16 Comments

• 1. BARRASSO  |  April 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

  McCain would vote against that.

  http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/04/mccain-voted-against-mlk-day-at-almost-50-years-of-age/

• 2. SteaM  |  April 4th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

  Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. God Bless Martin Luther King.

  However, just the other day you were reaming Jane Fonda for her anti-Vietnam activities during that war. How her endorsement for Barack Obama was a bad thing because of this.

  How do you feel about Mr. King’s anti-war and anti-vietnam stance?

  One would assume you hate him just as much as Jane Fonda if you are to be consistent.

• 3. slaw  |  April 4th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

  “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.”

  -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
  April 4th, 1967

• 4. SteaM  |  April 4th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

  I also wonder how the right feels about Martin Luther King having been aggresively wiretapped by the United States FBI.

• 5. Thrower  |  April 4th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

  Plenty of credit and blame to go around here. First, thank God for Martin Luther King Jr. We were blessed to have the civil rights movement led by a man who preached non-violence. Who knows how many people would have died or how delayed our reconciliation as a nation would have been had that movement been led by a bomb thrower.

  Second, I give a pass to John McCain for 25-year old mistakes. I lived in Arizona in the 1960s and it was one of the most right wing states in the country then. I imagine his stance on the holiday in 1983 was in the mainstream of Arizona voters even if it was wrong on merit. I am much more concerned with his thinking in 2008, and my mind is open on him. He could well be a great president if he wins.

  And finally, J. Edgar Hoover’s most egregious acts against King occurred under Democratic presidents who knew full well what he was doing and didn’t have the guts to take him down. Admitting that is the first step toward insuring it doesn’t happen again.

• 6. SteaM  |  April 4th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

  But Martin Luther King was against the vietnam war so he MUST have been a traitor, hated the troops, been a defeatist, and was probably racist.

  Ok, that was sarcasm but if all I knew about life was from what I read on this blog I would believe those things I just wrote.

  Am I blaming anyone for what happened that long ago? No. I just want us to remeber what happens when we attack people for having different viewpoints and for speaking out against war and for voicing dissent.

• 7. Aaron  |  April 4th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

  God bless indeed

• 8. Concerned Citizen  |  April 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

  Martin Luther King did not console our enemy by going to their country and asking our own soldier held in brutal captivity if they were ashamed of being baby killers.

  There is a difference between disagreeing with a war and being a traitor to your nation by providing comfort and aid to our enemies. Jane Fonda crossed that line.

• 9. Joe  |  April 4th, 2008 at 4:24 pm

  Concerned,
  There is a difference between disagreeing with a war and being a traitor to your nation by providing comfort and aid to our enemies.

  So why are Democrats called traitors at times on this site?

• 10. Steam  |  April 4th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

  “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

  Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

  Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don’t mix, they say. Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

  In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church — the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate — leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

  I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.

  Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

  Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.”

  Read the whole thing…
  http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

• 11. NeoClown  |  April 4th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

  Guess what Martin Luther King; I had a fricking dream too. So what.

• 12. Concerned Citizen  |  April 4th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

  Joe,

  While I cannot comment on all the incidents you may be referring to, I have myself used the term against some who’s actions I think have gone to the level of giving that aid and comfort.

  John Murtha’s statements against our Marines in calling them murderers come to mind, especially in the light of all but one of them having now been acquited of those charges. There are others, but at times it can be an appropriate designation. You will find that I will quickly do the same to anyone, regardless of party affiliation, if I think the title applies.

  Do not get me wrong. I do not wholly agree with Dr. King’s position on Vietnam, however, I credit him for speaking out in opposition in a manner that was not a form of ridicule of his country or directly disparaging to the forces serving there. Many of his objections were born from the racial struggles he led here at home. He at least was able to intelligently articulate his objections and provide concise and clear arguments for each. He never urged violence in his protest and only on one issue did he approach the level of treasonous action; when he encouraged young men to consider consciensous objection. However, even then he did not instruct them to do so, but just to consider the alternative to going to war.

  I disagree with most of his reasoning and his arguments centered around the Vietnam war, but I can respect the manner in which he presented them and his other views.

• 13. kimberly4victory  |  April 4th, 2008 at 9:46 pm

  Thrower: As an AZ native, I have to comment.

  AZ voters were against the MLK Day for many reasons (cost of yet another federal holiday, a holiday for one man, etc.).

  Also, we felt a Civil Rights Day was more appropriate to honor all Civil Rights activists (MLK, Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, The Little Rock Nine, etc.). After all, we don’t have a day specifically to honor Lincoln or one day to specifically honor George Washington.

• 14. Joe  |  April 4th, 2008 at 10:32 pm

  k4v… we have one for Christopher Columbus.
  of course, I am just 1/2 kidding. I understand not a lot of people have that day off, but it IS a holiday for some and it IS for one person.
  And if I remember correctly, didn’t we used to have a Washington’s b-day and a Lincoln’s b-day… it is just now that we combine them to President’s day?

  I’m not from AZ and I wasn’t around when states were voting. Since I grew up with it, I couldn’t imagine not having an MLK day. As a white person, I’m guessing we couldn’t imagine life without what MLK actually did.

• 15. FmrMarine  |  April 5th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

  joe

  >>>As a white person, I’m guessing we couldn’t imagine life without what MLK actually did.<<<

  That to which you speak (” what mlk actuall did” )was in the DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED…..south.
  We had NONE of that up north.

• 16. Mark Noonan  |  April 5th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

  SteaM,

  Dr. King was wrong about Vietnam - but he didn’t go to North Vietnam and pose for pictures on an enemy anti-aircraft weapon…wonder if anyone has ever looked into whether or not that particular gun was used to kill any American pilot during the war?

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