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Martin Luther King - Power to change (space, education and politics)
Cape Cod Times ^
| January 19, 2004
| FREDERICK MELO
Posted on 01/19/2004 4:40:57 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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Please don't let it be said ... that a mission to the moon and Mars was more important than a scholarship to college."
Well, I'll say it. A mission to the Moon and Mars is more important than a scholarship to college. As the saying goes, give a hungry man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.
Space is adventure and exploration. It draws people to excellence like nothing else can. Lately, NASA has been in the business of educating children about space. When you do exciting things in space you don't have to coach students to get them involved and passionate about learning. With this new push into space, we'll have our pick of the best motivated and educated people.
Grand goals product grand things. Exploration produces technology, spurs discoveries and propels students into math, science and engineering. We have enough social scientists and gloom and doom. It's time we challenged our youth and gave them dreams to dreams and mountains to climb.
To: Cincinatus' Wife; mhking; rdb3; Trueblackman
bump!
Dr. King made a difference in domestic politics. But on defense issues, I don't think I could agree with him on much if he were active today. For example, he refused to campaign against the Vietnam war, but opposed it. That is the beauty of America: we don't expect any one leader to know it all, have all the solutions, or be the final word on anything.
A great man can still be wrong on important matters -- and still make a tremendous impact for good in other ways.
2
posted on
01/19/2004 4:54:10 AM PST
by
risk
To: Cincinatus' Wife
Just how do people with thought [?] patterns like this survive?
Nothing that a two week venture in the wilderness, with a knife, and one pack of matches couldn't cure.
Let the thinning of the herds begin.
3
posted on
01/19/2004 4:57:55 AM PST
by
G.Mason
(If they're Democrats - They're expendable)
To: risk
After the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts were signed, the movement had accomplished, legislatively at least, what it had set out to do. Unbelievably, it took less than 10 years from the murder of Emmett Till to see Jim Crow abolished at the federal level. Once King came on the scene the social change took place in an amazingly short amount of time. I don't know that there is a parallel in political history. Not to say that all governmental institutional racism was abolished, but with the signing of these two acts it was well on its way.
So King shifted the SCLC into the "Poor People's Campaign" and began to advocate for massive socialist programs to eradicate poverty (which the Bible should have told him was impossible.) At this point I would have disagreed with him. His opposition to the Vietnam War was predicated on the idea that it took money away from socialist programs.
And, frankly, the last few years of his life he was considered a moderate and an "Uncle Tom" by the new breed of black activist - the Black Panthers and Black Muslims. The idea that King was considered a revolutionary his entire life is simply wrong. The New Left gravitated toward the radical Panthers and, to an extent, left King behind.
To: risk
Excerpt:
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC "The Man In The Arena"***It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.***
I believe King and Bush would understand each other.
To: G.Mason
Understanding the importance of an individual over the masses is something the Left rejects.
To: Zack Nguyen
And, frankly, the last few years of his life he was considered a moderate and an "Uncle Tom" by the new breed of black activist - the Black Panthers and Black Muslims. The idea that King was considered a revolutionary his entire life is simply wrong. The New Left gravitated toward the radical Panthers and, to an extent, left King behind. The blacker-than-thou paradox divides***I remember those days well, a heady time when African-Americans took education for granted as the sure route to self-improvement and the subsequent uplifting of the whole race.
On my tiny Texas campus of fewer than 1,000 students, only fools refused to read and study diligently. Only fools destroyed their brains with drugs. Only fools physically hurt their brethren. In fact, "being smart" was in. We called it being "heavy." We even expected jocks to be heavy. All musicians, especially the jazz types, were heavy.
Black power meant just that: being black and powerful, being armed with education and the drive to improve our lot in a hostile environment where the very concept of racial egalitarianism was still alien to most white Americans. Black power meant sharing the good and eliminating the bad.
In time, the concept of black power changed. Instead of being a sentiment that united us, it became a source of deep division. Those who followed Martin Luther King and his nonviolent movement, for example, were not as black as those who followed, say, Malcolm X's philosophy or that of the fearless Black Panthers.
