Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King!

[barbara100 at jps.net]

Full original audio version on
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow.html  January 15, 2002

I'm gonna be enjoying his day off.

http://www.mapcruzin.com/news/war111401a.htm
The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered
at Riverside Church, New York City, April 4, 1967


 "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of
inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their
government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit
move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformity thought
within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the
issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of dreadful
conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But
we must move on."

 "Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have
found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must
speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our
limited vision, but we must speak. For we are deeply in need of a new way
beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."

 "We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of
our nation, for those it calls 'enemy,' for no document from human hands can
make these humans any less our brothers. I think of them, too, because it is
clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is
made to know them and hear their broken cries."

 "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 the shift from a thing-oriented society to a
person-oriented society. 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 lay hand on the world order and say of
war, 'This way of settling difference is not just.' A nation that continues
year and year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of
social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

 "America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead
the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except of tragic
death with to prevent us from reordering our priorities over the pursuit of
war."

 "This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond
one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an
all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. We can no longer
afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation.
The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate.
History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that
pursued this self-defeating path of hate."

 "We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence of violent
coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. If we do not act, we
shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time
reserved for those who poses power without compassion, might without
morality, and strength without sight."

 "Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves in the long and bitter,
but beautiful struggle for a new world. If we will but make the right
choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over
the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a
mighty stream."

 "May our country, on the brink of war, take to heart the final refrain of
"American, the Beautiful": "American! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm they should in self-control, Thy liberty in law."