MLK on Iraq and post-K New Orleans
Posted by schroeder915 on January 15, 2007
Were he here today, what would he say about Iraq and New Orleans?
There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. …
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
4/4/1967
Clergy and Laity Concerned meeting
Riverside Church in New York City
In solidarity with the needs of public housing residents.
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People Get Ready 
Sophmom said
Great post. Exactly.
F P said
Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Blogger X said
If King were a Cajun (Or a New Orlenian)
WE would have our levees already.
David said
Here’s a feel-good story, from the NY Times:
The funniest part of this story is the ham-handed approach of ABC, which owns the radio station. These guys really, really don’t get the internet.
And guess what happened then?
And now the story has gone national, first to national blogs, then to Media Matters, and today to the New York Times. Congrats to the legal eagles at ABC, who have created a national embarrassment for their client out of a little story that never should have left San Francisco.
Hilarious.
The G Bitch Spot » Survivors Village at St. Bernard said
[…] has an excellent commentary and pictures. Also check out b.rox, Schroeder, and others they have or will link […]
Cajun Heritage said
Please get the word out that a Houma company is trying to get a canal (huricane highway) dug with taxpayers money. The canal will increase the cost of coastal restoration and endanger the home and heritage of a great people.