We must with positive action seek to remove the conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.
edit: nvm, read the context, this seems to be a rhetorical technique of his. pretty damn clever.
Yeah, this seems like he's instead dunking on how antidemocratic and shitty the US is. Full speech here
EDIT: it really is very carefully worded. It could be read either be a plea for a socdem US, or (my interpretation) pointing out how badly the US falls short while pointing out how good the VC are, while lamenting, sarcastically, the communists seem so cool, aha, how bad is that?
It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
He was at least very critical of the USSR. He referred to the Hungarian rebels of the 1956 uprising as "freedom fighters" and implied that communism often restricted freedom of religion
If today I lived in a Communist country where
certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying
that country's antireligious laws.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
If anything I'd say he was some sort of social democrat
not in Latin America or East/Southeast Asia, pretty much just the Warsaw Pact. one of the lessons taken seems to be that it's better to just keep the clergy in line
right, it's a trade off that can produce efficient equitable governance, but usually ends up being incredibly isolating to devout citizens and provides a fertile landscape for radicalization (against socialism). You can also throw in a human rights argument, but I assume we are all familiar with that aspect already. It's important as socialists to look closely at what the attitudes of socialist parties toward religions were in the past, and make improvements where needed. I definitely wouldn't say that I have all the answers myself.
mlk was anti-communist
edit: nvm, read the context, this seems to be a rhetorical technique of his. pretty damn clever.
Yeah, this seems like he's instead dunking on how antidemocratic and shitty the US is. Full speech here
EDIT: it really is very carefully worded. It could be read either be a plea for a socdem US, or (my interpretation) pointing out how badly the US falls short while pointing out how good the VC are, while lamenting, sarcastically, the communists seem so cool, aha, how bad is that?
He was at least very critical of the USSR. He referred to the Hungarian rebels of the 1956 uprising as "freedom fighters" and implied that communism often restricted freedom of religion
If anything I'd say he was some sort of social democrat
Many socialist states have had a spotty record when it comes to freedom of religion tho
Yeah I hate to say it but he's right. Socialist states tend to be rigidly secular, for better or for worse.
not in Latin America or East/Southeast Asia, pretty much just the Warsaw Pact. one of the lessons taken seems to be that it's better to just keep the clergy in line
right, it's a trade off that can produce efficient equitable governance, but usually ends up being incredibly isolating to devout citizens and provides a fertile landscape for radicalization (against socialism). You can also throw in a human rights argument, but I assume we are all familiar with that aspect already. It's important as socialists to look closely at what the attitudes of socialist parties toward religions were in the past, and make improvements where needed. I definitely wouldn't say that I have all the answers myself.
He more or less called himself a social democrat, then in the same line said he didn't care for labels.