From: "Pope, Karen O." <POPEKJ@uwec.edu> Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:51:13 -0600 Subject: FW: Kohls - Duty to Warn About MLKJr - "Now That He Is Safely Dead" - Poem + Essay Message-ID: <4F19260FE7477F4DA03B00B62E7F6390798F43D974@CHERRYPEPSI.uwec.edu>
Thought this was worth sharing; with apologies to the separation of church
and state.
Let's try for the better world part. MLK's life work and writings are dese
rving of more than a 15 minute ceremony once a year.
Karen
________________________________
From: Robert D Williams [bowanswmswia@wesleythevillage.net]
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 6:16 PM
To: ;
Subject: Fw: Kohls - Duty to Warn About MLKJr - "Now That He Is Safely Dead
" - Poem + Essay
Friends all, since the annual MLKJr's birthday remembrance is upon us, I sh
are with you items of relevance. These are both from Dr. Kohls in Duluth, M
N. May we find new meanings in the 2010 annual King events. PJL - Grandpa/D
ad/Bob
Robert D. Williams
bowanswmswia@wesleythevillage.net<mailto:bowanswmswia@wesleythevillage.net>
Subject: Kohls - Duty to Warn About MLKJr - "Now That He Is Safely Dead" -
Poem + Essay
Duty to Warn
“Now That He Is Safely Dead”:
Paying Attention to the Real Voice of Martin Luther King
By Gary G. Kohls, MD
“Now That He Is Safely Dead”
Now that he is safely dead let us praise him,
build monuments to his glory,
sing hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient heroes.
They cannot rise to challenge the images
we would fashion from their lives.
And besides,
it is easier to build monuments
than to make a better world.
Carl Wendell Hines
“Now That He Is Safely Dead” is the short but poignant poem that was wr
itten by black poet/musician Carl Wendell Hines soon after Malcolm X’s as
sassination in 1965. The poem has also been appropriately associated with t
he death of Martin Luther King and his legacy of nonviolent struggle for bl
ack liberation, freedom, equality, economic justice and the pursuit of happ
iness for all.
Instead of emphasizing Dr. King’s powerful, albeit inconvenient, truths a
bout gospel nonviolence, America has instead posthumously awarded him the m
onument of a national holiday with a tip of the hat to the still-unachieved
civil rights efforts - all on one of the coldest weekends of the year. Off
icialdom tolerates the yearly speeches, the marches and the free breakfasts
, but ignores Dr. King’s legacy the rest of the year.
Most peace and justice-seekers who have read the above poem, feel that Hine
s’ masterpiece applies equally well to the legacy of other great champion
s of the down-trodden, including Gulf War I opponent Minnesota Senator Paul
Wellstone who was silenced under very suspicious circumstances that were t
otally compatible with a covered-up political assassination immediately pri
or to his assured re-election in 2002. In addition to Wellstone, there are
many other examples of martyred voices who spoke out against human slaughte
r, who were likewise silenced, co-opted or otherwise changed after their as
sassinations. John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Robert Kennedy come to mind.
Another example of the silencing of inconvenient truth-tellers, of course,
is Jesus of Nazareth followed by many martyrs for the faith who were simply
following his radical teachings and practicing active, nonviolent, resista
nce to evil in the struggle for the relief of the human suffering of the
“least of these”. Those radical religious teachings only thrived for a
couple of centuries after Jesus’ death, and today, there are only a few r
emaining remnants of the original form of Christianity, mainly the historic
peace churches.
In the 4th century there was a rapid reversal of the ethical teachings of J
esus, which were summarized in the Sermon on the Mount (including the Gold
en Rule and the command to love one’s enemies). Jesus had been essentiall
y silenced by the doctrines of St. Augustine and others who had been co-opt
ed by the Roman Empire and Christianity went back to the pre-Christian, jus
tified war and justified killing ethics that permitted latter-day Christian
s to treat others in decidedly un-Christ-like ways, even torturing and kill
ing “the enemies of (the Christian) God” while simultaneously claiming
to follow, worship and adore the nonviolent Jesus.
Dr. King was of the remnant that heard the original voice of Jesus and ther
efore preached the gospel as if trying to teach all that Jesus taught.
Sadly, the voice of the prophet King was silenced just as Jesus’ voice wa
s silenced. And it wasn’t an accidental death. The powers-that-be recogni
ze whistle-blowers when they see them, and they usually don’t waste much
time implementing the plans for progressive silencing. Usually the whistle-
blowers truths are first ignored, then violently opposed and rarely accepte
d as self-evident (with thanks to Schopenhauer). In modern times, there is
an attempt to discredit the prophets, by means of rumors, isolation of the
victim, threats to one’s family, funding a committee to spread disinforma
tion to the media, harassment on the job or even arranging murders that loo
k like accidents or suicides. And so it goes. Being a prophet is hazardous
duty, “a vocation of agony” - as King described it – in the efforts t
o achieve liberation by confronting tyranny and necessarily exposing tyrant
s.
Whistle-blowers such as Dr. King know very well that they are going to pay
a heavy price for their refusal to bow down to authority or to be silent wh
en they see that the status quo is doing great harm to people. They know th
at they will have to endure cowardly character assassinations,, and they kn
ow that they are at risk of being killed if they don’t shut up.
This coming weekend, all over the United States, justice-seeking non-white
minorities of many kinds (especially poor and disadvantaged African-America
ns) plus groups of theological and political progressives, are celebrating
the birthday anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was born on Januar
y 15, 1929.
Dr. King, since his assassination, is mainly known for his “I Have a Drea
m” speech and his courageous civil rights activism on behalf of poor Afri
can-Americans. The powers-that-be are OK with that, as long as the truth ab
out King’s commitment to Christian nonviolence remains unacknowledged and
unheard.
