Forum Post: Why the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. matters RIGHT NOW to poor people, the middle class & Occupy supporters
Posted 11 years ago on Jan. 9, 2013, 11:08 a.m. EST by therising
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UPDATE: Here is link to Cornel West giving a passionate account of King's legacy. West gives his reasons for being upset that President Obama is choosing to be sworn in on MLK, Jr.'s bible. Prepare to be blow away just like Newt Gingrich was in the background: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96d_CzrfxsM --- Powerful stuff.
ORIGINAL POST - WHY THE ASSASSINATION OF MLK MATTERS RIGHT NOW
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. This man represented a such a threat to the power structure that the power structure felt the need to kill him. What was this peaceful man doing that made him such a threat?
The threat was that he was uniting people and pulling the gauze of propaganda and division from people's eyes. He was daring to speak the truth out loud that we're all in this together.
We can all speak up and declare that truth and be safe. They can't get to all of us. If we remain nonviolent and continue this virtuous cycle of awakening, soon there will be so many of us that they won't have a chance to stop us. They'll be like that little man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz who had been perceived as the great and powerful oz, bellowing into his microphone. Once we awaken to our collective strength, the power of fear and division held by the 1% disappears. Once the curtain is pulled back, we realize that we've had the power all along. There are 99 of us for every 1 of them. I like those odds.
TrevorMnemonic put it this way: "The power elite cannot combat [nonviolence]. They prefer people to be violent, because then they can use all forms of oppression, like police brutality, to shut them down and the public will be okay with that, or even support the brutality. . . The majority of people will not support a violent crackdown on a peaceful organization gaining popularity. . . The way they push MLK day is biased toward the power elite. They always play his dream speech, but they never show his speeches on economic inequality or corporate rule. In fact, they never once mentioned those speeches on economic inequality when they taught MLK in my school. King started to move more toward that direction as well. 'He tried to give the power to the have-nots. And then came the shot.'" (end TrevorMnemonic quote).
King got shot soon after he participated in a garbage workers strike. He was moving more and more towards income inequality. He also got shot just as he was beginning to link the peace movement with the civil rights movement which meant he was bringing black people and white people together under one cause which all related to income inequality in the end. This REALLY MAKES ME ANGRY BUT IT ALSO GIVES ME EVEN MORE RESOLVE AND HOPE BECAUSE it reaffirms the POWER OF NONVIOLENCE, THE THREAT IT PRESENTS TO THE POWERS THAT BE.
FBI files released under the freedom of information act show that Coretta Scott King was followed around for 2 years by the FBI after her husband's assassination to make absolutely certain she did not continue King's effort to link the peace movement with the civil rights movement. Joining the white students and poor kids going to Vietnam and their families TO African Americans and people of all races fighting in the civil rights movement was too big and scary for the 1%.
This REALLY REALLY PISSES ME OFF. I am angry just writing these words because they got away with it. But now we have an opportunity to bring nonviolent force again and right this wrong. Always sticking to the principles of nonviolence. The people are rising. And we ain't stopping for nothin. No fucking way.
Do you know anyone who still buys the notion that King was killed by James Earl Ray? Well, read on. . .
J. Edgar Hoover once brazenly declared in an FBI memo that "Through counterintelligence, it should be possible to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them.". He directly discusses the threat he perceives from from Martin Luther King, Jr. Read this short memo. Then think about the timing here.
(original docs from NSA archives: http://nsarchive.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/pages-from-churchv6_12_exhibits.pdf )
Mar 4, 1968 = The date on that memo from Hoover.
Apr 4, 1968 = The date of King's assassination
The facts show that James Earl Ray did not kill King: The two separate ballistic tests conducted on the Remington Gamemaster allegedly used by Ray in the assassination did not match the bullet to the gun.[50][51] Moreover, witnesses surrounding King at the moment of the shooting say the shot was fired from a different location, from behind thick shrubbery near the rooming house, and not from the rooming house window.[52]
According to witness Lloyd Jowers, James Earl Ray was a scapegoat, and not involved in the assassination. Jowers believed that Memphis police officer Lieutenant Earl Clark fired the fatal shot. In 1999, the King family conducted a civil case to consider the existence of an assassination conspiracy.
The verdict was that King had been the victim of assassination by a conspiracy involving the Memphis police as well as federal agencies.
This verdict affirmed Ray's innocence, which the King family has always maintained.[47][53] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#Ray_as_scapegoat
Author Jim Douglass:"What I experienced in that courtroom ranged from inspiration at the courage of the Kings to amazement at the government's carefully interwoven plot to kill Dr. King. The seriousness with which US intelligence agencies planned the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks eloquently of the threat King and nonviolence represented to the powers that be in the spring of 1968.[4]"
Now fast forward to 2011-2012 and look what the FBI and other agencies are doing NOW: http://m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy .
