Thanks for writing this piece, oleb ! I've been surprised that the more I look at Dr. King beyond what has been "sanitized" as you write, the more I find what a revolutionary and radical person he was. I'm embarrassed that it's taken me so long to go beyond the sanitized version. I wonder if the principles that Dr. King put forth should be the starting point for that new way for progressives that we're looking for. Put forth in his words !

The Santa Clausification of King has been pointed out many times before

You don't know what MLK would do, but you sure like to use his image to sell your agenda.

MLK was a man of the cloth and a shrewd politician. The complexity of his relationship with LBJ is proof enough that you don't know what he would do here.

While his principles are not in question, his possible tactics and strategy of attaining those principles are open debate. Your comment leans on the tactics and strategy.

MLK would certainly be effective -- something that the left today cannot claim.

Really? Even Aunt Sam expressed a similar sentiment.

And if you can't handle me, how are you going to handle the people with different priorities than you?

Here's a bit of King's final Sunday morning sermon delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington only days before he was murdered. And remember folks, he wasn't murdered because he was Santa Claus. He was murdered because he spoke out against racism, poverty and war. These continue to be the three primary enemies civilization faces today.

I think this brief excerpt from the sermon encapsulates the reasoning of so many on the left for criticizing, speaking out and refusing to fall in line behind Obama and the corporate Democrats who run Congress now that he (and they) has made clear his position on escalating the endless and pointless "war on terror", of enabling an even greater expansion of the military industrial complex, of refusing to follow the law and even investigate credible allegations of war crimes, of filling full the larders of the crooked bankers and traders of Wall Street while refusing to do anything about 10,000 families daily who are having their homes foreclosed on, for not agressively pursuing a jobs plan other than building more roads and bridges, etc...

But that's just my editorial input. Read the words of MLK and judge for yourself whether or not he would be on the left or with the centrists and the corporate powers that be.

"It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence, and the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests. The alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world may well be a civilization plunged in the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed in an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine.

"This is why I felt the need of raising my voice against that war and working wherever I can to arouse the conscience of our nation on it. I remember so well when I first took a stand against the war in Vietnam, the critics took me on and they had their say in the most negative and sometimes most vicious way.

"One day a newsman came to me and said, "Dr. King, don't you think you're going to have to stop, now, opposing the war and move more in line with the administration's policy? As I understand it, it has hurt the budget of your organization and people who once respected you have lost respect for you. Don't you feel that you've really got to change your position?" I looked at him and I had to say, "Sire, I'm sorry you don't know me. I'm not a consensus leader. I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I've not taken a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus."

"On Some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question---is it politic?

"Vanity ask the questions---is it popular? Conscience asks the question---is it right?

"There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man."

That 2nd paragraph should be quoted as well.

As was my comment to oleeb... which he decided he didn't like (mostly because I said, I suspect).

Feel free to take a shower if agreeing with me makes you feel unclean.

I was going to compliment you for not making the stupid argument that King would publicly oppose Obama and everything you claim Obama is standing for, but I knew it was too good to be true.

Maybe next January.

Go have another tall glass of kook aid, uh, I mean "kool" aid and be gone sheep.

Thanks, oleeb.

The first three questions from the sermon you quoted are asked every day here at TPMCafe:

On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient?

And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic?

Vanity ask the question, is it popular?

But all too rarely does anyone here ask the fourth and most important question:

Conscience asks the question, is it right?

I did and you wrote:

If Martin Luther King had lived to old age he would be among those most openly criticizing the Democratic Party

Wow! Anything else you can tell us about alternative history?

What makes you think I'm not intimately familiar with that speech already?

This is why your side of the argument gets flamed. Condescension and presumptions of ignorance on the part of someone you are discussing an issue with are no way to persuade.

Many eloquent words have been uttered in opposition to war. And still war continues. Maybe King would have been more resigned to that fact after his words had been proven impotent in the face of Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Iraq I, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq II, etc., etc.

When you find a politician that thinks, acts, and acts effectively, in absolute line with the dictates of your precious conscience, vote for them.

