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MLK Day in SF : Clear Channel, Police, and Republicans Lead The March
MLK Day IN SF: Clear Channel, Police, and Republicans Up Front, All Dissenting Views Pushed To The Back
Thousands marched in the streets of San Francisco to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday. The march started with Gavin Newsom, Cecil Williams and a smattering of center right politicians surrounded by banners advertising Clear Channel stations. Behind the celebrities came a contingent of SF police officers followed by minority children dressed in police uniforms. Behind these groups came middle and high school kids and in the very back were a group opposing the war in Iraq and a group opposing the racist death penalty. Commercialism came first and Martin Luther King’s own views were pushed to the back of the bus.
"It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader."
The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
...
Why?
It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
...
[A]fter passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights" -- including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.
Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.
"True compassion," King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."
From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was "on the wrong side of a world revolution." King questioned "our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America," and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions "of the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World, instead of supporting them.
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/950104.html
"It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader."
The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
...
Why?
It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
...
[A]fter passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights" -- including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.
Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.
"True compassion," King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."
From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was "on the wrong side of a world revolution." King questioned "our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America," and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions "of the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World, instead of supporting them.
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/950104.html
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Give your best answer and win a guest dj spot on Enemy Combatant Radio news show!
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/01/1668235.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/01/1668235.php
Wow, what a wonderful tribute to MLK. It is great to see the historical linked to the present commercialization/comodification of the memory of King.
"At one point on the tape RG can be heard saying, "Captain (Dennis) Martel is about to say something fascist now."
Martel can then be heard declaring the march an "unlawful assembly." Those of us who have been around San Francisco for a while, of course, could have told RG that "something fascist" comes out just about anytime Martel opens his mouth.
Martel is of course famous for saying, in 1993, "They (Food Not Bombs) just wanna make an anarchist statement and we're not gonna allow it-it's that simple."
It later had to be pointed out to Martel that the making of "statements" is legal under the U.S. Constitution.
It was later rumored that the "orange-painted" gun was a new piece of cop equipment capable of firing rubber bullets.
And speaking of Food Not Bombs, the war between the activist food servers and the city of San Francisco is now back on apparently, for the very next night, our $60,000-a-year rubber-bullet-firing werewolves were back at it."
http://www.liberationradio.net/articles/newsletters/1999/SFLR_News_10-25-99.php
recent pics of Martel (on the right)
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/3_martel.jpg
and Puts
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/7_puts_conspiring.jpg
Note that the orange guns carried by the police do not shoot "rubber bullets". They shoot hard plastic balls containing OC (pepper spray); the plastic is hard enough that many of the plastic balls are not able to explode on impact even after leaving welts.
Yep, nothing like MLK Day to have a big ole fashioned police march through the city celebrating the people who let loose dogs and fire hoses on Civil Rights protesters. It should have been no surprise that Bush's friend's company, Clear Channel, helped support the march. With the lines of kids dressed up like police officers and Newsom at the front it was probably the biggest Clear Channel proWar rally yet.
Martel can then be heard declaring the march an "unlawful assembly." Those of us who have been around San Francisco for a while, of course, could have told RG that "something fascist" comes out just about anytime Martel opens his mouth.
Martel is of course famous for saying, in 1993, "They (Food Not Bombs) just wanna make an anarchist statement and we're not gonna allow it-it's that simple."
It later had to be pointed out to Martel that the making of "statements" is legal under the U.S. Constitution.
It was later rumored that the "orange-painted" gun was a new piece of cop equipment capable of firing rubber bullets.
And speaking of Food Not Bombs, the war between the activist food servers and the city of San Francisco is now back on apparently, for the very next night, our $60,000-a-year rubber-bullet-firing werewolves were back at it."
http://www.liberationradio.net/articles/newsletters/1999/SFLR_News_10-25-99.php
recent pics of Martel (on the right)
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/3_martel.jpg
and Puts
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/7_puts_conspiring.jpg
Note that the orange guns carried by the police do not shoot "rubber bullets". They shoot hard plastic balls containing OC (pepper spray); the plastic is hard enough that many of the plastic balls are not able to explode on impact even after leaving welts.
Yep, nothing like MLK Day to have a big ole fashioned police march through the city celebrating the people who let loose dogs and fire hoses on Civil Rights protesters. It should have been no surprise that Bush's friend's company, Clear Channel, helped support the march. With the lines of kids dressed up like police officers and Newsom at the front it was probably the biggest Clear Channel proWar rally yet.
Z, this is great!
Good pics, clear analysis.
Try to get an interview with Williams.
Good pics, clear analysis.
Try to get an interview with Williams.
Glad I stayed home and listened to him speak on the radio, rather than getting anywhere near all this sh*t.
The sad thing is that everyone puts up with it. Sure, corporations are just as much a part of MLK, aren't they?
Sure, cops in their uniforms . . . wtf? Why on earth were they there?
The sad thing is that everyone puts up with it. Sure, corporations are just as much a part of MLK, aren't they?
Sure, cops in their uniforms . . . wtf? Why on earth were they there?
"The sad thing is that everyone puts up with it."
Why do they? I havnt heard too many people on the left really try to deal with Cecil Williams and his support for people like Newsom.
Why do they? I havnt heard too many people on the left really try to deal with Cecil Williams and his support for people like Newsom.
they were there for the same reason they are at the front of every harvey milk memorial candlelight march. they have absolutely and utterly no shame.
beautiful work, z!!
beautiful work, z!!
I see the organized crime/election fraud gang of the Democrat-Republicans, including but not limited to Gavin "Nazi" Newsom, Cecil Williams (a long-time member of Willie Brown's election fraud team), the San Francisco police and the fascist Clear Channel propaganda network led the Democrats' phony Martin Luther King parade. With the exception of Cecil Williams, who was the Northern Cal chair of Southern Christian Leadership Conf as I recall (and a member of Willie Brown's election fraud team then, as now), and Gavin "Nazi" Newsom, who was not born until 1968 or so, 1968 being the year the US government assassinated King for deciding to unite workers of all colors to fight poverty, all of the rest would have certainly arrested King for his civil rights activities.
Some history: In San Francisco, we had a lily white police (and all male) until the 1970s or so, and it has not improved much since. Of course, it would be best just to shut down the police department. In California, whites could not marry non-whites until 1948. Women of all colors and non-white men were excluded from many organizations and positions until the 1970s. Blacks were refused service in San Francisco restaurants and hotels in the late 1940s, after WW2, the war to fight fascism (but not American racism). There is nothing progressive about my hometown of San Francisco. As Malcolm X said, the Northern states are just Up South.
Cecil Williams' participation in election fraud with Willie Brown and the Democrat-CIA election-frauding gang of the 1970s called the Peoples' Temple, may be found at http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown
Some history: In San Francisco, we had a lily white police (and all male) until the 1970s or so, and it has not improved much since. Of course, it would be best just to shut down the police department. In California, whites could not marry non-whites until 1948. Women of all colors and non-white men were excluded from many organizations and positions until the 1970s. Blacks were refused service in San Francisco restaurants and hotels in the late 1940s, after WW2, the war to fight fascism (but not American racism). There is nothing progressive about my hometown of San Francisco. As Malcolm X said, the Northern states are just Up South.
Cecil Williams' participation in election fraud with Willie Brown and the Democrat-CIA election-frauding gang of the 1970s called the Peoples' Temple, may be found at http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown
For more information:
http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown
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