[kj] ot - a dream of spin and distortion

[sade1]

  Thanks for that.

--- fluwdot at earthlink.ne wrote:

> from blackcommentator.com
> 
> Every year, millions of Americans pay tribute to the memory of
> Dr.
> Martin Luther King. We often forget, however, that King was
> the
> object of derision when he was alive. At key moments in his
> quest for
> civil rights and world peace, the corporate media treated King
> with
> hostility. Dr. King's march for open housing in Chicago, when
> the
> civil rights movement entered the North, caused a negative,
> you've-
> gone-too-far reaction in the Northern press. And Dr. King's
> stand on
> peace and international law, especially his support for the
> self-
> determination of third world peoples, caused an outcry and
> backlash
> in the predominantly white press.
> 
> In his prophetic anti-war speech at Riverside Church in 1967
> (recorded and filmed for posterity but rarely quoted in
> today's
> press) King emphasized four points: 1) that American
> militarism would
> destroy the war on poverty, 2) that American jingoism breeds
> violence, despair, and contempt for law within the United
> States, 3)
> the use of people of color to fight against people of color
> abroad is
> a "cruel manipulation of the poor," 4) human rights should be
> measured by one yardstick everywhere.
> 
> The Washington Post denounced King's anti-war position, and
> said King
> was "irresponsible." In an editorial entitled "Dr. King's
> error," The
> New York Times chastised King for going beyond the allotted
> domain of
> black leaders -- civil rights.TIME called King's anti-war
> stand
> "demogogic slander...a script for Radio Hanoi." The media
> responses
> to Dr. King's calls for peace were so venomous that King's two
> recent
> biographers – Stephen Oates and David Garrow – devoted whole
> chapters
> to the media blitz against King's internationalism.
> 
> Dr. King may be an icon within the media today, but there is
> still
> something upsetting about the way his birthday is observed.
> Four
> words – "I have a dream" – are often parroted out of context
> every
> January 15th.
> 
> King, however, was not a dreamer – at least not the
> teary-eyed,
> mystic projected in the media. True, he was a visionary, but
> he
> specialized in applied ethics. He even called himself "a drum
> major
> for justice," and his mission, as he described it, was, "to
> disturb
> the comfortable and comfort the disturbed." In fact, the
> oft-quoted
> "I have a dream" speech was not about far-off visions. In his
> speech
> in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963, Dr. King confronted the
> poverty, injustice, and "nightmare conditions" of American
> cities. In
> its totality, the "I have a dream" speech was about the right
> of
> oppressed and poor Americans to cash their promissory note in
> our
> time. It was a call to action.
> 
> 
> 
> In 1986, Jesse Jackson wrote an essay on how Americans can
> protect
> the legacy of Dr. King. Jackson's essay on the trivialization,
> distortion, the emasculation of King's memory, is one of the
> clearest, most relevant appreciations in print of Dr. King's
> work.
> Jackson wrote: "We must resist the media's weak and anemic
> memory of
> a great man. To think of Dr. King only as a dreamer is to do
> injustice to his memory and to the dream itself. Why is it
> that so
> many politicians today want to emphasize that King was a
> dreamer? Is
> it because they want us to believe that his dreams have become
> reality, and that therefore, we should celebrate rather than
> continue
> to fight? There is a struggle today to preserve the substance
> and the
> integrity of Dr. King's legacy."
> 
> Today, the media often ignores the range and breadth of King's
> teachings. His speeches – on economlc justice, on our
> potential to
> end poverty, on the power of organized mass action, his
> criticism of
> the hostile media, his opposition to U.S. imperialism (a word
> he
> dared to use) – are rarely quoted, much less discussed with
> understanding. In fact, successors to Dr. King who raise the
> same
> concerns today are again treated with sneers, and their
> "ulterior
> motives" are questioned. A genuine appreciation of Dr. King
> requires
> respect for the totality of his work and an ongoing commitment
> to
> struggle for peace and justice today.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 


=====
...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  
As the masters rot on walls
And the angels eat their grapes
I watched picasso 
visit the planet of the apes


		
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