Polemic by Tom Degan

Martin Luther King, 1929-1968
by Tom Degan

"Today, the choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. The Negro may be God's appeal to the age."
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I can still vividly recall where I was the night I learned of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King. April 4, 1968 was four months and twelve days before my tenth birthday. I was in a car, coming back from a long defunct business in Middletown, NY called Lloyd's Shopping Center. The moment the news came over the radio, we were going up the ramp on exit 123, the Fletcher Street exit off of the Quickway, at the very edge of the village of Goshen. I don't remember who the other passengers were. I don't remember who was driving. The only thing I distinctly remember is that bulletin.

It's hard to believe that he has been dead longer than he was alive. To put it another way, had a person born on the day Dr. King died lived as long as he lived, that person would have died on June 24th of last year. It's just a reminder as to how young he really was when he was taken from us by some half-witted yahoo with a high powered rifle. The night of the assassination, cities burned all across America, resulting in the deaths of 110 people. One of the few that was spared the violence and bloodshed was Indianapolis, Indiana, where the soothing words of Robert Kennedy sent the people back to their homes, transforming thousands of potential rioters into prayerful contemplatives:
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"So I ask all of you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King....but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and compassion....Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world....Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and a prayer for our country and our people."
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What is the most awe-inspiring thing about Kennedy's remarks that horrible evening is the fact that he spoke without notes - it was entirely extemporaneous. Two months and one day later, as if the nightmare of King's death was merely a sick prologue, Bobby Kennedy, too, would be shot and killed in Los Angeles, California. 1968 was that kind of year.
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One can only imagine what Martin Luther King would have made of the America of 2008. True, there is little doubt that he would have been thrilled that an African American had a real shot at the presidency - and a woman too for that matter. It goes without saying that he would be pleased at the progress blacks have made in some areas of American society. But it cannot be denied that the progress that seemed to be moving with such great momentum throughout the sixties and seventies, came to a dead stop in 1981 when the American people foolishly sent an inarticulate racist by the name of Ronald Wilson Reagan to the White House. He would be working overtime at this very moment to correct that situation.
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It' s also a fairly safe wager that Martin Luther King, whom at the time of his death was in the process of organizing a Poor People's March on Washington, would have been righteously appalled by the war on the poor and middle class that has been going on in this country unabated since the dawn of the so-called "Reagan Revolution" twenty-eight years ago. And it's not a serious stretch of the imagination to conclude that Martin Luther King, who on April 4, 1967 (exactly one year before he died) began to speak out against the war in Vietnam, would have been outraged by the immoral and illegal assault on the men, women and little children of Iraq.
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No question about it, the America of April 4, 2008 would have broken his heart,
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It's hard - if not impossible - to imagine what he would have thought of the decline of America's political oratory in the ensuing four decades. What would the man who declared, "I have a dream" have thought of George W. Bush? Can you even imagine?
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From:
"I have a dream that one day my children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
To:
"Bring 'em on!"
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Yeah, we've fallen about as far as we can, haven't we? To paraphrase the great Mort Sahl, when a nation goes from John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King to the likes of George Bush and Dick Cheney it only proves one thing: DARWIN WAS WRONG!
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From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
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And if America is to be a great nation, this must be true.
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And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire!
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Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York!
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Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
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Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado!
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Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
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But not only that -
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Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
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Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
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Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi!
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From every mountainside, Let Freedom ring!
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It really doesn't get any better than that, does it? We are a kinder, gentler nation today - if only somewhat - because for a time, Martin Luther King walked among us - as tragically brief as that time might have been.
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I have a vinyl LP of some of Dr. King's speeches. Whenever I listen to it, whatever my frustration level may be when I drop the needle on Side One, by the time the tone arm of my turntable edges its way down the play-out groove of Side Two, I always end up feeling a little better about this country. That America can produce a man such as this is cause for hope. Maybe, just maybe, such a person is within out midst at this very moment; reaching out to the better angels of our nature. Maybe we're just not listening.
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Shh....Listen....

Author bio:

TOM DEGAN is a 49 year old video producer who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America's national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. He was born in Goshen, NY in 1958 and, after living all over the United States and Canada, moved back there in 1992. He is a high school dropout who in 1977 received an equivalency diploma (HEY, IT'S LEGAL!) He attended SUNY in Middletown, NY and in 1986 studied journalism at the New School in New York City. He is the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and has worked as a truck driver, a radio DJ, and a metal worker...OK, he didn't ACTUALLY receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, but he DID get some kind of ribbon of sorts when he was in the Cub Scouts. He is the inventor of Cheez Whiz and lives off the royalties on the sales of that fine product. His goal in life at one time was to be content and happy. His goal now is the impeachment, prosecution and imprisonment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney... FULL DISCLOSURE: He didn't really invent Cheez Whiz... You may read more of Tom's rants at The Rant.