MLK Day

The letter from a Birmingham jail. A quote:

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or. unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides-and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

I feel as if the issue of King's commitment to non-violence tends to get obscured on these occasions. How many politicians who pay homage to King today will tomorrow be preaching the necessity of keeping preventive war "on the table" as a tool of non-proliferation policy?

Comments

We're not going to adapt to new energy, social, political and economic realities in time to preserve the American lifestyle. Therefore we're going to resort to killing and pillaging and oppressing ever increasing numbers of peoples from foreign lands. They have things we want and we'll take them. They have desires, religions and consumption patterns conflicting with ours. Therefore they will have to be killed. Non-violence has no future. Perpetual war over resources is here to stay.

Posted by steve duncan | January 21, 2008 9:46 AM

Actually, I'd like to see this in both directions. People paying homage to King should recognize his commitment to non-violence.

At the same time, people who advocate dialog, patience, peaceful coexistence and "win-win" on an international level should have the same mindset when dealing with rival domestic factions.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 9:47 AM

that's just a really good point.

Posted by berger | January 21, 2008 9:49 AM

Yes. Also his commmitment to Christianity. His radical sympathies in domestic politics. Etc. Etc. The holiday honors the man for the bits that people agree on, doesn't it? You know, things like his dedication to civil rights for all Americans?

Posted by Thomas | January 21, 2008 9:51 AM

Perpetual war over resources is here to stay.

I really hate the fact that people feel that, when making appeals to our most base instincts, they can simply argue through assertion, because they are "telling it like it is." What if I said, say, "Terrorists are always going to kill us. That's the way it is. Don't try to stop them, it's just a fact of life." Or "People are always going to murder each other. That's just me speaking the plain truth! Why try to catch them all." Or "Look, as long as there's DNA there will be cancer. Why try to treat everyone? I'm afraid your kid is just unlucky. Just let him die. Hey, I'm only telling it like it is."

That kind of bald assertion is simply an exercise in bad faith. You claim that something is inevitable because it removes your moral responsibility to change it. "Hey, I can't change it! Don't look at me! I'll be in bed watching Fraiser." But there is no reason life has to be the way you describe; human beings can change it; and acting otherwise is simple moral cowardice. Is it very difficult? Sure. Difficulty has no relevance to moral obligation whatsoever. Dressing up your social irresponsibility and calling it truth telling to score cheap blog-points is lame, lame, lame.

Posted by Freddie | January 21, 2008 10:06 AM

Consumatopia: At the same time, people who advocate dialog, patience, peaceful coexistence and "win-win" on an international level should have the same mindset when dealing with rival domestic factions.

The people who advocate peaceful coexistence internationally are advocating it as an alternative to mass slaughter, which makes your analogy flawed in a fairly serious respect. (i.e. there are plenty of people being rude about Republicans; not so many killing them.)

Posted by ajay | January 21, 2008 10:07 AM

Yeah, and not only that, what would Jesus do? I can't believe so many Christians support war! I mean! It's almost as if they're ignoring his teachings!!

Posted by Bill | January 21, 2008 10:08 AM

Lots of people without holidays were dedicated to civil rights for all Americans. King is honored not merely for the end he sought but also for the means he used to achieve it--nonviolent direct action. It's easy to get what you what if you can beat and imprison people who stand in your way. If, instead, you get what you want by being beaten and getting imprisoned by those in your way, then that's something that ought to be remembered.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 10:09 AM

At the same time, people who advocate dialog, patience, peaceful coexistence and "win-win" on an international level should have the same mindset when dealing with rival domestic factions.

"Rival domestic factions"? What a tool.

Posted by Bill | January 21, 2008 10:11 AM

Lots of people without holidays were dedicated to civil rights for all Americans. King is honored not merely for the end he sought but also for the means he used to achieve it--nonviolent direct action. It's easy to get what you what if you can beat and imprison people who stand in your way. If, instead, you get what you want by being beaten and getting imprisoned by those in your way, then that's something that ought to be remembered.

And that's one to grow on.

Posted by Bill | January 21, 2008 10:15 AM

That's a bit facile, isn't it?

"This normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action"

King led a movement of revolutionary change within our society, and its message was all the more powerful for the movement's renunciation of violence.
Let us not forget, however, that it was the soldiers of the national guard who enforced Brown v. Board a decade earlier, and that the Civil Rights Act was enforced by the coercive power of the US government.

