Reclaiming King: Beyond 'I Have a Dream'

You'll often hear that the hippies kicked civil rights aside to make room for their anti-war marches. Mentioning the 1968 King puts this in perspective for those who want to demonize the anti-war movement and have us think the two are unrelated.

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1968 was the high water mark for America. In that year we lost MLK and RFK. war protesters were beaten in Chicago by hizzonner's (Richard J) thug police, and instead of a progressive victory the nation turned the keys over to Richard Nixon. It's essentially been downhill ever since.

Sure, momentum added a few victories to the tally, but America turned away from progress and embraced fear. Fear manifested in many ways, but most noticeably racism. It was also the birth of the southern strategy and the politics of division that still hold our nation hostage to this very day.

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I've lived in Savannah, Atlanta, Washington, DC and worked as an addictions counselor in all three cities. The levels of gang violence, poverty, ignorance, entitlement, anger are high and deep. I see no black American taking the lead of Dr. Martin Luther King and I see no white American following in the footsteps of Robert Kennedy. I see no pastor who preaches love and non-violence in this decade, and have seen no politician rally the masses against warmongers today. Obama, Clinton, et al pale against the stature of King or Kennedy.

I fear for the black communities with the dramatic lack of eduction. I fear for the white communities who follow such men as Bush and Cheney. I fear for this nation that we have not gone forward but backward into an era worse than that of McCarthy and Hoover, neither of whom had an ethical leg to stand on.

We live in fearful times with no leader, and our own Constitution being dismembered steadily by a political machine rather than a politic of humanity.

A people without a vision is a people who is dead. The vision of this people in our country is that of lies, deception, commercialism, and unconcionable methods of getting ahead! Every child is being left behind!

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For a particular perspective on Martin Luther King, not entirely flattering but ultimately positive in the appraisal of King's direction at the end of his life, see the late nonviolent activist David Dellinger's "From Yale To Jail: The Story of a Moral Dissenter."

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MLK spoke about three evils - racism, materialism, and militarism. Americans know he was opposed to racism. I wonder how many know about his opposition to militarism and materialism?

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Where would we be?
If King was alive today?
Why did they kill him?
And send us spiraling into this horrible altered reality?
For GREED!
All our Heroes have been martyred!
Victims of coincidence and circumstance
I am part of the lost generation
Trying to give the system,
One last chance
We are still picking up the pieces of
Our shattered Dreams
With a Chimp stabbing us in the back
How many martyrs do you need?
To realize the fact:
Something is terribly wrong.
The Monster is out of control.
It is consuming the best and brightest amongst us!
While leaving us with
The dregs of society.
The Chimp and Dead Eye!
Bonzo and the Organ Grinder!
Singing the old sing song.
All for me! and
None for you!
Yes they stole all the media
Scattered our hopes and dreams
On the sands of Iraq!
Replacing them with fantasy
An altered reality.
Where they torture, terrorize, spy on, lie to and rob us while
Preaching.
Spewing the Corpirate Gospel.
The anti-Christ has spoken.
Invoking the name of God.
There is nothing Christ like about him.
It is all a false front.
How about,
Thou shall not kill, lie or
Bare false witness and what about
Love thy neighbor?
Worship who you like,
I still have The DREAM!
When giants walked this Earth!
Peace!

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Dr. King was a great man who was key to raising my consciousness about what was really going on in Amerika after my waking up in the 60's. Then, Prince Malcolm X raised it all up to a higher level. The People's War goes on and we should fight it with honor, dignity and grace without surrending to any fascist dictatorship nor our right to self-defense in the face of unjust attacks! ~Peta-de-Aztlan, Sacramento, California

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"He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again."

Where are Martin Luther King's like when we need them?

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In the '60's two black men in America; one a Christian and one a Muslim shared a similar dream with different philosophies and means to achieve them.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. had "a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed... that all men are created equal."

Malcolm X's radical creed was, "Anything you can think of that you want to change right now, the only way you can do it is with a ballot or a bullet. And if you're not ready to get involved with either one of those, you are satisfied with the status quo. That means we'll have to change you."

Both men dreamed of a world freed from the bondage of prejudice and racism, a world in which their children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. While King consistently advocated for a brotherhood of all peoples and persisted in only nonviolent actions to achieve it; not until after a pilgrimage to Mecca, did X evolve in his spirituality and thus reject his separatist beliefs and begin to advocate for unity and a world wide brotherhood.

Both can be said to have fully understood that there are "truths that are self-evident: That all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights;…[and] that, to secure [those] rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it."- The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776,

Both men engaged in the struggle to wake up good people whose ears were not ready to hear, whose eyes were not ready to see and whose hearts were not yet pierced to bleed for the least and oppressed of humanity. Both men met were shot dead before either could see any of their dreams realized.

