Episodes
Monday Jan 20, 2020
#MondayRoundup Special: “Prevent the Rise of a Messiah”
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Here’s what the Corporatocracy is up to today, JANUARY 20, 2020.
This is our “#MondayRoundup” edition in case you missed any news last week.
Today is also “Martin Luther King Day” in the U.S. It’s the annual holiday when America celebrates the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. So for this #MondayRoundup edition of your #DailyWakeupCall we’re gonna dedicate the whole show to Dr. King. We’ll share what we know about his great legacy as a crusader for Global Justice. And we’ll offer some bits that might surprise you– critical info that all activists for global justice should know…
He was born in Atlanta, GA in 1929 to a family of preachers. Both his mother and father were ordained ministers, and they had three children— Martin Luther King, Jr., his older sister and younger brother.
Dr. King was raised in church life, of course. But probably not the life that most folks might think for the son of a Baptist preacher. Dr. King’s father, King Sr., preached what’s called the “social gospel” of Jesus. It combines a belief in personal salvation with Jesus’ core teachings of political dissent. It’s what many theologians consider the true ministry of Jesus. We explored this in a recent podcast on Jesus’s life and ministry. You should check out that podcast when you can– you might be surprised at what we discovered about Jesus- we certainly were...
So Dr. King’s father openly challenged the social injustices of his day. For example, he’d ride the elevator at city hall that was reserved for -quote- “Whites Only”. And he organized voter registration drives among local Blacks. These may seem like small things today. But they were bold acts in the “Jim Crow” south that could get a Black man lynched. His father’s courage obviously made a huge impression on young Martin, Jr.
Years later, when he graduated from the seminary himself, Dr. King led his first boycott. It was 1955 in Montgomery Alabama. Dr. King had just begun his first full-time job as a pastor in Montgomery. As was common throughout the South, in the city of Montgomery, Blacks were forced by law to sit in the backs of city buses. The seats at the front of the bus were reserved for -quote- “Whites Only”.
That year, a brave Black woman named Rosa Parks had boarded a city bus in Montgomery. She found a seat in the “Whites Only” section of the bus, and deliberately sat there. When the bus driver told her to move to the back, she refused, and the bus driver had her arrested.
When the young reverend heard about Rosa Parks’ arrest, he organized a local boycott of all city buses. It lasted for over a year… and it became a dangerous, intense time in the city. Dr. King was arrested, and white supremacists even bombed his house. But Dr. King and the local Black folk didn’t give up. And finaly, 385 days later, the US District Court ruled that racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses was illegal. It was a huge win for civil rights, and it vaulted Dr. King as an international figure and spokesperson for the Civil Rights movement.
After the bus boycott, Dr. King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, took a one-month sabbatical in India. Coretta Scott was an activist in her own right. They’d met during graduate school when she was studying to be a concert soprano and pianist. She was also an avid activist, more involved in activism than Dr. King when they first met. She’d organized protests against the ban on black teachers in public schools. When they were married, Coretta had the vow to -quote- “obey thy husband” removed from the ceremony, which was highly “unusual” for the time...
In Montgomery, she’d played a key role in the Bus boycotts. And it was their success in Montgomery that convinced the Kings that mass economic boycott is the most effective way to work for non-violent revolutionary change in society. Therein was their interest in India where a half-century before, Gandhi had led mass economic boycotts to help India win independence from Great Britain.
After the Kings returned from their trip to India, Dr. King accepted pastorship at a church in Atlanta where he continued to preach the social gospel of justice and political dissent. He broadened his boycott strategy and challenged other Christian leaders to do the same. In Greensboro, NC he was arrested for participating in a “sit-in” at a “Whites-Only” restaurant. And again, in Birmingham, AL, where he lead boycotts against local merchants who banned Blacks from their stores.
That was when Dr. King wrote his famous -quote- "Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. It was an open letter to national clergy who had criticized his economic activism. Here are some excerpts:
“My Christian and Jewish brothers,” he wrote, “...the Negro..has waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights… [And] I must confess that..[I’m] gravely disappointed..that the Negro's great stumbling block..toward freedom is not..the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate..who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"...who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will...I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can..see that [such] injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it...I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists...The judgment of God is upon the church as never before....You warmly commended the Birmingham police..for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police..if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes..[or]..if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; [or] see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys…[So] I cannot join you in your praise of the..police…[Instead] I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators..for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation… ...If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth..I beg you..forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth..I beg God to forgive me. I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith..fellow clergy..and Christian brother[s]. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty — Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.
That was in the spring of 1963. The letter would be published in hundreds of outlets. People all over the world would read it. And in just a few months, later that summer, Dr. King would then give his famous “I Have a Dream Speech”. It was at the March on Washington, before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people.
His “Dream” speech is considered a pivotal moment in Civil Rights history. Indeed, the next year, the US Senate passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And President Lyndon Johnson launched his so-called “Great Society” programs, which promised that “no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled.” But Dr. King would soon come to lament the “sunny optimism” in his “I Have a Dream” speech...
The Civil Rights Act and the Great Society programs helped President Johnson win a landslide reelection in 1964. And the Democrats won a landslide two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate. But despite controlling the Presidency and both Houses, the democrats continued to escalate the burgeoning war in Vietnam. Johnson’s increases in war spending diverted funding from the Great Society programs. And by 1966-67, progress against poverty had stalled.
In response to both outcomes, anti-racism and anti-war protestors began coalescing their efforts: more and more, Blacks and Whites began organizing together across both fronts– against both the violence of war abroad and the violence of racism and poverty back home.
It was in this context in 1967, that Dr. King gave what many consider the most powerful and most relevant speech of his career. The speech was called “Beyond Vietnam”. He was speaking to a capacity crowd at the Riverside Church in New York. It was a meeting of “Clergy and Laymen” concerned about the war.
In that speech, Dr. King congratulated the Clergy for their attendance, “for surely this is the first time in our nation's history,” he said, “that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and reading of history...”
He said, “the [Vietnamese people] must see Americans as strange liberators.” They had fought and won their independence from colonization by France. They even “quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom [but] we refused to recognize them...We rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination [which for the] peasants..meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives...Instead, we funded the French military to recolonize Vietnam; to take back the lands that the peasants had regained in their revolution.”
And when France finally backed away, we took on the war ourselves. “The most powerful nation [in] the world– [claiming] aggression [by these peasants]– drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores….[Our president] refused to tell us the truth about the earlier..overtures for peace [by the Vietnamese]..when they had clearly been made.”
“I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there...” Dr. King said. “..they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle [on behalf] of the wealthy..[to] create a hell for the poor.” ... We in the churches and synagogues [must] urge our government to disengage [from..] its perverse ways..[and if it] persists..we must be prepared to match actions with words...every [person] of humane conviction must decide on the protest that best suits [their] convictions but we must all protest.”
“We must enter that struggle,” he said, “but..even more disturbing...the war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady…[Beyond Vietnam] in Venezuela, Guatemala, Cambodia, Peru… our nation has taken the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments...If we are to get on..the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When..profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that [the system] which produces beggars needs restructuring...A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…
“These are revolutionary times. All over the globe [people] are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression...This call for a worldwide fellowship..beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind…[And] when I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response...I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.
This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John [which states] “Let us love one another...for God is love...If we love one another, God dwells in us and [God’s] love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day… ...”
Dr. King’s bold speech was widely condemned by establishment elites, of course. But some leaders like Robert F. Kennedy were inspired by King’s courage. In fact, it was Robert Kennedy who suggested to Dr. King that he organize a Poor People’s March on Washington. Kennedy himself had become a leading opponent of the war profiteering in Vietnam. And he agreed with Dr. King that tax dollars spent on war should instead be invested to end poverty and uplift people at home.
In late 1967, Dr. King announced plans for the Poor People’s March. His planning committee included Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and white communities, representing 53 different organizations. People of all races and backgrounds would march together in solidarity against the violence of war and on behalf of caring for the poor and needy. But Dr. King’s vision was beyond mere reforms. He saw "racism, poverty, materialism and militarism" as intentional structures to keep people divided against each other and protect corporate profits and power. He argued that "reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."
