This year will decide if we as a people take steps to close the "Great Divide" caused by poverty that King dedicated the final years of his life to, or risk losing King's Dream.
We put King on a pedestal, much akin to how younger generations did with Jefferson, Washington....Mount Rushmore has McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, many today would not know either. Lee and Jackson were venerated in this area, by those who ruled here then. As rulers change, so do the idols. I guess it's the way of people to do so.
I just saw and learned the meaning of Captain, My Captain by Whitman yesterday. I suspect history will be as kind to King, but I still wonder how the folks of the metoo movement will look at him when they learn, as is being reported, that King listened on and laughed while a woman was being raped in the other room. I suspect this generation, and likely the next, will look the other way - they must - they have too much invested in his dream to do otherwise. Yet I wonder how their children will look at it? At them for worshipping him? Isn't it the way of the world for children to cast down their parents idols, to show their progress and independence?
Will they also be awestruck? Or will time have muted their worship? Another 100 years might see King's statues torn down. Or maybe they go another way, and build a religion around his death. With anyone saying different cast out for blasphemy?
One never knows with hero worship, do we?
Second, I read "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson, and it makes sense to me. I want to believe in capitalism, and creative destruction versus extractive economies. Inclusion versus exclusion.
And yet, I cannot help but wonder when we did expand the US economy by doing away with Southern segregation, and opened up to the prosperity that followed when we weren't systemically wasting energy keeping a portion of our population in poverty- what if all we did was give the franchise to one group, but merely expanded the model while doing so? Are 3rd world countries merely our plantation system, writ large?
And that brings me to my final thoughts. It's good that we have done away with the things we eliminated. But where is the champion for today's serfs? Slave labor? As we rest on our laurels? Certainly not here. We like our $5.99 shirts and jeans.
We casually do business with China, knowing they have a million Uighurs slaving away for the low prices at discount stores. We look the other way at the pashas with forced labor as we buy their products - whether it be oil or entertainment.
And lest we get too self-righteous, a building doesn't get built in this nation without someone who speaks English as a second language doing the work. Or chickens plucked, or golf courses mowed. Often by children.
So yeah, enjoy the day. Though all things being equal, I prefer Juneteenth, mainly because I like having days off in June more than I do in January.
And realize that those men and women that we set up for worship were just people. Same as the ones before them. People worshipped Lee and Jackson at one time, until they didn't. Though I can't remember what day that was.
And we have a government that chooses to cage children rather than pass laws to deal with the reality that exists, that our economy not only welcomes illegal immigrants, it depends upon them.
Along with cheap labor abroad. We don't mind it, any more than we really mind cops beating someone's head in to maintain the status quo.
What we mind is if we see it. That we cannot abide. We don't mind it happening, we just don't like to see it. When we do, we want to make some grand gesture to pretend we fixed it. Like people lining up to give away turkeys at Thanksgiving, but unwilling to deal with the underlying economy that creates people who feel the need to line up for turkeys at Thanksgiving or healthcare when the free clinic opens.
Bravo.
Reflections. Okay. Pretty good, pretty true.
Here's 3 that I ponder on top of those.
We put King on a pedestal, much akin to how younger generations did with Jefferson, Washington....Mount Rushmore has McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, many today would not know either. Lee and Jackson were venerated in this area, by those who ruled here then. As rulers change, so do the idols. I guess it's the way of people to do so.
I just saw and learned the meaning of Captain, My Captain by Whitman yesterday. I suspect history will be as kind to King, but I still wonder how the folks of the metoo movement will look at him when they learn, as is being reported, that King listened on and laughed while a woman was being raped in the other room. I suspect this generation, and likely the next, will look the other way - they must - they have too much invested in his dream to do otherwise. Yet I wonder how their children will look at it? At them for worshipping him? Isn't it the way of the world for children to cast down their parents idols, to show their progress and independence?
Will they also be awestruck? Or will time have muted their worship? Another 100 years might see King's statues torn down. Or maybe they go another way, and build a religion around his death. With anyone saying different cast out for blasphemy?
One never knows with hero worship, do we?
Second, I read "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson, and it makes sense to me. I want to believe in capitalism, and creative destruction versus extractive economies. Inclusion versus exclusion.
And yet, I cannot help but wonder when we did expand the US economy by doing away with Southern segregation, and opened up to the prosperity that followed when we weren't systemically wasting energy keeping a portion of our population in poverty- what if all we did was give the franchise to one group, but merely expanded the model while doing so? Are 3rd world countries merely our plantation system, writ large?
And that brings me to my final thoughts. It's good that we have done away with the things we eliminated. But where is the champion for today's serfs? Slave labor? As we rest on our laurels? Certainly not here. We like our $5.99 shirts and jeans.
We casually do business with China, knowing they have a million Uighurs slaving away for the low prices at discount stores. We look the other way at the pashas with forced labor as we buy their products - whether it be oil or entertainment.
And lest we get too self-righteous, a building doesn't get built in this nation without someone who speaks English as a second language doing the work. Or chickens plucked, or golf courses mowed. Often by children.
So yeah, enjoy the day. Though all things being equal, I prefer Juneteenth, mainly because I like having days off in June more than I do in January.
And realize that those men and women that we set up for worship were just people. Same as the ones before them. People worshipped Lee and Jackson at one time, until they didn't. Though I can't remember what day that was.
And we have a government that chooses to cage children rather than pass laws to deal with the reality that exists, that our economy not only welcomes illegal immigrants, it depends upon them.
Along with cheap labor abroad. We don't mind it, any more than we really mind cops beating someone's head in to maintain the status quo.
What we mind is if we see it. That we cannot abide. We don't mind it happening, we just don't like to see it. When we do, we want to make some grand gesture to pretend we fixed it. Like people lining up to give away turkeys at Thanksgiving, but unwilling to deal with the underlying economy that creates people who feel the need to line up for turkeys at Thanksgiving or healthcare when the free clinic opens.
Not sure that's the same thing.
Is it?