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I saw a tweet by my Bernie Sanders friends on Twitter who said “I refuse to mourn a politician that didn’t support M4A” and I was like “you don’t mourn John Lewis for any of his accomplishments?” Fuck you all. I’m a Sanders leftist too. Some people are way up their own ass and need to shut the fuck up.
Sure, let’s deify someone who took massive amount of corporate money because he was on the right side of Civil Rights 50 years ago. For TV liberals, these are the accolades they want as well, so they identify strongly with Lewis. They want to ignore the decades of voting for conservatives like the Clinton/Obama’s and reminisce about a bygone era when they gave a shit about their communities and more relevant issues than what Donald Trump is saying.
That criticism is correct. John Lewis didn’t use the leverage he had to talk about how neoliberal economics devastated the black community. He was a reliable ally in recent decades to the most corrupt elements in the Democratic Party.
So, if you want to laud someone with close ties to major banks because he marched on Selma, go ahead. But don’t claim some sort of moral high ground over someone who isn’t willing to celebrate the life of someone who voted heavily with management in recent decades.
Yeah but he actually marched on Selma when that really meant a fucking lot. Do we forget an actual "big fucking deal" when it doesn't align with our 2020 wishes? I'm asking seriously. Do you not think the man deserves respect, when people in America have decided to make a further stride? Do you think Civil Rights was easy? Do you think the man was bullshit for what he did? I'm on your side politically but man, I think that shit sucks.
Just saying it was really jarring to see the leftists (with whom I agree with politcally) make John Lewis out to be George W Bush. I don't actually want to affiliate with a movement that would do that based on major accomplishments when lynching was a popular pastime. As a white guy I'm not quite willing to throw in any personal outrage, but shit man. Were your just born yesterday when we in America are just starting to embrace bold progressive socialist policy?
Maybe I'm too reverent to truly belong to the progressive movement because I refuse to throw civil rights leaders into the burning pile for things we just seemingly dreamed up in 2016. Maybe I'm too old. But, Jesus Christ. Those cats in the 60s did so much good.
Guarantee, most progressives are gonna be WTF at that too. You really shouldn't trust anonymous internet comments in a forum often targeted for gaslighting and right wing actors pretending to be leftists at face value. Even if that guy took a bunch of money from banks, so fucking what? Nobody ever had to agree with someone's current day stance to recognize when they did the right thing in the past. And far as I know, making a buck is as American as it gets on any part of the spectrum. I don't feel like crawling up that guy's ass with a microscope to figure out the moral validity of his income, and if I did it probably wouldn't be anything close to what trolls make it out to be.
Article itself is calling Republicans hypocrites for trying to laud the man as some kind of proof the GOP isn't evil, not sure how that gets spun into a smear on civil rights leaders Fox & Friends style.
Progressives and leftists aren't the same people just as a correction. Progressives are just slightly more left leaning liberals.
I wonder if Martin Luther King will be the next of society's fallen heroes since as a Christian minister he presumably believed homosexuality is a sin.
I think someone that marches for civil rights and then uses that position to accumulate wealth and do the bidding of the white, moderate majority deserves less respect than the person who fought for civil rights and still does, in practice, to this day. Go out into American streets and you’ll still find those people marching today. They are far more heroic than someone who spent his political capital ensuring that the status quo was codified.
What John Lewis did in the 1960s was heroic. What he did in Washington was cowardice.
But I do understand why older liberals feel the need to defend him like this. The John Lewis story closely mirrors their own. Once young and idealistic, they now vote for people that oppose public healthcare in the midst of a pandemic.
Marching for civil rights is heroic, paying fealty to a political party that was playing on race-based fears to pass the 94 Crime Bill is a coward’s position.
Christ, the far left cant get out of their own way lol
Why is he inoculated from any policy criticism? Even if that criticism is constructive, respectful and in good faith?
Do we really want to setup a game where someone can point to things 50 - 60 years in the past and that immediately inoculates them in perpetuity?
Bernie supporters look to that one time Bernie showed up at a march 60 years ago to paint him as a civil rights icon.
And he's also got a lifetime of POLICY ACTION hes attempted to show his worth.
