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April 12, 2017 Page 7 Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com. O PINION A Powerful Warning Still Relevant Today Dr. King’s antiwar speech 50 years later M arian W right e delMan Fifty years ago on April 4, 1967, our prophet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the histor- ic speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” at New York City’s Riverside Church. It was his first major public antiwar speech and a powerful warning that a rise in racial hatred, milita- rism and violence could destroy by America. In his essay “The Land Be- yond,” originally published in Sojourners magazine in 1983, Dr. Vincent Harding, the brilliant his- torian and theologian and close King friend who helped draft the speech, wrote that King’s message not only required us to struggle once more with the meaning of his words, but it also presses us to wrestle as he did, with all of the tangled, bloody, and glori- ous meaning of our nation (and ourselves), its purposes (and our own), its direction (and our own), its hope (and our own).” His in- structions for how we should re- read the speech are even more searing today. Dr. King was speaking out against the Vietnam War specif- ically but also arguing that “the war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit” and that it was time for our nation to undergo “a radical revolution of values.” “When machines and comput- ers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more im- portant than people, the giant trip- lets of racism, extreme material- ism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered,” King said. “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on mil- itary defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiri- tual death.” President Trump’s very first budget blueprint, which proposes an increase in defense spending for 2018 of $54 billion (a 10 per- cent increase) with $54 billion in cuts to programs serving the poor and vulnerable and addressing ba- sic needs and other non-defense discretionary spending to pay for it, plainly shows Dr. King’s mes- sage is not being heard or heeded. Just as starkly and presciently, Dr. King went on to say the revolu- tion in our national values must re- ject nationalism and hate: “A gen- uine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call C ontinued on P age 13 Racism, Militarism and Extreme Materialism Is it too late to heed MLK’s warning? by k evin M artin and the r ev . d r . h erbert d aughtry Fifty years ago this month, a year to the day before he was mur- dered, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called us to overcome the giant triplets plaguing our society – racism, militarism and extreme materialism – in his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Si- lence” address at Riverside Church in Manhattan. In his speech, Dr. King decried our descent into a ‘thing-oriented society.’ One won- ders what he would think of our current, thing-oriented president. In the remarkable speech, co-written with the late Vincent Harding, King also exclaimed, “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on mil- itary defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritu- al death.” Unfortunately that is even more relevant today, as military spend- ing consumes well over half the federal discretionary budget, and President Trump is advocating a nearly 10 percent, $54 billion in- crease, equivalent to the entire an- nual military budget of Russia, for the Pentagon, and severe cuts to foreign aid, diplomacy, social and environmental programs. King also powerfully, and accu- rately, linked violence in U.S. cities to our foreign policy, especially the terrible war in Vietnam (noting the Vietnamese must see Americans as ‘strange liberators,’) and acknowl- edged the pressure put on him by civil rights leaders to keep silent about his opposition to the war, which he of course could not do. Yet for many, the giant triplets ru- bric still resonates most powerfully today among all the words of wis- dom King and Harding imparted in the speech. Racism, extreme materialism and militarism are still inextricably linked, and still prevent our soci- ety’s becoming anything close to King’s “beloved community.” Of the three, militarism may be the one about which Americans are most ignorant or most in denial. No serious person could say we have overcome racism, or dealt with the extreme materialism and economic injustice and unsus- tainability of our “thing-oriented society.” However, the pervasive equating of patriotism with support for war, charges of being soft on communism, terrorism or defense, and cynical, coercive ‘support the troops’ displays (when the best way to support them would be to stop our incessant wars) seemingly prevent any serious examination of U.S. militarism. How many Americans know the U.S. has been at war for all but a relatively few years (fewer than 20) of our history since 1776? Or that the U.S. has more than 900 foreign military bases? (China has one and is about to build a second, near ours in Djibouti.) Or that we maintain nearly 7,000 nuclear war- heads, all tens, hundreds or even thousands of times more destruc- tive than the Hiroshima bomb that killed 140,000 people? Or that the U.S. conducted more than 1,000 nuclear ‘test’ explosions, and un- der President Obama, recently embarked on a 30-year, at least $1 trillion scheme to upgrade our entire nuclear weapons arsenal (unsurprisingly, every other nu- clear state is now doing the same, sparking a new arms race)? Or that the U.S. military is the biggest con- sumer of fossil fuels on the planet? Ignorance or denial about these facts is dangerous, to our society Providing Insurance and Financial Services Home Office, Bloomington, Illinois 61710 Ernest J. Hill, Jr. Agent 4946 N. Vancouver Avenue, Portland, OR 97217 503 286 1103 Fax 503 286 1146 ernie.hill.h5mb@statefarm.com 24 Hour Good Neighbor Service R State Farm R falling behind in nearly every indi- cator of social and environmental health as we continue to invest in the war machine, and to the people on the receiving end of our bombs. How many countries are we bombing right now? At least sev- en we know of: Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. And as Dr. King claimed the bombs we dropped on Viet- nam also exploded in American cities, the blowback to the U.S. from all the anger we sow and en- emies we reap in these countries and around the world, will surely harm our country. So what is it about the United States? Are we in the grip of what President Eisenhower warned us, the military-industrial complex (that he did a lot to empower be- fore decrying it)? Weapons con- tractors make a killing, but they don’t really help the economy. Military spending is about the worst way to create jobs and stim- ulate the economy. Education is the best, creating 2.5 times more jobs than military spending, ac- cording to economists at the Uni- versity of Massachusetts. We doubt anyone has any satis- factory answers to why our coun- try is so uniquely militaristic, yet seemingly oblivious to the conse- quences. Perhaps peace and social justice activists and political lead- ers have for too long failed to in- tegrate the struggles to overcome the giant triplets. If that is the case, Martin Lu- ther King Jr. still points the way toward a solution, 50 years af- ter he first called out to us. Is it too late to hear his wisdom and change course? As the impressive grassroots re- sistance to Trumpism continues to show up for racial, economic, so- cial and environmental justice, we must also show up for peace and disarmament if we hope to one day realize King’s beloved community. Kevin Martin, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is President of Peace Action, the country’s largest grassroots peace and disarma- ment organizations. The Rev. Dr. Herbert Daughtry is the National Presiding Minister of the House of the Lord Churches. The Law Offices of Patrick John Sweeney, P.C. Patrick John Sweeney Attorney at Law 1549 SE Ladd, Portland, Oregon Portland: Hillsboro: Facsimile: Email: (503) 244-208 (503) 244-2081 (503) 244-2084 Sweeney@PDXLawyer.com