Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence

by SixofNine 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  SixofNine

  Yesterday being MLK's Birthday, we probably all heard snippets of his deservedly famous "I have a dream" speech, on the news, or at news websites. I had never taken the time to read or listen to it all, so when I found the text along with a You Tube of him speaking, I blogged it.
  
  But I came across this one today, and it made me think; this is the MLK speech that an America stuck in Iraq needs to hear the most. A year after giving it (ok.. wow, I just went to look after writing that, and it turns out that it was exactly a year to the day. I think I need my tinfoil hat now) King was silenced by an assassin's bullet. I don't think most of us even know that King got involved in the anti-war movement. Here's an excerpt of a portion of his reasons for getting involved (I've embedded a link to the full text and audio below):
  
  

  Quote:

  http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
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  SixofNine
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  tetrapod.sapien

  WHOA. that was a wicked quote man. thanks, seriously. i had never heard it.

  tetra
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  hemp lover

  This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:

  Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism (unquote).

  Wow.

  I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

  Amen.
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  SixofNine

  You're welcome! :)

  You will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the struggle to come. You will choose whether we are known for revenge or compassion. You will choose whether we, too, will kill in the name of God, or whether in His name, we can find a higher civilization and a better means of settling our differences." - Wes Clark (Seton Hall Graduation Speech, May 13, 2002)
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  SixofNine

  And what the heck, while we're at it, a little poetry is good for the soul:

  http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/a_soldiers_poe...
  
  ******************************
  
  I'm in the Marine Corps. I just returned home from seven months in Anbar Province. I'm deploying again in April. There's a girl I want to marry, but I can't. Out of 18 months, I will have spent a mere 6 at home. I can't marry her, because I'm never here. She'll probably leave me because of this surge, and it's not her fault.
  
  I'm not unique. What I mean to say is this - the nation at large has no idea what we're going through. I go surfing in the mornings, and I see all these teenagers with shrapnel scars and grim faces. We're all damaged.
  
  So I wrote a poem this morning. Because I'm angry and I want it to be real to people who argue about it but have no idea what it's all about. Read this. Does it make sense to you? Do you understand?
  
  Fucker
  
  They heard it twice; bombs do that when they crack
  across the dunes, a groan chasing a clap
  In the desert, where blue eyed boys in armor
  listen, pink faced, to the wind and know
  It's the sound of someone dying when they
  see the truck all mangled on the roadside
  The thin man all blown to pieces inside
  and, for a heartbeat, feel, because maybe
  He was just an old man, driving home but
  they see the next bomb with him meant for some
  Pot-hole, dead goat, trash pile, old car, young man -
  deadly, they know, like their dead friends, and now
  They don't shrink from saying to him, "Fucker,"
  they say, "The first rule is, fucker, be sure
  Where you put the last one, fucker." Laughing
  without pity for him who is scattered
  Bloody around the boys who die now too
  because they aren't repulsed by the sight of
  This thing, anymore, that they'll take home, thinking
  of the day when they scolded a corpse
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  choosing life

  War never solves anything. The myth is that the violence starts with the little man. It never does. It starts with the ones who hold the power. It has unfortunately become unpatriotic to detest war.

  Six of Nine-I am sorry you must return to Iraq. And I know I don't understand what you have seen and lived. I hope you get back safely and can actually get married. Maybe she will wait for you.

  All good quotes-make you think. Funny, not believing in going to war was one of the things that attacted me to the dubs. But then they turn around and use their own power trip on you.
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  tetrapod.sapien

  yes! i always liked wes clark! the states has turned out some great generals, actually. i also think of eisenhower, and that speach he gave to the american public at the end of his term. where did i see that recently? oh yes! "why we fight".

  tetra
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  UnConfused

  Nice thread. Some people have such strong convictions and are not only right, but ahead of the curve. MLK was all that and a bag of chips - too bad the world doesn't have him now.
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  SixofNine

  i also think of eisenhower, and that speach he gave to the american public at the end of his term. where did i see that recently? oh yes! "why we fight".

  Check this out, tetra:

  What Wes Clark said about the MIC - Military Industrial Complex
  Radio Interview with Laura Knoy:
  http://www.nhpr.org/...

  I think General Eisenhower was exactly right. I think we should be concerned about the military industrial complex. I think if you look at where the country is today, you've consolidated all these defense firms into a few large firms, like Halliburton, with contacts and contracts at the highest level of government. You've got most of the retired Generals, are one way or another, associated with the defense firms. That's the reason that you'll find very few of them speaking out in any public way. I'm not. When I got out I determined I wasn't going to sell arms, I was going to do as little as possible with the Defense Department, because I just figured it was time to make a new start.

  But I think that the military industrial complex does wield a lot of influence. I'd like to see us create a different complex, and I'm going to be talking about foreign policy in a major speech tomorrow, but we need to create an agency that is not about waging war, but about creating the conditions for Peace around the world. We need some people who will be advocates for Peace, advocates for economic development not just advocates for better weapons systems. So we need to create countervailing power to the military industrial complex.

  ________________________________________________________________________________

  Clark: Don't spare Pentagon
  http://www.cnn.com/...

  "We're faced with a very serious deficit problem. .... We need to put all the government spending programs on the table, including the military programs."