Saturday, June 23, 2012

Savant's 2012 Words



Actually, Nkrumah's philosophy--like that of Du Bois--was pan-Africanism and socialism. Both studied Marxism. Booker T. Washington was politically conservative and pro-capitalist.
At Tuskegee I once heard it from the mouth of the university's president, that INDUSTRY determines even what's important in the curriculum at Tuskegee. I can assure you that those industries are not contrlled by Blacks. 
The degree to which Tuskegee, behinds the facade of Black control is really controlled by big whtie money, was artistically depicted by Ralph Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN (This, by the way, is an American example of what both Nkrumah & Fanon called "neocolonialism").
But Du Bois was the father of empirical sociology in the USA.
As for Du Bois's "Eurocentric nonsense", it was he (not Wasington) who pioneered the study of African history anc culture.
of coruse, Du Bois's education---like that of Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Fanon and just about everyone else involved in struggle--happened in Western universities. Yet some of those Western educated Black intellectuals became progressive and revolutionary. Others did not. Du Bois was one of those who did.


-Savant


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By the way, your personal insulting comments about Angela Y. Davis is little more than Ad Hominem attacks, not an intelligent commentary or refutation of her views. In fact, your comments are reactionary and sexist. The shape of her derriere has nothing to do with the cogency or uncogency of her ideas. You may actually have to read her "unfinised Lecture on liberation" or WOMEN: RACE AND CLASS, or ARE PRISONS OBSOLETE? And from my acquaintace with Black progressives and recolutionaries, not many would approve of your sexist put down even if they disagreed with Angela Y. Davis.


-Savant


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I said "militant progressive presence". YOU assume that this had to mean violence. Have you ever heard of REVOLUTIONARY NONVIOLENCE? Oh, are you aware that both Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr were democratic socialists? Revolutionary resistance to an unjust status quo can take both nonviolent and violent forms. Violent resistance in the USA in 1776 against British imperialism.(Were Washington, Jefferson & Tom Paine fascists?) Nonviolent resistance to British imperialism in India during the early 20th Century. However, I suggest that you read up on Fascism, perhaps beginning with a book called ANATOMY OF FASCISM, given what you take to be "the very definition of fascism."

-Savant

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You can find a thread on NONVIOLENT REVOLUTION and a thread DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING'S LEGACY & the OCCUPY MOVEMENT by yours truly, Savant. Again, Dr. King was a democratic socialist and therefore a leftist, and a quite militant one at that. As far as my supposed advocacy of violence--good luck at proving that without either manufacturing the evidence, or quoting words so much out of context as to conceal their meaning. Now for the record let me stat my position, and henceforth revealing as a prevaricator or moron anyone who attributes to me anything different from the following: I think that this society, proabably EVERY existing society, is in need of FUNDAMENTAL transformation that amounts to revolution. Not only a transformation of the economy & political life, but also a moral and spiritual transformation---a "revolution of values" as Dr. King called it. It is my HOPE that this revolutionary transformation can be achieved by nonvolent means, and as a nonviolent Movement. The Arab Spring, the labor insurgency in Wisconsin, and the Occupy Movement--all PREDOMINANTLY NONVIOLENT however much their detractors point to incidents contrary to their basically nonviolent character--are for me indicators of the possibility of nonviolent revolution. Also, indicators that we may be at the verge of a new wave or popular revolution. There is no guarantee that thse beginning will mature into full fledged revolutions, and no certainty that they can prevail by nonviolent means. Violence COULD prove unavoidable in some circumstances. (Like in the case of Rumania, a opposed to other movement in old Stalinst east Germany). But the possibility or revolutionary nonviolent change is possible. And I am eager to see it happen. Much beyond that I cannot say.

-Savant

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Dr. King abstained from commiting himself to either party, and was severely critical of both. Havint just recently completed a text on King, ic an offer anyone who's interested sources regarding King's attitude toward the two parties...not particularly flattering. In fact, Dr. King argued that resistance to the civil rights movement (and other movements of progressive reform) flowed (at in government circles) from an unholy alliance between right sing Dixiecrats & right wing Republicans. (Many people today don't know that the Republicans were not wholly conversative in those days, but a right, left and center. The Right hadn't yet hijacked the "party of Lincoln"). Dr. King's father, like many Blacks prior to FDR, leaned toward the Republican Party (though you could always find pictures of FDR in the King household). Martin King, Sr., though a Christian minister, was more of a politician than his illustrious son. He was politically liberal, though not as far to the left of Martin King, Jr. As for Dr. King's niece, she repeats the same revision of history as do many others about King's Republican Party commitments. Both from what i could get from the King Papers Project and the King estate, I've found no evidence of King's attachment to tthe Republican Party. And every King scholar I contacted--includi ng Clayborne Carson--also say that have no evidence of this. I think I can pretty much take Dr. King when he says he found it wise to avoid support for EITHER party, I think Dr. King meant it when he said "BOTH political parties ahve betrayed the cause of justice." (see pp. 108--109 of THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR). As for King's niece, she probably doesn't know much about the social philosophy of her illustrious uncle. Few people did. 

-Savant

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