RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

dajafi wrote:To kind of round off the point, probably the two greatest living civil rights heroes are John Lewis and Bob Moses. Lewis, of course, is now an arch-member of the establishment, having been in Congress for decades. Moses basically dropped out of public life and started creating math-focused education programs. I guess it could be taken as a very encouraging thing that both have spent decades working within "the system," however defined.

Don't forget Julian Bond (notwithstanding his comments last year about the Tea Party). The guy is right up there with John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael, and Marion Berry as a founding father of SNCC.

I don't put Bond up on that level, though I can't quite remember why… in my late 20s I got kind of obsessed with civil rights history and read everything I could find on it, and I feel like one of the memoirs--maybe Lewis's, which was a really good read--took a hard shot at Bond as something of a poseur. I should try to dig up the specifics.

Lewis, Carmichael and Berry… fascinating collection of characters. Berry is a walking allegory of how far someone can fall. I'm not even talking about crack, "bitch set up me up," and all that. He was simply a horrible mayor who couldn't have done more to advance right-wing arguments about the hopeless awfulness of the public sector if he'd been trying to do that.

edit: I see from the link TP posted that Bond and Lewis ran for the same seat in Congress… which certainly would explain why Lewis might have been less than laudatory about Bond in his memoir. Also maybe not the best source for a clearheaded assessment of Bond's role…

dajafi wrote:
I don't put Bond up on that level, though I can't quite remember why… in my late 20s I got kind of obsessed with civil rights history and read everything I could find on it, and I feel like one of the memoirs--maybe Lewis's, which was a really good read--took a hard shot at Bond as something of a poseur. I should try to dig up the specifics.

I remember Bond speaking at the '68 Dem convention & thinking "wow". And then he basically disappeared from the national stage. I figured he probably had some inconvenient skeletons in a closet somewhere, but hearing him in interviews in more recent years, I'm not sure he had enough more than youthful brio going for him back when.

I could kick myself for not having been as aware of Bob Moses as I should have been. Do you know of any bios of him? He doesn't seem like the sort to bother with an autobiography. Feels like he's the kind of person that there are probably many more of whose exertions are worth knowing more about. I scanned your wiki link & didn't see any long-form bio-type stuff. PBS's Freedom Summer installment of American Experience had a few great clips, but I'm not inclined to sit through a tv interview. Any ideas...?

Bond was one of my professors at UVA. His History of the Civil Rights Movement course was absolutely amazing. He was just starting his tenure as president of the NAACP when I had him.

And he always spoke well of John Lewis. So who knows exactly what the deal is there.

The other issue is that pretty much everything that could be done legislatively regarding civil rights has been done. And, to a large extent, this was wildly successful.

But legislation by itself can only do so much. Inequality in the application of the law is a significant problem. Killing black kids is illegal, but juries and judges look the other way all to often. Then there ways in which procedural equality do not amount to substantive equality. There's a big difference between saying Princeton does not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity and saying everyone has an equal opportunity to attend Princeton.

Which leads to economics. And in a real sense, just as civil rights victories were being achieved, economic mobility really slowed down, thus resulting in the persistence of severe economic inequality. And through much of the 70s and 80s, racial resentment was exploited to prevent this from happening, and that strategy has served economic elites quite well ever since.

Wonder what peeps would think if some protestors put open carry to the test

http://www.opencarry.org/?page_id=263

pacino wrote:Wonder what peeps would think if some protestors put open carry to the test

http://www.opencarry.org/?page_id=263

My first thought was "why would protesters undermine their cause by carrying around an open can of beer?"

i posted that because a guy did have a handgun and was subsequently shot by police. wonder what these open carriers think about that?

@AntonioFrench: Snipers rifles aimed at unarmed American citizens right now in St. Louis, MO. #Ferguson

@TheTomasRios: The police are arresting reporters, refusing 911 calls and engaging in mass intimidation tactics. This is pure tyranny.

@ryanjreilly: SWAT just invade McDonald's where I'm working/recharging. Asked for ID when I took photo.

@WesleyLowery: Police come into McD where me and @ryanjreilly working. Try to kick everyone out.

Police seem to be doing their best to make a perilous situation that much more volatile. Way to go.

Who the fuck is in charge of this? It seems like the most poorly designed operation to calm protests you could ever conceive of.

Wesley Lowery ‏@WesleyLowery 5m

Was arrested

Wesley Lowery ‏@WesleyLowery 4m

Also Ryan Reilly of Huff Po. Assaulted and arrested

Nothing to see here.

Ryan Reilly from Huffington Post who is one of the reporters briefly arrested in Ferguson tonight was my brother's year at the Prep.

This is some crazy shit.

@WesleyLowery: Was waiting to be taken away, large black man SCREAMING for help in back of police truck

@WesleyLowery: They refused his several calls for paramedics

@WesleyLowery: "I'm dying. I'm dying. Please call help he screamed." They mocked him

This is straight up bad policing. I mean jesus fuck. The contempt for the people you supposedly protect and serve is outrageous. Soeomeone needs to take over.

jerseyhoya wrote:Who the fuck is in charge of this?

forget it, Jake - it's crackertown

Attica!!

Attica!!

drsmooth wrote:I could kick myself for not having been as aware of Bob Moses as I should have been. Do you know of any bios of him? He doesn't seem like the sort to bother with an autobiography. Feels like he's the kind of person that there are probably many more of whose exertions are worth knowing more about. I scanned your wiki link & didn't see any long-form bio-type stuff. PBS's Freedom Summer installment of American Experience had a few great clips, but I'm not inclined to sit through a tv interview. Any ideas...?

I feel like I did read a Moses biography about 15 years ago, but I don't remember it and a brief Google search yielded bupkis. If nothing else, and if you haven't already read it, here's the Taylor Branch three-part biography "America in the King Years," which has a lot about Freedom Summer and is superb history anyway. Probably the second book, "Pillar of Fire," would have the most about Moses.

dajafi wrote:I feel like I did read a Moses biography about 15 years ago, but I don't remember it and a brief Google search yielded bupkis. If nothing else, and if you haven't already read it, here's the Taylor Branch three-part biography "America in the King Years," which has a lot about Freedom Summer and is superb history anyway. Probably the second book, "Pillar of Fire," would have the most about Moses.

many thanks. looks like one of my local libraries has it....

I think this is starting to blow up. Apparently the government has broad discretion on seizing assets alleged to be used in association with drug dealing without any due process to the legal owners, even when the owners haven't been charged with or even linked to any crime.

Think I'm on the side of the ACLU on this one. Their showcase incident is one where a kid was convicted of selling 40 bucks worth of drugs outside his parent's house and the city seized the house.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/0 ... as-office/

Ferguson police/military firing tear gas and rubber bullets into peaceful protests. This is so insane