"I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign," wrote King. "I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.
"From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.
"I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes."
You may remember that Edwards and King appeared together last year at Riverside Church in Manhattan where Edwards made an impassioned argument against the war in Iraq, citing Dr. King's speech on the Vietnam War four decades earlier, testifying that silence in the face of wrong is itself wrong, a message that Edwards has repeated throughout this campaign.
The corporate media have tried narrow the debate by limiting the choice only to candidates made viable by being certified as "viable" by the media. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul could be whited out completely, for example, but Edwards was a little too viable to be ignored, and so we got the "what's John Edwards so mad about" stories and the media's obsessive focus on the campaign strategies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama instead of on the issues that divide them. As King says, speaking up for the poor is not considered politically convenient or prudent, but it is still the right thing to do. In so far as this campaign has been about issues, it is because Edwards, not the media and not Clinton or Obama, has put them front and center.
Despite Obama's victory in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton is still likely to be the Democrat's nominee. Should she also get past Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney or John McCain, however, you have to wonder if her inauguration will be the best thing for the country. Her husband was the greatest Republican president we ever had (okay, besides Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, but it works better rhetorically the way I said it). He succeeded, as George Bush I was unable to, in giving us NAFTA, welfare reform, banking reform, a beefed-up military, almost daily assaults on the people of Iraq, and the effective end of a 40-year commitment by the Democratic party to single-payer universal health care...just to get the list started (a personal favorite of mine was The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 -- limiting appeals in death penalty cases, expanding the number of death penalty-eligible crimes, prohibiting fund-raising for vaguely defined "terrorist" organizations, and loosening rules against the deportation of legal immigrants -- that prepared the ground for the even more repressive provisions of the Bush-era USA PATRIOT Act).
Whether you consider class inequality and economic justice, government programs against poverty, the rights of women and minorities, or the aggressively interventionist foreign policy, the generalized ruling-class offensive in the U.S. didn’t pause between January of 1993 and January 2001, but continued unabated throughout the Clinton years. There are some differences between the radical and incompetent administration of Bush II and Clinton's, but it is nearly impossible to discern where Bush I ends and the beginning of what we may come to think of as Clinton I.
Add to all this the mean, bullying, and self-pitying Hillary Clinton campaign of the past few weeks and it becomes difficult to be very cheerful about a second Clinton presidency.
With its focus on the poor black woman, torn between voting her color or voting her gender, press coverage of this campaign was never more vapid or more unsavory than in the lead up to South Carolina, as if it was impossible for the media to countenance the thought that she might be undecided about the issues. Just because the media tries to slap down ideas any time they rear their pointy little heads, it doesn't follow that the voters are similarly indifferent to what's at stake in these primaries. Ultimately, this election will be decided on what Americans think -- about the war, the economy, jobs, education, health care. Could it be that I am undecided not about which candidate has the same coat of paint or the same plumbing as I do, but about which one will make the best leader of the country?
It is slur on every black supporter of Obama and every woman who wants Clinton to imply that their endorsement is contingent on other than wanting to do what's best for the country (and what about all those whites and men opposing Clinton and Obama -- including, one expects, by September the vast majority of the punditry who will rediscover, in the wake of the conventions, McCain's experience, Romney's moderation (sic) or Huckabee's, um, well, no doubt a careful reconsideration of Huckabee will find him infinitely more worthy of the trust of the people than the Democrat -- what do we imagine motivates them?).
King, who clearly knows who the fighter in this race is, concluded his letter by telling Edwards to press on. Let's hope he does.
Here's the full text of King's letter:
January 20, 2008The letter can be downloaded (pdf) at:
The Honorable John R. Edwards
410 Market Street
Suite 400
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Dear Senator Edwards:
It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father's legacy. On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.
There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father's legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.
I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.
You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don't have lobbyists in Washington and they don't get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.
I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.
From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.
I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.
So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.
Sincerely,
Martin L. King, III
<http://www.johnedwards.com/news/20080121-mlk-iii-letter.pdf>
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