A few weeks before Rev. King bled to death on a patch of pavement in Memphis, he said: "Peace for Israel means security, and we stand with all our might to protect its right to exist…I see Israel as one of the greatest outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy."

King died ten months after the 40 years of Israel's Military occupation of Palestine began.

On May 14, 1948, The Declaration of the establishment of Israel proclaimed: "On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations."

The Hebrew prophet Amos prayed:

"Let JUSTICE roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream."

I contend that if King and X had lived, they would have followed the call of Amos and would be at the front of the line in next Saturday's convoy to Gaza that begins in Tel Aviv.

I believe this because it has been said that the Palestinians have become the 'N's' of the world, while in the '70's it was women:

"We insult her every day on TV
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she's young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb"
-John Lennon, "Woman is the "N" of the World"


The Rest WAWA Blog Jan. 21, 2008

http://www.wearewideawake.org/

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I just want to say a hearty "Amen" to this. I was about to post on my blog that we need to have a moratorium on Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech as the only remembrance we have of this man--he was much more than that one speech, but this writer put it much more eloquently than I probably ever would have. I'm hoping to post a link to this aricle on my blog instead. So again, I say "Amen", and thank you.

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Corporate media blocks public knowledge of the fury of King’s outcry over U.S. wars of occupation and the powerful indictment of his government in his Beyond Vietnam speech, that made bold print headlines in newspapers around the world.

Commercial entertainment/news deletes from history King’s fiery condemnation of U.S. inhumanity and during his birthday celebration will again seek to lovingly project King's head as covered with an imagined symbolic handkerchief of submission to the worldwide rule of U.S. corporate governance through war.

Candidates will compete to fawningly praise King’s fight for equality in America in order to prove their laudable stand on civil rights, and to show that corporate America embraces a deceased King as one of its own. A candidate like Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whose views mirror King’s is no longer allowed to continue to participate in the debates.

King's angry denouncing a murderous foreign policy, detailing criminal military action against civilians and U.S. grossly unfair trade policies toward former colonized nations would not be acceptable topics in an election process TV programmed by conglomerate owned major channels.

During the past year OpEdNews has highlighted ten Jay Janson articles which review King’s, now media buried, thundering imperialist war condemnations in context with current events Rev. King was not permitted to live to speak about:

Corporate TV Keeps King "in his place"! Buries King's Fiery Condemnation of US Wars

King thundered eloquently against U.S. genocidal imperialist wars, international predatory capitalism, factually denounced CIA overseas crimes, the cruel indifference and blind immorality of America. Corporate media blocks public knowledge of the fury of King's outcry over U.S. wars of occupation and the powerful and vehement anti war pronouncements from his Beyond Vietnam speech, that made bold headlines news around the world

Dr. King Jr. 79 Today, Would Have Been a Serious Candidate

King was assassinated as a young man. Think how many elections King might have been a candidate in. Barack Obama, as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm and Moseley Braun before him, will not be quoting King's condemnation of a murderous U.S. foreign policy, of imperialism and international predatory capitalism would not be acceptable in an election process TV programmed by conglomerate owned media.

King's Anguish versus Our Apathy Then and Now

King's "Beyond Vietnam", if widely known, would be
enough to make network entertainment/news current promotion of both Vietnam and Iraq military ventures as glorious look ridiculous at
best or dastardly otherwise. King spoke firstly to the foreign lives
so wantonly taken in the destruction of their homelands.

MLK Jr. & Acceptable Killing of Children by Air Strkes in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Somalia

Amoral America approves sending terror under the American flag! MLK Jr said, "Every man of humane convictions must protest." Just quote King! We need his moral leadership.

King Re U.S. Bilking 1/2 Humanity living on $2 a Day

A Letter to MLK Jr. re the Same Media War Promotion He Fought. We are finally filing complaints with the FCC in your name

The Silence of Clergy Today versus Rev. King's "Silence is Betrayal!"

Congressional Black Caucus and Progressive Caucus do not
repeat MLK's condemnation of U.S. war policies on the floor of
Congress. Dems, Bush, Fear Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.' Words! Shake 'em Up!

A Memphis court found that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was
assassinated by a conspiracy that included agencies of his own
government. Read UN Ambassador Andrew Young testimony.

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I just recently heard a King speech from his later years that indicted Vietnam for the classist and racist war that it was--the empire building and the profiteering that was its purpose. While listening, I couldn't help but replace Iraq with Vietnam and the speech could be about today. I don't know which speech it came from, but it blew me away. If anybody knows, please let me know.

