Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich nails it here ...
Robert Reich:
I was always very short for my age, and when I was a kid relied on a few older boys to protect me from the bullies. One of my protectors was Mickey (Michael) Schwerner. Fifty years ago today [June 20, 2014], Mickey and two others, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were in Mississippi to register black voters when they were brutally murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan, including the sheriff of Nashoba County.
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| For more on this see Mississippi civil rights worker's murders. |
When I learned that the person who had protected me from childhood bullies was murdered by the real bullies of America, I began to understand the true meaning of social injustice. A decent society does not allow those with power and privilege to bully those without.
Today’s bullying comes in many forms: Not just racists preventing minorities from voting but also CEOs taking huge salaries for themselves while cutting their workers’ wages, Wall Street bankers foreclosing on homeowners who got walloped when the Street’s bubble burst, multi-millionaires refusing to pay higher taxes to finance better schools for poor kids, monopolists raising prices to squeeze their customers, executives firing workers for trying to unionize, business lobbyists paying off members of Congress to vote against a higher minimum wage, and billionaires funding their own political machines to spew lies and undermine our democracy.
The best way to honor the memories of Mickey, James, and Andrew is to stand up to the bullies.
- Mark
Hat tip to John for the link.
1 comment:
I believe this is an excerpt from his documentary.
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