Comments on Informed Comment: 10 Things Martin Luther King Would have Done about...

There is something about blogs we haven't discover...

2007-05-25T04:01:00.000-04:00

There is something about blogs we haven't discovered. Blogs are as important to their authors as to their audience.

Just scrolling along my own blog, I found my link to you more than a year ago.

I can see that your post of January 16, 2006 is an early day in the fashion of '10 Things'. Bravo.

Much more than this, your post of January 16, 2006 is an early day to bring your courage in opposition to pummeling Iraq. Bravo.

Conviction is freedom, ey wot. Bravo.

Please check out our attempt to respond to Dr. Kin...

2006-02-07T15:43:00.000-05:00

Please check out our attempt to respond to Dr. King's call to take nonviolence international.

www.eucharism.org

Dear Juan--This is a good start, but it doesn't go...

2006-01-31T14:08:00.000-05:00

Dear Juan--

This is a good start, but it doesn't go far enough.
Just WHOM would the US negotiate with? One of the problems in the middle east, indeed in most fragmented societies, is that there is no ONE entity who can speak for all the people and guarantee compliance (the biggest problem with Palestinian politics)--rogue individual or "cell" suicide bombers can disrupt all of society and any political agreement. Secondly, once all parties are "lovey dovey" what are the real hard core next steps to resolution. I consider myself to be toward the "peace" end of the political spectrum, but I get very frustrated with "magic wand" formulae that don't deal with the on-the-ground real-world issues. What's the REST of the peace plan, Juan???

Absolutely spot on!Would that our current rulers w...

2006-01-17T19:53:00.000-05:00

Absolutely spot on!

Would that our current rulers with their schemes take note of these ten points.

Just a thought.
Just Ken

Thank you, Dr. Cole, for bringing this speech to o...

2006-01-17T00:50:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Dr. Cole, for bringing this speech to our attention. However, instead of grieving that it is less well-known than "I Have a Dream," let's get proactive about making it better known. Do any of you have a link to the full text of this speech? It would make a remarkably good reading for Memorial Day rallies. Clearly, it is time to stop relying on conventional media. I quote Dennis Kucinich, founder of the Department of Peace Campaign: "WE are the media. Each of us is a mediUM."

Wow, reading this after hearing Gore's fiery eloqu...

2006-01-16T22:20:00.000-05:00

Wow, reading this after hearing Gore's fiery eloquence in his speech today gives me hope.

Indeed, Gore just may be the man we're looking for. Before you discount that, be sure to catch his speech on cspan tonite, or at cspan.org (where I assume they'll have it soon).

Thank you, Juan Cole, for bringing Dr. King's magn...

2006-01-16T21:53:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Juan Cole, for bringing Dr. King's magnificent speech against U.S. militarism to our attention today.

That 1967 speech was entitled "Beyond Vietnam". So here we are, over 40 years beyond Vietnam. We're in Iraq, committing the same damn devastation we visited on the Vietnamese people, only now its on millions of innocent Iraqis.

Dr. King presciently predicted that if we did not have a spiritual awakening which sets human welfare ahead of profiteering, we would be endlessly holding anti-war marches and forming committees to oppose whatever war was then on the US agenda.

I just got back from a march celebrating Dr. King's birthday and opposing the war in Iraq. Who will we be bombing tomorrow?

We must all stand up and demand that our leaders follow Dr. King's manifesto, demand that they stop the war and put the welfare of human beings above the drive for profits and power.

Let's put human values first,and turn the Department of Defense into the Department of Peace, and the Department of Homeland Security into the Department of Human Well-Being.

The question isn't so much, "Where are such leader...

2006-01-16T17:46:00.000-05:00

The question isn't so much, "Where are such leaders now?" I'm sure they're out there. We don't admire them in large enough numbers to launch them into the limelight. Our dreams have changed, and they seem to face away from Martin Luther King's.

I don't know whether it's part of the Rosy Past Syndrome, but it seems to me that now, when times are rhyming with the Vietnam war days, the outlook is even bleaker than it was then.

I come here each day to renew my sanity. The flak...

2006-01-16T16:27:00.000-05:00

I come here each day to renew my sanity. The flak shelled into our collective psyche's by the Old Media rips a hole in my ability to remember who I am.

As an Old Believer student of human dignity and freedom participating in the demonstrations in Berkeley and San Francisco during the early 1960's, Martin Luther King death is an illusion. The spirit of his vision lives within each of us. Your commentary today Juan, is a reminder that it is long past time we rouse ourselves , to wakeen .. and assume responsibility for each other, regardless of national borders, with compassion and love.

Thanks again good doctor ... your medicine tastes sweet.

Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech is part of our ...

2006-01-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech is part of our national identity. It seems to me that he essentially said to America -

You think of yourselves as good, then how can you treat black people with such injustice.

This challenge was so obviously true that it was ultimately successful and his words in that speech (as variously construed) are now embraced nearly universally in our American political and social dialogue.

However, Dr. King's work and words concerning the Viet Nam war, poverty, and other political and social issues were never embraced by the nation as a whole. The nation's reverence of him for what he did for us in challenging our racism, has not led to an embrace of his other ideas.

