Freedom Road: Ethics, Clinton-Style: The Money Angle

"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

Between 1958 and 1970, a distinctive movement for racial justice emerged from unique circumstances in Milwaukee. A series of local leaders inspired growing numbers of people to participate in campaigns against employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schools, the membership of public officials in discriminatory organizations, welfare cuts, and police brutality.

The Milwaukee movement culminated in the dramatic—and sometimes violent—1967 open housing campaign. A white Catholic priest, James Groppi, led the NAACP Youth Council and Commandos in a militant struggle that lasted for 200 consecutive nights and provoked the ire of thousands of white residents. After working-class mobs attacked demonstrators, some called Milwaukee “the Selma of the North.” Others believed the housing campaign represented the last stand for a nonviolent, interracial, church-based movement.

Patrick Jones tells a powerful and dramatic story that is important for its insights into civil rights history: the debate over nonviolence and armed self-defense, the meaning of Black Power, the relationship between local and national movements, and the dynamic between southern and northern activism. Jones offers a valuable contribution to movement history in the urban North that also adds a vital piece to the national story.

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Blurbs:

Think you know the full story of the civil rights era? Patrick Jones's masterful study of the movement in Milwaukee will make you think again. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The Selma of the North provides a devastating rebuttal of many of the conventional narratives of the civil rights movement. Here a vibrant nonviolent movement in the de-industrializing Midwest grows into a Black Power movement led by urban youth and a white Catholic priest who use confrontational direct action to lay bare the fissures of racial inequality in the 'liberal' North.
--Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College, editor of Freedom North and Groundwork

A well-researched, well-written, and important history. Based on a rich array of sources, this book enhances our understanding of civil rights activism in the postwar urban North and establishes a useful foundation for the comparison of similar developments elsewhere in the country.
--Joe William Trotter, Jr., Carnegie Mellon University, author of Black Milwaukee

This book fills a serious gap in the literature of the civil rights revolution, joining studies on other cities in laying the groundwork on race and civil rights in the postwar urban North. Jones tells a good story, capturing events that might otherwise be lost to history.
--Arnold R. Hirsch, University of New Orleans, author of Making the Second Ghetto

The Selma of the North is an insightful and invigorating addition to the growing literature on black freedom struggles outside of the South. Jones's important and informative account writes Milwaukee back into the narrative of the civil rights-Black Power era and in the process expands our understanding of postwar America.
--Peniel E. Joseph, Brandeis University, author of Waiting Till the Midnight Hour

The Selma of the North is a riveting new story of the civil rights movement in America, a tale on par with Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery in its power and importance. Jones's magisterial research and magnetic prose illuminate the untold story of the battle for the urban north in the 1960s, a battle that shows how race has always been the Achilles heel of white progressives. This story transcends easy dichotomies of black and white, North and South, radical and reformist. How did a group called 'the Commandos' define nonviolence? How did a white Catholic priest become a 'Black Power' leader? If this is not a saga for the age of Obama, I don't know what is.
--Timothy B. Tyson, Duke University, author of Radio Free Dixie and Blood Done Sign My Name

Friday, January 25, 2008

Ethics, Clinton-Style: The Money Angle

So, I'll leave aside, for now, the clear racial (racist?) strategy the Clintons have employed to take the lead in the Democratic race for presidential nominee. Or, the fact that the Clintons have decided to unleash Bill as the modern incarnation of Spiro Agnew, Nixon's henchman.

I will point out the gross hypocrisy of the Clintons slamming Obama for his connections to indicted Chicago-land wheeler-dealer, Tony Rezko. Yet, she claims she has never met Rezko. Well, you see that guy with the mustache standing with a smiling Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the above photo? Uhhhhhh... that's Rezko!

Or, remember this guy? He's Norman Hsu, who Hillary once described as "a good friend." Hsu raised roughly $1M for Hillary's campaign before going on the lam, being arrested and charged on November 27, 2007, by a federal grand jury for violating federal campaign finance laws and defrauding investors "out of at least $20 million." More here: Hsu Casts Wide Net for Clinton Donors

While we are at it on experience, remember also the never-ending revolving door of corporate donors and all-around sleaze-bags that were welcomed to stay in the Lincoln bedroom... for a fee?!?? You really think another Clinton will be an agent of change, or reform?

And, did you know Hillary Clinton was a corporate shill for one of the most hated corporations in the United States: WALMART!!??? It is true. As one report stated,

The Walmart board Hillary Clinton sat on was rabidly anti-union, was exploiting sweatshop labor around the world, discriminating against women workers, forcing workers to labor off the clock and destroying communities that did not want them. This should not be a shock: Clinton was a partner in the Rose law firm, one of the most active anti-union law firms in the country.

More here: Hillary and Wal-Mart: A Love Story

Finally, if Hillary Clinton is such a threatening reformer bent on change, why is it that Right-Wing media czar, Rupert Murdock, has been raising and contributing money to the Clinton campaign? Why have several other top execs at Fox been contributing to Hillary's effort, along with corporate reps in hundreds of corporations?

For a full report on Hillary's donors, see: Open Secrets

If you think Hillary Clinton will be some kind of anti-corporate warrior, I've got some nice beach-front property to sell you in Nebraska...

Freedom Road

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"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

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Friday, January 25, 2008

Ethics, Clinton-Style: The Money Angle

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