Matt Yglesias

28 Responses to “The Limits of Service”

1. natthedem Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

   Andrew Golis has a post on this today. Here’s what he says, in part:

   the flip side of being a part of the American canon is that many of the more challenging ideas that don’t fit comfortably within the mainstream, have been conveniently forgotten. The result is that King has been Santa Clausified.

2. Dustin Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

   Economic justice? Thats just crazy talk

3. salient Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

   More on this later.

   Here’s hoping there actually is more on this later: seems every time you say that, it’s better to assume you won’t ever pick up the topic again.

4. Don Williams Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

   Re “MLK’s life and work wasn’t about volunteering: it was about altering the distribution of power.”
   —————–
   So was James Earl Ray. Allegedly.

   Smith and Wesson report that their sales have been booming the past year. http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=11567346&ch=4226720&src=news

   What do those buyers know that Matthew doesn’t?

   Maybe Rev King was not as victorious on some issues as on others. I myself think several US cities burning down and the possibility of the KGB working with the Black Panthers had more influence on Lyndon Johnson.

5. JimboSlice Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

   Remember today isn’t just MLK day, it is also Robert E. Lee day in a select few southern states.

   A good way to be the change would be to work to get that “holiday” overturned.

6. Don Williams Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 1:15 pm

   Besides, our elites didn’t so much decide to give American Negros a fair break as they decided to fuck the rest of us as well.

   Look at how the Democratic leadership committed harikari in the 1980s rather than support Jesse Jackson’s economic fairness platform.

7. kafka Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 1:31 pm

   MLK was a genuine hero, someone who called on the country to live up to its ideals with respect to so many excluded people. America has gone downhill in many ways in the last 40 years, but at least in this respect has become a better place.

8. Don Williams Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   Re kafka’s comment “America has gone downhill in many ways in the last 40 years, but at least in this respect has become a better place.”
   ————
   To some extent. Largely where only lip service is required.

   There are a shitload of my fellow countrymen freezing their asses off in Northwest Philly and Baltimore — and that won’t change just because our elites put a Kenya-Kansas mulatto in as President while stealing $Trillions out the back door of the Treasury.

   My white ass has some sympathy for those guys in Philly and Baltimore because I know there are some rural whites in Appalachia in the same boat.

   Plus if Hillary ends up sticking my son in some foxhole in Iran –because Hiam Saban says it will be “Good for Israel”, I know my son’s fellow soldier will more likely be some Philly Negro than some Harvard Negro.

9. Greg Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 2:25 pm

   This is a critical question – one I’ve pondered a great deal today. What would MLK say were he alive today about our canonization of him? How would he feel about the fact that the “Civil Rights Movement” is something for the history books, just like “The Civil War.” Would he celebrate it’s completion, as many in our society do today, using his life to conveniently forget our still-segregated schools, incarceration demographics and income disparities? Or would he still see work to do? I suspect the answer is yes, and he wouldn’t go paint a shelter- he’d be demanding justice for those without homes.

   Matt, if you do look at this later it might be interesting to examine some of this through the lens of the city – the intersection of segregation, sprawl, justice and service – and our cultural perception of all of these things. In many ways, the New Urbanist movement is a direct response to the “Urban Renewal” efforts of years gone by – and those in many (all?) cases were a response to the civil rights movement, at least in part.

   I suspect the answer to the “service vs. social justice” has pretty distinct geographic outlines. (as might the “tax vs. Philanthropy one?)

10. joejoejoe Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    King’s legacy is well-served by the association with service. None of King’s political dreams were possible without the prerequisite getting off your ass and DOING something and doing something is a lot more likely to lead you on King’s path than an academic understanding of his writings and politics.

11. Ben Ross Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    Don, the Republican party spent 40 years successfully running against the Black Panthers and the possibility of cities burning down. I’d put the blame for the decades of growing inequality there first. (Although, yes, right-wing and centrist Democrats have a share too.) Let’s not repeat mistakes.

12. LFoD Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 3:39 pm

    Uh huh.

    I suspect it will involve a convoluted and self-indulgent attempt to explain why it wasn’t about individuals deciding to help other individuals, but rather about using raw power to force people to act in ways deemed beneficial…by you.

13. joe from Lowell Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    The internet seems to be infested with people who, when they look back the civil rights revolution, identify primarily with the lunch counter owners who were forced to treat black customers like people.

    Poor babies. Let me get out my little, tiny violin.

14. LFoD Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 6:59 pm

    Uh huh. So fast the transition from infants, screaming at the injustice of it all under the unrestrained power of the Bush Regime, to complacent authoritarians, happy to see it exercised to whatever ends.

    Until the next Republican President, that is.

15. Ed Marshall Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 7:20 pm

    Can I buy a clue as to what you are bitching about, LFoD?

16. Kal Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 9:49 pm

    Ed, let me help. LFoD is mocking those of us who applaud the civil rights movement for obtaining power for Black people, and yet are outraged by the Bush administration’s abuse of power, for our obvious hypocrisy. If we had any real commitment to liberty we would hold that violating a department store owner’s right to decide who gets to sit at his lunch counter is on the same moral level as disappearing randomly selected Afghans into a hellish prison for six years. But of course, having neglected our Rand, we are simply incapable of truly objective reasoning.

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