in their democratic right to protest (even against the vietnam war) and the FBI were abusing their power to disorganise their protests.

When you're toting the 'land of the free' it is definitely worth noting that many people were not free to take a political position and engage in the process to change their country for the better - or more properly, they were free to, but it got you onto an FBI list.

Now in a 'post 9/11' world, the kinds of powers which the FBI had in the 60s/70s has returned. No longer justified by 'the red scare' it is now the 'war on terror' (which as it turns out is a much better foe, because you can never kill terror, it will never come to an end, unlike the USSR).

I'll get back to Illuminati-like conspiracy theories in a bit. Because i think i haven't conveyed my meaning very well. But for now a comparison with the USSR seems apt.

Is the US an authoritarian country like the USSR? No, there are certainly far more freedoms, and given a choice i'd probably choose to risk starving in the US over risking being sent to a gulag in the USSR. But it is clear that those freedoms have limits.

The US has (in the past and present, according to Snowden) limited these 'democratic freedoms' to those who were sufficiently patriotic. And here's the SCARY bit, they get to decide what 'being patriotic' means; eg: having Japanese parents was enough in world war 2 to be sent to a camp. Being against the Vietnam war was unpatriotic... etc.

So yeah, freedom to be a patriot is some kind of freedom... in fact, i believe i posted links above to the people's history, where it is proposed that creating this 'idea of patriotism' of national identity with the US was a massively successful one, which managed to unite multiple groups with conflicting interests, by telling them that the idea - this proxy - was their own best interest. Being 'in favour of America' can mean everyone agrees, even if what they think America stands for differs from person to person.

So yeah, celebrate the 4th, but realise it was a lie, invented to unify many people who had different interests under one banner. The revolution never would have succeeded if not for the French (who had their own interests which happened to include weakening the British). And the very idea of freedom has been repeatedly betrayed by 'national interest' - which is usually determined by the most powerful groups.

Ok, i've been vague on the issue of the 'Illuminati'-like thing. I am mostly getting this directly from Chomsky's manufacturing consent. In that i don't think there is some Illuminati conspiracy controlling thing from the shadows, but he also is often accused of making that claim.

He instead puts forward the opinion that the USSR had a political newspaper which was directly controlled by the communist party. And while the US didn't have such a thing, the actual newspaper's production was remarkably similar. The kind of political coverage in the US was always a pro-America as the Soviet's party paper was pro-Russia.

His claims are that something is going on to control this production.

He goes further in saying that there are specific examples of 'diverse opinion' in the American press - so for example, taking the Vietnam war, people would say, 'oh it was a good idea, but badly executed' - which is to admit we're not perfect, but we're trying to live up to inherently good ideals.

The soviets would do the same. But nowhere in the US did you see papers saying 'it was morally wrong to invade Vietnam in the first place' - because anyone who takes such a controversial position wouldn't have gotten a job in a newspaper in the first place.

He makes the claim that the entire system is shaped around the incentives of the powerful, from who gets to teach in universities (teaching journalism) to who get to edit the newspaper, to who gets promoted. If you pitch a story that your editor doesn't like, you learn that this isn't the kind of thing which will get you promoted... etc.

And so without any conspiracy, the system conspires to get people to behave in 'acceptable' ways.

I'm not trying to use this to "Gathering support for political change through anger and suspicion", i believe the system is broken, and needs to be fixed. It is literally no individuals fault (and i think the assumption that it could be is crazy).

What i am claiming, like Chomsky's claims specific to newspapers, is that the capitalist democratic system in the US has managed to promote the interests of the super-wealth over those of the majority working and middle classes.

Whether the result is seen in low voter turnout, or the Republican 'healthcare' bill, the is no question that this is happening.

And that is focusing my criticism on freedom to protest and involvement in the democratic process (ie it ignores the racism against people of colour, and indigenous people, it ignores the murder by drone strikes of non-American, the toppling of left-leaning governments in South and Central America, of colonialism in the Philippines, of the military-industrial complex as a whole, of the continued slavery inside the prison-industrial complex, of the poor access to food and/or healthcare, of the right to live in fear because firearms EVERYWHERE).

Because, you know what, all of those topics require a lot more work.

And you know J Edgar Hoover was a big figure in the FBI, but he isn't solely responsible, you have to see there was a system backing him up. That the 'red scare' gave intelligence services more leeway to abuse their power which they wouldn't otherwise have had, but that 9/11 did this once more.

You wouldn't have several individuals leaking vast amounts of data, if it wasn't for the fact that these systems continue, and people feel the need to make them public.

If you truely believe in the great american project, then you should be hailing the likes of Edward Snowden as heroes (especially Snowden, who didn't release info in bulk to wikileaks for anyone to view, but released it to trusted journalists who examined the data before publishing limited stories which were judged to not risk anyone's lives).

Okay, so it isn't the ultra-wealthy's fault that the broken American system of government favors them?

Sorry, you fast posted me there.

Look there appears on the surface to be a lot that is self-contradictory. I will look at it whne I have a lottle more time and get back to you.

@"Crazy Anglican
Okay, so it isn't the ultra-wealthy's fault that the broken American system of government favors them?"

No, but as the group which holds the most power, i think the ultra-wealthy are most responcible for making changes which would benefit everyone (and some of the ultra-wealthy seem to agree). But i expect they will continue to act in their own interests.

I think the system is more than government though, i'm talking about global capitalism as a whole. Which includes how tax havens work, and how corporate profits are reported, and how state power is abused (which i was thinking of specifically in the FBI case) and how legislation is passed (which is again a US specific thing re:lobbying/corporate donations to political campaigns), and how trade deals with the US were being pushed (it seems that Trump has done a turn about on two of the largest corporate power grabs TTIP and TPP, though Canada's EU trade deal is still going ahead and annoying people).

Like you could claim the US should increase corporate taxation to pay for healthcare or education, lets say. But with tax havens and corporate donations to popitical candidates, it would be very difficult to actually do this. And i think that goes beyond the power of government to fix. (Oddly, i think political donations amount to a seperate kind of cost to corporations, it would be great to see the same amount of money coming from corps, but going to programs which help the economy, instead of being spent on political campaigns... Which i know is a rather difficult subject to 'solve' but i'm a dreamer...)

@Orashee

"No, but as the group which holds the most power, i think the ultra-wealthy are most responcible for making changes which would benefit everyone (and some of the ultra-wealthy seem to agree). But i expect they will continue to act in their own interests."

See that's really what I am on about. I ask you directly if you are placing blame and you say "No", but turn around and qualify it with "But Yes, really. There the ones who could fix it and they are not and probably won't because they are selfish."

You know that's a reform I could get behind:

Start using one spelling "they're, their, and there" and let us figure out which one you mean by context clues. It is what we do half the time anyway.

@"See that's really what I am on about. I ask you directly if you are placing blame and you say "No", but turn around and qualify it with "But Yes, really. There the ones who could fix it and they are not and probably won't because they are selfish.""

It isn't about blame. They are not at fault for not fixing the system, but if anyone can fix it, they can - the alternative, a French revolution style popular action - is neither desirable, nor likely.

With the power inherent in being massively wealthy, there comes responcibility. Bill Gates (among others) chooses to act, and even individually he can make a huge difference (though you can question this example - he may not be effective, or helpful, that is unclear). But responcibility and fault are not the same thing.

The super-wealth didn't make the system, but in so far as they currently remake it, they are reaponcible for both actions and inactions - just as we should hold communists responcible for the famines which occured due to their actions and inactions (not distributing food when it was available, for example).