Martin Luther King Jr.: Psychic

This is officially "Martin Luther King Jr. Day". A day in which we refuse to remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., instead choosing to celebrate an uncle tom who didn't threaten the status quo and just wanted a fair shake for innocent li'l darkies being oppressed by KKK bigots, that's all.

Here is the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a speech from 1967, shortly before he was assassinated:

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

And Iraq and Iran, Afghanistan and Syria. What is the answer?

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Oooh! A threat to profits! No wonder he had to be assassinated. So what does this "person-oriented" society involve?

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

But... but... that would interfere with the ability of the wealthy elite to loot the economy for their own profit! Boy, aren't we glad that the paper mache' version of Martin Luther King Jr. whose day is celebrated today never said anything like that? So what else did the real Martin Luther King Jr. have to say?

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:

Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word." But... but... the Bible said "Get yerself a gun and kill lots of darkies", I don't know what passage it is, but World Nut Daily said so, so it must be true!

And c'mon. What about hate? Hate is so... inspiring. Hate lets us feel good about our pitiful pathetic lives of masticating and defecating and fornicating and accumulating shiny baubles of no import for no end other than to be hooting howling monkeys flinging feces at all who are not "like us". This Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote this speech is UNPATRIOTIC! He says other people are just as human as Americans. HERESY! Boy, I'm glad that the paper mache' dude whose birthday we celebrate today never said stuff like that. He was a good darkie, the proper servile kind.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the callling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

I'd choose, but there's a good basketball game on TNT tonight that I can't miss. Maybe after I finish watching the game. Phoenix is playing Memphis, then Miami is playing the L.A. Lakers. C'mon, a man has to have his priorities straight. Why decide about all that love and peace stuff, when I can watch a great basketball game instead? Boy, I'm glad that the paper-mache' saint whose day we celebrate today never asked me to do anything. Asking folks to do something to help their country and humanity is, like... like... COMMUNIST! Yeah! Help someone else, and the terrorists have won!

-- Badtux the American Penguin
(Tongue firmly in beak).

Crossposted over at the Mockingbird's Medley