It's time for the people to rise and engage in nonviolent action of all kinds, whether it's speaking the truth during casual conversation with another person or engaging in larger nonviolent actions like sit ins, blockades, strikes, boycotts, walk outs, street theater or any other of the countless forms of nonviolent protest. We need to create healthy nonviolent TENSION.
We can't be afraid of that word. Here's why:
King explained the use of active non-violent resistance as follows in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:
"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. . . The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”
Let's rise. :)
*Full text of Naomi Wolf article plus comparison of present day U.S. to 1967 South Africa on indefinite detainment here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/police-dhs-working-for-with-banks-to-target-neutra/
"Martin Luther King Would Have Occupied Wall Street"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK1wFD1WTHQ
They don't play his speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" where he speaks against America's acts of imperialism.
Here is that speech - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm
"They went after King when he spoke out on Vietnam" - Rage Against the Machine
UNITY is a threat to the establishment.
We can never forget that King was a radical. He is not the "sanitized, deodorized" King that mainstream America wheels out every MLK day. He was uniting people of all races and colors for economic justice and this represented a major threat to the establishment when he quite intentionally and openly began to work to join the peace movement to the civil rights movement. Vietnam protests by King were in many ways at root about economic justice and civil rights.
King was killed soon after he started making this link of peace movement and civil rights movement. This post shows clearly that King was not killed by a lone gunman.
FBI documents released through the freedom of information act show that King's widow was followed for 2 years after her husband's assassination to make sure she was not linking civil rights movement to peace movement. This again underscores how much of a threat unity is to the establishment.
Unity frightens the PTB.
We are a force unstoppable once united.
I just ordered his book "Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community"
I'm actually surprised a book like that wasn't required reading in school. Nope instead they say "just read the Scarlet Letter and some other crap fiction pushed by the conservative pro-capitalism establishment."
Funny you mention that book. It's on my nightstand at the moment. :)
Consider "MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign Isn’t Over - We Are Planning a Mass Protest for June."
https://truthout.org/articles/mlks-poor-peoples-campaign-isnt-over-were-planning-a-mass-protest-for-june/ by Colleen Wessel-McCoy, of 'OtherWords' & note
https://otherwords.org/continuing-kings-revolution-of-values/ (for the alternative and original link)
respice et prospice!
Consider "Restoring King" - by Thomas J. Sugrue:
"On MLK Day we remember the real Martin Luther King Jr., who was far more radical than most who celebrate his legacy today."
verb. sat. sap.!
"'Letter from a Birmingham Jail' by M. L. King, Jr."
Worth reading on a regular basis, I strongly suggest!!!
multum in parvo!
"Following in MLK’s Footsteps Means Resisting Christian Nationalism"! - by Nicholas Powers:
And please try to closely consider that ... "King’s life gives us a blueprint to fight the religious right"!
dum spiro, spero!
This: "White Christian nationalists, the extreme fringe of the religious right, are increasingly turning to violence. They want to make Christianity the state religion, ban abortion, reinforce conservative gender roles and dramatically cut immigration to ensure a white majority."
"In this biblical struggle, white Christian nationalists imagine themselves as the foot soldiers of Jesus. Secular society looks to them, Stewart said, to be “Satanic. Demonic. Inhuman.” It is a theology that is anti-democratic and juvenile. It is a simple-minded story of good and evil that demonizes whoever is different; the gay person, the Muslim, the immigrant. Finally, the unconverted must kneel at the foot of the cross, by court order or force if needed."
Be wary, be very wary of anyone peddling religious virtues that when examined closely are just manipulations and instead follow this:
"King’s Jesus was a Black Jesus. He loved the poor. He healed the sick. He was willing to break an unjust law for the greater moral good of love. King wrote about unjust laws in his 1963, Letter from Birmingham Jail, “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”
King’s Jesus did not reduce anyone’s humanity to skin color, class or sex. The Christian tradition he represents always transcended the limits of the Bible’s text to reach its spirit. In order to make it real, King and the millions who followed him risked their lives and suffered, in hopes to redeem — really rescue — the racists trapped in their hatred."
"King’s Jesus was - a Black Jesus. He loved the poor. He healed the sick. He was willing to break an unjust law for the greater moral good of love. King wrote about unjust laws in his 1963,"Letter from Birmingham Jail, “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality - is unjust.”
BECAUSE IT TOTALLY WARRANTS REPEATING!!!
et veritas vos liberabit!
