When History’s Warnings Go Unheeded
On the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, I was struck by the airing of his 1967 speech, “Beyond Vietnam,” on radio station KPFK (90.7FM). Delivered at the Riverside Church one year before his assassination in 1968, the speech brought back a flood of memories from this critical period in the Civil Rights Movement — the anti-Vietnam War protests, the violent uprising that both preceded and followed his murder, and eventually ended the presidency of Richard Nixon. https://tinyurl.com/Beyond-Vietnam.
Not only were his words relevant then as an indictment of America’s military neo-colonial empire, but suddenly it resonates today with the killing of Americans protesting ICE raids, the mass arrests of people with no warrants, the invasion of Venezuela, and the threat of war over Greenland. It is like all of the progress that the people have fought for and won has been dialed back to the Red Scare days of the McCarthy era and the Cold War.
Now I realize that not everyone who came of age after this time will feel the resonance of this current moment in our history. But the resemblance is perfectly clear, repression at home, denial of civil rights and a focus on the military use of force for financial gain not for any noble mission. Veterans of the Iraq War may remember fighting a war for no apparent reason and coming home disillusioned. That is how most Vietnam War vets felt too, “What were we fighting for?” Many returned wounded and disillusioned.
In the eyes of many, the heroes of that era were those who resisted the draft, were beaten by Bull Conner and were jailed for speaking truth to power. Yet, America was deeply divided then. In that context, as now, people must decide between our conscience and our convenience.
King argued that America’s soul is poisoned by war, racism, and poverty, urging an immediate end to bombing, unilateral ceasefire, and talks including the National Liberation Front, framing the struggle as a moral imperative against militarism and injustice. Today it’s Gaza, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Venezuela. The militarism has come home to oppress the very people who pledge allegiance to a symbol that represents oppression abroad but supposedly promises us “freedom and liberty for all” at home— except it doesn’t. I stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance back in 1967.
For those who need a lesson on true American patriotism I urge you to watch Ken Burn’s documentary on The American Revolution. Again, that history resonates to now.
In the years before the war British Gen. Howe ordered some 1,000 red coats into the city of Boston to quell an uprising of resistance over the Royal taxes that were levied upon the American colonies. When the troops arrived, a protest erupted and seven American English subjects were murdered in the streets of Boston. The soon to be American patriots stormed the tax collectors house, burned it to the ground and tar and feathered the British tax collector, before they dumped the tea in the harbor.
This is where the cry “No taxation without representation” comes from. The British Parliament eventually rescinded the tax but the die had been cast for the Revolution based upon these and other grievances.
The Declaration of Independence lists numerous grievances against King George III, primarily focused on tyranny, lack of representation, and obstruction of justice, including imposing taxes without consent, forcing colonists to quarter troops, cutting off trade, denying trial by jury, obstructing laws, dissolving legislatures, and maintaining standing armies in peacetime, all aimed at establishing absolute control over the colonies.
Now if some of this doesn’t sound like what the twice impeached Orange Felon is doing to the American people right now then you have your head in the sand. Trump is a tyrant of the most despicable kind, petty, grievance driven, vexatious, greedy and without any moral compass or compassion. He has become a national embarrassment and continues on a daily basis to express some of the most asinine pronouncements, proclamations and pardons. It is a tragedy that he wasn’t convicted and imprisoned before the 2024 election. And he thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize?
The American people will long remember the words of King and will continue to honor him even after these many years from his death. The vast majority of people hardly recall what the tyrant Trump was espousing last week — and still his Republican Congress remains afraid to tell the mad king he has no clothes. His naked aggression against everyone is what will in the end defeat him.
And when he is buried and gone, you are all invited to piss on his grave.
Until then, if you truly believe that you are patriotic, now is the time to resist this tyranny.