Dear Glenn, whether or you willfully ignorant or actually ignorant - you can't change the facts.
And the fact is that MLK Jr. was a radical socialist. And if you were his contemporary you would condemn and attack him. Maybe even call him Hitler. Or a Mao-lover. Or a radical Marxist. Or an "evil S.O.B." Or any other derogatory term from your wide repertoire of standard insults!
Here are the facts, Glenn:
MLK ON ECONOMIC JUSTICE
In a 1961 speech to the AFL-CIO, King dismissed the idea that his adherence to "economic justice" somehow made him a Communist, saying: "Yes, before the victory is won, some will be misunderstood. Some will be dismissed as dangerous rabble-rousers and agitators. Some will be called reds and Communists merely because they believe in economic justice and the brotherhood of man. But we shall overcome." [A Testament of Hope, Page 207] MediaMatters
Hey Glenn, I thought you described "economic justice" as "socialism, which is forced redistribution of wealth, which is Marxism." MediaMatters
MLK ON THE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
KING: This will be the day when we shall bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality -- that is the dream.
[A Testament of Hope, Page 206] MediaMatters
In his book Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America, author Nick Kotz writes that during a 1968 trip to Mississippi, King stated: "It didn't cost the nation one penny to integrate lunch counters," and, "It didn't cost the nation one penny to guarantee the right to vote." King concluded that "now, we are dealing with issues that cannot be solved without the nation spending billions of dollars -- and undergoing a radical redistribution of economic power." MediaMatters
Oh noes, Glenn! You have aligned yourself with an advocate for the RADICAL REDISTRIBUTION of ECONOMIC power!
Gene Robinson, Washington Post, points out Beck's total wrongness:
Beck makes the false assertion that the struggle for civil rights was about winning "equal justice," not "social justice" -- in other words, that there was no economic component to the movement. He claims that today's liberals, through such initiatives as health-care reform, are somehow "perverting" King's dream. But Beck's version of history is flat-out wrong. LINK
Glenn there most certainly WAS an economic component of MLK's social justice! The 1963 event was called the March on Washington for JOBS and Freedom!
MLK ON REPARATIONS
Martin Luther King Jr. expressed a view that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of US$50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups. He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils". He presented this idea as an application of the common law regarding settlement of unpaid labor but clarified that he felt that the money should not be spent exclusively on blacks. He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races". LINK
$50 billion in compensation for historical wrongs! But Glenn - you try so very, very hard to vilify President Obama by (falsely) claiming his goal is evil, wrongful reparations!
Health care reform. "This guy is not who he says he is. None of his bills, none of his proposals are about what he says they're about. The health care bill is reparations. It's the beginning of reparations. He's going to give -- if you want to go into medical school, the medical schools will get more federal dollars if they have proven that they are putting minorities ahead." [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/22/09]
Assistance to Native Americans. On November 11, 2009, Beck said: "When the president was sitting there, or standing there, and he was talking about Native American rights in the middle of a tragedy, Fort Hood, it didn't feel right. And it seemed, maybe to me, that he was even promising reparations." [The Glenn Beck Program, 11/9/09]
Everything Obama does. "Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America. And they are all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations. ... These massive programs are Obama brand reparations -- or in presidential speak, leveling out the playing field. But, just in case the universalness of the program doesn't somehow or another quench his reparation appetite, he is making sure to do his part to pay the debt in the other areas." [Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]
MLK ON THE VIETNAM WAR
Starting in 1965, King began to express doubts about the United States' role in the Vietnam War. In an April 4, 1967 appearance at the New York City Riverside Church—exactly one year before his death—King delivered a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam". In the speech, he spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, insisting that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony"[83] and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". ...
King also was opposed to the Vietnam War on the grounds that the war took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare services like the War on Poverty. ... He summed up this aspect by saying, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death".
...
King also criticized the United States' resistance to North Vietnam's land reforms. He accused the United States of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children." LINK
Did someone call U.S. troops baby-killers?
Beck says he advised nephew not to re-enlist because he can't guarantee "government" won't "paint you as a baby killer"
MLK ON THE GLENN BECK VERSION OF TRICKLE DOWN "CHARITY"
King also stated in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar....it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring".[94]
More than flipping a coin to a beggar - which to me seems to be exactly what Beck espouses. The government has NO part in setting up the infrastructure to help people rise out of poverty. Instead, in Beck's system, if individuals are so motivated to give, then they give - certainly this may make the givers feel good about themselves but is wholly ineffective in truly creating the support systems that lift people out of poverty. As we can see in this recession, the Market for charitable giving is NOT stopping people from losing their homes, dropping out of school, going to sleep hungry, foregoing medical care, living on the streets.
Beck is all about giving a man one fish, and then bragging about it while the man goes hungry the next day.
MLK - GLENN DON'T READ THIS OR YOU MAY HAVE A BREAKDOWN
The speech was a reflection of King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with whom King was affiliated. King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation. Towards the time of his murder, King more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice. Though his public language was guarded, so as to avoid being linked to communism by his political enemies, in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism. In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."
King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism," he also rejected Communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism," and its "political totalitarianism." LINK
Fundamental change! Redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice! The progressive Highlander Research and Education Center! DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM! How are you going to spin that, Glenn? Good luck, buddy.
Hey Glenn? We shall overcome you. Fool.