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Remembering the Real Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Reality Check ^ | 20 January 2005 | Michael Bates

Posted on 01/23/2005 7:33:44 AM PST by Lando Lincoln

Another January, another Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. The observance has to a great extent deteriorated, as have many other holidays, into just a paid day off for people with government jobs and an opportunity for retailers to snatch whatever available credit remains on bankcards.

At the same time, there will be no shortage of worshipful speeches and articles about Dr. King, some of them bordering on idolatry. For the man has moved to the pantheon of secular saints.

Politicians of all persuasions have jumped on the MLK bandwagon. Last year we frequently were reminded that it was Ronald Reagan who signed the legislation establishing the King holiday. The President had misgivings, but was shrewd enough to recognize a veto-proof juggernaut when he saw one.

It’s easy to forget that when the minister was alive he was tremendously controversial. Questioning his methods or motives was not beyond the pale.

Today, saying anything that remotely could be construed as critical of Martin Luther King, Jr. is a certain ticket to being branded a racist or being measured for a tinfoil hat.

And I’m speaking here not about bringing up his alleged marital infidelities or his association with known Communists or even asking why the FBI’s tapings of the civil rights leader — authorized by liberal icon Bobby Kennedy — were sealed for 50 years.

As someone who lived through the period, what I remember most about Martin Luther King, Jr. is what he said about this Nation that now reveres him.

He charged in 1967 that the United States was " the greatest purveyor of violence in the world." He claimed that in Vietnam "we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe." He asserted that Americans might have killed a million Vietnamese civilians, "mostly children."

In the same speech, delivered in New York City’s Riverside Church, he detailed his objections to the Vietnam War, a struggle that many citizens viewed as a valiant effort to save people from the horrors of Communism.

The very first reason he cited for his opposition was this:

"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 this 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."

King’s first objection to Vietnam, then, was that it diverted resources from the war on poverty. According to him, anti-poverty programs had been "eviscerated."

That wasn’t accurate even at the time he pronounced it. Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty in 1964. By the year King gave his Riverside Church speech, total welfare outlays by the federal government had almost doubled over those three years.

Spending on almost every facet of the welfare state had escalated. More tax dollars were being devoted to education, jobs training, community development and social services. Eviscerated? Not hardly.

Even liberals had qualms about King’s speech. Not with his ignorance of welfare expenditures, but with his irresponsible comments on Vietnam. The Washington Post editorialized that his speech "was filled with bitter and damaging allegations and inferences that he did not and could not document."

The editorial ended by noting: "Many who have listened to him with respect will never again accord him the same confidence. He has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country and to his people. And that is a great tragedy."

Martin Luther King exhibited a steadfast devotion to equal rights. He was a man of courage and eloquence. That can’t be taken away from him.

Nevertheless, his memory is severely tarnished by his unwarranted attacks on his own country and his naive faith in the efficacy of the welfare state. Acknowledging those aspects of his crusade isn’t racist. Just reality.

This appears in the January 13, 2005 Oak Lawn (IL) Reporter. Mike Bates is the author of Right Angles and Other Obstinate Truths, which is available at Barnesandnoble.com, Booksamillion.com, Amazon.com or iUniverse.com and can be ordered through most bookstores. http://www.michaelmbates.com


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: martinlutherking; mlk; race; society
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To: TommyDale

No selective memory on my part. Are we talking about civil rights activities or riots that happened after civil rights? What does inner city rioting have to do with this topic? If you were just making a statement about inner city rioting being doing by blacks, then I would agree. I do believe that poster was referring to white mobs during the civil rights movement, not inner city riots.


61 posted on 01/23/2005 1:16:08 PM PST by cyborg
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To: World'sGoneInsane
Thanks for implying that I am a closet racist. It is so gratifying to exchange pleasantries with someone like you...or Joe Bidden.

FYI, I was in fourth grade, from Wisconsin, but attending school in Columbus, GA, when I first encountered what you have wrapped your holier-than-thou in. I didn't understand it and never liked it. So, actually, despite your sentencing, my mindset was similar.

You see, I have always believed that color shouldn't matter. It shouldn't have mattered then when the Klan was running loose, and it shouldn't matter now, when the Black Klan is trumpeting that only "whitie can be racist".

MLK Jr spoke a good line and many people, Black and Non-Black, agreed with what he said. But he was a philanderer, probably a Marxist and associated with some less-than-desirable individuals, such as Jessie Jackson. Taken from the speeches he is remembered for, he left large footprints, but remembering the chaos and destruction that seemed to follow him, along with his personal foibles, he isn't the saint you seem to praise him as.

Now please go and piss on someone else's leg. Thank you!

