The GOP loves to claim Dr. Martin Luther King as one of their own. But they couldn't be more antithetical to King's values and positions, as this debate between Romney and King shows.
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Having said that, some of MLK's claims in this piece certainly are debatable.
Starvation wages? More rhetoric than reality.
Wasteful wartime spending that should go to the poor?
Well,yes and no. Spending on the Viet Nam war did not really create wealth; it involves massive transfers of money throught taxation to firms with government contracts. But those contractors employed and paid tens of thousand of workers to manufacture and supply armaments, food, clothing, etc.
It is hardly suprising that things are a little more complex than preachers will admit.
Martin Luther King stood for the 99%, Romney stands for the 1%.
As far as historical achievement, Martin Luther King far out paces Mitt.
Only the ignorant or intellectually dishonest perpetrates that chestnut.
They erroneously boast that Dr. King was a Republican, and yet as Republicans themselves, they stand against virtually everything that Dr. King stood for.
In fact, some of the very people who're celebrating King's memory today are the very ones who despised him when he was alive. They called him a trouble-maker, a race-baiter, a socialist and a communist ... sounds familiar, doesn't it? They literally hated him, which is why so many of them opposed making his birthday a national holiday - before the political winds forced them to support it. And why even now, some still express their opposition to the Civil Rights legislation that is King's legacy.
I'm sure someone will remind me that many who hated King were southern Democrats; but those were the Democrats, known as the Dixiecrats, who left the Democratic Party in protest the legislation that defines King's legacy, and joined their Republican counterparts instead ... and some of them are still there!
Somehow I suspect that if Dr. King was alive today, they'd hate him just as much as they hated him 50 years ago. But the fact that he's not alive makes it safe for them to celebrate him. After all, isn't celebrating the life and memory of Dr. King the politically-correct thing to do ... even though deep down in their tiny little hearts, they reject everything that Dr. King embraced.
He should have told her to work harder and keep the faith. That's what he tells the rest of us!
Likewise, the Democratic Party was also a different party. Indeed, many of the southern Democrats who rejected King, fled the Democratic Party after the civil rights legislation was passed, and joined ranks with their Republican counterparts. At that point, the Republican Party became the "Party of the South," and many black Americans who were still registered with the Republican Party, eventually and inevitably became Democrats!
It's important to keep things in perspective. If Dr. King was alive today, not only would he not be a Republican, but he would probably be at the top of the Republicans' hate list.
As a Civil Rights leader, MLK had something to say. As a socialist, he was supporting an economic program that has failed everywhere and every time it has been tried.
It's a pity there are no sound-bites from MLK talking about his extra-marital activities. That would be a contrast with Romney too.
You have succeeded in shocking in an age where we have become immune to shock.
Only the vile seek to smear the dead, and to smear dead patriotic heroes is sickening.
What a revealing statement!
How does it "smear the dead" to point out the rather uncontroversial fact that MLK was not faithful to his wife? If it was untrue, you'd have a point.
But as I mentioned, I'm not an American. I see no reason to grovel before your sacred cows.