"Somehow this Madness must Cease" [View all]

"And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not for the soldiers of each side, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. …

“Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world is aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.; A Time to Break Silence, April 4, 1967.


The above quote is from my favorite of King's speeches. He was viciously attacked by a wide range of people in the media afterwards for supposedly “straying” from Civil Rights. Yet King was intent upon telling the truth to a sick and divided nation. A year to the day later, he was murdered.

I posted it on facebook this evening. So far, only positive responses. Two days earlier, I had posted a verse from Jimi Hendrix “1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be” about the horrors of war. The lyrics are not “political.” Still, while most people liked it, I was attacked by two of the least intelligent human beings that I have encountered. And I have met some extremely ignorant fools in life.

"Oh, say can you see, it's really such a mess
Every inch of Earth is a fighting nest
Giant pencil and lipstick tube-shaped things
Continue to rain and cause screaming pain
And the Arctic stains from silver blue to bloody red
As our feet find the sand and the sea"
-- Jimi Hendrix, 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)


As one can see, Jimi's lyrics were about the human condition, not “politics.” Yet one fool commented, “I guess it was okay when Obama...” I simply said, “You guessed wrong.” The other was a cousin who lives about a half an hour away, who I have seen twice since 1969, both times at funerals. The two are the type of sick individuals who support the attack on Iran, and view the destruction with glee.

It is a sign of ethical illness to be happy when an American president willing becomes a lap dog for a war criminal like Netanyahu, in a desperate attempt to save his administration. It is a moral failure to approve of what the felon is doing. We need to be sure this virus does not spread, and instead that the Democratic Party holds to Dr. King's righteousness.