As MLK Day approaches, it comes with me remembering my fondest day in the Occupy movement, the MLK march from Zucotti/Liberty Park to Riverside Church. It began with me bitching to the organizers about the length of the march, about 8-9 miles, and my suggesting we take the train part of the way....to Riverside Church at 120th St. I'm glad they didn't listen to me, and in the end, I made it my business to be in front of the march most of the way ensuring that it was safe for my fellow Occupiers to cross the side streets.
First we gathered on the steps of St John the Devine Church where many other people met us, and where we heard speeches on that cold night. Then we left there with a candle-light march to Riverside Church ( a few short bocks away), the church where MLK broke from the Johnson administration in his famous Beyond Vietnam speech in his support for the Vietnam War. It was there in a packed church that I pulled a red, white, and blue button out of my coat pocket that said Equal Rights in '63, and pinned it on a beautiful, handmade scarf that one of my daughters had made me. When people asked me about that button, i was very proud to tell them that my Dad, who left the comforts, and ignorance of white America, had brought that home from the March On Washington.
I will always remember that night, the speeches, the dances, the singing, the poetry, and the comaraderie. It was just beautiful.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/occupy-wall-street-protester-martin-luther-king_n_1208975.html
~Odin~
Wow. What a momentous occasion and what an honor to be a part of it. King would be proud of Occupy raising the questionnofnincome inequality and economic justice again and again and again like the waves beating ceaselessly against the shore.
Thanks so much for sharing that experience. Gives you the shivers in a good way. King's spirit is still very much alive. :)
You're welcome. Agreed, his spirit is very much alive.
~Odin~
One more in the name of love
I wish President Clinton had agreed to the truth commission on this assassination.
That would have required courage.
Yyyyyyyyyyup
you can't expect much from the 2 factions of the corporate state
Nonviolence is a powerful weapon.
Did you know that the first government reform programs and social reform programs were recorded on cuniform tablets back in Sumer (Shumer or Shinar) like 5000 years ago? See Samuel N. Kramer, 1956, The Tablets of Sumer (book) according to the book I have by Zacharia Sitchin, The 12th Planet. Sumer had the first education system, first medical system like ours, first laws, first Bi-Cameral Congress, first historians, first jobs, first money, first banking, first precious metals production and metalurgy, first use of petroleum products for burning & sealing, first greedy elite trying to gouge and monopolize the poorer people, etc.
So for Obama to say oh it is just a small misunderstanding of all the things that banks do for us. People don't know the economic role that banks and corporations play. Well hey, President Obama, it has only been 5000 years or maybe 4000 at least since governments have been falling into corruptions and social reforms were needed. Perhaps that is why we have a constitution and separation of powers and ... why congress is required to declare war to prevent a president who was a constititional lawyer from making drone strikes, and creating kill list.
Well I link this to the relevence of the Martin Luther King assassination this way.... 4000-5000 years of civilization, rulers, laws, social reform, corruption,... How Long will it take to get our government to act like the nice guy it pretends to be??? How long will it take to say "Yes, Corruption is Real, Fraud is Real, Fraud happens in our Banks, Money is Corrupting our Politicians that act like they are nice guys while they are really just earning money and doing whatever the rich and powerful want????"
How long will it take to get our politicians to say "Yes the constitution was created to make a balance of power so a president could not start wars and write laws without checks and balances".
How long will it take to get politicians to see that we are on to them. We know they are just actors and some of them have even worked in Hollywood... We know they mostly don't take action to protect people, protect individual rights, privacy rights, or civil rights. Why don't politicians get it?
My view is that we need to unify and then this won't be a problem. There is no "they". There is only we. See what I mean? Once we realize we have more in common than we have separating us, we can make decisions from a position of unified strength rather than demands from a position of divided weakness.
Yeah, but without the structure to control Politicians, the polticians are going to continue to act up. We don't hate politicians, but we hate their behavior. If the courts enforce the consitution, the polticians will not be able to act out with their bad behavior.
The founders of this Nation did their best to provide the structure to balance powers with the US Constitution and it's subsequent amendments. If the supreme court doesn't understand the intentions of the laws created through the constitution, then this country is just going to continue to decline for all of us.
There are many angles to practicing law and one principal is to look at the intention of the legislators. It is reasonable to draw the opinion that 1) Drone Strikes are Illegal 2) Kill Lists are Illegal 3) The rights to speedy trial, a lawyer, freedom from cruel punishment, and extrodinary rendition applies to non US Citizens 4) Fruadulent Foreclosures, AAA Rated financial Junk, and passing on financial instruments of low quality as high quality is Illegal and is Fraud 5) Hiring Bankers to work in our government and central bank was always a Risky proposition that demanded constraints and monitoring to prevent fraud, collusion, and conspiracy. To ignore this Risk of banker influence, banker infiltration of government and banker control of legislation through lobbying ... is in itself an Impeachable if not presecutable kind of Negligence.
