On King, Gandhi, Edwards And Why We Need To Fight

Nonviolence is not a cover for cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave. Exercise of nonviolence requires far greater bravery than that of swordsmanship. Cowardice is wholly inconsistent with nonviolence. Translation from swordsmanship to nonviolence is possible and, at times, even an easy stage. Nonviolence, therefore, presupposes ability to strike. It is a conscious deliberate restraint put upon one's desire for vengeance. But vengeance is any day superior to passive, effeminate and helpless submission.--Mohandas Gandhi

And I am sorry to say this morning that I am absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme rightists of our nation—the people on the wrong side—have used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

King and Gandhi understood the importance of addressing injustice at the moment injustice is occurring. Both advocates of nonviolence, moved by the forces of Satyagraha and Agape Love, they were fighters to the end. Their weapon of choice was nonviolence, but not a passive, meek, "work within the system" nonviolence. King and Gandhi wielded nonviolence as a precise instrument of war for systemic change. All wars - violent and nonviolent - end at the negotiating table. What King and Gandhi understood was that nonviolence allowed someone to approach the negotiating table from a position of strength, and that the use of nonviolence would pave the way for a true peace, a lasting cessation of tensions that could be built on over time because the goal of nonviolence was to redeem both the oppressed and the oppressor.

Some folks like to think of Gandhi as a grandfatherly figure in traditional homespun garb. Some folks like to remember King saying "I have a dream" one day out of the year.

For me, I remember these men as fighters, warriors dedicated to the cause of justice.

I'm not going to put John Edwards - or indeed any presidential candidate - on the level of these two men. But my point is that when Edwards is talking about fighting insurance companies to address the massive injustice of millions of Americans going without healthcare, or making decisions between food and medicine, he's approaching that same path that was trailblazed by these two men years before.

Watch this interview - King was also criticized for his "aggressive" tactics, for not "biding his time, taking it step by step as it goes":



King's response? Privileged classes do not give up their privileges voluntarily. They do not give them up without strong resistance. All of the gains received in civil rights were because folks stood up aggressively in the cause of civil rights. There is an initial response of bitterness, but in the end there is redemption and reconciliation because justice has been achieved.

Now listen to what Edwards is saying about fighting to fix our broken system:



Regardless of who actually gets the Democratic nomination, or indeed who ends up being elected President, Edwards has one thing right: these folks are not going to give up their power voluntarily. It will be an epic battle to get our country back on track. With John Edwards in the White House those of us who want systemic change to fix our country will have a powerful ally.

This isn't about just electing one guy or gal to the job, packing up our stuff and watching American Idol re-runs for the next four years. This election is just one of many salvos in the fight for justice.

For me, a part of that fight is supporting John Edwards for President. Obviously, I'd like anyone reading this to consider supporting him as well.

But regardless of who you support, let's just be clear: after the elections we will have a fight on our hands, and let's joyfully join that cause.

John Edwards And A Revolution of Values

There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?"

snip

We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. (Yes) But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.--Martin Luther King, Jr. "Where Do We Go From Here?"; August, 1967

link: http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/speeches/Where_do_we_go_from_here.html

"With an increase in Americans without health insurance by two million to 47 million, nearly 37 million Americans still living in poverty and continued high levels of inequality, the need for fundamental change in our government is obvious.--John Edwards, Statement on New Census Data On Poverty in America, August, 2007

link: http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/poverty/20070828-poverty-data/

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a holistic thinker, and someone who saw the problems plaguing mankind through the prism of the inter-related, triple evils of racism, poverty and war. In speaking out against the Vietnam War, King called for the United States to engage in one, final systemic change which he called a "revolution of values" ( http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html ):

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.

All of our Democratic candidates have great ideas and policies to help us right the ship of the nation after eight disasterous years. But for my money - and more than that, for my time, support and dedication - John Edwards has the holistic vision that can help us achieve that revolution of values that King called our nation to embrace over forty years ago.

Civil rights leaders, from Martin Luther King III, to Jesse Jackson, to Harry Belafonte, have praised Edwards for concentrating on the poor. This isn't because this is just one more issue in governance by laundry list. What these civil rights leaders realize is that when you focus on poverty it forces you to view our society in a fundamentally different way. Indeed, it makes you question the *ediface that produces poverty*.

