@amerpie A tweet from Andre Henry ([@]andrehenry), marked with "sos" in red, displays the text: "Once again, it's that time of year that we pretend Dr. King never said things like this:" Below, a quote image features a black - and - white photo of a person on the left, and on the right, text reads: "Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system. — Martin Luther King — AZ QUOTES"

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@amerpie

In my observation for what it's worth, he was not a "radical", just a decent, caring, thoughtful human being.

Generations of corporate media has tried desperately to surpress, erase, distort and vilify the man, just for being that kind of person.

@amerpie

So when are we "going to have to change the system"?

I've been working on my alternative democracy since 1997.

I've been on Medium since 2019.

I've been on Mastodon since 2023.

I see no sign of anyone wanting to change the system.

@amerpie it hurts so much that speaking plainly and abundantly evident truths like this is considered radical

but I do acknowledge that it is

100% though

@amerpie It's speech like this that got him assassinated by the FBI. They want you to think it was some crazy racist who assassinated him for civil rights, but it was the FBI who killed him because he started criticizing capitalism.

@amerpie he wasn't wrong about capitalism. Things is that we are humans, so no system we ever come up with will ever be anywhere near perfect.

@amerpie

The fundamental error the American Center Left (Democrats) made in the years of the civil rights movement and beyond was just this. They continued to expand personal rights while ignoring the need for economic reform. They ignored anti-trust, allowed the minimum wage to stall, and generally supported US corporate consolidation and the concentration of wealth. They were better than the alternative but abandoned their FDR roots. It's time for a synthesis, a new democratic party.#uspol

@capngloval @amerpie Thing is: we still can come up with something far better than capitalism.

@amerpie I can't see anything wrong with what he said, personally. Then again, I'm not in the pay of multi-billionaires.

@altbot @amerpie eh, good enough.

@amerpie

So weird reading all those comments. I tought most Mastodon users would be anti-capitalist^^

"Capitalism makes tons of people live in poverty" isn't a radical view, just facts.

Americans especially did a really good job at convincing people that the only alternative to capitalism is (a fake representation of) communism.

When in reality there are a ton of other systems (also you can't directly jump from capitalism to communism, there are steps/systems in between)

@amerpie I don't think was as controversial back when it was said.

I don't think there is anything making you inherently evil if you criticize capitalism, so even today, you might come across as naive, but you're not really Stalin, though.

@Ultraverified @amerpie

That IS being a radical. That's why they shot him.

@amerpie We could certainly use him today.

@violetmadder @amerpie

Just being a decent human being is why they murdered Renee Good.

@amerpie Radical in the sense that he believed in the redistribution of economic and political power. He challenged America’s class system and its racial caste system. He was a strong ally of the nation’s labor union movement. He was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, where he had gone to support a sanitation workers’ strike. He opposed U.S. militarism and imperialism, especially the country’s misadventure in Vietnam.

@DirtyAnCom @amerpie As is the case for many of these types of killings, it is fully possible for authorities to be responsible at the same time as they are not actively contracting a murder.

I know far too little about this specific case, but a very plausible hypothesis in general is that authorities lets someone be killed through inaction, stokes antipathy towards the person, or even provides resources to violent people.

There’s a whole spectrum of this, and all could be called ”killed him”.

@Ultraverified @amerpie very true!

@amerpie

And it did not change since then… high time we did that now…

@amerpie Many young people are so angry at the excesses of capitalism that they want to tear the whole thing down. But somehow they fail to appreciate that the right-wing politicians tearing things down are agents of capitalism.