No longer bringing us together, black power had become a negative litmus test for one's degree of "blackness." We had entered the "Blacker than Thou" era. On campuses nationwide, black students separated themselves into enclaves.***
To: Cincinatus' Wife
I HAVE A DREAM that MLK's FBI files will someday be open to the public!
8
posted on
01/19/2004 5:16:25 AM PST
by
panaxanax
To: Cincinatus' Wife
Theodore Roosevelt
26th President of the United States
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
"The Man In The Arena"
Speech at the Sorbonne
Paris, France
April 23, 1910
9
posted on
01/19/2004 5:23:14 AM PST
by
cebadams
(much better than ezra)
To: panaxanax
10
posted on
01/19/2004 5:23:17 AM PST
by
risk
To: cebadams
Bump!
To: risk
Thanks.
Too bad we'll never see any of his communist connections mentioned in our kid's history books. Only praise and what a great American he was (barf).
To: Cincinatus' Wife
While MLK was a positive leader that had sincere intentions for peace and equality, he was still a fraud and if it had been anyone else, his degree would have been rescinded. If anything, Martin was the King of plagiarism.
To: Dr. Marten
None of us are perfect. But with some determination and effort we all will contribute something to this world. Hopefully, it will be positive.
To: panaxanax
He was a great American with some flaws that were more than outweighed by his gifts. He also tried to steer his colleagues away from communism, according to an FBI recording cited in that link I gave you. He was not a communist, although he did work with people who had been. In any case, his efforts regarding civil rights should be taken by themselves, separately from his socialist ideas. They stand -- tower in fact -- on their own. He had a simple argument: America should be the land of the free, both in declaration and in fact.
15
posted on
01/19/2004 6:05:19 AM PST
by
risk
To: panaxanax
The Right Stuff, Again***History teaches that great civilizations must look outward and embrace grand - though achievable - visions to remain ascendant. When they turn inward - at least, for periods longer than needed to consolidate after expansion - decline sets in. Such a turn can take the form of fratricidal, internecine warfare (classical Greece), exhaustion at the empire's frontier (Rome after the death of Marcus Aurelius), or an end to the spirit of exploration (Ming China).
The 1972 end to the moon missions coincided with the inward focus of an America disheartened by failure in Vietnam (its first major martial defeat since the War of 1812), an economy heading into prolonged stagflation, and domestic unrest at home in the form of war protests, race riots, and skyrocketing crime. President Bush begins his new quest in the midst of a worldwide war on terror, in which America faces the specter of mega attacks by fanatics who make the barbarians Rome faced seem positively genteel by comparison.
Undaunted by worldwide conflict, and confident that a great civilization can and will prevail, President Bush has made a courageous choice - one that exemplifies America's famed optimism and "can-do" spirit at its best.***
To: risk
If your definition of a "great American" is someone who incited riots every time he led a "peace march", was a whoremonger, drug user and surrounded himself with communists and socialists........then so be it.
To: Cincinatus' Wife
Thank you soooo much for giving me my curriculm for today! I was just about to get on the internet to find a lesson on Dr. King.
You're the best!
18
posted on
01/19/2004 6:53:08 AM PST
by
netmilsmom
(God sent Angels- Why would I trust them to anyone else?-homeschooling 1/5/04)
To: Cincinatus' Wife
I agree with you. Martin Luther Kings message was true - in fact if the democrats and liberals (and many republicans) would respect the intent of King's message this country wouldnt be so divided. I believe however that the democrats, the media and liberals have made a business out of hate, division and whining. When Americans can embrace the notion that all are equal and that is how we are to be treated (eliminate affirmative action et.al. government racist programs) then our society will really prosper.
19
posted on
01/19/2004 8:02:16 AM PST
by
sasafras
(sasafras (The road to hell is paved with good intentions))
To: Cincinatus' Wife
"
Understanding the importance of an individual over the masses is something the Left rejects."
It's statements such as .......
"We live in a country where, every day, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer," Lieberman told the audience yesterday at the Federated Church in Hyannis, invoking King's spirit of confrontation. "
....... that lights a fire under me.
What kind of statement is that?
There is no doubt these are socialists who want those that work to share their earnings, and give to those that refuse to.
Let them eat cake
20
posted on
01/19/2004 9:07:38 AM PST
by
G.Mason
(If they're Democrats - They're expendable)
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