In making poverty a central issue of his campaign - against advice from pundits and advisors and all of those smart folks who feel that this is just a downer issue - Edwards has shown his commitment to this revolution of values by laying out detailed policies on how we can reach this goal:

Creating a Working Society
Edwards has outlined a Working Society initiative to lift 12 million Americans out of poverty in a decade and beat poverty over the next 30 years. In the Working Society, everyone who is able to work hard will be expected to work and, in turn, be rewarded for it. The initiative includes major new policies in the areas of work, housing, education, debt and savings, and family responsibility.

If you visit his issues page, Edwards outlines specifics behind this vision, including increasing the minimum wage, creating stepping stone jobs and making it easier for workers to unionize: http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/poverty/

Our country needs a change of direction, but more than that we are still in need of a revolution of values. By addressing the issue of poverty, Edwards is putting us on that road. Harry Belafonte expressed this last week when he endorsed Edwards for President:

"I also happen to believe that had he not so forcefully and precisely put the issue of poverty into this campaign, I don't think we'd be talking aobut it as much as we are," Belafonte said.

Our revolution of values shouldn't start next year, next decade or in the middle of someone's second term. It needs to start today. For me, that's why I'm supporting Edwards and volunteering for him in the following weeks. I'd like to invite folks to take a look at Edwards and if you agree, help him win the nomination and then the Presidency.

Let's be the change we want to see.

MLK, Global Warming And The Need For Systemic Change

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured. --Martin Luther King, Jr. "Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution"

Many researchers, led by scientists like NASA's James Hansen, now agree that an increase in global average temperature beyond 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit could constitute a "tipping point" leading to irreversible, extreme climate changes. If global carbon emissions continue to rise, principally from coal-fired power plants and cars, the Earth could easily reach that point by 2050.

In ominous tones, the report agrees: "Human activities could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts. The risks are related to the rate and magnitude of the climate change." -- "A Little Time Left On Global Warming", New Jersey Star Ledger, November 16th, 2007

Martin Luther King, Jr. is known for many things: his leadership of the civil rights movement, his outspokenness against the war in Vietnam and even his support of unions and advocacy of the poor. What he is less known for is the way that he looked at things, how he saw all life as interconnected.

And how he eschewed the "drug of gradualism" and incremental change.

Take for instance his response to a group of local clergy in Birmingham, Alabama, which was later published as the "Letter From A Birmingham Jail". The clergy had argued to King to push for small, incremental change. Why couldn't King just quietly negotiate? King outlined for them the attempts at negotiations:

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants—such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises Rev. Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. Like so many experiences of the past we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us.

Basically, King is telling them: we met, promises were made, and nothing happened. And instead of waiting, and talking, and meeting some more, we need to push for change now. This doesn't mean "don't negotiate". What it means is negotiate from a position of moral strength. As King continues:

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

Nonviolent direct action doesn't always mean literally taking to the streets. The King Center's online guide to the Six Steps of Nonviolence lists several different ways to take direct action (link: http://www.thekingcenter.org/prog/non/6steps.html ). They can be as large and visible and strikes or walk outs, or as individual as letter writing campaigns...or as public as proposing legislation to remove a basic human right like access to health care from members of Congress until universal health care for all is achieved.

But I digress.

The politics in Birmingham that King mentions at the time are relevant. The City of Birmingham had just held elections, and the new administration was more tolerant, more forward-looking than the last. Why, oh why, Dr. King, couldn't you just restart the negotiations with this new administration?

Here is King's response (my emphasis added):

The only answer that I can give to this inquiry is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one before it acts. We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from the devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

So, negotiating small incremental change with individual people of good will does not result in the course correction needed to address an injustice. As King wisely noted, even though some key players may be on your side, groups are more immoral than individuals.

Fine. So, what do we do? Throw up our hands? Not at all...

You go back to the Six Steps of Nonviolence - I'll outline them for you here:

1. Information Gathering
2. Education
3. Personal Commitment
4. Negotiations
5. Direct Action
6. Reconciliation

And you ask yourself: did I gather all of the information I needed to understand both the dynamics of the problem, the root causes of the problem and is my proposal going to address these root causes, or will it just be a simple band-aid? Have I educated others regarding what the problem is, and what I intend to do to fix it? Have I broadcast my intentions loudly enough so folks know what I want to do and how I plan on doing it? Am I committed enough to my cause? Am I prepared for any slings and arrows coming my way? Have I tried to dialogue with my opponents, and confront them to discuss the problem and the solutions? Have I understood where they are coming from, and is it possible to find common ground? And finally...how effective was my direct action? Did it apply the pressure needed to get the parties back to negotiate?

