Protesting
Evil
(Be The Peace)
by C.A. Matthews
The
greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own government. I
cannot be silent. —Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., April 4, 1967
It’s
time to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this week/month in
the US. What that really
means
to our
non-American
readers
is that we’ve decided to take a decent human being who spoke out
boldly and straightforwardly against our corrupt socio-economic system, our endless
wars for profit, and the bloodthirsty
quest for Western
world
domination, and instead turned him into a kindly, saint-like
person without teeth in order to make him totally acceptable to the
rich (that is, white)
and powerful elites who actually run this country.
(See last week’s blog Who’s
Really In Charge
to see what I mean about who are actually running things.
They’re probably running things in your country as well. Sorry.)
Let’s
listen to Dr. King’s own words rather
than the
words of others who might
want
to
“tone him down” so his
legacy
becomes
more
palatable
to the powerful
elites
who wanted King
dead (and possibly even pulled the trigger on him)
in
the first place.
First
off, Dr.
King didn’t approve of war in any way, shape, or form. Conventional
and nuclear warfare were both not to his liking, so I feel certain
that he
wouldn’t approve of our
current $858 billion military budget. He
wouldn’t have approved of the ridiculous
warmongering propaganda we’re all being subjected to day and night by corporation-owned journalists,
either. The
following excerpts are
what
MLK
said
then
and
would
say to us again
today.
From
Beyond Vietnam—A Time
To
Break Silence (April 4,
1967) https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
To
me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so
obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking
against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news
was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their
children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and
conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to
the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What
then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful
minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not
share with them my life?
Some
of you are shaking your heads at
this point.
Martin
Luther King Jr. didn’t hate the Communists and love his
country, right
or wrong, more
than he hated the
war in
Vietnam?
He didn’t patriotically rally the troops to go off to their deaths
so the military industrial complex could make more profits? It seems
not. MLK
also said in the same speech:
Beyond
the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship
and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply
concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast
children, I come tonight to speak for them… This I believe
to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves
bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than
nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and
positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless,
for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy,"
for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our
brothers.
I’m
going to step out on a limb here (because I’m fairly certain some
propagandist will try to link MLK to promoting the Ukraine War) and say that Dr.
King most certainly wouldn’t have approved of the US and NATO violating the Minsk Agreements and vilifying the Russian-speaking peoples of the
Donbass region and
their wish for independence.
He would have
been
supportive
of
a negotiated peace. His
words
say
it clearly:
Here
is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it
helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to
know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see
the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we
may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are
called the opposition. (...)
Somehow
this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God
and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose
land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose
culture is being subverted. I speak of the -- for the poor of America
who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death
and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the
world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. 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.
Dr.
King even ties together how war costs not only the country being
bombed and shelled, but it also
costs
the poor of the
country doing the bombing, in this case the US. Poor Americans were
being actively drafted into the military in
the 1960s and nowadays
are enticed into joining in order to provide for
themselves and their families. Sixty
years on, nothing
much has changed as many Americans are forced into becoming soldiers for purely economic reasons. For
the poor it’s either risk
death killing
strangers abroad
or
risk
death by starvation at
home.
MLK
didn’t believe either choice was a good or moral one.
Dr.
King also
states in
no uncertain terms that
the initiative to stop war is ours. It’s
ours—not another country’s choice. We can’t keep acting like
cowards. The
US can tell NATO that it’s time to halt the violence in Ukraine and
help all those concerned to sit down
at
the negotiation table and work toward a peace deal acceptable to all.
The
US can stop funding coups
d’etats
and CIA plots to overthrow governments who aren’t “friendly
enough” to our corporations and billionaire
businessmen.
In
other words, MLK
wouldn’t
have recognized the non-elected Juan Guaido or approved of the CIA's help to overthrow Peru’s Pedro Castillo. Dr.
King supported revolutionaries in search of peace and a better life for the oppressed:
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 has now justified the presence of U.S. military
advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our
investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American
forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used
against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green
Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.
Decades have passed and the same countries are still being used for ill by the US. Dr. King certainly
didn’t approve of cultural chauvinism and America’s “economic
hitmen”:
A
true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring
contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will
look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West
investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only
to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of
the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at
our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This
is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has
everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not
just.
All this being said, Dr.
King actually thought
more highly of Americans and what they could do than we think of
ourselves:
America,
the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the
way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic
death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the
pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There
is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with
bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
So, why
does the US celebrate a
man of peace each
January, a man who strongly spoke out against the immorality of war and poverty,
if we don’t believe in his
vision for America and the world?
Why would our so-called leaders
think Dr. King would support their
continuing covert and overt
conflicts
throughout the world simply for the sake of making arms
manufacturers, bankers, Big
Oil CEOs, and other related
parasites even wealthier?
MLK
thought Americans were much better than this, much more capable of
acting nobly rather than simply
acting like profit-chasing
narcissists:
The
world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to
achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the
beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental
to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which
we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to
atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the
initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.
Substitute "Ukraine" for "Vietnam" and re-read this paragraph.
Americans
really need to ask ourselves
some deep questions.
Either we truly believe and agree with what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said or we don’t.
If we do, we’ll stop all the horrible violence we perpetuate in the
world and defund our
military and our
militarized police forces forthwith. We’ll
dismantle our nuclear warheads and offer recompense to those we have
harmed, both at home and abroad.
If
we don’t believe in what Dr. King said, then we need to stop
sullying the shining memory of such a great man with this charade of
a national holiday. We don’t deserve him as a cultural icon. RIP
Martin.
Where
do you stand? Are you protesting the evil you
see in the world as
Dr. King instructed or are you cooperating with it? Let
MLK’s words touch your heart and motivate you toward
a positive direction.
We
still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent
coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find
new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the
developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not
act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful
corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without
compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. (…)
And
if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform
this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will
make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling
discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we
will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day,
all over America and all over the world, when "justice will roll
down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."
Which
side are you on? Which side should you be on? Move there. Today. Be the peace.
Related links:
The Forgotten Socialist History of Martin Luther King Jr. https://inthesetimes.com/article/martin-luther-king-jr-day-socialism-capitalism
The 11 Most Anti-Capitalist Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. https://scheerpost.com/2023/01/16/the-11-most-anti-capitalist-quotes-from-martin-luther-king-jr/
This MLK Day Remember The Government Took Out MLK (video)
* * *
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MLK Day and No Nukes Peace Demo
Sunday, January 15, 2023, Toledo, Ohio
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