American Politics
Q2. Frank Fanon believes the colonized must take up the character, rhythm of life, and imagination of the storyteller, and not live under torment, despair, and trouble, so as not to lose their revolt (Fanon, 1959, p.1). Martin Luther King also called for the colonized to demand through non-violent demonstrations for their rights. Non-violence would have worked given the adverse colonization effects on the oppressed.
Q3. Malcolm X. calls for the Black nation to fight on all fronts, while Martin Luther was a believer in non-violent demonstrations against segregation. Malcolm saw himself as a freedom fighter without the use of the political rhetoric of Black Nationalism (Malcolm, 1964, p.1), while Martin Luther opted to seek nonviolent direct action from inside and outside the nation (Luther, 1963, p.1). Martin Luther’s nonviolent means won since it was more effective in drawing the masses including white majorities both foreign and domestic to call for change.
Q5. Stokely believes African Americans must fight white supremacy rather than fight to integrate, they must fight by learning white supremacy, and that no man can give freedom, man is born into it. The African American must engage in a psychological struggle and wield a group power (Stokely, 1966, p.1). A movement cannot exist without a cognitive liberation, since a change of mind, way of thinking must first occur within individuals to occur in their environment.
Q6. A world-empire is a world with a single political system controlling most of the area, while the world-economy is a world with a defined economic entity with multiple cultures and division of labor (Wallerstein, 1976, p.230). This means that a political system may not exist over all entities and spaces, making them unstable to economies.
Q7. Martin Luther turned to use nonviolent demonstrations and talks to attract external forces to support the civil rights movement. Frantz Fanon supported movements in other colonized regions like Africa and South America to gain external support for the civil rights movement (Fanon, 1961, p.1).
Essay
Political movements like the Tea party, interact with formal organizations like the GOP, through an ideal situation in the society when the masses have reached a critical stage and call for change. The political movements represent the masses common view of change, while the formal organization embraces a few of their concessions to appease them in the ideal political situation (Piven & Cloward, 1978, p.x). Both organizations recognize that the poor masses have the power to bring work and commerce to a grinding halt. Through negotiations to meet an amicable agreement, the two organizations come to consensus. Though the interactions are necessary, they have the ability to bring about political change, welfare, wage, and work changes. However, they also bring tensions, splitting of groups over group philosophies and often, the relationship between the political and formal organization becomes strong that the progressive change needed dies out.
Richard Hofstadter’s paranoid strain would explain the Tea Party as a populism conspiracy, which America must respond with an all-out crusade. To Piven and Cloward, the Tea Party affairs tend to cry evil of the public welfare and call for conservative capitalist ideals that tend to alienate the middle class, working class racial and ethnic groups, and minorities from democracy. According to McAdam (1999), a movement that no longer have the ability to mobilize, and maintain members, and has unattractive or underdeveloped demands, they may lose support (p.xvii). For Piven and Cloward, the inability of a movement to conform to doctrines prescribed on strategies, constituencies, and demands that make it to fail (Piven & Cloward, 1978, p.xi). To Wallerstein, the Tea party can bolster its strength by dealing with global issues especially those that affect the national interest.
References
Fanon, F. (1959). Speech by Frantz Fanon at the Congress of Black African Writers, 1959
Wretched of the Earth. Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom. Wretched of the Earth Publ. Pelican. Retrieved 5th December 2012 from http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/national-culture.htm
Fanon, F. (1961). The Pitfalls of National Consciousness. The Wretched of the Earth. Retrieved 5th December 2012 from http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/pitfalls-national.htm.
Hofstadter, R. (1952). The Paranoid Style in American Politics and other Essays. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Luther, M.K. Jr. (1963, Aug). “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Birmingham, UK.
Malcolm X. (1964, Apr 12). “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Detroit, USA.
Malcolm, X. (1965). “Learning to Read.”
McAdam, (1999). Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 (ISBN: 0226555534)
Piven, F.F. and Cloward, R. (1978). Poor People’s Movements: Why they Succeed, How they Fail. Random House, Inc.
Stokely, C. (1966, Oct). “Black Power Address at UC Berkeley.” Berkeley, CA. Retrieved 5th December 2012 from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/stokelycarmichaelblackpower.html.
Wallerstein, I. (1976). The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. Pp. 229-233.
