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Gandalf Grey
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Who would Martin Luther King support for president today?
By Weldon Berger
Created Apr 5 2008 - 11:24pm
I ask who among our current-day political leaders Martin Luther King might
support; the more appropriate question is who among them would have the
courage to embrace a living King as eagerly as they drape themselves in the
dead one's memory. I'm drawing a blank.
Much of the commentary on the anniversary of King's assassination focuses
upon the direction he took in the last years of his life, speaking out
against the Vietnam war specifically and state-sponsored violence in
general, and attempting to broaden the movement that coalesced around him to
include economically oppressed people of every color, not just the racially
oppressed ones for whom he advocated so powerfully. He wanted to recast the
political and social values of the country to the benefit not just of the
disenfranchised here, but for those abroad who suffered from our own and
similar military and corporate depredations.
Among the leading presidential contenders, only John Edwards brought even a
fraction of King's outrage and conscience to bear on the economic
inequalities that continue to plague and, in many ways, cripple the US. None
of the candidates show any sign of feeling the grief and rage King would
have felt at what we have done and continue doing to the people of Iraq:
hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, millions more robbed of
fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, many millions more robbed of
their livelihood, their security and any semblance of a normal life.
Can anyone imagine Martin Luther King failing to address the debt we've
incurred to the Iraqis? or failing to note the uses to which the hundreds of
billions of US dollars and tens of thousands of US lives thrown away on the
occupation could have been put? or failing to speak out in the strongest
possible terms against US policies of kidnapping, torture and perpetual
detention beyond the rule of law?
And now, can you imagine Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama embracing what King
would have to say? (Never mind John McCain ...)
King, and the millions who marched with him, and the tens of millions of
others moved by his words, created the space for politicians such as Lyndon
Johnson to move forward; there is no one like him today to do the same for
Clinton or Obama, and expecting them to create their own space is perhaps
unfair.
But they, along with all but a handful of their Congressional colleagues,
seem irredeemably trapped of their own volition in the very system King
sought to shatter, and when they speak of transforming the system, they
really mean tempering and tweaking it. One has to suspect that if we were
graced with a presence the equal of King's, our annointed leaders would
maintain a terrified distance from him or her.
Obama, of course, was little more than a toddler when King was killed.
Clinton was a young adult who by all accounts took his message and his death
very much to heart. But in the years since, she has developed a keen
appreciation of America's war-making capacity and its utility, something
King explicitly abhorred. She, like Obama and Edwards, wants to
significantly increase the size of the Army and Marines. Like Obama, she
makes rhetorical use of what is euphemestically labelled "our nuclear
deterrent," saying for instance that "all options are on the table" with
respect to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. What that means,
of course, is that she won't rule out a first strike with nuclear weapons.
How do you suppose King would react to that?
Obama was right when he said in his speech on race that much progress has
been made on racial issues over the decades. King would no doubt have lauded
that assessment. But how would he have felt about Obama's casual dismissal,
in the same speech, of Palestinian grievances against Israel, which Obama
cast as "emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical
Islam" rather than "the actions of stalwart allies like Israel"?
Someone, I can't remember who now, raised the question of how cable TV's
talking heads would cover King. It doesn't take much imagination to picture
Bill O'Reilly's or Sean Hannity's take on King's calls for economic justice
and the cessation of America's economic and military imperialism. Picture
too the Kipling-obssessed neoconservative polemicist Max Boot [1], who said
after 911 that "Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the
sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident
Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets", penning, from his perch at the
Council on Foreign Relations, a critique of King's foreign policy positions.
We can't know how those positions, or King's position in our society, would
have evolved had he lived to continue his work during these past 40 years.
It seems sure, though, that he would have been regarded at least during the
past seven-plus years much as he was in those last two years of his life: by
conservatives as a radical threat to the government and their way of life,
and by most centrists and many liberals as at least two steps beyond the
pale-accepting his message on racial issues while nervously ducking or
flatly disavowing his larger critique of American values and their impact
here and abroad. We saw that when Obama disavowed not just the orbital
comments of Jeremiah Wright, such as his assessment of AIDS as a genocidal
conspiracy, but the more reasonable, if angrily couched, critiques of the
country's actions.
George Bernard Shaw wrote that "[t]he reasonable man adapts himself to the
world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." It
couldn't be more clear that however pragmatic he was, however politically
skilled, King was an unreasonable man. Clinton and Obama lack that necessary
quality, and the presidency of whichever takes the magic oath of office is
doomed to reflect that.