62 posted on 01/23/2005 1:37:59 PM PST by Redleg Duke (Pass Tort Reform Now! Make the bottom clean for the catfish!)
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To: cyborg

Incidents always followed King, and it wasn't just the whiteys causing the ruckus. Yes, a few whites caused problems, but it was small in comparison to what blacks did.


63 posted on 01/23/2005 2:29:48 PM PST by TommyDale
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To: TommyDale

So what did blacks do during the civil rights movement? If you want to talk about what has happened in the way of Watts and LA Riots,etc. that's fine but tell me with examples what black civil rights marchers did that was worse than what whites were doing.


64 posted on 01/23/2005 2:31:27 PM PST by cyborg
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To: TommyDale

BTW, as an observation point, I don't think blacks in the South have ever rioted in way close to anything you and I have seen in the big cities in the North and West.


65 posted on 01/23/2005 2:36:36 PM PST by cyborg
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To: cyborg

The first serious disturbances broke out in Cambridge in 1963 and 1964, and the National Guard was called in to restore order. Then in 1965, a particularly severe Black riot erupted in Watts. The Watts riots lasted six days, taking 34 lives and causing $40 million in property damage.

Black riots then spread across more than 30 major American cities, turning almost every major center into a battle zone of White policemen trying to control mobs of Blacks rioting and burning and looting anything they could. It was from these Black riots that the 1960s phrase "Burn, Baby Burn" was developed. From 1964 to 1968, Black riots had killed 215 people and caused $250 million damage.


66 posted on 01/23/2005 3:08:39 PM PST by TommyDale
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To: cyborg

King was around during this time. He wasn't killed until 1968.


67 posted on 01/23/2005 3:09:14 PM PST by TommyDale
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To: TommyDale

You can't connect MLK to those riots. You've not answered my question as to what blacks in the segregated South did worse than white people in terms of rioting. Therefore, we will have to agree to disagree. Have a nice afternoon.


68 posted on 01/23/2005 3:12:27 PM PST by cyborg
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To: Lando Lincoln

Thank You, Lando for bringing out the truth. Any criticism of MLK always targets a racist, to most people.

Thanks for refreshing my memory.


69 posted on 01/23/2005 3:18:21 PM PST by auggy (http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-DownhomeKY /// Check out My USA Photo album & Fat Files)
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To: cyborg

All I can point out is that during the entire movement, many riots occurred. Many times, these incidents happened immediately after King and his associates had left the area.
Things got "stirred up" and then conveniently the leaders were never around when it hit the fan. Not much different from today, after Jesse Jackass or others visit a site.


70 posted on 01/23/2005 3:24:34 PM PST by TommyDale
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To: G.Mason
"Just before the 67' riots in Newark, N.J., the King and his merry henchmen strode into town, stroked the fires of rebellion, and as if on cue left the city hours before the riot began."

Just before the '67 riots in Evansville, IN, the King and his merry henchmen strode into town, stroked the fires of rebellion, and as if on cue left the city hours before the riot began.

71 posted on 01/23/2005 3:27:04 PM PST by auggy (http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-DownhomeKY /// Check out My USA Photo album & Fat Files)
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To: Non-Sequitur
This is another thing about King that the public seems to have forgotten -- seems that every time he came to town, riots and looting broke out. Amazingly, he claimed to be non-violent, but violence always reared its ugly head when he was present.

For example?

Sometime in the late 60's or early 70's, at the U of Arizona, I wrote a paper on a book by Barry Goldwater. I think he said that he had asked MLK to be more patient because things were going to work out. However, he felt MLK wanted the protest violence. I do not remember the title of the book.

72 posted on 01/23/2005 3:32:19 PM PST by saminfl
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To: TommyDale
"I agree with the Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Larry Doby and Roy Campanella examples. Now who do they have? Take a good look at the criminal elements in the NBA, NFL and MLB and professional boxing. Tiger Woods is a good example today, as was Reggie White."

Bang!

Like a smart bomb ... right on target! ;)

73 posted on 01/23/2005 3:35:48 PM PST by G.Mason (A war mongering, UN hating, military industrial complex loving, Al Qaeda incinerating American.)
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To: Spann_Tillman
"Sure, that was all bad, mmkay, but the black crime rate then was approximately one tenth what it is now. The rate of murder is double today what it was back then. So pick the greater evil."

The greater evil will always be the inhumane treatment of blacks.

There is no good to compensate for this.

74 posted on 01/23/2005 3:37:34 PM PST by auggy (http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-DownhomeKY /// Check out My USA Photo album & Fat Files)
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To: auggy
"Just before the '67 riots in Evansville, IN, the King and his merry henchmen strode into town, stroked the fires of rebellion, and as if on cue left the city hours before the riot began."