It is true that King was opposed to the war in Vietnam and would most likely have opposed the war in Iraq as well. This was not because he opposed violence in all its forms (that would be Ghandi). Rather, he believed that the war in Vietnam was morally supect and contrary to the American ideals.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

But during the Cuban missile crisis, there is no record (that I could find at the Stanford archive pf his speeches) of a similar call for peace. King was not one to be silent when he saw an injustice, and on this, he was silent. Hostile, slightly crazy regimes with nukes are a legitimate matter of national security, even if that means all options are "on the table". Even Dr. King had no objection.

Posted by heedless | January 21, 2008 10:15 AM

Hmmmmm, cheap blog points. Like "Water is wet"? Yeah, reality hurts. Stating the obvious is lame. Agreed. Get back with me when you and your friends perfect cold fusion. While I'm waiting I'll resign myself to the uncomfortable (lame) fact a lot of people outside of our borders are going to give us their oil whether they like it or not. And if they choose to resist they will be killed.

Posted by steve duncan | January 21, 2008 10:27 AM

The people who advocate peaceful coexistence internationally are advocating it as an alternative to mass slaughter, which makes your analogy flawed in a fairly serious respect. (i.e. there are plenty of people being rude about Republicans; not so many killing them.)

So, essentially, if Republicans threatened armed insurrection, THEN you would be polite to them and hear out their objections, because the only alternative would be mass violence. But so long as they remain loyal to the government, you can be rude to them as you want.

That's not principled nonviolence, that's just appeasement in the face of violence. Which is why both King and Gandhi preached empathy and prayer even for their opponents--you can't insist on empathy for opponents internationally while hardening your heart against it domestically without being a simple coward.

That's not to say we have to actually surrender to or compromise with their unjust policies. It does mean we have to acknowledge them as human beings with a point of view different from ours.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 10:34 AM

heedless, King's dedication to nonviolence became more clear over time. Perhaps it became more clear to him as well. This bit is from the speech you link to: "What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?" (The answer is supposed to be, no, I can't threaten them with death. And there's a reason no one is running on that platform.)

Posted by Thomas | January 21, 2008 10:39 AM

Thomas,

My instinctual response is that King reognized the distinction between those point on which he had the moral authority to call for the nation to act: segregation, racism, the war, and those where he was called to behave as a Christian, but could not order others to do the same: loving the communist dictators as his brother, serving as a minister.

I realize this is a thin argument, since while I recognize those differences, Dr. King was a bit more messianic, and I'm not sure that he really did.

The more powerful counterargument (which you alluded to in your post) is that when pacifism reaches such total commitment, it becomes so impracticable as to be irrelevant. One need only look to the Cultural Revolution to see Mao's vision of how to love your brother, or to Tianenmin square to see how the communists deal with non-violent protest.

Posted by heedless | January 21, 2008 11:04 AM

heedless, your point isn't implausible, as even Gandhi was calling on Indians to enlist in the British military with the rationale that an independent India would, regardless of his wishes, almost certainly have a military for the foreseeable future.

However, one doesn't have to move very far towards radical pacifism to realize that keeping the option of first-strike nuclear attacks on other countries on the table isn't likely to make us any safer and certainly isn't just. If you believe there is any efficacy whatsoever in nonviolent action, it is hard to reconcile that with a preemptive nuclear attack. You can criticize the impracticality of pure nonviolence, but this does nothing to excuse the expansive gulf between nonviolence and the status quo--the bridge of expediency just can't go that far.

And, contrary to Thomas's point of view, some acknowledgment of the efficacy of non-violent methods is implicit in any celebration of MLK jr.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 11:24 AM

Efficacy? Yes, absolutely. I mean, we celebrate, in a sense, the success of King's work, so yes, nonviolent direct action was efficacious.

Was it morally obligatory? And is it morally obligatory in all spheres? I don't think there's broad agreement on those parts. And "celebrating" them as if there were won't make there be.

Posted by Thomas | January 21, 2008 11:43 AM

That's a fair enough response, but any acknowledgment of the efficacy of nonviolent methods and their comparative ethical merit relative to violent methods is incompatible with keeping preventative war "on the table". Preventative war is a counter-productive non-proliferation policy even in its own terms--threatening other countries only inspires them to arm faster. It's absurd to praise a paragon of nonviolence and then turn around and support a policy that violates not merely King's principles but common sense.

You don't have to accept nonviolence in every case to celebrate the holiday, but if we aren't even willing to move towards it in general and make the exceptions slightly rarer, then there's really little point--there were plenty of other civil rights activists for our nation to choose from.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 12:14 PM

Working backward: King was the most prominent and perhaps the most rhetorically gifted of the civil rights activists. I think that it would have been better to have a holiday marking the movement as a whole, because it more accurately reflects the history and because it would largely avoid this kind of debate. But there are proponents of the great man theory, and to the extent they are right, King was the relevant great man.

