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Kennedy’s Vietnam, Obama’s Syria
“…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 in America who are paying the double
price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in [war].
“I speak as a citizen of the world for the world as it
stands aghast at the path we have taken.
“I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own
nation:
The great initiative in this war is
ours.
The initiative to stop it must be
ours.
 |
| My Lai Massacre March 16, 1968 500+ civilians killed 26 U.S. soldiers charged 1 convicted served 3 years in prison United States war on Vietnam |
From Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to
Break Silence”
Excerpt, minor edit, brackets and insert or abbreviation to “war”
instead of particular a war for current application by Carolyn Bennett
Yesterday’s argument today: ‘A time comes when silence is betrayal.’
 |
| United States war on its own Veteran of Vietnam War |
“…Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of
the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony,”
King said. “But we must speak. Speak with all the humility that is appropriate
to our limited vision. But we must speak.
“The Americans [led by a war-making U.S. government] are
forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the
Americans who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory
do not realize that, in the process, they are incurring deep psychological and
political defeat.
“The image of America will never again be the image of
revolution, freedom, and democracy; but the image of violence and militarism.
“The
war… is but a symptom
|
 |
| United States' Chemical warfare against Vietnamese people |
of a far deeper malady within the American spirit and if we
ignore this reality ─ if we ignore this sobering reality ─ we will find
ourselves organizing … committees … for [generations].
They will be concerned about
Guatemala and Peru.
They will be concerned about
Thailand and Cambodia.
They will be concerned about Mozambique
and South Africa.
“We will be marching for these and a dozen other names [name
them today, 46 years after King's speech: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Egypt,
Somalia, Congo, Mali, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine/Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, et al]; and
attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change
in American life and policy.
“In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by
because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the
incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us
to our [wrongs].” But “the time has come for America to hear the truth about
this tragic war. … The day has passed for superficial patriotism.”
Dissent as Disloyalty a false charge aimed at silencing
“Of course one of the difficulties in speaking out grows from
the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty
[and] it’s a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to
use every method to silence dissent.
“But something is happening. People are not going to be
silenced. … Millions have chosen to move
beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of firm dissent
based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history.
“The
truth
|
must be told and those who are seeking to make it appear
that anyone who opposes the war … is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our
soldiers is a person who has taken a stand against the best in our tradition.”
 |
| Homeless USA |
 |
| War-made Syrian refugees |
War: enemy of world’s poor, creator of poverty
 |
| War-made Syrian refugees |
There was once “a shining moment in that struggle [and] it
seemed that there was real promise of hope for the poor ─ both black and white ─
through the Poverty Program. There were experiments and hopes and new
beginnings. Then came the build-up to war and I watched the program broken as if it was some idle political
plaything of a society gone mad on war.
“I knew
|
America would never invest the necessary funds or energies
in rehabilitation of its poor so long as [foreign military] adventures continued
to draw people and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction
tube.
“I
have moved
|
to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from
the burnings of my own heart.
“Many have questioned the wisdom of my path, voicing their
own concerns, asking:
‘Why are you speaking about the war?’
‘Why are you joining the voices of
dissent?’
‘Peace and civil rights don’t mix’
‘Aren’t you hurting the cause of
your people?’
“…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 in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in [war].
“I speak as a citizen of the world for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken.
“I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation:
The great initiative in this war is ours.
The initiative to stop it must be ours.
Sources and notes
“Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence” Martin Luther King
Jr., Delivered April 4, 1967, Riverside
Church, New York City, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
“Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” April 30, 1967,
Riverside Church, New York
The Pacifica Radio/UC Berkeley, Social Activism Sound
Recording Project,
Martin Luther King, Transcript
2006 by Gary Handman, UC Berkeley Media Resources Center, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet/riversidetranscript.html
Martin Luther King Jr., and the Global Freedom Struggle,
April 4, April 1967, “Beyond Vietnam, New York, N.Y., http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/
Martin Luther (original name Michael) King, Jr. (born January
15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee: American
minister and civil rights leader, recipient of 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. [Brief
note from Britannica]
Kennedy/Obama
Domino theory U.S. in Near East
Domino theory U.S. in Southeast Asia
U.S. Vietnam War
Vietnam represented challenge and opportunity to the new
administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who took office in 1961.
Kennedy and some of his close advisers believed that Vietnam
presented an opportunity to test the United States’ ability to conduct a ‘counterinsurgency’
against communist subversion and guerrilla warfare.
Kennedy accepted without serious question the so-called
domino theory, which held that the fates of all Southeast Asian countries were
closely linked and that a communist success in one must necessarily lead to the
fatal weakening of the others. A successful effort in Vietnam—in Kennedy’s
words, ‘the cornerstone of the free world in Southeast Asia’—would provide to
both allies and adversaries evidence of U.S. determination to meet the
challenge of communist expansion in the Third World.” [Britannica note]
______________________________________________________
Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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