Cornel West and BLM activists among those arrested in St. Louis

[grasswire]

more to follow

I know that West was thrown under the DU bus some time ago for his criticisms of Obama. Where is he now, status-wise?

[think]

1. I stand with Dr West.

[onecaliberal]

2. Is anyone taking up collections to bail these folks out?

[Drunken Irishman]

3. Fuck Cornel West.

What he does and doesn't do does not change the fact he's a tool and an asshole.

[olddots]

4. can I ignore you 10000000000 times ?

[Drunken Irishman]

6. Yes. Please.

Ignore me. Why do I care?

[LanternWaste]

13. Your allegation is credible because you've supported it with so much objective evidence...

Your allegation/bumper-sticker wisdom is credible because you've supported it with so much objective evidence rather than simply sounding like a petulant child who missed dinner and throws a tantrum...

[Drunken Irishman]

14. Why should I care about someone who calls Obama the first niggerized president?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. We have some material already up from tonight

http://reportingsandiego.com/2015/08/10/ferguson-more-arrests/

As to West, I think he is by the tire well with the rest of us having a nice conversation...

[daredtowork]

7. Was reading about the Free Speech Movement and the New Left Today

I was amazed at how much that period had in common with today: a feeling that elites were taking away people's rights, that there was an oligarchy hovering over both major political parties, that - this is the kicker - housing prices were out of control!

One interesting element of the Free Speech Movement was that it was led by a United Front of Left, Right, and Radical students = they managed to come together around the issue they wanted to pursue. They took their cue from another coalition group called Slate: while this group was on the Left, it's party-politics stopped there. Slate united a whole spectrum of the Left from mild Liberals to flaming Radicals around very specific goals. According to the book I'm reading, the upshot of this was to shift the goals from the margins and give them a broader political base. This book also explains how this process made the F word part of common teenage vocabulary today (you could and did get arrested for displaying it in 1964).

The Free Speech Movement started in part as a struggle for students to advocate for the Civil Rights Movement on campus, and in turn they absorbed many of its strategies and tactics. As I read the decision of the students to proceed with a Sit-in while a low-level bureaucrat argued vigorously with the reasons their tactics were ineffective (a Professor I had studied under, btw - I had no idea he had ever been an administrator, much less so prominently involved!), all I could do was chuckle to myself over the "diversity of tactics." Many students joined in the actions because they felt that normal procedures simply didn't get things done anymore.

Does any of this sound familiar? The more things change, the more they stay the same! The Millennial generation is rerunning this in the form of Black Lives Matter! Most people are reaching out to MLK for comparisons, but I think the real comparison is the Free Speech Movement for the youth element, the disregard of ideology, and the "diversity of tactics" applied to reach their goal.

Reading this book also underscored for me that Black Lives Matter is solely focused on their goals and not on any larger outcome like whether getting a Democrat elected will ultimately help achieve goals down the road. They have goals NOW, and they take actions NOW to achieve those goals NOW. Until we come to terms with that, I believe we will continue to be frustrated by the actions of Black Lives Matter activists.

[LWolf]

9. What book were you reading?

It sounds very familiar.

While I don't want to lose sight of the big picture or the long term, it's clear that things need to happen NOW. People are being abused, wrongly arrested, and murdered NOW.

Campaigns are not about NOW. They are about the future. The actions are getting the attention right now, though.

[daredtowork]

10. The Beginning: Berkeley 1964 by Max Heirich

Take a look at it if you own this book or if it's in a library near you. A lot of first-hand testimony is recorded in the book. The echoes of BLM are eerie. It's odd when you think these are college students coming from conservative families, living in a conservative culture. (The City of Berkeley was staunchly Republican at the time). They start to grow a conscience about the Civil Rights Movement, then...BOOM...diversity of tactics/action-orient/NOW!

[LWolf]

11. I'll see if our library has got it, thanks! nt

[Supersedeas]

15. yep, thank you for sharing that

[LWolf]

8. Awhile back

West was criticized by many when someone posted some positive comments (not an endorsement, just some positive comments) about Sanders.

I don't know what his status on DU is, but I'm glad he was there...then and now.

[Oilwellian]

12. West has always walked his talk

I have tremendous respect for his honesty.