Aside from that--once Dr. King turned his eyes north and to the problems of the city, he became a liability. Malcolm X had for a long time chastised Dr. King because he knew that the tactics used in the overtly racist South wouldn't transfer to the more subtle and classist/racist North. Dr. King was beginning to realize this, and the newly toned down X, who was more receptive to King's message, were going to start working together. However, Malcolm X was assassinated before that could happen. The FBI was also keenly aware that Dr. King's message of peace, while having resonance with whites, would not carry over to poor blacks of the inner city. They also knew that a small shift in his thinking would bring about riots and more in the inner city. With Dr. King behind them, who would stop the movement? Not only that, but King was addressing issues of class (as was Malcolm X in his later years) and working with poor whites and blacks in Chicago specifically. I thank Rage Against the Machine for using the FBI's own words against them:
"'He may be a real contender for this position [replacing X as a leader of urban blacks] should he abandon his supposed obediance to white liberal doctrine of non-violence...and embrace black nationalism'"
Dr. King was on this verge and so was eliminated. Anyone who wants to read more about this, check out "We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century" by Roderick Bush. It is time for a change!

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No Idea or dream of uniting all people of color cannot be realized unless there is a example that people can learn from. The community that Dr king represented (the black community) was and still is dis-uniified and could not have been that example. The ideas of Dr King and the Civil Rights movement did plenty to help jumpstart the belief of uniting all people of color but failed to clean up or unite their own people in reality.

The only dream black people should focus on is uniting with themselves instead trying to fit in with other people who may not share this dream or idea.

The vast majority of the different cultures that make up this countries diverse population do not (in general) believe in this dream the same way Dr King did. Most people (White, Asian, Latino, Indian and Middle Eastern) do not practice integration in the same sense that blacks do. The following is due to the fact that blacks do not care for self but for others and will neglect their own progress in the name of some fantasy of holding hands with white people.

The achievements of the Civil Rights movement led by Dr King helped blacks gain access to the economy but failed to use it as a tool to in power themselves the way other people have done.

Sooner or later we will all have to accept that it isn't meant for all people to live together up under each other. The history of people will not bare evidence that the dream of Dr King is remotely possible not even under religion. If separation will bring peace to the world, then maybe we should explore it

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Interesting and eloquent piece - read King's book Where Do We Go From Here for a good summary of the later MLK views. In the Alternet context, I think it's worth noting something that the author deftly sidesteps. Both Malcolm X and MLK believed in God, and two different books of scripture informed and inspired their work for change. The left really can't claim MLK as a hero, or claim to celebrate the civil rights movement as an important victory, and then throw around rhetoric like "religion is a neurological disorder, " or make sweeping claims of religion's uniquely evil role in history and social life.

I'll be waiting for one of the usual Harris or Dawkins fans to explain how MLK was a deluded, hateful sociopath, who wanted to kill gays and establish a military theocracy, while Christopher Hitchens is a national hero (see Hitchens' relentless support of neocon fantasies about the Middle East), and Sam Harris is an enlightened progressive (see Harris' support of torture and bombing).
On the assumption that this is not possible: LOGIC, not faith, requires that you stop making generalizations about people who believe in God, and the corollary generalizations about the wonderful advanced perspective of people who don't.

What's so sad about this is not that people of faith are routinely insulted and dismissed here: they can take it, even if a few take the bait and throw around stupid rhetoric of their own. No, the sad part is that the knee-jerk bigotry against church-goers is splitting the left, just as the GOP has hoped it would since the 70's.

Also troubling is the sheer lack of perspective and information evidenced by so many here whenever the topic comes up. The simple fact is that most churches, synagogues, mosques and temples in the US (unlike so many religious institutions elsewhere in the world), are quiet, boring places where very little happens. When something IS happening, it generally falls into one of two categories: vague "self-help" and mutual support in crisis; or small local mercy and justice efforts, for example in Charlottesville VA there is IMPACT, an interfaith (including humanists) coalition that advocates - with some success - for affordable housing and public transportation.

The few loudmouth, empire-building players on the national scene have somehow convinced people like Chris Hedges that they are taking over the world. It just ain't so. Which ought to be good news, unless you're addicted to having someone to fear and hate... hmmmm.... sounds like a critique I've heard before.

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Dear Adam Howard . . .

Oh my; I love you, your mind, your heart, and your soul.

I have been enmeshed in a discussion for months. Others try to convince me to accept what is, to vote for the presumed "electables." I am not willing to cast my ballot for other than the principles of peace, love, and equality. These qualities are my mentors.

I marked the election tally, and did not choose one of the presumed "winners." Growth is my vision and my mission. For me, reciprocal reverence must rule if we are to ever be free.

I cried through my read of your treatise. I passed it on to many. I read it aloud to my best friend. The tears flowed again.

I inquire; what do we mean when we say, only an authority figure, a President, or "the wo/man" can do the job?

When Americans are told that hope, and their actions, are not enough to create change, are they not commanded to follow the lead of the overseer?

Might we all be enslaved were it not for the courage of Martin Luther King Junior, who showed us, there is reason to dream, and our deeds are of infinite value? We, the people do make a difference!