In short, in regards to racism, Dr. King is an icon, in other matters, his ideas are one respected voice among many.

No one in my memory could articulate an issue of n...

2006-01-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

No one in my memory could articulate an issue of national importance as well as Dr. King.

To bad he is not here to speak about a recent quote in the LA Times. A US officila speaking about the termination of US reconstruction aid to Iraq stated that Iraq may have to rely on private investment. He is quoted as saying "no pain no gain".

I guess that having their utility infrastucture heavily damaged by US bombing during the 1991 war, then having their economic and social infrastructure demolished by 12 years of US sponsored sanctions, and finally Operation Iraqi Freedom, is not quite enough "pain" for the Iraqi people. I'm sure Dr King would have seen it differently.

Beautiful

2006-01-16T13:43:00.000-05:00

Beautiful

I really appreciate you making the connection betw...

2006-01-16T12:59:00.000-05:00

I really appreciate you making the connection between King's anti-Vietnam war comments and the Iraq war today. I grew up hearing about Dr. King (he wrote a letter to my mother when she was serving a jail sentence for trying to integrate a lunch counter in Virginia in 1960) but because he died when I was a child, I never understood his anti-war statements until the last few years.

Rather than merely quoting him, you applied his words to our problem today. Thank you.

1. Wiki on nonviolence 2. Gene Sharp. From Dictato...

2006-01-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

1. Wiki on nonviolence
2. Gene Sharp. From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
3. ANews on violence and nonviolence in Iraq

Thank you for underscoring what a far-sighted reli...

2006-01-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

Thank you for underscoring what a far-sighted religious leader King really was. Long before other prominent leaders, King spoke out against what America was doing to Vietnam and what our war there was doing to ourselves. Like so many admirers of King, I didn't understand at the time why he was stepping into the war debate. Many -- if not most -- pundits condemned him for it, and in retrospect, it may have been his most courageous act.

Love as a political principle was enunciated by Mi...

2006-01-16T11:48:00.000-05:00

Love as a political principle was enunciated by Michelle Bachelet after her victory in Chile's presidential election. Perhaps the point is to move beyond the concept of selfish victory for the few toward a greater victory of love. More on that here

Wow. Thanks. The sanest words I've read in a long ...

2006-01-16T11:32:00.000-05:00

Wow. Thanks. The sanest words I've read in a long time. Sad too that we've learned so little.

Hear hear. I could not have said it better myself...

2006-01-16T11:09:00.000-05:00

Hear hear. I could not have said it better myself, Juan... er, Dr. King.

Thank you for these insights! While I beleve that...

2006-01-16T10:36:00.000-05:00

Thank you for these insights! While I beleve that there are many people alive today who share Martin Luther King's point of view, it's hard not to miss having someone in the public arena who was so articulate and wise. His insights about the unifying force of love are essential.

JuanThis is a magnificent comment! Now where is a ...

2006-01-16T08:14:00.000-05:00

Juan
This is a magnificent comment! Now where is a politician that can lead America so eloquently as Martin Luther King?

Clive

The "I have a dream" speech is the great eschatolo...

2006-01-16T06:52:00.000-05:00

The "I have a dream" speech is the great eschatological one, so full of conviction and conveyed faith and hope that we will all die, but that our efforts will secure for us our immortality.

But this speech is the roadmap, the actions that lead to the dream--spoken plainly.

Thank you for writing and publishing the best tribute to Martin I have ever read.

Coincidentally, I wrote an article about King’s sp...

2006-01-16T06:20:00.000-05:00

Coincidentally, I wrote an article about King’s speech last September, looking at how the views he expressed in New York in 1967 might translate to the current situation. Here’s an excerpt:

“In April 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King rose at Manhattan's Riverside Church to deliver a blistering attack on the Vietnam war. He said that the US was in Vietnam, not to liberate it, but "to occupy it as an American colony". He roundly condemned his government as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". The Vietnamese, he said, "must see Americans as strange liberators", describing the US record of denying their independence, including support for "one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem”.

“Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy....They watch as we poison their water...They wander into the hospitals, with at least 20 casualties from American firepower for each Viet Cong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children...How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem, and charge them with violence while we pour new weapons of death into their land?....Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases...We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers".”

David Wearing
London, UK

5. Martin supported a timetable for withdrawing US...

2006-01-16T04:28:00.000-05:00

5. Martin supported a timetable for withdrawing US troops.

There is now a timetable for withdrrawl. Few months before Nov 2006. Mr Murtha gave the reasons for it, but Bush will decalre it as an amazing victory in his GWOT!

Here is how it works: al-Qaeda in Iraq is down to few hundred already and will probably be decalred defunct by mid-spring. The Iraqi Resistance, rather than al-Qaeda are the new heoes of the Arabs and Muslims, so al-Qaeda recruitment has dried up. They are losing in fights with the US and the insurgents, and getting reported to the police more, and suicide attacks rather work against their retention rate anyway.

There are still problems for Bush though. The insurgents know he is absolutely desperate and can name their price. The thousands of US civilians in Iraq, mostly sulking Likudist or free-market amateurs, can not stay even one day after the troops leave, so all the garbage about reconstruction and US gift of democracy, freedom and everything else will have to quietely disappear.