~~~~~~~~~~
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Weldon Berger
Created Apr 5 2008 - 11:24pm
I ask who among our current-day political leaders Martin Luther King might
support; the more appropriate question is who among them would have the
courage to embrace a living King as eagerly as they drape themselves in the
dead one's memory. I'm drawing a blank.
Much of the commentary on the anniversary of King's assassination focuses
upon the direction he took in the last years of his life, speaking out
against the Vietnam war specifically and state-sponsored violence in
general, and attempting to broaden the movement that coalesced around him to
include economically oppressed people of every color, not just the racially
oppressed ones for whom he advocated so powerfully. He wanted to recast the
political and social values of the country to the benefit not just of the
disenfranchised here, but for those abroad who suffered from our own and
similar military and corporate depredations.
Among the leading presidential contenders, only John Edwards brought even a
fraction of King's outrage and conscience to bear on the economic
inequalities that continue to plague and, in many ways, cripple the US. None
of the candidates show any sign of feeling the grief and rage King would
have felt at what we have done and continue doing to the people of Iraq:
hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, millions more robbed of
fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, many millions more robbed of
their livelihood, their security and any semblance of a normal life.
Can anyone imagine Martin Luther King failing to address the debt we've
incurred to the Iraqis? or failing to note the uses to which the hundreds of
billions of US dollars and tens of thousands of US lives thrown away on the
occupation could have been put? or failing to speak out in the strongest
possible terms against US policies of kidnapping, torture and perpetual
detention beyond the rule of law?
And now, can you imagine Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama embracing what King
would have to say? (Never mind John McCain ...)
King, and the millions who marched with him, and the tens of millions of
others moved by his words, created the space for politicians such as Lyndon
Johnson to move forward; there is no one like him today to do the same for
Clinton or Obama, and expecting them to create their own space is perhaps
unfair.
But they, along with all but a handful of their Congressional colleagues,
seem irredeemably trapped of their own volition in the very system King
sought to shatter, and when they speak of transforming the system, they
really mean tempering and tweaking it. One has to suspect that if we were
graced with a presence the equal of King's, our annointed leaders would
maintain a terrified distance from him or her.
Obama, of course, was little more than a toddler when King was killed.
Clinton was a young adult who by all accounts took his message and his death
very much to heart. But in the years since, she has developed a keen
appreciation of America's war-making capacity and its utility, something
King explicitly abhorred. She, like Obama and Edwards, wants to
significantly increase the size of the Army and Marines. Like Obama, she
makes rhetorical use of what is euphemestically labelled "our nuclear
deterrent," saying for instance that "all options are on the table" with
respect to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. What that means,
of course, is that she won't rule out a first strike with nuclear weapons.
How do you suppose King would react to that?
Obama was right when he said in his speech on race that much progress has
been made on racial issues over the decades. King would no doubt have lauded
that assessment. But how would he have felt about Obama's casual dismissal,
in the same speech, of Palestinian grievances against Israel, which Obama
cast as "emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical
Islam" rather than "the actions of stalwart allies like Israel"?
Someone, I can't remember who now, raised the question of how cable TV's
talking heads would cover King. It doesn't take much imagination to picture
Bill O'Reilly's or Sean Hannity's take on King's calls for economic justice
and the cessation of America's economic and military imperialism. Picture
too the Kipling-obssessed neoconservative polemicist Max Boot [1], who said
after 911 that "Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the
sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident
Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets", penning, from his perch at the
Council on Foreign Relations, a critique of King's foreign policy positions.
We can't know how those positions, or King's position in our society, would
have evolved had he lived to continue his work during these past 40 years.
It seems sure, though, that he would have been regarded at least during the
past seven-plus years much as he was in those last two years of his life: by
conservatives as a radical threat to the government and their way of life,
and by most centrists and many liberals as at least two steps beyond the
pale-accepting his message on racial issues while nervously ducking or
flatly disavowing his larger critique of American values and their impact
here and abroad. We saw that when Obama disavowed not just the orbital
comments of Jeremiah Wright, such as his assessment of AIDS as a genocidal
conspiracy, but the more reasonable, if angrily couched, critiques of the
country's actions.
George Bernard Shaw wrote that "[t]he reasonable man adapts himself to the
world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." It
couldn't be more clear that however pragmatic he was, however politically
skilled, King was an unreasonable man. Clinton and Obama lack that necessary
quality, and the presidency of whichever takes the magic oath of office is
doomed to reflect that.
~~~~~~~~~~
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson