Saturday, April 1, 2017

50th Anniversary of MLK's "Beyond Vietnam"

New World Notes #474, 29:17 (April 4)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)


We play major portions of one of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s finest--yet now little-known--speeches. He delivered "Beyond Vietnam" in New York on April 4, 1967.

For this speech, King was denounced by the entire Establishment (including the NAACP!) and the corporate-controlled media. The speech is a stirring indictment of misplaced national priorities, including cutbacks in social programs at home in order to fund an unnecessary, counterproductive, and evil war abroad.

This is as stirring an indictment of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex--and of the government's priorities, and of unrestrained capitalism--as we are likely ever to hear. And it's a strong call to resist.

Change a place-name or two--substitute "Iraq and Afghanistan" for "Vietnam"--and the speech talks directly to us, today ... about our own government and our own world.

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