Occupiers, learn from King

Instead of making demands from the existing socioeconomic system, Occupy Wall Street should proclaim the beginning of a new one. Martin Luther King Jr. called this deep structural change, facilitated by “constructive coercive power” through “cohesive cooperative alliance.”

While public protest seems needed to facilitate public awareness, nonviolent direct action is meaningless without economic leverage. Strikes, sit-ins and boycotts that seemed effective in King’s day are not effective now – let alone marches, primarily intended to draw public attention to the preceding factors.

King knew a march doesn’t change anything. It just makes a lot of noise. He also knew that noise can help, but only if it is a proclamation of change, backed by economic leverage. In other words, King understood the basic principles of effective demand, while 99 percent of the American public still doesn’t get it.

“I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword,” Jesus said. This perpetuation of internal conflict leaning toward economic democracy will most likely be the fulfillment of King’s dream, despite the election of a pseudo-black American president or the erection of a conspicuously white monument in King’s memory.

Good job, America. Ya fell for it again.

David Kendall

Spokane Valley