I don't think it's absurd to praise King and disagree with him. King was a dedicated Christian--his nonviolence grew out of, was a product of, his radical Christian views. I don't think it's absurd for MY to praise King, a paragon of a particularly demanding radical Christianity, while rejecting Christianity.

I think the rest is just a misguided attempt to turn a celebration of the civil rights movement into a stick to beat people with.

Posted by Thomas | January 21, 2008 12:36 PM

I don't think it's absurd to praise King and disagree with him. King was a dedicated Christian--his nonviolence grew out of, was a product of, his radical Christian views.

His nonviolence was compatible with and bolstered by his Christian views, but wouldn't have been what it was if he hadn't read the Hindu Mohandas Gandhi's autobiography and studied the methods of Satyagraha.

Holidays have meaning--they offer a chance to reflect on the life of the commemorated, and the primary reason King is commemorated today was his nonviolent civil rights campaign. Nonviolence is embedded into the holiday, even if it bothers you--it's his holiday, not yours. To work along side King in his movement, you didn't have to be Christian, but you did have to be nonviolent.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 1:22 PM

That's why I always celebrate MLK day by not killing anybody, or even engaging in a refreshing round of fisticuffs. If I really get a hankerin' for it, I always wait until the 22nd.

Posted by gerontion | January 21, 2008 1:26 PM

No, you didn't have to be nonviolent. You had to be nonviolent with respect to the ends of the movement. To work with King didn't mean you had to agree with him on, say, the Vietnam war.

Posted by Thomas | January 21, 2008 1:47 PM

No, you didn't have to be nonviolent. You had to be nonviolent with respect to the ends of the movement. To work with King didn't mean you had to agree with him on, say, the Vietnam war.

Posted by Thomas | January 21, 2008 1:47 PM

No, you didn't have to be nonviolent. You had to be nonviolent with respect to the ends of the movement. To work with King didn't mean you had to agree with him on, say, the Vietnam war.

Posted by Thomas | January 21, 2008 1:47 PM

"Keeping the option of first-strike nuclear attacks on other countries on the table isn't likely to make us any safer and certainly isn't just"

Consumatopia,

You're half right, in the sense that any nuclear strike morally reprehensible. But sometimes the alternative is worse (Full scale invasion of Japanese homeland) and sometimes the implicit threat is a necessary lever in world affairs. (That is to say it does make us safer)

I have some sympathy for the view that it is unacceptable for us to maintain any ambiguity on this issue, but on balance, I think it is incorrect. The implicit possibility (I don't think it even rises to the level of a threat) that we might do something so disastrous forces other nations to act in a more conservative fashion (just as Russia's arsenal forces us to treat them with caution). Keeping China, Russia, Iran and North Korea cautious is too important to surrender this necessary ambiguity.

That said, I detest Cheyneyesque saber rattling as much as anyone, possibly more so, because I'm even more offended by the brazen stupidity than by the immorality.

Posted by heedless | January 21, 2008 2:04 PM

Argh!

Pretend that only "any" was italicized in the first paragraph.

Posted by heedless | January 21, 2008 2:05 PM

There is a time and place for violence, and a time and place for nonviolence. Gandhi's policies worked in India, but it needed a Ho Chi Minh to get the French out of Indochina. (It would be fair to say also that Gandhi's nonviolent fight against the British might not have worked at a different point in history. The British left India at least in part because they had been exhausted and impoverished by the fight against the Nazis- which shows that regarding the Indian independence as the outcome of a nonviolent movement is perhaps an oversimplification.)

I don't agree that one needs to embrace Dr. King's nonviolent principles in order to respect Dr. King as a person and a leader. There are plenty of African Americans who respect both Dr. King and Malcolm X, whatever their political differences. It's also fair to say that the civil rights movement in America succeeded only in part because of Dr. King's nonviolent methods. There was also the constant threat in the minds of the American oligarchy that African Americans would embrace radical politics and become a Soviet fifth column, the enemy within the gates. The American establishment embraced civil rights for African Americans in part to give them a stake in the system and inoculate them against Communism.

It's questionable whether any major political movement has ever succeeded through _wholly_ nonviolent methods. (Obviouly there are degrees of violence, and the lesser degree, other things being equal, is usually preferable). It's also worth pointing out that Jesus Christ was not a pacifist, and that on the numerous occasions where Christ, John the Baptist, and the Apostles encountered Roman soldiers, they never once demanded that they lay down their weapons.

Posted by Hector | January 21, 2008 4:27 PM

That said, I detest Cheyneyesque saber rattling as much as anyone, possibly more so, because I'm even more offended by the brazen stupidity than by the immorality.