And being reasonable men, we think that wasn't the plan Stan ... er... uh ... I mean auggy. ;)

75 posted on 01/23/2005 3:39:06 PM PST by G.Mason (A war mongering, UN hating, military industrial complex loving, Al Qaeda incinerating American.)
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To: saminfl

What an odd thing for Barry Goldwater to say.


76 posted on 01/23/2005 3:42:39 PM PST by cyborg
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To: World'sGoneInsane
I guess I fail to see your point. We apparently agree that things are not perfect, but what I also see is that only America has offered, and still offers, the greatest freedom to the greatest number of peopel of all races and classes of any nation in the history of the world. I do not subscribe to any philosophy that holds America as some sort of concentration camp with millions languishing in bondage and darkness. In real terms, America doesn't even have poor people - our 'disenfranchised' are more a product of their own dissipating and envy of the material wealth so abundant in our society.

When I say that we have always led the way in human freedom, let me explain with a few points...

1. America radically adopted the Constitution as our primary article of confederation. No other human document has been so sweeping or promised so much to so many.

2. Our Founders knew that the inclusive nature of that document included slaves. Many wanted the repeal of slavery but it was kept as a cost of the fragile coalition knowing it would force reconciliation's at some later time.

3. Some Founders actually freed their slaves.

4. The early colonies were, in fact, peopled by many Europeans who were, in fact, bond servants and through work obtained their independence.

5. Religious piety led the anti-slavery movement in this country while most of the world eventually abandoned it because of financial reasons.

6. We struggled internally with slavery from our inception as a nation in 1787 until 1861 when we went to war over the issue.

7. In 1865, we resolved the Constitutional wording with the greatest bloodletting in our history. That is 78 years from a slaver nation to one that recognized the radical ideas of equality.

8. The 100 years until the Civil Rights act were, due to our weak central government, uneven and disparate in the application of Constitutional law. Nonetheless, it stood as a legal standard despite the efforts of the Democratic Party to undermine the concept of Republicanism and to terrorize blacks.

9. The passage of the Civil Rights act was overwhelmingly voted for by Republicans, but, not so for the Democrat obstructionists.

10. With the growth of the Federal government, the law, however imperfect, still stands for all Americans rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, the great failing today is more one of individual failings than that of the law or American society.

11. In spite of the so-called evidence of discrimination, black America, it were a sovereign nation would be the 7th richest nation on earth. This may or may not be factually true, but the comparative wealth would still be enormous.

12. Today's legacy of civil rights is largely counterproductive. Civil Rights are synthetically derived for specious groups like gays. Black leaders call for apartheid policies of their own and demand federal funding for racially segregated schooling. Millions of blacks still blame society for their failure to integrate despite the overwhelming evidence before our faces that millions still come to this country and overcome their personal limitations through the eternal American values of determination and work.

I could go on and on, but I don't think you'll get the point. Suffice it to say that you may not like what you imagine to be terrible discrimination, but I defy you to give me any example where things have ever been as good for so many despite their individual differences.
77 posted on 01/23/2005 3:59:02 PM PST by WorkingClassFilth (Let's arm all the "patriotic" Democrats and field a penal battalion...)
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To: Non-Sequitur

"I think all those things are good things. Don't you?"

I certainly do and I'm glad that the Founding Fathers gave them to us all. Further more, I'm grateful for our Republican form of governance that eventually triumphed in the application of that ideal for all.

I'm sorry, what was it that you think MLK did for America?


78 posted on 01/23/2005 4:01:37 PM PST by WorkingClassFilth (Let's arm all the "patriotic" Democrats and field a penal battalion...)
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To: Non-Sequitur

"King's 'dream' was equal opportunity and equal rights for all regardless of their race."

King's dream does not upset me in the least because it is embodied in what I value in America. I also think that if King were alive and actually was the man that many of his acolytes seem to believe, he would reject the "civil rights" movement of today and launch a crusade against black American "leadership" and the perverted ideals of his legacy.

"Sorry if that upsets you so."

Not to worry - it doesn't upset me in the least. I do, however, wonder that some, like yourself, have such iconic and naieve ideas about such a singularly flawed man and his purposes.


79 posted on 01/23/2005 4:09:20 PM PST by WorkingClassFilth (Let's arm all the "patriotic" Democrats and field a penal battalion...)
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To: NJ Neocon

"Perosnally, I would love to see a holiday for Frederick Douglas instead of King."

Agreed - 100%.

Too bad it is impolitic to question clay-footed gods. Here's a few pointers for getting along with the rest of enlightened society:

1. You must submerge your mind with the greater body.
2. Individualism is dangerous.
3. The central commitee will do all your thinking for you.

Now that you have been re-educated, our heroes to worship for today will be...


80 posted on 01/23/2005 4:19:20 PM PST by WorkingClassFilth (Let's arm all the "patriotic" Democrats and field a penal battalion...)
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