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Would Obama Prosecute Martin L. King Jr. for WikiLeaks' Revelations of War and Environmental Crimes? http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12048 * JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH * Or to put the question differently: Would Martin Luther King Jr. support and defend Julian Assange's efforts to inform the public about war and corporate environmental crimes? Last night I watched "The Great Debaters" with Denzel Washington again, and it occurred to me that during the arguments given in support of civil disobedience that Julian Assange, publisher of WikiLeaks.org, is practicing civil disobedience and that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of history. For much of his crusading career, Martin Luther King Jr. was regarded by the U.S. Justice Department and Hoover's FBI "an enemy of the state," a "terrorist", and a "communist". Many more accusations were made against him for his attempt to shed light on human suffering that had its violent roots in the acceptance of racism. Most people remember King for his demonstrations against segregation and racism, but what the history books conveniently leave out is his equally strong opposition against the Vietnam War. Here is a passage taken from his "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"<http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html>speech delivered April 4 th, 1967. When asked about Vietnam, he replied: 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. Today, I have no doubt that, like Julian Assange, Martin Luther King Jr. would be opposed to the unnecessary occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. He would question the interests of Big Oil in these regions and he would also defend Julian Assange's WikiLeaks revelations on corporate crimes committed against nature and human beings, the exposure of toxins and pollution of our air and water. While Eric Holder spends his time prosecuting a Martin Luther King activist for exposing corporate and war crimes via WikiLeaks that would otherwise remain secret, he turns a blind eye to BP executives who've literally destroyed the Gulf sea life and the economy of the Gulf, which is understandable since he used to defend oil companies. History will show that Obama's Justice Department prosecutes individuals who believe the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq are morally and legally wrong. Holder argues that WikiLeaks is putting troops at risk. Martin L. King would reply to Holder: "The use of military violence, for any reason, gives opponents fuel for criticism and risks harming others." One thing is for certain: President Obama is no Martin Luther King Jr. in that one must practice what one preaches in campaigns, and he is no environmentalist. As TruthOut reported<http://www.truth-out.org/big-polluters-freed-from-environmental-oversight-stimulus65675>: "The Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation's biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight... The administration has awarded more than 179,000 'categorical exclusions' to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA." As Mark Karlin, Editor of Buzzflash, put it, on shutting down WikiLeaks: President Obama hangs an iron curtain between U.S. citizens and the Truth.</node/12040> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
