Stone Mountain, Georgia
Today I took a visiting friend to view the tomb of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. We went inside Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. King once preached, and listened to him give his own oration on how he would like to be remembered:
"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, which isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that's not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind."
I remembered how his son, Martin III, had run for office in Atlanta and again was ridiculed by the local Atlanta newspaper.
I thought briefly of how that same local newspaper often through its black female editor derided the King Family, including Martin's widow Coretta, as if COINTELPRO never ended and murdering one of America's greatest sons was not enough.
In short, everything you think you know about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s murder is a lie. What they teach our children in the schools about the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a lie. How many other lies has our Government told us and that are substantiated and corroborated by the "mainstream" corporate press?
Why does our Government lie to us?
Today is a day of deep reflection because it is Memorial Day. I'm sad today because I believe the most fundamental values of our country have been purposefully undermined before our very eyes.
I'm sad because the people seem so powerless against the lies our Government tells us, when the Government is not supposed to be them, it's supposed to be us!
And finally, I'm sad because I don't want Dr. King to have died in vain, yet, with every passing day I fear that might be the case.
We, the American people, have been lied to.
Our young men and women are dying in a far-off land; those of us who dissent are spied upon by an Administration that violates the Constitution. Our economy has been wrecked by massive theft occurring in the guise of war and disaster profiteering. Our tax money has been used to fly people to places around the world so they can be tortured—whether they're guilty of anything or not. And innocent people all over the planet die as a result of policies carried out in our name that include subversion, sabotage, terrorism, torture, death squads, and drug trafficking. Innocent Afghanis die today so that the U.S. can control both the heroin and the oil trades.
Dr. King was murdered because certain people in power felt that he threatened the American way of life. Today, it's people in Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Palestine, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Democratic Republic of Congo who die for this thing called the American way of life. Yesterday, it was Cuba, Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina, Libya, Grenada, Nicaragua, Indonesia, and East Timor.
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