Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As we celebrate one of America’s most visionary, courageous leaders, let me ask a simple question: What is it with conservatives and MLK Jr? When King was alive and rocking the nation’s conscience, conservatives — particularly Southern Democrats — absolutely despised the guy. (Those Southern Dems, by the way, left their party in droves for the GOP after King registered his largest success, i.e., passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.) Conservatives in those times routinely called King a “socialist,” “troublemaker,” and even, of course, “communist,” along with more racially charged insults we won’t include here. And when King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, conservatives went so ballistic, you’d have thought they were about to explode. Now that King is rightly recognized as an icon of U.S. history, however, some conservatives have been busy trying to rewrite history, claiming kinship with King’s ideas (I know: WTF?) and, in the case of the perpetually delusional Glenn Beck, comparing himself to the late preacher/activist.
Beck was bad enough, but now the Pentagon, in a breathtakingly cynical move, is trying to use Dr. King to sell its dirty little wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Alternet’s Robert Greenwald reports, the Pentagon held an observance of King’s life last Thursday, Jan. 13, during which Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Dept.’s general counsel, gave the keynote address. Johnson’s message was that Dr. King would “understand” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because they’re not out of line with the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s teachings. Johnson went so far down the Alice In Wonderland memory hole as to claim that King would consider those wars as similar to the actions of the Good Samaritan from the New Testament.
Greenwald is part of a group called RethinkAfghanistan, which has produced a video debunking the Pentagon’s unbelievable lies about King and setting the record straight as to the civil rights leader’s views. See the 3-minute video below. If you don’t have time for the video, here are couple of excerpts:
King decried the awful willingness of his country to spend $500,000 per each killed enemy soldier in Vietnam while so many Americans struggled in poverty. Yet last year, a conservative figure for the amount we spent per killed enemy fighter in Afghanistan was roughly $20 million.Dr. King spoke of the “demonic, destructive suction tube” yanking resources and lives out of the fight to get Americans on their feet. That tube is still demonic and destructive: we’ve spent more than $360 billion on this war so far and it will cost us roughly $3 billion per week in the coming year.
It’s safe to say that Dr. King would not regard any conflict that killed 10,000 people in a year as a humanitarian exercise. Nor would he “understand” how a nation in the grip of an economic meltdown like this one could again throw lives and resources away for almost a decade.
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2011.
For my entire life I have been listening to the government of this country explaining one war after another as a humanitarian endeavor. When I was young, and still thought they knew more than I did, I bought it, and even served voluntarily in the Viet Nam fiasco.
Now that I have learned to think for myself I find it very difficult to stomach the idea that dropping thousands of bombs to kill hundreds of thousands of people it doing something heroic and beneficial.
Someday the warmongers are going to attack a country that actually has the ability to defend themselves and then all you people who are so proud of our soldiers will find out what a war really is.
You’re right DLP, killing hundreds of thousands was only heroic when King Abe did it.
Grooms, do you mean to say that the central themes of MLK are political, or property of Liberals? Also, to say that “conservatives” went ballistic, or felt a certain way is inherently idiotic. How do you personally feel when you are rolled into a group as if you’re a robot or mindless sheep? Did you ever personally liken GWB to Hitler? “Liberals” didn’t do that, individuals did. Would you consider Ron Paul a conservative? He certainly is not in favor of our empire, as many true conservatives and libertarians are not. Broad brush statements miss the point and play into that hostile tone that you are so quick to point out in others.
So, BV, do you actually have a point that addresses the issues raised in the blog post about MLK or ? I realize that’s not usually a priority for web trollers, but just in case you don’t fit into that category. . . .
As for what I “meant to say,” it’s pretty damned clear if you’ll just read it through before firing off your little love note.
My point was addressing your assertion that conservatives couldn’t be aligned with MLK’s ideas. You spent half of the words you wrote being appalled at “conservatives” who must clearly be opposed to the ideas of MLK, correct? That idea along with a blanket characterization of “conservatives” is beyond question in your mind?
I agree that the propaganda from the Pentagon is laughable. I see that sort of attempt to justify all sorts of state-expanding ventures. Is the evil of the war waging big government not related to the evil of the nanny state big government?
Someone has forgotten to tell Mr. Grooms that “conservatives” haven’t been in charge of the Pentagon since Jan. 20, 2009. (Nor were they in charge during the heart of the Vietnam War.)
Now answer BV’s questions.
MLK may have hated Whites and America but he was absolutely right when he opposed the Vietnam war. Saying he would support the war now is beyond absurd.
Len:
You have confused the terms “Conservative” and “Republican”. What you meant to say is that REPUBLICANS have not been in charge…
If you think that all Conservatives are Republican and all Republicans are Conservative then you do not understand the term.
BV:
I read the article carefully. What Mr. Grooms was complaining about is people claiming that their personal agenda would be applauded by Dr. King, when in fact history shows that he would have been opposed.
It is historically accurate that southern Conservatives fought Dr. King with every weapon in their arsenal. Southern Conservatives even went so far as to use the police and National Guard to try to stop integration.
“BV Says:
You’re right DLP, killing hundreds of thousands was only heroic when King Abe did it. ”
BV:
It is not the people in the North who still fly the battle flags and who celebrate the fighting of that war at every opportunity as if it was some great time of honor in our history.
DLP, you can’t seriously suggest that the despicable Abe Lincoln isn’t celebrated more by the mainstream than any other president, and chiefly because he “saved the Union”. Nevermind waging war on civilians and imprisoning thousands who opposed him in speech not violence, suspending habeus corpus,and having a Congressman deported.