However, it is important to realize that Dr. King’s strong commitment to
his mission came out of his understanding of the life, mission and gospel e
thics of his mentor, Jesus of Nazareth. Dr. King’s belief in the practica
lity of nonviolent societal transformation mirrored the politics and theolo
gy of Jesus (as well as Gandhi), and it was because of the teachings of tho
se two heroes of his that the civil rights movement – and his antiwar act
ivism - was shaped. The great success of King’s tactics is proven by the
simple fact that his enemies (mostly hidden from view) had to resort to kil
ling him in order to silence him and stop the movement. But it was Dr. King
’s willingness to come out against the war that unleashed the assassinati
on plot that was designed to permanently silence him - with a single bullet
to the head on April 4, 1968. Dr. King was killed by some unknown person o
r group other that the framed James Earl Ray.
The event that indeed sealed Dr. King’s fate was his famous and powerful
“Beyond Vietnam” speech, delivered at the Riverside Church in New York
City on April 4, 1967. Speaking out against the profitable war in Vietnam w
as the last straw for the plotters. King had to go.
Dr. King had struggled with the ethical imperative of speaking out against
the war, and eventually he realized that he had no choice but to do so.
He said: “As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young
men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve the
ir problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintai
ning my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonvi
olent action. But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own na
tion wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bri
ng about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I
could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in
the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of
violence in the world today – my own government.”
King had finally seen the connections between the financial and psychologic
al costs of participation in the human slaughter that was going on in Vietn
am and the racial and economic violence that was preventing poor blacks fro
m attaining justice in America. King knew a nation couldn’t simultaneousl
y fund both “guns and butter” (the notion that a nation can fund war an
d, at the same time, provide adequately for its people’s basic human need
s). American politicians had already made the choice. The funding was going
to guns and not butter. Pouring scarce resources into wasteful foreign wa
rs automatically meant that domestic needs such as liberation for blacks ha
d to be denied.
It is a historical fact that the reason America lost President Johnson’s
“war on poverty” was because it fought the President Johnson’ and Pre
sident Nixon’s wars in Vietnam. (And, as a not unrelated corollary, it ha
s been said that the reason we fought the “war on drugs” is that we los
t the war on poverty.) Understanding the connections between those three re
alities is important.
The “guns and butter” myth (as opposed to the “guns or butter” real
ity) has historically been proved to be impossible to achieve in cultures o
f greed that are ruled by selfish, over-privileged, wealthy elites and thei
r conscienceless corporations. Guns and butter are mutually exclusive reali
ties when an economic system that thrives on ruthlessness is in charge of a
nation’s agenda. Dr. King knew that the war in Vietnam meant that freedo
m for the oppressed at home was going to be delayed - perhaps forever, if t
he white racists had anything to say about it. And, as Dr. King often said:
“justice delayed is justice denied.”
Many credible historians believe that Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” spe
ech was equivalent to his signing his own death warrant. The war profiteers
, pro-war politicians and assorted militarists in positions of power at the
time absolutely could not tolerate his antiwar activism. King was working
for justice for all, which necessarily meant the defenseless Vietnamese wom
en and children who were being indiscriminately targeted, starved, maimed,
murdered, bombed and napalmed; and the soil, water and unborn children of V
ietnam were being permanently poisoned by Agent Orange and other military t
oxins. King had no choice but to object on the basis of his conscience.
King received, on a daily basis, during the years leading up to that fatefu
l day in Memphis, dozens of anonymous death threats from the racist, right
wing reactionaries that were afraid of black equality and the possible gran
ting of civil rights for African-Americans.
Oppressors naturally fear what long-overdue reprisals will occur when their
enslaved victims gain their freedom. They may fear retaliation but they us
ually don’t fear for their souls. Dr. King had another warning for them..
In the Riverside Church speech he said: “A nation that continues year aft
er year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social
uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
King is not only acknowledging that “guns and butter” is a fallacy, but
, in addition, he is accusing those who waste precious resources on killing
operations are risking the moral collapse of that nation as well as themse
lves.
Even Harry Truman understood that reality, when he said, "All through histo
ry it has been the nations that have given the most to generals and the lea
st to the people that have been the first to fall."
As mentioned above, there is the tendency for Martin Luther King Day to foc
us mostly on the white racism and on the realities of the Poor People’s C
ampaign. Those issues are. Of course, vitally important, but something is m
issing. It is the elephant in the room. – and it is the war and the willi
ngness to kill to solve problems. It is violence that Dr. King spoke out ag
ainst and it is military spending that is a major reason that justice is st
ill being denied. Reversing poverty and racism will be impossible as long a
s America continues to spend $450,000,000 every day on militarism. Every pr
ogram of social uplift is made unaffordable when military spending is the n
ation’s top priority.
The spirit of Martin Luther King is not dead, no matter how much effort is
exerted to suppress his teachings. But his voice can only be heard if those
of us who believe in his dream by repeating his calls for justice and call
s against military and domestic violence.
Dr. King and Jesus have been trying to tell us: “Put away the sword, for
those who live by the sword will perish by the sword.” “America will h
ave to stop spending so much money on the guns (and the wars and the violen
ce) if there is any hope of receiving the butter (and achieving the economi
c relief, sustainable jobs and an end to racism).”
Let it be so.
Dr. Kohls is a physician who, prior to his retirement, practiced holistic m
ental health care and saw first-hand the devastating mental health costs of
drug use (whether illicit or legal [ie, prescription] drugs), malnutrition
, addictions, sleep deprivation, toxic food and violence, whether coming fr
om domestic sources or military sources. Dr. Kohls realizes that King’s t
riple evils: racism. militarism and economic oppression (poverty caused by
greed), are all examples of violence which are also all major factors in th
e causation of mental ill health - all eminently preventable.