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Four Decades Plus One

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<img attachment="h24_21757525.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Port-au-Prince January 17, 2010">In the just over four decades since Martin Luther King was murdered, it seems as if, were he to be resurrected, he would---after a brief acclimatization to the <i>technological</i> changes that had occurred---simply be able to pick up right where he'd left off. Because very little has changed. The illegal surveillance under which the FBI kept him throughout his career now extends to all Americans---and has been made legal. It is unlikely that he would draw comfort from the notion that, though America spying on Americans is legal, other countries spying on their citizens is officially frowned upon.<fn> The blog post, <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2010/01/mlk-international-association-for.html" source="Informed Comment" author="Juan Cole">MLK: The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment</a>, recounts the principles for which Martin Luther King actually stood. Though the yearly coverage of his day deals primarily with his work on civil rights, he actually turned up his efforts in his final years and broadened his efforts to stand up for <i>everyone</i>, regardless of race. His last days were spent fighting for the poor and against the widening chasm between the rich and poor because just getting them civil rights was not enough if their voices would continue to be ignored. <bq>But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. <b>I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.</b> (Emphasis added.)</bq> Imagine what King would have thought of Haiti---and be sure he would have thought about Haiti <i>before</i> the earthquake. The Haitians were eating sand pies during the food crisis caused by speculation in 2008 and they had never really recovered. They were the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere for years; now they are nearly non-existent. And yet, despite their desperate poverty---of which we in our comfortable lives could never conceive---the Western media has no compunction about using judgmental terminology to describe their behavior just days after their country was destroyed. In many places, there is nothing left: No water, no shelter, no food, no fire, no survivors. And yet, even sources that are ordinarily very even-handed adopt the terminology of the ruling classes to describe these desperate people universally as <iq>looters</iq>. The photo essay, <a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/01/haiti_six_days_later.html" source="Big Picture Blog" author="">Haiti six days later</a>, includes the following captions: <bq><b>Looters</b> fight for products at a business area [...] A <b>mob</b> of Haitians reach out as goods are thrown from a nearby shop [...] <b>Looters</b> fight for goods outside a grocery store [...] A Haitian police officer points a rifle at a man during a <b>looting</b> spree [...] U.N. peacekeepers patrolling the capital said popular anger is rising and warned authorities and aid organizations to increase <b>security</b> to <b>guard</b> against <b>looting</b> [...] <b>Looters</b> run during a police assault [...] A Haitian national policeman takes position during <b>riots</b> with <b>looters</b> [...] <b>Looters steal</b> a bag of another <b>looter</b> who lies dead, <b>shot</b> by the police [...] A man with a <b>knife</b> and other <b>looters fight</b> for goods taken from a destroyed store [...] The man fired warning shots into the air to prevent <b>looters</b> from <b>ransacking</b> his shop</bq> That kind of leaves a negative impression of the Haitian people, doesn't it? It's not exactly intentional, but neither is it accidental. It is subliminal and subconscious and is the accepted way of dealing with people so far down the food chain from us and our rulers. It is propaganda...and only days after the greatest disaster to befall a country accustomed to both natural and human disasters, our sympathy already falls away and our language hardens. The people in the picture weren't all armed, but they were all black and they were universally judged to be engaged in criminal activity. What does it even mean to be looting in a country that has no infrastructure, no water supplies, no food? What are people to do to survive? Patiently wait for food to be doled out by their beneficent masters when it's just sitting in ruined stores rotting before it can be used? What would you do? Fully half of the images were of people fighting and getting beaten back by police. Why? Why focus on this wholly predictable consequence of a desperate people made even more desperate? Martin Luther King would know why. We are being prepared for the inevitable failure of the people to succumb to the new leadership that will likely be imposed on this ruined country. We will be told that they are ungrateful criminals, undeserving of our goodwill (just like the Iraqis). We will be told that they---once again---need the good strong hand of an Uncle Sam to show them the way. No, it is doubtful that MLK would be impressed by the progress indicated by the U.S. having adorned itself with a black president; instead he would be focused laser-like on the real problem of a world still run by those bent on preserving and promulgating <iq>economic conditions that [...] take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.</iq> <hr> <ft>See the article, <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2010/01/18/china/index.html" source="Salon.com" author="Glenn Greenwald">Congress takes a bold stand against surveillance abuses</a>, for more background information. In the context of Google's recent principled stance against China (after spending years capitulating to their demands for draconian censorship), the U.S. Congress is standing on the principle that China should not be electronically spying on its citizens. Its stance on the U.S. spying on its own citizens was quite different, extending even to granting amnesty to the Network and Comms companies that helped the U.S. spy on its citizens illegally. Now that it's legal, they've been granted retroactive amnesty (with the full support of Mr. Barack Obama).</ft>