tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post4024460569788790948..comments2024-03-24T19:55:32.537-05:00Comments on The View from This Seat: The Inconvenient HeroLKSeathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-6238947747207268652013-01-18T12:50:48.700-06:002013-01-18T12:50:48.700-06:00Leroy: I got in a conversation yesterday on NPR wi...Leroy: I got in a conversation yesterday on NPR with two Pulitzer prize winners regarding King. I'm about the 47th minute of this transcript, but best if you listen online<br /><br />http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-17/rev-martin-luther-king-his-legacy/transcriptStephen Foxhttp://www.foxofbama.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-12609197060571654752013-01-17T11:47:08.326-06:002013-01-17T11:47:08.326-06:00Canadian Thinking Friend Glen Davis sent the follo...Canadian Thinking Friend Glen Davis sent the following comments by e-mail, which I post here with his permission:<br /><br />"Thank you for sharing these hopeful and encouraging and challenging words from MLK. Here in Canada we are facing a Conservative government whose only concern is the bottom line. Never mind the environment; never mind justice and human rights; never mind the just claims of our First Nations. Just get that dirty oil out of the depths of the earth; build pipelines thousands of miles long; get the oil on huge tankers and sell it to China, and don't worry about our grand-children's future.<br /> <br />"Sometimes it is hard to hold on to the word that truth (and justice) is the scaffold that will sway the future when such anti-human values carry the sword in our country. But we shall hang on to King's words of hope that justice shall prevail."LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-80343186321621029452013-01-16T18:39:53.140-06:002013-01-16T18:39:53.140-06:00Anton, thanks for posting your comments and sharin...Anton, thanks for posting your comments and sharing your personal journey. I was influenced by King, but not as significantly as you, it seems.<br /><br />Even before going to Japan in 1966, I remember hearing of Kings' opposition to the war in Vietnam. I wasn't particularly a supporter of that war then (but I wasn't against it as much as I was a few years later), but I remember thinking that it would be better for King to keep working for racial equality in this country rather than become involved in opposition to the war.<br /><br />His 4/4/67 speech made it clear, though, how racism and militarism were/are linked.LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-13942880893861673702013-01-16T18:35:30.503-06:002013-01-16T18:35:30.503-06:00Clif, I appreciate you posting the above comments....Clif, I appreciate you posting the above comments. I was not aware that the words at the end of your comments were on the monument in D.C.--which I should have gone to see last Fall when I was there.LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-13329124475301993272013-01-15T21:54:16.530-06:002013-01-15T21:54:16.530-06:00The evening news tonight tied this blog with the l...The evening news tonight tied this blog with the last one, by noting that some are calling the gun control proposals the most strict since 1968, after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy. I was a 17-year-old high school student that spring, and I remember crying as I meditated on his death. The news was full of riots and burning cities, and I had some dark thoughts about what it meant to be an American. i was living in suburban Washington, DC at the time, and with the parents of many of my friends working for the government, we were quite attuned to what was happening, even as we were overwhelmed when we tried to understand it. Our American fetish with guns, our obsession with violence--we are so much more like the Romans than like the Messiah, it is hard to believe that anything has changed in two thousand years.<br /><br />Then I think about another blog a while back, where we discussed King's use of the phrase "the arc of history bends towards justice," and the history of that quote in different contexts. And he walked the walk. Most of the horrific deaths that have scarred our American history have been thunderbolts of surprise, yet, in an extraordinary way, his death was not. The night before he was murdered, he gave a famous talk where he mentioned "longevity has its place" and, more famously, "I have been to the mountaintop, and I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you . . ." I think King knew exactly what Jesus was talking about when He said, "Pick up your cross and follow me."<br /><br />Back in the 60s we used to ask, Why do the good die young? Well, now that I am getting old, the question has a new edge. I am still here! Well, the good still die young. The news tonight also pointed out that more US soldiers committed suicide last year than were killed in combat, even though we are still fighting a war in Afghanistan. The internet is in an uproar because it appears the US Justice Department drove internet genius and pioneer Aaron Swartz into committing suicide. He was 26, and literally for half his life had been a force on the internet, beginning at age 13. Of course, in Pakistan being a force at that age can get you shot, even if all you want is for girls to go to school. Perhaps that is the rapture, and we really are "Left Behind."<br /><br />For most of us, carrying the cross is a long and winding road, facing the challenges of living the gospel, rather than dying for it. We learn that true faith and true patriotism are not in the jingoism so often spouted around us, but in the great depths of mystery that undergird our symbols of both God and country. And we are blessed that the Reverent Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. is in our cloud of witnesses. And I, for one, am glad that a monument to his memory is now part of the Washington Mall, there it educate and inspire new generations. Some may cling to their Bibles. Some may cling to their guns. I prefer to cling to faith, hope and love.Craig Dempseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00033176451913108084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-86517785668967539612013-01-15T09:40:30.401-06:002013-01-15T09:40:30.401-06:00I was already 19 in 1967 when King gave the Vietna...I was already 19 in 1967 when King gave the Vietnam speech to which you refer. I remember some of the whites around me, who had been sympathetic to his civil rights work, being annoyed that he was then stepping out to criticize the war. I'm embarrassed to say that it all startled me in ways that surprised me, and very rapidly I "turned" from a relatively uninformed knee-jerk American patriots and Christian fundamentalist to an engaged critical thinker. You could say that King, above all others, woke me from my political dogmatic slumbers!<br />Indeed, I would echo Clif's sentiments by adding that MLK modeled for the world the truest patriotism of all--engaged activity with critical thought and passionate care for justice and human wellbeing.Antonkjacobshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01734526091623931154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-77144828813342229962013-01-15T08:46:56.668-06:002013-01-15T08:46:56.668-06:00The inscriptions carved into the stone of the new ...The inscriptions carved into the stone of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC have been in the news recently because of criticism of the paraphrased "drum major" quote (which is now being removed). When I read the quote in your post about the U.S. as “the greatest purveyor of violence" I immediately wondered if that quotation is on the memorial. I was pretty sure it wasn't, but I checked the Wikipedia article about the memorial to make sure and as expected, it wasn't. The closest quotation to that sentiment is the following:<br /><i>"I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world."</i> (25 February 1967, Los Angeles, CA)<br />Clif Hostetlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09192652526880912362noreply@blogger.com