The Mason Missile, January 24, 2024

Greetings, Americans! Once again we have celebrated the life and legacy of the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I believe people are paying attention to that part of King the commercial media doesn’t let out, that of the King who challenged authority and social orders, who recognized the interconnectedness of racial and economic problems, and the injustice of the Viet Nam War. If King was just some harmless nonviolent peacenik, the FBI wouldn’t have the whole smear campaign against him. That’s how social change works; we’re going to anger some powerful people in government and finance (about the same thing). As the movement to correct a social injustice proceeds, those in power, who benefit in some way from said injustice, wit for their time to roll back the gains the movement has done; then comes the backlash (the popular media plays a role in this), and some pundit proclaims, “Isn’t the movement going a little too far?” It happened with the Civil Rights movement, in the latter 1960s, when more radical African-American activists said there were still injustices to addresses, there were uprisings in cities, and King was held to blames for them. All of the injustices of race and class emerged from the shadows, and there is media generated sentiment against the movement, with a note of nostalgia, the dream of returning to some unspecified “good ol’ days,” when certain demographics of people “knew their place” and didn’t make any noise about it. That’s what trump means when he says “Make America great again,” like it stopped being great for some reason. In the 1970s, it was like that with the feminist and LGBTQ-rights movements; the leaders of those movements were veterans of the Civil-Rights and anti-Viet Nam-war movements, and they learned their organizing skills in those causes, and applied them to fighting for the rights of their own groups. Then came the backlash: well-subsidized organizations campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment (let’s try it again), raising the fear of women press-ganged into the workforce and genderless restrooms; and campaigns rose against LGBRQ+ rights, saying the gays are trying to attain “special privileges” and were out to “recruit our children.” (For them it’s all or nothing; any advancement in Civil Rights for any group is called giving them some sort of privileged treatment, as if the dominant group has become some oppressed minority, or else makes it their right to terrorize their “inferiors.”) The forces opposing changes in society have the advantage of “tradition,” which could, to them, mean “It’s always been like this, and we can’t handle change!”; such changes make them uncomfortable; hence, a crew of media figures (I hesitate to call them “journalists”) and politicians arise to take advantage of such sentiment and anxieties. The commercial media, having the habit of “What’s the latest fad we can talk about?” thinking, and being mainly from the once-dominant classes and races, pick up on this, and they treat this as something here to stay, forever.” That line has been said all through the nation’s social history, coming from every news outlet, that the current situation is how it is for all time. Not so! By banding together, by joining forces with each other, in our neighborhoods and worksites, we can affect change, and move the nation forward to something better. It was an established “fact” earlier in our history that slavery of other human beings, for the benefit of a useless, parasitic class of European-nobility wannabees that pretends to be dukes and duchesses (and getting deeper in debt to keep up appearances) would last forever; that the second-class citizenship of people of color, and the accompanying oppressions and humiliations, were permanently fixed; and that an oligarchic class of multi-billionaires is destined to rule the world, thanks to tax-breaks from their pet congress-members. In short, we fought them before, we beat them before, and, if we band together for our rights, learn together, work together, and VOTE (hint, hint) we’ll continue to beat them. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! Am Yisrael Chai! America will be free! Bye!