MLK and Politics

With the dust-up between the Barack and Hillary camps over Clinton's intensely stupid gaffe comparing war-monger Lyndon Baines Johnson with peacemaker Dr. Martin Luther King, it seems a good time to bring up several embarrassing facts about MLK, his life, and his actual legacy.

I'll start by pointing out what no one who hangs her/his last hope of change on elections and elected officials wants to hear during an election year. Powers and principalities resist changing oppressive patterns until failure to do so threatens their first concern... stability. Neither John Kennedy nor Lyndon Johnson welcomed any "opportunity" to make history. They were both dragged kicking and screaming through the morass of political risk into signing legislation that was put before them by a mass and disobedient movement that threatened the social order (and not by violence, but by unmasking the mimetic of racism and war by offering their bodies).

That is why Clinton's claim that King's dream was only "realized" by the stroke of Genocidal Johnson's pen actually is offensive as hell. Pointing out that the enormously creepy Johnson -- also a Democratic Party political operator like both Obama and Clinton -- drove the nation deeper and deeper into the murderous quagmire of the American military occupation of Vietnam... is, shall we say, inconvenient.

Johnson campaigned against Goldwater in 1964 as the comparative "peace" candidate, portraying the Bad Republicans as the war mongers; whereupon he was elected by the credulous public in a landslide, and escalated the occupation into the deaths of almost 3 million Southeast Asians, 58,000 US troops, and the still under-reported ecocide resulting from a horrifying chemical war directed against the whole peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

All politicians, and even hamburger empires, like to quote MLK's "I have a Dream" speech, selecting two or three useful, out-of-context quotes designed to be inoffensive to consumers and white people who believe they live in a meritocracy. So does the press... and now it's their turn.

When Dr. King spoke out against the war in 1968, and when he called out the US as a malignant and imperial power, and when he connected the racism that underwrote Jim Crow and its de facto correlatives in the oh-so-innocent North to the racism that allowed America to sleep soundly while Vietnamese men, women, and children were being slaughtered wholesale... then he was beyond the pale. The mainstream press -- far from embracing King -- fell all over themselves to denounce and marginalize him. Thi includes all the so-called "liberal" sheets that still tell the rest of the media what is and is not "news."

Dr. King had the courage to tell us then that every bomb dropped in Vietnam exploded over Harlem. When I hear that kind of truth-telling from either of the pre-anointed Democrats, instead of their relentless phrase-mongering and dressed-up equivocations, then we can take them seriously. Right now all we see are smooth-talking politicians.

With Martin Luther King Day right around the corner, expect plenty more of this disgusting mis-attribution to promote political careers.

Here is King's speech on Vietnam.

Comments

[Stan Goff - Huffpost Blogger]

Speaking of speaking English... did a couple of commentators read this entry? While you are concealing your racialized world view in ritual hat-tips to Dr. King, your refusals to engage the main topic of this post -- the slaughter of Vietnamese and Iraqis -- and your pangyrics for Johnson (and support of Clinton) intentionally ignore this main point... and betray the racism you seek to conceal. Johnson had blood on his hands. Lots of it. So does Clinton. But when it's the blood of Vietnamese or Iraqis... well, that's really not important, is it? This is the epitome of liberal white supremacy... which continues to rear its head within the assumption that American leadership is required to "fix" Iraq. Your government is not yours... it is an international vandal, or as Dr. King said, "My nation is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

This is the responsibility we face for the future of humanity... not an election with its limits fixed by corporations, technocrats, and the Democratic Leadership Council.

[S1m0n]

To me the irony of this comparison is that in it, the Clinton camp is explicitly comparing HRC to LBJ.

I don't believe that's an apt comparison, because Bill&Hill had their opportunity to make a similar contribution to civil rights, and they failed it.

I'm talking about 'don't ask, don't tell' and the 'defense of marriage act'. The Clintons had their moment to transcend their party to do what's right (and why they campaigned on), failed--failed to make mark on history like LBJ did, and failed to do what's right.

This being the case, the Clinton camp attempt to usurp the mantle of civil rights champions is outrageous.

Hillary, we knew LBJ, and frankly, senator you're no LBJ.

[7NoTrumpXX]

Your tirade about President Johnson was uncalled for. Without President Johnson's signature on the Civil Rights Act, it would have been years before the Civil Rights Act would have been passed, and before Dr. King's dream would have begun to come true.

In signing the Civil Rights Act, the entire South went from 100% Democratic to 100% Republican overnight so his signing was a courageous but costly "political" act which resulted in Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with Hillary's statement, "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done."

Anyone who thinks this disparages Dr. King in any way doesn't comprehend English. She said his dream "began" to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. Can anyone argue with that? It took a President to get it done. Can anyone argue with that?

Her statement is a fact. It doesn't disparage anyone, It praises both Dr. King and President Johnson. You also have to realize she was responding to a lenghty "gotcha" question from a reporter. And, she continued at length to expound her answer.