I invite you to read and reflect . . .
Clinton and Obama Call For Truce; Racism Battles On
http://bethink.org/showDiary.do?diaryId=755

Might we muse; this recent truce allows us to again, avoid the necessary discussion. Racism is rampant.

Hugs and kisses on your sweet being. . . .
Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org

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Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond VietNam" speech, free MP3

Worth downloading and sharing. You can hear the resignation in his voice- he knew that he would be raked over the coals for coming out against the war. "Moderates" weren't as threatened by non-violent action as they were by challenges to broad policy choices, and the standard line after this speech was "now he's gone too far."

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What's not to love?

During the 1980s, archivists associated with The Martin Luther King Papers Project uncovered evidence that the dissertation King prepared for his Ph.D. in theology from Boston University, "A Comparison of the Conception of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman," was plagiarized, and the story broke in the national media in 1990. King included in his dissertation a good deal of material taken verbatim from a variety of other sources without proper attribution (or any attribution at all), an act which constitutes plagiarism by any reasonable academic standard.

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This is what we have been told for more than 30 years now. It's odd the way it still has to be repeated so many years after King's death.

He wasn't all just "I have a dream." He made many many hundreds of speeches that should be played year-round, not just on this holiday. There is still much to be learned from the example he set and we've been told this all along.

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From King's "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech: "You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot keep the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery."

Like Dr. King, we each have knowledge of too many outrageous facts of how the centralized system of corporate government has hurt us and others over the past decades. Yet we have learned but a wee portion of the thousands of malevolent actions that have been taken against us, over many decades, that has created a playing field rigged against our liberty. If these were mere accidents, why hasn't there been a preponderance of good results with an occasional bad one instead of just the reverse? Don't pray for a savior or wait for an "expert" to design a "centralized solution" to dissipate the accumulated ills. Historically, what you will receive won't be in your best interest. Have you seen enough to know that we must take a stand to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and future generations? Are you ready to take the lead in helping your communities organize and act?

The media (including mainstream "alternative" media like AlterNet) presents mesmerizing staged theater to entertain us and distract us from noticing the slave masters and their proxies. Our reality is that most of us are being kept as slaves in a matrix of control; and we are acting in ways that maintain this system of enslavement. Our voices are ignored by the powerful, and our true needs are overlooked. And as slaves, we are being dominated and imprisoned or threatened with imprisonment when we are bad producers or bad consumers. We are being sickened by limited access to pure air, uncontaminated water, nutritious foods, vital dietary supplementation, honest health information and health cures--not just treatment. And when our usefulness is over, we will be left to die or be killed. The lack of caring that we experience and too often fail to offer to others is not accidental--our indoctrination has been intentionally planned and executed by the slave masters.

If you're tired of being enslaved and seeing others threatened with more enslavement, join us in Slaves Anonymous to start making grassroots changes that will improve the security of you and your family. You and your neighbors have the autonomy, creativity, diversity, passion and transcendence to become self-owners and create the conditions necessary for emancipation of your local community from the global tyranny of slavery or serfdom or corporatism or government or fascism or empire or debt-based money or psychopathy or whatever-you-want-to-call-it. You can create ways that lead to less bondage and more humane treatment for yourselves and your neighbors.

Solutions for the common person have been and forever will be grassroots ones that emerge organically from you and your communities. Let's work together: You stop it in your community; I'll stop it in mine. Please don't let Dr. King's legacy be for naught.

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Noontime, out in front of Penn Station, between 31st and 32nd Streets at Seventh Avenue, police cardonned off demonstrators into a narrow gated pen. Placards read "Justice for Jena 6", "No person is illegal", "Free Mumia", as well as signs in Arabic. A speaker spoke about how for six nights a week, CNN broadcasts Lou Dobbs and his racist propaganda. The speaker spoke about economic justice and labor rights, which, though people today seem unaware, MLK championed.

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The reason you only hear about the "I Have a Dream" speech is because it has been pigeonholed as a "safe" media piece to give perfunctory acknowledgement of Martin.

The corporate owners of our "news" media can only devote so much time to ancient history and the speech is of the appropriate length.

The non-corporate media is stretched so thin covering all the BS promulgated by the corporations, in the corporate pursuit of ever greater corporate profits, that the non-corporate media don't have the resources to cover ANY subject with consistency and depth over a long period of time.

There is a third way (and probably more).
News consumers should use the web to create subscription sites that would hire a reporter to investigate a single issue full time. Raise $100,000 to hire a reporter with qualifications in the subject you're interested in, and let him only report for you and to you, in intimate detail and depth, on the subject you've collectively banded together to stay informed about.
Call it micro-reporting, or personal reporting or whatever catchy phrase strikes your fancy.

As long as you rely on what passes for news from the corporate outlets, your intellectual dinner will be a thin gruel indeed.

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