I think the difference here might be that you see morality and stupidity as completely distinct, whereas I kind of see them related, or at least balanced. If I'm going to do something immoral for a supposedly better end, then the more immoral it is, the more certain I'd better be that this better end will actually occur. And the more immoral the act is, the more certain you must be.

In the case of threatening pre-emptive invasions, you not only aren't achieving a better end, you're making things worse. There's a reason why North Korea publicly announced their nuclear problem on the eve of our invasion of Iraq. As bad as it is to do something stupid, it's far worse to do something stupid AND immoral.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 4:49 PM

You had to be nonviolent with respect to the ends of the movement. To work with King didn't mean you had to agree with him on, say, the Vietnam war.

Fine, but didn't have to be Christian "with respect to the movement", so the argument you've been making still fails.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 4:51 PM

There are plenty of African Americans who respect both Dr. King and Malcolm X, whatever their political differences.

Respect them, sure. But we can't ignore that nonviolence is the core of King's legacy. Look at the ceremony when Reagan signed the bill declaring MLK day. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=40708 Reagan talks up the heroism of the civil rights movement, and even notes that "As a democratic people, we can take pride in the knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took action to correct it." but in quite a long speech gives little mention of King's nonviolence "Often he was beaten, imprisoned, but he never stopped teaching nonviolence." It reduces Dr. King's nonviolence to something akin to Abraham Lincoln's reputed honesty, another shiny ribbon for an ancient inspiring legend to convince us how great America is--Golly gee that Dr. King could sure take a whoopin'.

Coretta Scott, at the same ceremony, focused on peace and nonviolence--"he taught us that only peaceful means can bring about peaceful ends". Reagan tried to close the book and end the legacy--she wasn't having it. So when Thomas asks "The holiday honors the man for the bits that people agree on, doesn't it?", well, no, it doesn't.

It's also worth pointing out that Jesus Christ was not a pacifist, and that on the numerous occasions where Christ, John the Baptist, and the Apostles encountered Roman soldiers, they never once demanded that they lay down their weapons.

Pacifists submit to the arms of others all the time, so Jesus's action (or lack of action, which isn't very telling anyway as the Bible is by no means a complete account of every second of the early Christians' lives) is not inconsistent with pacifism. Whether Jesus's teachings amount to a formal teaching of pacifist theory, surely they are utterly incompatible with any sort of violence on the part of a believer at all, though perhaps violence is still okay for non-believers to practice. You would be compelled to abstain from fighting yourself, though perhaps you have no reason to protest the warring of others. If that isn't technically pacifism, fine, but it still seems radical by today's standard.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 21, 2008 5:37 PM

Consumatopia,

No, I don't think that Jesus' teachings are incompatible with a believer involving themselves in violence in certain circumstances. A just war, a justified revolution, tyrannicide, capital punishment, etc. If it was important for a believer to be a pacifist, surely he would have mentioned something about it. The centurion whose slave He healed was certainly a 'believer' ("And when Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.") Yet Jesus never once told the centurion, the paragon of faith, that he should stop pursuing a military career.

I don't think that a personal pacifism is (on the face of it) _incompatible_ with Christ's teachings but I certainly don't think they are _required_. There is a place, in a Christian world, for the soldier, the ruler, the revolutionist and the executioner. The medieval theory of just war, the ideal of the Christian knight, and the early-modern theory that 'sedition against tyrants is obedience to God', etc. established a firm Christian basis for legitimizing war, revolution, tyrannicide and capital punishment in certain circumstances. To believe that Christ was a pacifist is to read Him completely out of context.

Posted by Hector | January 21, 2008 8:36 PM

Matt: "How many politicians who pay homage to King today will tomorrow be preaching the necessity of keeping preventive war "on the table" as a tool of non-proliferation policy?"

So, Matt, does this mean you're willing to answer my two questions on Iran - which you have so far steadfastly refused to?

1) Do you think Iran has a nuclear weapons program (not just a nuclear energy program)?

2) IF Iran HAS a nuclear weapons program, do you think there is any credible and appropriate military option the US should take to deal with the question?

For the record, as usual, my answers are: No, and No.

Matt has refused to answer these two questions for months now, or make ANY statement declaring where he stands on the issue of Iran and non-proliferation. He's obviously terrified of coming down on the wrong side of the issue as he did with Iraq and later having to own up to being wrong.

This is called intellectual cowardice in most circles - although it's called "business as usual" in pundit circles.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 21, 2008 9:01 PM

There was also the constant threat in the minds of the American oligarchy that African Americans would embrace radical politics and become a Soviet fifth column, the enemy within the gates. The American establishment embraced civil rights for African Americans in part to give them a stake in the system and inoculate them against Communism.

