Martin Luther King

Today is Martin Luther King Day. This morning I listened to the speech Dr. King gave at The Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. The speech was given one year to the day before his assassination in Memphis.

The speech is an eloquent compelling overview of the history of the War in Vietnam, the ineptitude of US policy leading up to the war, and the irrationality of the then contemporary US position. Dr. King made a plea for listening to the views of our enemies in an effort to better understand ourselves. He asked for an introspection and abandonment of the Western arrogance that caused us to hold views we deemed superior to our black and brown brothers around the world.

In his speech King quoted John F. Kennedy who said, “Those who suppress peaceful revolutions will sow the seeds of violent revolution.” Kennedy said that five years before the King speech.

So, we have a fast forward of more than 40 years. I cannot help but juxtapose the clear thinking and eloquence of Dr. King with the xenophobic, bombastic, and jingoistic language of some of today’s candidates for the Presidency.

I listened to the speech of Fred Thompson this past Saturday after the South Carolina Republican primary. It was a classic Thompson speech, signifying little more than his buffoonish stupidity. He said, “We live in the country that has sacrificed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other countries in the world combined.” Fred has trouble with math. In WW II we had 416K military deaths while England had 382K, France had 212K and Canada 45K. In WW I the gap is even larger with 50K US military deaths and 700K military deaths in England alone. As a disciple of Reagan, Fred must be including Grenada. That will surely tip the scale.

Fred Thompson’s statement is typical of the self-absorbed, ill-informed, flag waving narcissistic rhetoric that comes from the talk radio wing of the Republican Party.

And so, welcome to the dumbing down of America. And, thank you Dr. King, for a moment this morning to cherish the soaring clarity of your Riverside speech.