"Yes, woes to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders-hypocrites! For you build monuments to the prophets killed by your fathers and lay flowers on the graves of the godly men they destroyed, and say, 'We certainly would never have acted as our fathers did.'"
"I will send you prophets, and wise men, and inspired writers, and you will kill some by crucifixion, and rip open the backs of others with whips . . ."
Just like Jesus everybody wants to use Dr. King to suit their purpose. Just like Jesus Dr. King was perfectly capable of speaking his own mind without need of theologians, pundits and preachers putting forth the party line.
So just let me put forth some of Dr. King's words on the table. You decide how we are doing. Indeed, ask yourself, how much of this would Dr. King be able to say today without being attacked from both the right and left.
"I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
"The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government."
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
"We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence."
"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair."
"It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
"With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together . . ."
"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."
B. 1952, GA, USA. D. To Be Determined. Beloved husband, father, grandfather, lover, confidant and friend of many from bikers to Zen masters; American writer and speaker, known for his criticism of Mammon's unholy trinity of big business, big government and big religion; served the least of them professionally as psychologist and voluntarily as activist for decades; loved to shoot basketball, billiards and the bull; lived free, died game. (memorial sketch by davidhewsonart.com)
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness, in a descending spiral of destruction." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Whether evil masquerades as good in the public eye, or whether evil is cowardly and sneaky in its murderous ways, it has been and still is very powerful in its ability to kill and destroy those who would deny it power to rule over the people. That’s the main problem in the world today." -- Joseph J. Adamson
I was alway puzzzled why the MSM was and is portraying King as a fighter for the civil rights for the black people. I would say that civil rights belong to all and he was fighting for all. The slick division off the issue of the civil rights as a ' black issue' is a crime. Do I enjoy the civil rights if my neighbor is discriminated? Hardly. In that case I enjoy my pure luck, the fact that for some strange reason I am missed. But I can become a target when all other targets are exhausted, right, because the rifle would still be there and fully loaded. Civil rights are rights of the humans. They are for all.
by
Mark Sashine (51 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3463 comments)
on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 2:35:27 PM
The problem with America is politicans like to create and celebrate Holidays of individual men who claim to represent their people. In fact a day in memory of Martin Luther King is a day dream. What we should be honoring and respecting are the thousands if not millions of Black American Slaves who built and supported America for over its first 100 year period.
It is the people not so called leaders that make a nation great. We need to have our respect and condolences to Black American Slave Day. We also need to have Native American Indian Day, to honor the real first native people in America.
Where are our values America? War, murder, greed, liars, racism, and valuing one guy instead of the real people? Martin Luther needs a real dream, and Obama should remember his ancestors before him. So far we are nothing, but bigots, and roaming animals, barking at each other.
There are so many more people that have done things before Martin Luther King and after, that deserve of rememberance than him, such as Rosa Parks, and Thurgood Marshall. It is like comparing a single stalk of wheat to a 100 acres of wheat. Myself and other Americans prefer to get it right, and honor All Black Americans, especially Black American Slaves, and our original peoples, Native American Indians.
Obama says nothing about this. He is part of the self serving individualistic, greed, make a name for himself culture, instead of honoring the real evolution of America. He is a Republican. Selfish, Arrogant, and not wanting to support impeachment and War crimes of this Bush Administration. He supports the war in Iraq, and everyone knows it.
Help us fight for these days:
Black American Slave Rememberance Day; and Native American Indian Day.
Sincerely,
Mr. Dominic E. Jermano
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 9:01:09 PM
I agree with much of what you say. But I think it's important that we do honor and pay homage to great leaders, especially those who stood for such great and important ideals.
To me, it's the ideals that are the most important thing to remember, and to be regularly reminded of.
Christmas is supposed to be a day when Christians should be reminded of the ideals that the Christ Jesus taught, around universal love, compassion, charity, tolerance, forgiveness, and pacifism. The trouble is, those ideals have been, in large part, lost.
Why, because too many people mistakenly idolize the man, and do not honor the ideals.
The dream goes back a long way. Witness Dr. King's references to passages from Amos and Isaiah. Such a lofty dream it is, of all peoples living in peace, prosperity and justice. Like with Jesus, the message often gets simplified or distorted, along with euhemeristic idealization, until something much different from the original emerges. Hence the importance of allowing Dr. King's words to speak on their own without my interpretation, other than that of arrangement.
by
Richard Mathis (130 articles, 108 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 120 comments)
on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 8:03:16 PM
7 comments
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