....LMB: "MLK Day"....

January 20, 2003

I played three different speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. on my radio show today. Turned on my car stereo as I drove home, tuned to KPFK and heard part of a fourth speech. I suppose its a good way to commemorate King, immersing myself in his words.

[I plan to upload the speeches to the Kill Radio archive later this week]

Shortly after 9/11, I was quite depressed thinking that the vast majority of Americans at that time had their values pointed in the exact opposite direction of King's (and now, some folks argue that King would be considered a domestic terrorist).

I played his "Drum Major Instinct" sermon and his "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam speech (and in the drive home, I heard his "Beyond Vietnam" speech). They are both excellent, and I highly recommend reading (or listening to) them both.

Both give testament to King's deep committment to his fellow man, and to the compassion and love espoused by Jesus. But his Vietnam speech is much more interesting.

King is well-known for his civil rights stances, but the Vietnam speech shows that King has broadened his perspective. He talks about the triple threats of racism, militarism and economic exploitation," all very reasonable targets for a man dedicated to freedom and justice for all.

I am most moved by his simple logic for opposing the Vietnam war, a logic that would ensure his opposition to all war.

Having focused his efforts on helping the poor, King says that he can't support the war because it takes money away from funds that could aid the poor. Then he opposes the war because it will send large numbers of poor people to the frontlines to die. And finally, he makes his decision based upon his committment to non-violence as the highest form of conflict resolution:

"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."

Perhaps that's what I most admire about Martin Luther King. He held fast to a series of moral principles, and followed them to their true and extreme conclusion.

And I'll conclude with a passage from "Beyond Vietnam" that shows just how radical (yet eminently reasonable) King's positions had taken by the end of his life. I urge you to read the remaining paragraphs and think on them, and how they may be relevant today:

"The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

"In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military 'advisors' in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.'

"Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered ...

"This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove thosse conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops."