Ok.... so it has no relevance with MLK's letter then? You agree fully with his methods and contentions in the letter, like the below? I don't have any idea what you're trying to say, you'll have to use more of your words.
I had to go and pull out my copy of Blight's book on Douglass, because it had been a while but I remembered that section of the book differently.
The whole passage is expressing a sentiment very different from the one that 'Grunge' article is representing - without transcribing that whole section i'll just quote the last little bit that summarizes his summer leading up to the election:
The comparison is not quite as clear as I think you'd like, since Douglass's tentative 'support' of Lincoln was motivated by a desire to bring the north and south closer to outright conflict, not as a way of picking a lesser evil or mitigating harm. I'd say Douglass's sentiment is more in-line with current-day pro-palestinian activists, who acknowledge the political calculus of a moderately-favorable party against an outright hostile one, but who publicly oppose voting for them themselves. He'd be in that same 'protest-vote' pool that most people here keep complaining about. I'm actually lightly amused by this apparent reversal, since today it's more common to find people who say 'i will vote for democrats' but then actively campaign against them, but again I think the comparison is strained.
Either way, trying to argue that Douglass 'worked for Lincoln' is still incredibly misleading at best, and clearly a liberal self-centeredness that he (and most other black civil rights activists in our history) actively loathed and berated:
Americans, Douglass believed, instinctively and culturally watched history and preferred not to act in it. Douglass summed up his bitter complaint as “this terrible paradox of passing history” rooted in a distinctively American selfishness. “Whoever levies a tax upon our Bohea or Young Hyson [two forms of Chinese tea], will find the whole land blazing with patriotism and bristling with bayonets.” If some foreign power tried to “impress a few Yankee sailors,” Americans would go “fight like heroes.” Douglass fashioned a withering chastisement of American self-centeredness that would match any modern complaint about the culture’s hyperindividualism. “Millions of a foreign race may be stolen from their homes, and reduced to hopeless and inhuman bondage among us,” he complained, “and we either approve the deed, or protest as gently as ‘sucking doves.’ ” His “wickedly selfish” Americans loved to celebrate their “own heritage, and on this condition are content to see others crushed in our midst.” They lived by the “philosophy of Cain,” ready with their bluntly evil answer to the famous question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Douglass’s use of the Cain and Abel parable is all the more telling if we remember that, unlike the more sentimental ways the “brother’s keeper” language is often employed today, Cain had just killed his brother, and to God’s query as to Abel’s fate, Cain replies in effect, why should I care? Douglass wanted the indifferent Americans, with blood on their hands as well, to read on further in Genesis and know Cain’s fate as “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.”
Doubtless he wouldn't have seen as much in the way of redeeming qualities in Biden or Harris, since far from Lincoln's willingness to engage the south (for the wrong reasons in Douglass's mind), Biden repeatedly cowered away from confronting Israel's antagonism and actively sheltered them from consequence. But then again I think neither of us can do more than speculate as to what he'd think of us more than 170 years later.
Check my edit. He campaigned for him after his first term (through which he actively opposed him), and only really saw him as an ally after the first 3 years through the civil war (and after Lincoln's own perspective had shifted).
Edit: keep in mind that Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation January 1st of 63, before Douglass had any interest in campaigning for him. He had literally already abolished slavery before Douglass threw his hat in for him
..... You have that backwards. Edit: it's possible that you're referring to Lincoln's campaign for reelection, but that was still 4 years after the start of the civil war.
If you're actively curious and not just using this selectively to support your own stances on current events, here's a pretty good resource that describes the bigger picture of their relationship
Douglass opposed Lincoln both when he was a candidate and through most of the beginning of his term as president. Lincoln was, at first, a supporter of the American Colonization plan - which was a belief of some white abolitionists that blacks and whites could not live peacefully with each other, so they sought to emigrate the freed slaves to colonies in Africa. Douglass was justified in detesting that plan and condemning Lincoln's support of it. Douglass went as far as to say of Lincoln's presidency that he "has resolved that no good shall come to the Negro from this war."
I think there's ample reason to think that Lincoln's shift in perspective by the end of the civil war was a direct result of Douglass's influence, but by no measure does anyone on 'the left' think of Douglass as a traitor to his morals. He was a patriot who fought tooth-and-nail for what was right, even in the face of compromise presented as 'progress'.
Douglas spent the majority of Lincoln's presidency mercilessly and publicly attacking him - claiming he was 'working for him' is not only fairly disingenuous but an extremely odd way to characterize their relationship
Idk what your point is with LfB but that letter absolutely slaps.
I don't use it regularly enough to weigh in comprehensively- I use it mostly for processing svg drawings created in other programs for cnc plotting, or for compiling svg drawings onto standardized layouts for sending to a printer
My only complaint with inkscape is that it's a bit slow with rendering complex shapes/canvases with many points, but otherwise it does everything I need from a vector program.
It's a tool that helps 'trace' a raster image into vector shapes and paths
it's useful for creating vector artwork from raster images - sometimes a logo or icon is only available in a poor resolution raster image, and so having an easy way to convert it into vector saves a ton of time.
I used it yesterday to create an SVG file for CNC plotting of a company logo. It would have taken me a few hours to hand-trace it myself
They'd rather deflate the popular anti-wealth momentum within their own party just so they can deflect attention away from inequality, and thats why they'll continue losing. You and I know that, but people like the above will continue placing blame on voters who are increasingly frustrated instead.
That's how libs end up collaborating with fascism - they're too invested in the existing and failing capital structure
2024 was the second highest turnout of any election on record. This isn't the fault of non voters.
Democrats should have been begging voters to turn out, offering to give them anything they wanted to avoid Trump. Instead they actively refused the one thing voters were demanding while using trump almost like a threat
I'm so tired of this 'democrats can't fail, only be failed' apologia from liberals. As things continue getting worse it will only become harder for democrats to win anything, especially if they continue refusing what voters are asking for while blaming them for the fascism dems are collaborating with.
Better get your boots laced because sitting on your ass and whining about non-voters won't protect you, we're all in this shit now because democrats couldn't get themselves to challenge Israel's genocide
Ok.... so it has no relevance with MLK's letter then? You agree fully with his methods and contentions in the letter, like the below? I don't have any idea what you're trying to say, you'll have to use more of your words.