Martin Luther King's Riverside Church speech.

[midnight armadillo]

This speech from April 4, 1967, still resonates today. One year later Dr. King was assassinated. Keep these thoughts in mind while listening to Bush's SOTU speech and his incessant warmongering and macho bloodthirstiness. Dr. King in his day was a true radical and was very controversial - not at all like the Reader's Digest version shown every January with an "I have a dream" video clip. His values and ideas are still radical and dangerous to the powers that be.

Some excerpts:

"A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

"War is not the answer... We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace 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."

"Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons (and daughters) of God, and our brothers (and sisters) wait eagerly for our response."

Full text available: Beyond Vietnam

[BeyondGeography]

1. Here's another one

"Give us the Ballot"

http://library.thinkquest.org/C001146/curriculum.php3%3faction=item_view&item_id=173?tqskip1=1

"One day, they got tired of being pushed out of life's sweet July, left standing in the piercing chill of an alpine November."

One of the greatest Americans in the history of the country, one of the greatest human beings in the history of creation.

[redqueen]

2. "our brothers (and sisters) wait eagerly for our response"

And how.

The whole world is watching.


Thanks for posting this.

[otohara]

3. Listen to This & I Have Been To Mt. Top - On Today's Democracy Now

http://democracynow.org/

If you take out Vietnam and insert Iraq - Beyond Vietnam would apply to today. Different war, same reason - outcome will be similar.