Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Recasting MLK In Liberation Theology

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. walked the picket line the day before an assassin's bullet ended his life. A Nobel Prize-winner courted by presidents, King spent his final hours with Memphis garbage collectors fighting for the right to unionize. As we remember King's legacy on the anniversary of his death, the struggle for economic justice continues amid new assaults on workers' collective bargaining rights, the worst income inequality since the Great Depression and irresponsible budget cuts that will hurt the most vulnerable.
Link (here) to read the full opinion piece by Alexander Mikulich is a research fellow at the Jesuit Social Research Institute

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican (here)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was fighting against racial segregation and for equal rights for African- Americans not unions (here) 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was not fighting for unions the right to unionize the Memphis garbage collectors per se, but was a part of his Poor People's Campaign (here) , (here) and (here)
This not a time of the worst economic inequality since the Great Depression, Jimmy Carter's presidency was marked by gas rationing and shortages, an interest rates over 18%,   unemployment rate over 10 % and inflation over 18% (here) and (here).
Remember the misery index (here) ?, stagflation (here)? , the gas lines (here)?

2 comments:

TonyD said...

We keep trying to treat the symptom and not the disease.

Wealth corrupts governments, corporations, and society. Jesuits can change education, but they instead choose to incorporate the values of the wealthy. Jesuits can redefine business practice, and change government as a result, but they choose to define themselves in a historical Church context, rather than a context of creating God's values here in this existence.

As for inequality, it is like slavery. If, as a society, we choose that as a value, then God will consider that to reflect our true values, and allow us to create that society. He will create appropriate lessons, depending on how we execute that free will.

Right now, we have a society in the US that, collectively, does not object to inequality. Our obligation is to serve the wealthy, since that is the societal structure that we have created.

God's values are not our values.

TonyD said...

And in the interest of providing a reference to current "inequality": In this month's Vanity Fair there is an article by Economics Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz called "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%".

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105