He was calling for -quote- “a new stage of massive, active, nonviolent resistance to the evils of modern corporate society.” A “nonviolent army,” a “freedom church of the poor,” that would demand -quote- a “radical redistribution of economic power.”
The Poor People’s March was set to commence in mid May,1968. The Plan was to build a make-shft encampment on the National Mall. Participants would camp there for several weeks while lobbying Congress for their demands.
And remember, it was Robert Kennedy who had suggested the Poor People’s March to Dr.King early on. As the event drew closer, Kennedy was leading the Democratic primary to run for President in the ‘68 general election.. Likely, the plan was for RFK to join Dr. King at the March, where each would endorse the other. It would have been a most powerful, inspiring moment– the leading Black leader and White leader in America, standing together in solidarity against racism, poverty, war and corporate greed...
But neither would make it to the Poor People’s March. On April 4th, just weeks before the March– and exactly one year to the day after his “Beyond Vietnam” speech– Dr.King would be assassinated. And just weeks later, Robert Kennedy would be assassinated as well.
In her mourning, Mrs. King soldiered on and helped keep the March alive. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. King’s longtime confidant and close friend took over organizing the event. Of course, the shock of the assassinations took their toll on the organizers and participants. And ultimately, little tangible results were achieved.
Years later, it was revealed that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had initiated a counter-intelligence program called “COINTELPRO” against what he called -quote- “Black-Nationalist Hate Groups.” Hoover had directed COINTELPRO agents to “PREVENT THE RISE OF A MESSIAH” who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement.” He specifically named Dr. King stating -quote- “King could be a very real contender for this position.” And after Robert Kennedy’s assassination, whom Hoover famously despised, Republican Richard Nixon went on to win the US Presidency in 1968.
Nixon retained Hoover as FBI director, and in 1969, just months after his election, Nixon announced his new “War on Drugs” in America. He declared "drug abuse as public enemy number one”. But wasNixon’s so-called “War on Drugs” really about “drug abuse” as he claimed? Or did he have more sinister aims?
Years later, Nixon’s top advisor, John Ehrlichman shared a most revealing truth about Nixon’s War on Drugs. In an interview, Ehrlichman said -quote- "You want to know what [Nixon’s Drug War] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
Also revealing was Nixon’s appointment of corporate law attorney Lewis Powell to the US Supreme Court. After Powell’s appointment, a confidential memo by Powell was leaked to the media. It was written in 1971 to a right-wing corporate Think Tank euphemistically called the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As we have previously reported– in his memo, Powell characterized the coalescence of Black Civil Rights activists with white anti-war activists as a “broad assault” on the “free enterprise system” by “extremists on the Left”.
Powell advised corporate leaders to learn how to -quote- “conduct guerrilla warfare” against the Left. He called on corporate elites to fight back by infiltrating the free press, academia, the three branches of Government, and the Courts. Powell’s memo had an immediate influence on the Corporate elites. In the 70s, they began building a powerful array of corporate Think Tanks and other institutions designed to -quote- “shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades.”
If you think we’re implying that Dr. King’s legacy helped hasten the transformation of our once representative democracy into what’s now well documented as a corporate plutocracy– then you’d be right... Indeed, more than any other American, Dr. King scared the hell out of the corporate power elites. But we don’t think he failed. Dr. King kick-started the Revolution, and it’s up to us to finish it. And like his personal hero, Gandhi, and his personal saviour, Jesus Christ did, Dr.King showed us how to win it: through mass economic boycott.
If you want to learn more about how all of us in the work of Global Justice can join together in strategic boycott and finally force this corporatocracy to the people’s bargaining table– to end all this injustice and corruption, and to help save our planet– please visit our website at WakingJustice.org. You can check out our ABOUT Page and listen to our first podcast. And if you want more info on how you can get involved, you can email us at info@wakingjustice.org. We’d love to hear from you.
We’re running out of time, y’all... Join us... Peace.
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