Revolutionary Moderation

Martin Luther King: Not Just For African-Americans Anymore



(This entry posted by Bear)



Tomorrow is the 74th birthday of possibly the most marginalized person in our collective consciousness: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.



Dr. King is marginalized every time he is eulogized because corporate media has a vested interest in keeping the frame as tight around his portrait as possible: every time this year we don't get much more than grainy pictures of a well-dressed black man walking in front of a bunch of other, mostly black, well-dressed people because...well...well-dressed people should be nice to each other.



Dr. King said that the 'true testament of a man is not in times of comfort and convenience, but in times of controversy and challenge'. Rerunning a miniscule portion of the 'I Have A Dream' speech for the zillionth time is pretty comfortable and convenient, but how about hearing something controversial from Dr. King about Workers Rights to Organize? The Civil Rights movement worked its way from Montgomery to Memphis, but at the same time so did the Right to Work movement, about which King tried to warn Americans:



"These laws offer no rights and no work!"



Dr. King also made a multitude of salient points about senseless wars in faraway places , many of which are relevant to this day.



"They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. "



Do you think we'll see anything like this repeated in the retrospectives on CNN or FOX News?



Seriously, if Dr. King were alive today in George Bush's America, with its hyperactive flag-waving, military misadventures, Wal-Mart economy, and (maybe you should just stay Home)land Security, do you really think he'd be regarded as a hero? He'd probably be a George Clinton cover away from having as much relevance to the political establishment as Rage Against the Machine.



Anyway, take a moment to remember someone who worked towards a better world in a lot of ways than most people don't usually realize.