The Reality
Friday, November 18, 2005
Dems Should Run on MLK
Every MLK day America sees a clip of the "I Have A Dream Speech" with a bumper of vapid commentary about his leadership in the struggle for Civil Rights and against racism. There might be mention that the struggle (to end racism) goes on.
[Nevermind that the march on Washington for civil rights was organized by a gay African-American named Bayard Rustin whose civil rights as a homosexual still aren't recognized in 2005.]
However, the last four years of his life and work are being ignored.
King is being sanitized into a smoothed off, mellowed out respectable national hero whose comfortable, present-day image bears little resemblance to the human King or to the political King of 1965-1968.
What was Dr. King fighting for the last four years of his life? After he won the Nobel Peace Prize? What got him killed in Memphis?
The 1965 - 1968 King was a new-styled political leader who called on America to achieve the kind of deep reform that would transform ours into a genuinely just nation. This was Dr. King, the liberal. This is the torch the Democratic Party must take up again, give King credit for, and then run with.
This is the Dr. King who believed that there is no excuse for poverty in this country.
This is the Dr. King who believed that poverty is violence.
This is the Dr. King who was prepared to risk everything for the larger goal of a world transformed by the genuine peace that silences not only the guns of violence, but also the words of violence and the shouts of hatred and the whimpering tears of fear and pain and violation.
This is the Dr. King whose life bears relevance and truth across the years demanding that we take up the cause.
This is the Dr. King who raged against the Vietnam War shouting "every bomb dropped on Vietnam explodes in American inner cities."
After he won the Nobel, he began to understand that the racism he been struggling against since 1955 is not the real evil. The problem is violence, and it is on this evil that he began to focus his attention.
He began increasingly to see this deeper violence, this deeper evil in the United States, was expressed in the Vietnam War and in the poverty that is endemic in our nation.
By 1967 he had begun to focus his attention more and more on the Vietnam War and on poverty. He saw that both are expressions of violence, of the violation of one people by another. And he saw that the essence of racism is also violence. Militarism and racism are woven together with the notion that it is acceptable for one people to treat another inhumanely.
That racism and war breed in this hatred and violence is, perhaps reasonably obvious, but it may not be quite so clear how poverty is also a form of violence.
When the economic system is focused on wealth and power, it is no longer focused on the people. That shift in focus permits people to be treated as tools, to become raw material for the production of wealth. Their value is seen as part of the cost of doing business.
When the point of economic activity moves from the betterment of the people to the accumulation of wealth and power, then the obvious thing to do is to reduce this cost of doing business to an absolute minimum. One becomes more concerned with cost than with the impact of economic activity on the people. The inevitable result is poverty.
Dr, King said in a speech at Riverside Church, "We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'people-oriented' society." He stated one cannot be people-oriented and tolerate poverty. This was the core of his opposition to the Vietnam War and of his campaign against poverty, both of which were the center of his activity between the 1964 and his death. This wisdom has the power to make us very uncomfortable. Good. We should be uncomfortable.
Democrats must be the party of the people, thereby forcing Republicans to be the party of corporations. Democrats have been the party fighting for freedom, Democrats have been the party to tackle poverty and failed foreign adventures. Keep fighting King's war. ¶ 10:36 PM
[Nevermind that the march on Washington for civil rights was organized by a gay African-American named Bayard Rustin whose civil rights as a homosexual still aren't recognized in 2005.]
However, the last four years of his life and work are being ignored.
King is being sanitized into a smoothed off, mellowed out respectable national hero whose comfortable, present-day image bears little resemblance to the human King or to the political King of 1965-1968.
What was Dr. King fighting for the last four years of his life? After he won the Nobel Peace Prize? What got him killed in Memphis?
The 1965 - 1968 King was a new-styled political leader who called on America to achieve the kind of deep reform that would transform ours into a genuinely just nation. This was Dr. King, the liberal. This is the torch the Democratic Party must take up again, give King credit for, and then run with.
This is the Dr. King who believed that there is no excuse for poverty in this country.
This is the Dr. King who believed that poverty is violence.
This is the Dr. King who was prepared to risk everything for the larger goal of a world transformed by the genuine peace that silences not only the guns of violence, but also the words of violence and the shouts of hatred and the whimpering tears of fear and pain and violation.
This is the Dr. King whose life bears relevance and truth across the years demanding that we take up the cause.
This is the Dr. King who raged against the Vietnam War shouting "every bomb dropped on Vietnam explodes in American inner cities."
After he won the Nobel, he began to understand that the racism he been struggling against since 1955 is not the real evil. The problem is violence, and it is on this evil that he began to focus his attention.
He began increasingly to see this deeper violence, this deeper evil in the United States, was expressed in the Vietnam War and in the poverty that is endemic in our nation.
By 1967 he had begun to focus his attention more and more on the Vietnam War and on poverty. He saw that both are expressions of violence, of the violation of one people by another. And he saw that the essence of racism is also violence. Militarism and racism are woven together with the notion that it is acceptable for one people to treat another inhumanely.
That racism and war breed in this hatred and violence is, perhaps reasonably obvious, but it may not be quite so clear how poverty is also a form of violence.
When the economic system is focused on wealth and power, it is no longer focused on the people. That shift in focus permits people to be treated as tools, to become raw material for the production of wealth. Their value is seen as part of the cost of doing business.
When the point of economic activity moves from the betterment of the people to the accumulation of wealth and power, then the obvious thing to do is to reduce this cost of doing business to an absolute minimum. One becomes more concerned with cost than with the impact of economic activity on the people. The inevitable result is poverty.
Dr, King said in a speech at Riverside Church, "We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'people-oriented' society." He stated one cannot be people-oriented and tolerate poverty. This was the core of his opposition to the Vietnam War and of his campaign against poverty, both of which were the center of his activity between the 1964 and his death. This wisdom has the power to make us very uncomfortable. Good. We should be uncomfortable.
Democrats must be the party of the people, thereby forcing Republicans to be the party of corporations. Democrats have been the party fighting for freedom, Democrats have been the party to tackle poverty and failed foreign adventures. Keep fighting King's war. ¶ 10:36 PM
