In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another.
Dick Cavett: A lot of people…were astounded at how you got [alleged assassin of Martin Luther King, James Earl] Ray to change the plea [from “not guilty” to “guilty”].
Percy Foreman [Ray’s lawyer and LBJ crony]: I didn’t get him to change the plea. [Laughing] I simply told him that I thought he would be executed if he didn’t.
— The Dick Cavett Show, August 9, 1969.1
“In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime — the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps …the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
In yesterday’s New York Times, regular op-ed contributor David Brooks heaped effusive praise on last Saturday’s March for Our Lives. Brooks wrote:
I have to say, I loved the gun-control march I observed last Saturday in Washington. The crowd was good-hearted, gracious, diverse and welcoming… Everybody kept underlining their faith in our democratic system, that voting is the way to make change…Of course some of the student speakers were grandiose and pretentious. Most of us were like that when we were 18.
Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are enriched beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change, we are going to have to change the system.
— Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967
Fifty years after the King assassination, Americans still have a hazy view of the House Select Committee on Assassinations’ findings, an ambiguous understanding that may end up characterizing American views on Robert Mueller’s probe as well, Bob Katz explains. By…Read more →
And thus the U.S. left leadership sits in the left chamber of the hall of mirrors, complaining about conspiracy theories while closing its eyes to actual conspiracies crucial to contemporary imperialism.
— Graeme MacQueen, Beyond Their Wildest Dreams: September 11, 2001 and the American Left
(ANTIMEDIA) — On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday approved by the federal government, it’s important to remember how that same federal government viciously targeted the beloved activist and orator.
That's American Nazi leader Richard Spencer pretending to be Dave Gahan a couple months ago in front of a crowd of drunken fascists who appear to have left their tiki torches at home that night. As a longtime, devoted Depeche Mode fan, that doesn't give me the right to kill him-- even if I'm going to be haunted for weeks after I watching him mincing around the stage like that. Even punching him in the face is... well, just something to laugh about. I've been a non-violent kind of guy for my whole life (except once).The video's funny. I wish it went on longer.
From the Archive: A half century ago, The New York Times accused Martin Luther King Jr. of “slander” for decrying the Vietnam War and The Washington Post detected “unsupported fantasies” in his speech, recalled more favorably by Gary G. Kohls.…Read more →
