pjwestin ,
@pjwestin@lemmy.world avatar

Keep preaching of pyrrhic victories from the comfort of your home as -- checks notes -- not a single Tankie was in Congress who voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, now, did they? So yes, thank a Liberal for actually getting shit done. Don't have much to list for winning rights for the American people now, do you...?

I just have to jump in here to point out how utterly, completely, cataclysmically wrong you are about this. First, let's start with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yes, it's true that no, "Tankie," was in Congress to vote for it, but attributing it's passage to Liberals shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the parties functioned at the time.

Economically, the party positions were mostly the same, with Republicans promoting fiscal conservatism while Democrats supported labor rights and the social safety net. However, in terms of the Civil Rights movement, the divide was centered around geography, not party; Republicans and Democrats from northern states were far more likely to support the Civil Rights movement than southern states. In fact, more Republicans voted for Civil Rights Act than Democrats (a point disingenuous Republicans will bring up without acknowledging the Southern Strategy, but that's a separate issue), so fiscally, the Civil Rights Act was passed with more conservative than liberal support.

Second, the Civil Rights movement in general was a far-left movement that clashed with Liberal Centrists. Martin Luther King was far more aligned with Socialists and Democrat Socialists than Liberals, and was downright anti-capitalist, saying, "Capitalism has often left a gap of superfluous wealth and abject poverty...[creating] conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few," and that, "capitalism has outlived its usefulness.”

King also had no patience for moderate Liberals. In a speech in 1960, he said, “There is a pressing need for a liberalism in the North which is truly liberal...[that] rises up with righteous indignation when a Negro is lynched in Mississippi but will be equally incensed when a Negro is denied the right to live in his neighborhood.” Even in his famous 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail he said:

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.

So, in summary, attributing the Civil Rights Act to Liberals is patently wrong. Economically, more members of Congress who voted for the Civil Rights Act would identify as conservative than liberal. Socially, the Civil Rights movement was often at odds with Liberal pragmatists who pushed for slower, more moderate action. Finally, given your comments, I'm pretty sure that if Martin Luther King were alive today, you'd think he was a Tankie.

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