I'm not going to get into a discussion about Lewis' policy this week to be respectful of his passing. But conversely I hate this notion that he was completely inoculated from any POLICY based criticism. I don't think any lifetime public servant should be immune from critical analysis. It's a cheap easy way to dismiss any and all introspection by just labeling me a racist. (See the other REPLY to my completely respectful post) Same shit Israel does. Call you an Anti Semite that way we discuss that accusation instead of any critical analysis of Israeli policy. (As designed)
Its a bullshit tactic used to change the subject. And a very effective one. (Which is why its always deployed)
Kind of like your immediate whataboutism on Bernie. But it was in context of my statement so I responded. But thats what that was.
EDIT: Saw your reply that you deleted or whatever. Plenty of drive by cowards in this thread. I tried to be respectful but no need when I read the reply.
Lmao you just said that the voters who wanted Biden shouldn’t have as much of a say in things. Basically calling his massive POC base unworthy. Full horseshoe. Stop thinking you aren’t a racist. The policies of Trump will harm people so much, and you spend all day supporting his re-election and spent yesterday attacking John Lewis for ideological “impurity.”
Imagine laughing because someone is doing a critique about decades of corruption. There’s a reason I live in a country where I’m not grovelling in 2020 for basic institutions that were figured out here in Europe a half a century ago.
The liberals here hold their politicians to some sort of accountability. In the USA, with your binary politics of Republican vs Democrat, most Americans are completely incapable of levelling an honest critique.
There are plenty of people that marched for Civil Rights and didn’t feel inclined to coddle multinational corporations in their elderly years. Why aren’t you celebrating those people who marched in the 1960s and still do so today?
I’m just wondering what amount of war and corporate handouts gets excused for marching with Dr King. Trump didn’t get elected inside a vacuum, so don’t be shocked when liberal inability to form an objective position isn’t happening on the Right either.
Last I checked, you centrist clowns lost to Donald Trump and have proffered up a Speaker that gives the GOP 80% of what they want. Next time parsing out handy advice at what the left should be doing, remember that you couldn’t defeat a game show host with the entire establishment press in tow.
Enjoy your $7000 deductible health insurance in the middle of a pandemic with your centrist heroes codifying policy.
“Liberals” said the same thing about John McCain. Centrist TV drones are the ones who put John McCain and John Lewis on the same pedestal. Maybe instead of feeling the way Comcast presenters are suggesting you should, you should judge a man by his actions.
They are judging him by his actions. Reread their first comment.
I'm truly interested in your opinion and I thank you for explaining it to me. I still think John Lewis is not somebody you treat like a booger, but I understand your frustration. I always look at it like somebody did something outstanding and then people on the fringe want to tear them down because they aren't kowtowing to the new thing, but you are making a bit of sense to me. I still think you should be kind to one of the fathers of civil rights in america. as paltry as that seems to you.
It’s not paltry, but I’d rather save the accolades for people that didn’t surrender to DC politics. A robust social system benefits minorities more than anyone. To spend 30 years aligning yourself with economic conservatives is abandoning those communities for political expediency. And because John Lewis had so much moral authority, his breadcrumb strategy was accepted as a fait accompli.
And they say Bernie supporters aren’t toxic.
Cannot critique the corrupt politician while in office because he was a Civil Right hero. Cannot critique the corrupt politician in death because he was a Civil Rights hero. If you march for Civil Rights in the 1960s, does that absolve you from all criticism?
People who rehabilitated George Bush and John McCain because they don’t like Trump should probably leave opinions of what is toxic to themselves.
But that is the difference between progressives and liberals, you are correct. Liberals are overly concerned with identity and their latent conservatism and bigotry makes them super defensive of sacred cows like John Lewis.
Moderates who spent the last two decades ensuring that the USA doesn’t have a robust social system must prove to the rest of us that they really aren’t racists or conservatives when they’ve actively worked against policy that would drastically improve the lives of minority communities.
Sorry, I’m not going to apologise for criticising someone who was surrounded by people like A. Philip Randolph in his 20s to become a Congressman as a grown man and work with moderate conservatives to maintain the US’s paltry social system.
You want to call someone a hero that consistently voted against workers because he was on the right side of Civil Rights, go ahead. Ignoring run of the mill corruption is standard practice these days in the Democratic Party.