MLK Day: Dreams and Nightmare, by Robert Jensen
...on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City, in a speech titled “Beyond Vietnam,” King spoke just as eloquently of the nightmare that lies underneath that dream. In that speech to Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, King not only made a compelling case for ending the U.S. attack on Vietnam, but went beyond that to diagnose a failed society.
On this day that we mark with his name, we owe it to King -- and to ourselves -- to face that failure honestly.
........ But I want to put aside for now the issue of wars, past and present, and speak of King’s deeper analysis in that speech.
He knew that simply condemning that war was “seductively tempting,” but that his principles demanded that he “go on now to say something even more disturbing.”
King was blunt: “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit,” a condition that had left the United States “on the wrong side of a world revolution.” He continued:
“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.”
“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.”
On this day that we mark with his name, we owe it to King -- and to ourselves -- to face that failure honestly.
........ But I want to put aside for now the issue of wars, past and present, and speak of King’s deeper analysis in that speech.
He knew that simply condemning that war was “seductively tempting,” but that his principles demanded that he “go on now to say something even more disturbing.”
King was blunt: “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit,” a condition that had left the United States “on the wrong side of a world revolution.” He continued:
“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.”
“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.”
posted by Alice at
Monday, January 16, 2006
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