Bush Wants War -- What Would King Do? Bring banners and signs to commemorate the courage of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who spoke forcefully against "the giant triplets of racism, militarism, and economic exploitation"!
4:15 PM -- the City Hall underground parking garage on Gay Street opens 4:45 PM -- activists gather at the City Hall garage as Anti-War/Pro-Peace Constituency Group 5:00 PM -- the March begins -- toward the Veterans Memorial 5:45 PM -- the MLK Commemoration at the Veterans Memorial, 300 W. Broad St. 6:30 PM -- Party afterwards!
***** Excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam," Address Delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church, New York City, 4 April 1967
..."Why are you speaking about the 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....
...I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours....
...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....When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed 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. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
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 alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The 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 hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot 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....
[The full text of the "Beyond Vietnam" address is available at <http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.pdf> among other sites.] *****
***** Martin Luther King and War
Audio files and texts of King's speeches on war and peace, as well as on racism and exploitation, are available at: <http://www.radioproject.org/temp/king.html> and <http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR011702.htm>
Following are excerpts from his sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967:
"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....There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark,' but will curse and damn you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children!' There is something wrong with that press...." <http://www.radioproject.org/sound/King5.mp3>
"I'm 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....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...." <http://www.radioproject.org/sound/King11.mp3>
"Don't let anybody 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 it seems that 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...'" <http://www.radioproject.org/sound/King10.mp3> *****
Cf. Iraq Pledge of Resistance Call for Nationally Coordinated Days of Action <http://www.peacepledge.org/>
Contact: The Community Organizing Center, 614-252-9255, <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>