This is an important point, but I think a greater factor was the perceived threat of Communism abroad. There are reasons, both ideological and tactical, that King mentions the black and yellow brothers and sisters of the Third World. The American foreign policy establishment looked out at the post-colonial world and saw a battleground between Communism and the West. Our image abroad withered in the face of our hypocricy and racism. It wasn't just Soviet propaganda, either. Franz Fanon, for instance, referred to the U.S. as a nation of lynchers. Discussions of violence vs. nonviolence aside, one factor in the success of the civil rights movement was that the exigencies of the Cold War created a convergence of interests between the white establishment and American blacks in supporting civil rights (see Derrick Bell).

Posted by StJoe | January 21, 2008 9:53 PM

And Richard Steven Hack, I think I can safely speak for most readers in saying that your attempts to set the agenda for somebody else's blog are seriously annoying. You read like a Lyndon LaRouche publication -- "The presidential candidates are all afraid to debate me!"

Posted by StJoe | January 21, 2008 9:57 PM

I'm not trying to set Matt's agenda, I'm trying to figure out what the hell it IS.

He makes off the cuff remarks about proliferation and preventive war one day, and the next he talks about what to do about Iran's proliferation without any evidence in existence that there IS any Iranian proliferation.

All I'm asking for is to know exactly where he stands. If he can put down his oh-so-definite opinions on fucking sports and music and politics, he can make a definite statement about what he thinks about Iran.

This isn't rocket science. Plenty of other pundits have done it. What makes Matt so special?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 22, 2008 12:39 AM

Yet Jesus never once told the centurion, the paragon of faith, that he should stop pursuing a military career.

He never told him to stop owning slaves either.

Your side of this argument has two main threads.

A) The nonsensical attempt to prove a negative by citing examples where Jesus *didn't* condemn war and killing. This would be like me "proving" that there are no red automobiles in the world by showing you pictures of cars that aren't red. No, Jesus didn't spend every moment of every day condemning killing--not that every moment of every day has been recorded. Once would be enough, and he did a lot more frequently than once. If you weren't going to believe him the first time, you won't the 100th time either.

B)Going through every example of blessed peacemakers, turned cheeks, loved enemies, submission to aggressor, etc, and generating a lot of verbiage to say that Jesus didn't mean to say what he said.

Sadly, you didn't even bother with B, which is at least logical. You would at least have good company among the medievals, and though they were transparently changing the meaning of what Jesus said, this was inevitable--those who kept the true meaning in this case would have been selected out of both the meme and gene pool.

No, you focused on A, which is completely nonsensical.

Look, Jesus said what believers should do, not what they will do. You're still a believer, you're just not in this instance understanding his teachings.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 22, 2008 8:48 AM

Consumatopia,

No, no the medievals did not change the essence of what Jesus said.

1) The admonition to turn the other cheek was meant in the context of forbidding private vengeance, not forbidding the legitimate use of violence on the part of the State or on the part of a quasi-State.*

2) We are required to submit to personal aggression, but not to submit to aggression against a third person. Charity permits us to take up arms to defend innocent victims from their victimizers.

3) Jesus was setting down the code of behavior for a time in which the Kingdom of Heaven was imminent. Since the Kingdom of Heaven turned out not to be imminent, we cannot wait for the apocalypse to impose justice, and must impose it now, by the sword if necessary.

4) To love one's enemies does not mean tolerating and accepting what they do, nor does it rule out forcibly coercing them, even unto prison or death. To believe it does betrays that you have a woefully materialistic worldview in which this life is the only life there is and earthly suffering and death are the greatest possible evils. There are, in fact, things that are worse than death. It is perfectly possibly to impose suffering and death on a person in this life in order to safeguard the welfare of his own soul. Please read St. Augustine's famous 'Commentaries on the Letters of St. John" for more on this topic. He makes clear that for a Christian, the important question is not whether a course of action involves coercion, but whether that coercion is for your good or for the good of the person being coerced. If it is OK for a father to physically discipline his son, which it is, then it is equally OK for the State to coerce its citizens or its enemies for a good cause, even unto bloodshed if necessary.

5) Examples where Jesus did accept the possibility of the use of force being congruent with justice and charity.

""And the master said to the slave, 'Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled." Luke 14:23. This is probably the best and most comprehensive direct quotation from Christ where He sanctions the use of force.

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." Luke 19:27.

"Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." Luke 23:40

"And soldiers also asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one wrongfully; and be content with your wages." Luke 3:14.

And so forth, many more instances.

Posted by Hector | January 22, 2008 10:01 AM