Hi y'all - only Jesus is/was perfect!
On Jan 19, 2:16 pm, ornamentalmind <[email protected]> wrote:
> Of course, the unsanitized MLK, like Bill, loved to 'sleep around'
> too.
>
> On Jan 19, 11:54 am, Rick S <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > So many people remember Martin Luther King Jr. in the sanitized way
> > that network television presents him. We are shown excerpts of his "I
> > have a Dream" or "Been to the Mountaintop" speeches. But he was also
> > an ardent advocate of peace and of ending the war in Vietnam.
>
> > One of his best speeches was also one of the most criticized. Time
> > magazine and the Washington Post stopped short of calling him a
> > traitor to the nation. If their editors were to re-read his speech
> > today, they would recognize it as one of the most powerful speeches
> > against militarism ever. I believe it is one of his best speeches and
> > I wish more peoiple would read it in its entirety. So, for those who
> > would like to understand more about the real MLK, I will provide a
> > link http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/19-13.
>
> > For those who do not wish to read a long speech, I will include some
> > of my favorite excerpts:
>
> > "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in
> > relation to Vietnam."
>
> > " There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection
> > between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been
> > waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that
> > struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the
> > poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There
> > were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in
> > Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were
> > some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew
> > that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in
> > rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam
> > continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic
> > destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the
> > war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."
>
> > "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. "
>
> > "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 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 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. "
>
> > "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are
> > confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum
> > of life and history there is such a thing as being too late.
> > Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us
> > standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide
> > in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may
> > cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf
> > to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled
> > residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too
> > late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our
> > vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ
> > moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or
> > violent co-annihilation."
>
> > Rick S- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Memphis Freethought Alliance" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