I'm going to continue to vote for and support the lesser of two evils, secure in the knowledge that I'm doing more to make the world a better place than you and your sanctimonious cohort in the blogosphere.

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!

Right on, oleeb! Shalom!

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/w/a/watt_childress/2010/01/remembering-a-radical-on-the-e.php

Sorry, I meant, the final question about what is right, not third question.

I didn't make the March on Washington and I've always regretted it. So much of what King did is with me today. I vividly remember when he announced his opposition to the Vietnam War despite the advice of many black leaders who understood the risk to the civil rights movement that it involved. (King was not a chess player. But he was a true leader). It was awe-inspiring and I think we all understood just how much courage it took then when opposition to the war was widely interpreted as anti-American treason. His courage then stands as a stark reminder of all the politician/leaders today who will not put burning moral issues ahead of their own political and financial advancement. He was a truly great leader.

It's really two things.

1. People like to pretend King's mission was only about ending officially sanctioned racial discrimination, and

2. People like to pretend that we've accomplished #1.

Society isn't color blind of course, although politicians don't want to talk about that too much these days. But the other issues around poverty, inequality, war... that's the stuff that gets dropped in the Santa Clausified Dr King. The fact that he said our government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world... went down the memory hole.

Wonderful, just wonderful Oleeb.

And the picture is a classic. Filled with emotion and a world view.

That last sentence of yours is just repulsive, Brew.

Clearly, you do not understand the first thing about the realities in the mid 1960's (and I think you misunderstand the current situation as well). King did not have "freedom of action". He was opposed at first by the police power in the South. The Democratic party then depended on support of segregationist politicians and voters for much of its power. Kennedy and Johnson were generally cautious in lending federal aid in preventing or even pursuing and prosecuting segregationists' and racists' crimes, outrages, and resistance. The hard won battles of civil rights took great personal courage. But unlike your heroes of today, King was willing to risk his personal safety, indeed his life aqnd his family's by engaging in the great moral battles of the day. There were enormous fears among black leaders and they did not all follow King's courageous leads in actively condemning the Vietnam war and engaging in the labor struggles in Memphis. He had much more on his shoulders and much less leeway to act than say Obama today. You say idiotically that once he got the tumblers of government to unlock he had freedom of action. Even a schoolchild knows what is won can be lost. The gains of the civil rights movement are not even now enshrined forever in some hall and "locked away" (truly an idiotic image). They depend on holding onto them and even expanding them. But at the time King spoke out, he not only risked the gains and his stature, his position, his life, he certainly got that expected response from the Southern racists and the FBI who DID use his actions to label him and the civil rights movement as "communists". In a sense, the antiwar movement and the civil rights movement blended and provided each side with mutual support and symbiosis, and both movements played a role in the progressive advances we saw then.

It is the logical descent of the defenders of Obamaism. I am surprised brewmn61 did not take the next step and say "many eloquent words against torture and for human rights" have been spoken. Maybe King would have been resigned to Guantanamo, Bagram, renditions, and waterboarding. Maybe the fact that slavery persists in the world despite Lincoln's eloquent words would resign Lincoln to slavery.

Oleeb - Great post. The purer the truth, the louder they howl. Your stock has gone up twenty points in my estimation.

It was the economic justice parts I wanted you to hear: Economic Exploitation; true compassion; a revolution of values; Empire. Those parts.

Nihilist

I would say that King would read Obama the riot act on Economic Justice issues. That is my major issues with him: his re-treading the Clinton economic team that wreaked such havoc with workers and the Financial Sector becoming what it is today (with help from the Bushies dismantling regulatory agencies).
But I am losing faith that Obama wants much change from the current way business is conducted on Wall Street, and that's huuuuge problem for me. I am pissed purple about it.
And MLK was fully aware of how our Financial Empire was exporting misery to the poor over the planet, and that was THEN, not even now. Oh, my.

How very shallow of you.

Many thanks tao!

Thank you, brewmn. That actually means a lot coming from you. I normally don't have to reply to posts because you've already said what I wanted to say.