On this day, January 21st, 2008, we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the most influential modern-day Americans in our long and storied history. It is fitting, therefore, as we bicker and fight among ourselves as to whether race or gender is being exploited in this primary, that today, we take a good step back. We can, should, MUST wonder to ourselves who Dr. King himself might find today, upholding the ideals he held so near and dear to his heart.
Come, now, and revisit some of King's historical words, so that you might reflect on what today should mean to all of us. There's also a little something here that I found to be quite amazing, as well...
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the greatest orators of our time. His fiery passion and way with words galvanized many of us, of all races, creeds and colors, to fight for real democracy, real freedom, and a nation in which fear, hatred and divisiveness were not the dominant factors of our very existence:
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.--from the most famous King speech, "I Have A Dream", 8/28/1963
King also saw through much of the sham and sophistry of so-called "evangelists", long before Jimmy Swaggart dominated the COM with his plea for "eight million dollars or God would call him home" (a plea that Swaggart would be forced to apologize for later). In a speech delivered 4/4/1967, at the Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in NY, King showed that he understood over 40 years ago that there was a right way and a wrong way to invoke the specter of religion in our day-to-day lives:
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 movements 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.
That would seem to a good example of the right way. There are too many examples of the wrong way to note. Unfortunately, those of "the cloth" who strike fear in our hearts using their gods are again gaining ground in the politics of our democratic republic, something which saddens me deeply.
Glen Ford, Executive Editor of the Black Agenda Report, journalist extraordinaire and honoree in this very blog in a diary noting the First BlogPac Progressive Entrepreneurs Contest Winners, had a little something to say about King and what he might think of today's Democratic primary candidates:
The corporate media-mangled Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton "debate" over the relative contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson coincides with the birthday of the actual Martin Luther King. Since the corporate media is totally incapable of covering or even tolerating the raising of any issues of substance, and because both Obama and Clinton avoid real issues, real facts, and real history like the plague, we urge that thinking voters put the candidates to the Martin Luther King Test. What would Dr. King do, if he were alive?
Indeed, Ford pulls no punches. At all:
...What would Dr. King say, today, about the two quarreling corporate candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? There can be no doubt but that he would judge them as he did his former presidential ally, Lyndon Johnson.
Ouch!
So who does Ford think might pass the King test? One candidate, and one candidate only:
"...Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, whose platform for peace, truly universal health care, a living wage, and an end to corporate domination of American life harkens back to that "shining moment" in the Sixties that King mentioned, when there were "hopes" and "new beginnings"
Whoa!
Laugh if you want, scorn if you must, at the candidacy and campaign of Dennis Kucinich. We all know by now that he has been marginalized and this diarist imagines there's one pretty big reason why that is.
But each and every one of us who has ever invoked the specter of Dr. King, in talking about the kinds of things that real Democrats hold near and dear, should take a good, long look in the mirror today. Wonder to yourself why a man as esteemed as Glen Ford might think that King would look at Dennis Kucinich as the best candidate we have.
Looking back at what King stood for, I surely don't, not at all. We will reap what we sow, fellow kossacks, and I am sorry that we just couldn't agree on this very important candidate's electability.
Happy Birthday, Dr. King. May you rest in peace, and thank you for standing up for democracy, freedom, and most of all, equal rights for all of us, regardless of the color of our skin.
NOTE: rjones2818's scandalously-overlooked diary on this same subject can be found here.