“You come to our town hall meeting, it’s one thing to try to get attention. They got their attention. But literally, they wouldn’t stop screaming insults at me. They wouldn’t … even let me answer the very questions they were raising.
“I got two words into it and they started screaming at me again. So this is a different thing than your standard protest. In my view, the solution to it is if they are committing a crime – which by the way, shutting down a freeway, shutting down an airport, intimidating people, there’s a crime – [they] ought to be arrested.”
Protesting at public figures’ homes should also be subject to arrest, Smith said.
“The point of it is intimidation. And I think it is harassment. It’s a crime, and I think [they should] be arrested for it.
It sounds like what he is complaining about is protestors not being civil, not letting him speak at his own event and going to his house. I don’t know if that’s a fair complaint given the circumstances, but a little different than the headline implication that he’s broadly accusing people objecting to Israel’s actions of being fascists.
Democrats are not sitting in their office ordering aid trucks to be blown up. They’re neoliberals funneling public funds to private businesses because that’s what neoliberals do.
I’m all for dismantling the military industrial complex and prying greedy neoliberals out of positions of power but voting Republican (or not voting at all) just isn’t going to achieve that.
But don’t forget that MLK was hated by most people during his time, especially white liberals and conservatives. Liberal democrats and conservatives alike seem to have a nasty habit of opposing the current struggles for freedom and equality. If you want to see what people thought of MLK, here is a political comic from the time
Notice the similarities between this and BLM? If you replace the concept of violent civil rights marches with antisemitic pro-palestine protests, you’ve got another instance of a struggle for freedom and a struggle against genocide being defamed while it is currently happening.
The fact of the matter is liberal democrats support all social justice movements but the current one. In 20 years I will cringe at what democrats say about the plight of the Palestinians, knowing that many are opposed to it right now.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Thanks. This quote explained a lot about people who insisted that I be “more inclusive.” I always replied “well, I am inclusive, but there must be another way!” I guess they were referring to this concept which Dr. King very eloquently expressed. Shame on me. Thanks.
Yes - he framed his statement with one of the stock phrases that people use when they want to be able to say something, then later, if necessary, claim that that’s not really what they said
I don’t think a news source has a responsibility to include that bit of transparent rhetorical trickery in a headline.
You may remember this guy (Adam Smith) from every other time Israel comes up…
Likewise, AIPAC gave Seattle-area Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), who has also failed to call for a ceasefire, more money than any other donor this year. Open Secrets found the defense industry and pro-Israel groups earned the top spots for Smith donors.
i left a comment about the origin of that saying in the cross-post of this thread. (i think the privacy/security/achieve version you posted is much better than the original one which said “deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.)
I'd avoided the exact quote for the reasons in your comment, but it works so well in this context that it's tough to let go of entirely. Glad you didn't just see it as a misquote! Nice work helping to keep the record straight.
Nah, not buying that after living through 2 decades of the bullshit that 9/11 was used to shove up the ass of America and the rest of the world.
They didn’t stop any of the big terrorist attacks like Jan. 6 which we all could see coming just by looking at social media, nor did they stop the Las Vegas concert massacre, or the many other massacres committed by people who always had numerous red flags ignored by authorities and associates. Nah.
That’s because it was never on the mind of the opinion writer. The author literally helped usher in the post-9/11 surveillance environment that sees massive paranoia and none of the surveillance used for solving crimes. They will watch all of us for dissent and discreetly punish those they seem “an other.”
Jacobin: Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big DealOn the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.
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