The exended presence of Eric Holder, Tim Geithner, Jack Lew, Mary Schipiro, Hank Paulson, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, are huge Signals that this Administration fully supports TBTF, Banker Fraud, the corruption of Lobbying, and that the US Federal Government is for SALE.
See the Democracy Now video of 11 Jan 2013 with Matt Taibbi and William K. Black as my Primary Source Material.
The president killers are alive and well. Ready to dispose of resistance at a moments notice. Today though, they take their sweet time disposing of resistance because, there is less to clean from the history books if, there is a more personal reason for the death of an opposing individual. I found these intriguing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/03/fbi-and-ernest-hemingway
http://www.ibtimes.com/aaron-swartz-found-dead-family-releases-statement-accuses-us-attorney-mit-causing-suicide-after
Very compelling. And here's more on Aaron from Washington Post - Headline "American Hero": http://wapo.st/WPFdtL . The article summary says: "The bullying prosecution of Aaron Swartz might be a sign that we're losing the tolerance for dissent, irreverence, and disrespect for authorities that made this country great.."
American Hero indeed.
History and this country, are filled with imbeciles in law enforcement, who have and are, willing to slaughter fellow citizens, if ordered to do so. Even babies and elderly. That is a problem. The solution is to educate, those individuals, of the inherent wrong, in following wrong orders.
...Revolutionary new technologies and ideas don’t come from people with a reverence for following the rules. They come from iconoclasts like Jobs, Wozniak, and Swartz. It’s a bad idea to lock them up and throw away the key...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz-american-hero/?wpmk=MK0000200
It's so important that we as a society begin to tell the truth about such matters.
not only those few were killed by boogie man. even some actors and musician were killed. They want you to be quiet! Otherwise they want you dead. is important not to be afraid! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_NdXQ_WboJg#!
Ya Reckon?
http://www.ibtimes.com/aaron-swartz-found-dead-family-releases-statement-accuses-us-attorney-mit-causing-suicide-after
we may guess. Maybe he dont want to die in the prison like a rat. they scared him of torture and harassment. ?? Maybe he was on the way of self determination ?? otherwise we wouldn't know who he was... its a shame that Bradley Manning still a political prisoner.
Imagine all the people we know nothing of, who were systematically removed in similar fashions.....I betcha didn't know this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/03/fbi-and-ernest-hemingway
One more in the name of love.
Great post!
Thanks for all the great additions you add to the forum!
Thanks for the encouragement.
http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/assassinations/mlk.htm
Interesting additional info. Thanks.
Show the avatar here: http://patrick.net/about.php?user_ID=43238
"The public be suckered."
Link isn't working for me. Can you just tell me what's there?
Follow Befriend 8 threads 40 comments ttsmyf's website Premium Followed by 0 Following 0 Ignored by 0 Ignoring 0 Ignore ttsmyf Aliases In United States Registered Nov 03, 2012
I saw this when it was published 3/30/1999. showrealhist.com/begun.gif I said to myself “Wow! Boy, people who hold stocks should be seeing this!”. I am still saying the same thing, but now also for homes. nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/26/weekinreview/27leon_graph2.html Both here: showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html Adjusting for inflation is avoided by the 'establishment', because doing that well-shows our nation's serial, massive mispricings TRUTH. showrealhist.com/RHandRD.html AMERICA: “The public be suckered” is both this track record, and keeping it unseen.
ttsmyf's most recent comments:
On 12 Jan 2013 in GUNFIRE Let's risk our leaders, ttsmyf said: Here are the two sourcings I referenced.
NY Post (site accessed 1/12/2012) http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/self_defense_killings_in_us_nearly_aQicVMrF1TAP3Sv3BgqfCO “Self-defense killings in US ...”
Wikipedia (site accessed 1/12/2012) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots “List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots”
On 11 Jan 2013 in How to beat the NRA, ttsmyf said: A point often made FOR gun ownership by 'good guys' is to enable protection against 'bad guys'. The same argument applies to armed protectors of elected public officials. The importance of these armed protections could be 'measured' with relevant statistics -- let's have NO guns for protectors of 'leadership' public officials, for a good long while.
On 11 Jan 2013 in Home Prices & the Dow, each Inflation-Adjusted. A recent Dow day., ttsmyf said: Recent Dow day is Friday, Jan. 11, 2013
And in the 21st century.....
You'd like to forget about that stuff. Wouldn't you coyote? :). Funny how history repeats itself. Perhaps we should learn from it. Violent crackdown on peaceful protesters exercising their 1st ammendment rights 2011 and 2012. . . That recent enough history for ya?
[Removed]
Operation Gladio.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/remember-operation-gladiothe-pentagon-through-nato/