Dr. King was with President Johnson when he signed the legislation and President Johnson gave Dr. King the signing pen. So they BOTH get credit which is what Hillary said.

It truly is too bad that the media does not focus on IMPORTANT questions and not "gotcha" reporting. Tim Russert on Meet the Press this morning tried to "get" Hillary time and time again on nit-picking issues...without success. She is a smart woman and the Nation would be lucky to have her for President.

As far as Obama, I'll seriously consider voting for him in 9 years (9 years, 7 days for those nit-picking "gotcha" reporters) when he has more experience (maybe even as Vice-President IF the nit-picking stops).

WARNING TO DEMOCRATS: The more we beat up our Democratic contenders, the more likely a Republican will keep the White House.

[DavidJames]

Stan,

Thanks for the link to the MLK's speech on militarism. It is amazing how much wisdom there is in this speech.

I have found the text of the speech in: "A testament of Hope, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr." It is his "A Time to Break Silence" speech, p231, from April 4, 1967, one year before he was assassinated.

Regards,

[Stan Goff - Huffpost Blogger]

Been reading the Bible for a while now. I attend All Saints United Methodist Church. And Dr. King was first and foremost a Christian... and not the kind that wants to convert others at sword-point, burn witches, or cut an easy deal with God to escape death.

To compare him with Lyndon Johnson, one of history's mass murderers, is an affront to the truth.

Clinton is an imperialist and a war monger... like Octavian or Pilate. I don't know why we cede the Bible to the traditions that took hold when Constantine co-opted Christianity by making it a state religion.

Like Girard, when I read either testament, I read about a God that takes sides with victims; and both Vietnam and Iraq were victims of our principality. We have way too many people these days prepared to take sides with Caesar... and just as King said at Riverside, sitting on the sidelines with your mouth shut is a form of deep complicity.

Clinton is a war monger; and Obama seems prepared to let the war drift (like a good DLC soldier).

[FANDRAL72]

There were numerous American historical figures who politics were sanitized. How many people know that Helen Keller was a card carrying member of the IWW? The only comment that I would add is that this useful fiction of MLK is also supported by the bloated after-birth of the civil rights movement; a noxious crowd of self-dealing civil rights "leaders". Any potential for a thoughtful and global analysis of Empire that could have been built on the thinking of Malcolm X and MLK was abandoned by these petty demagogues.

[oldpotsmuggler]

Dude, "I can't talk about really getting us out of a war that we should immediately discontinue our participataion in under any circumstances because I don't know what the circumstances will be in a year" appears to irk you.

On the up side, there's the fact that each and every viable candidate on the Republican side is light years worse than each and every viable Democratic candidate. And clearly you are right that Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, Jesus Christ, etc. would be disappointed in the militaristic nature of the whole lot of them.

[ag7]

Great observation Stan, as you well know our rights, Civil rights, voting rights, labor rights weren't given from above. They were fought for and earned by the masses. Thanks.

[BufoAmericanus]

Interestingly, there are many people of every political party and affililation who believe that equality is something that they can "Bestow" on others, rather than see within them.

It's like "Discovering" a populated continent.

[Nommo]

They keep talking about Dr. King's dream and not his work. They have forgotten, or never knew the flack he took for speaking against what was going on in SE Asia. This is why one always hears the " I have a dream... and not the speech he gave at the Riverside Church in '67. Someone ought to play that for Hilarion.
Someone ought to remind her what Dr. King was doing when he was murdered. She who sat on Wal Mart's board for six year, how could she claim at all any awareness of people who work for a living.
Ask her if any Black people invested in Whitewater and what happened to the money of the people who did.

[MPeter]

Good piece. You are right on the money. The media then and now, still distorts truth only bnow, it is worse because of the 24-hour cycle. Great piece though.

[feelfree]

I wasn't offended by what Mrs. Clinton said. Without political leadership from the top Dr. King's dream would have been just that a dream. That isn't smooth talk, that is the truth. If the actions of Dr. King had fallen on deaf ears in Washington, his dream would have been dead in the water.

Sure some individuals would have changed, but Jim Crow was entrenched in the South and political and legislative action was essential to crush it.

[jmpurser]

I think Hillary's comment about Johnson is AS FAIR as yours. Both are accurate and I think both need to be considered in forming an actual picture of the man.

[SignalFlow]

"Powers and principalities" ... have you been reading the Bible, Stan? ;-)

This was brilliant, and a much-needed pre-emptive call of "B.S.!" just in time for the inevitable wave of self-serving MLK quote-plundering. This always gets me SO agitated. I even caught the Randroids at my local UC Berkeley Objectivists' club (yes, there exists such a thing) doing it as a means of attacking affirmative action!

As with Jesus, these are just more examples of the inevitable degeneration of a once-liberating and beautiful message as it becomes warped by cynical rhetoriticians.

[lynnn]

You forgot his commitment to the poor of this country (all poor), but overall this is a good post and goes to show how sanitized our history books are.