Friday, January 18, 2013

MLK vs. the War Machine

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New World Notes News
Vol. 6, No. 3 -- January 18, 2013


This week in New World Notes, radio program #255, January 22, 2013

MLK vs. the War Machine


  • "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. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent." -- M.L.K.
By 1967, Martin Luther King had realized he could no longer focus on narrow "civil rights" issues such as voting rights and housing. He had to oppose larger injustices including rampant militarism, the military-industrial-Congressional complex, and a U.S. foreign policy of eternal war.

And a major U.S. war was then raging, in Vietnam.

We rebroadcast large portions of MLK's most important speech against U.S. war and militarism--the portions most obviously relevant to U.S. domestic and foreign policies today.

He spoke at Riverside Church, New York City, on April 4, 1967. His hour-long speech was titled, "Beyond Vietnam--A Time to Break Silence."

King's speech was denounced by the Establishment media. For example, Life Magazine judged it "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi."


Notes, credits, & links

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "boiler room") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview:
Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.
Above: With Malcolm X, March 1964. Below: Delivering
"Beyond Vietnam" at Riverside Church, April 4, 1967

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • January 29 & February 5 -- Richard Heinberg on Global Crises and the End of Growth
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net

2 comments:

Mike S, Long-Time WWUH Listener said...

I'm listening to MLK on New World Notes as I type this. Where is there an orator in American politics of this caliber and quality today? That voice is what's missing; very sorely and desperately missing.

Kenneth Dowst said...

Thanks for your comment, Mike. I quite agree with you.

Kathy Kelly speaks eloquently against our wars--but of course she has zero political power, and the Establishment media do a good job of ensuring that she is rarely heard.

Among antiwar politicians, there were Ron Paul (now retired) and Dennis Kucinich (now gerrymandered out of office). Both gone, and neither one much of an orator.

You're right: there's a big gap we haven't come close to filling.

Best, Ken