, recently I have been drawn to several different Kossacks' signatures in search of that concept. Specifically ones dealing with a great modern orator, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
My own journey of hope led me to transcribe Dr. King's "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam" and started with collecting those signatures. The signatures inspired me to continue looking. Then Al Gore spoke at WE Media and I downloaded that speech. I then re-discovered file sharing networks and ended where I started. I had discovered many of Dr. King's works. "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam" stood out to me as the best of them all.
When looking for its transcription it is sometimes referenced as part II of "Beyond Vietnam". But when cross-referencing those two speeches, many sections were revised. Hence, "Why Oppose the War in Vietnam" is actually a different speech with many similarities. I can not find with certainty where or when "Why I Oppose..." was delivered but "Beyond Vietnam" won Dr. King a posthumous AMA and was delivered one year to the day before his death.
The war in Iraq could be very well substituted in the words of Dr. King's speech and would be revelant to this day.
As I ponder the madness of Vietnam, and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side. Not of the military government in Saigon. But simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too, because it's clear to me. There will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people, and hear their broken cry.
Now let me tell the truth about it. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Do you realize that the Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945, after a combined French and Japanese occupation? And incidentally, this was before communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. This is a little known fact, these people declared themselves independent in 1945; they quoted our Declaration of Independence in their document of freedom. Yet our government refused to recognize. President Truman said they were not ready for independence. So we fell victim as a nation at that time of the same deadly arrogance that has poisoned international situation for all of these years. France then set out to reconquer its former colony. They fought eight long, hard, brutal years trying to reconquer Vietnam.
You know who helped France? It was the United States of America. It came to the point that we were meeting more than 80 percent of the work costs. And even when France started despairing of its reckless action, we did not. In 1954 a conference was called at Geneva. An agreement was reached because France had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu. Even after that and even after the Geneva accords, we did not stop. We must face the sad fact that our government sought... a real sense to sabotage the Geneva accords. Well after the French were defeated. It looked as if independence and land reform would come through the Geneva agreement.
But instead the United States came and started supporting a man named Diem. Who turned out to be one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the world. He set out to silence all opposition; people were brutally murdered merely because they raised their voices against the brutal policies of Diem. Peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthless routed out all opposition. Peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence, and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy. But the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change especially in terms of their need of land and peace.
And who are we supporting in Vietnam today? It's a man by the name of General Ky, who fought with the French against his own people. And who said on one occasion, that the greatest hero of his life is Hitler. This is who we are supporting in Vietnam today. Oh our government. And the press generally won't tell us these things, but God told me to tell you this morning because truth must be told.
The only change came from America as we increase our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. And all the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy, and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemies. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps, where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go, primarily women, and children and the aged.
They watch as we poison their water. As we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions, the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the oppression of the nation's only non-communist revolutionary political force, the United Buddhist Church. This is the role our nation has taken. The role of those who make peaceful revolutions impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that comes from the immense profits of overseas investment.
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 to shift from a theme-oriented society to a personal-oriented society. When machines, and computers, profit motives and property rights; are considered more important than people. The giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan, on life's roadside but that will only be an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be changed. So that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed, as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation.
It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the west investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America; only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries. And say this is not just. It will look at our reliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say this is not just. Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order.
And say of war. This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm; killing our nation's homes with orphans and widows of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane. Sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields. Physically handicapped and psychologically deranged can not be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Oh my friends if there is any one thing that we must see today is these are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression. And out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up like never before. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light. They are saying, unconsciously, as we say in one of our freedom songs, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around". It is a sad fact that because of content complacency; a morbid fear of communism, our proneness to adjust to injustice. The western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch-anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real. And follow through on the revolutions that we initiated.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit. And go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. With this powerful commitment, we shall boldly challenge the status quo. We shall boldly challenge unjust mores. And there by speed up the day when every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The rough places shall be made plain and the crooked places straight. And the glory of the lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that 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 worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concerns beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all embracing unconditional love for all men.
It is an often misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of mankind. When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.
This Hindu, Moslem, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first Epistle of John. "Let us love one another. For God is love. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth and not knoweth is not God. For God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us. And his love is perfected in us."
Let me say finally that I oppose the War in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is no great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster.
America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism. A home that all too many Americans left was solidly constructed idealistically. Its pillars were soundly grounded in the insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage. All men are made in the image of God. All men are brothers. All men are created equal. Every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Every man has rights that are neither conferred by nor derived from the state, they are God given. Out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.
What a marvelous foundation for any home. What a glorious and healthy place to inhabit. But America strayed away and this unnatural excursion has brought only confusion and bewilderment. It has left hearts aching with guilt and mind distorted with irrationality. It is time for all people of conscious to call upon America to come back home. Come home America. Omar Khayyam is right "The moving finger writes and having writ moves on."
I call on Washington today. I call on every man and women of good will all over America today. I call on the young men of America who must make a choice today. Take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. And don't let anyone make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.
God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment and exceedingly I can hear God saying to America "You are too arrogant. If you don't change your ways I will rise up and break the backbone of your power. And I will place it in the hand of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I am God."
Sometimes it isn't easy to stand up for truth and for justice. Sometimes it means being frustrated when you tell the truth and take a stand. Sometimes it means that you will walk the streets with a burden heart. Sometimes it means losing a job, it means being abused and scarred. It may mean having a seven or eight year-old child asking you "Daddy, why do you have to go to jail so much."
I've long since learned that to be a follower of Jesus Christ means picking up the cross. My Bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear there is the cross that we must bear. Let us bear it. Bear it for truth, bear it for justice and bear it for peace. Let us go out this morning with that determination.
And I have not lost faith. I am not in despair. Because I know that there is a moral order. I haven't lost faith because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. I can still sing "We Shall Overcome", because Carlysle was right. No lie can live forever. We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant was right, truth crushed to the earth, will rise again. We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell was right. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the Bible is right, you shall reap what you sow. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to go out to transform the jangling discord of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day when the lion and the lamb will lay down together. And every man will sit under his own pine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, because the word of the Lord has spoken it.
With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all over the world we will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual. "Free at Last, Free at Last, thank God, almighty, we're free at last." With this faith we will sing it and we're getting ready to sing it now. Men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not rise up against nations; neither shall they study war any more. I don't now about you, but I ain't gonna study war, no more!"