If you go through these steps, King believed, you will find reconciliation. This is a true peace, where the ultimate outcome is removing the systemic problem that created the injustice.

This is systemic change.

You use systemic change when you have a systemic problem...and ain't no bigger systemic problem today on the planet than global warming. It touches every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, how we get to and from work, how our children are educated, what our foreign policy is, and even what each of our domestic household budgets look like.

You can't solve a systemic problem like this with incremental change. You can't just tweak the status quo a little here, and a little there, and expect to deal with the *root causes* of this issue. It's too massive to be dealt with incrementally.

That's why, in my humble opinion, Senator Clinton is *dead wrong* when she says "incremental change is the way to go" to handle this issue:

Incremental change is the only way to go unless there’s some major event like Pearl Harbor or 9/11: if Al Gore had been president, we would have had an energy and climate change program after 9/11. But ultimately, it’s imperative we get something passed and implement it, so that we can persuade Americans that it won’t be disruptive or lower their standard of living, but will actually create jobs and do good. We'll have to put together a smart coalition to withstand the attacks that will come. I'm aware of the difficulty, but I feel confident.

Link and a nod to thereisnospoon, as I have been unable to find a transcript of Senator Clinton's remarks independent of the one he provided from live blogs: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/19/62124/121

King's admonition of the fierce urgency of now could not be any more relevant today then when he spoke these words almost forty years ago when he delivered his "Beyond Vietnam" sermon at the Riverside Church:

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..."

Thoughts on Money, the DuPonts, Delaware...and John Edwards

I'm sitting here in a hotel room in Delware, the state known for a tax-free holiday, any day of the week, any week of the year for any good you need - or want - to consume. Delaware, the state of Joe "let's divide all these folks up in Iraq to solve our problems" Biden (and after driving through downtown Dover today, I can tell ya - dividing folks up by ethnic group is something that struck me as being something organic in this state).

This is the state of the DuPont family, the folks that made their money off of chemicals and death-in-the-form-of-selling-gunpowder. It's the state of the super rich, who own multiple mansions...and the super poor, like Phillip Reid, an 18-year-old walking down the 1400 block of W Forth Street in Wilmington when he was shot dead by a 17-year-old stranger who passed him on the sidewalk and said, "You got a problem?" (In Section B of "The News Journal" today - yes, I'm referencing newsprint!)

Yesterday, my husband and I took our kids to a local Chick-fil-A (they don't have these in New England so whenever we travel to more southernly climes we try to stuff our faces with these heavenly, fatty, fried chicken sandwiches. And sweet tea). Our children are young, and so moving them physically around can generally be somewhat of a challenge. This time an older woman with her teenage daughter saw us struggling between a stroller and a four-year-old, attempting to get both of them going in the same direction, so she took pity on us and opened the door to help us herd the little ones inside.

She briefly smiled at my husband and said, "Don't put your kids in public school. Been there, done that. It was a disaster."

Yes, it was an odd thing to say in front of her own teenage daughter. Yes, it was even odder in that it was a complete nonsequitor, without any lead-in, without any conversation about schools, or kids, or anything.

Here's the even odder thing: when you look at the statistics of public school rankings nationwide, Delaware as a whole isn't that bad. It's ranked #7 in spending per pupil, and average academic achievement is generally above national percentages (with huge disparities between white students and all other minorities, it should be noted - link here: http://www.all4ed.org/states2/Delaware.p df)

That got me thinking about how we look at money and public institutions. I'm a self-described liberal - progressive, even - and most of us on this side of the political spectrum love the idea of public institutions. Public parks. Public libraries. Public schools. And public - or universal - healthcare. But there are some of us at times (and I don't exclude myself from this assessment) who like the idea of the public institution more than the reality of it. Sure, public parks are great...but sometimes you just want to have the nice, expensive treehouse-slide-swingset-fort playcenter in your own backyard. Yeah, public schools are wonderful institutions...as long as I live in the right neighborhood. If I'm "pioneering", you know my kid's going to that nice private school down the road.

Public institutions are looked upon in this country too many times as places of last resort. In fairness, more often than not they are. But should they be?

The people who built the original colonial towns in this country built them with greenspace. Either a commons, or a town green, or some area around which the main business of the community could be conducted. People could interact with each other. Sometimes, it was used for a collective place to graze your cattle, or hang people. Sometimes the best and the worst of the community was on display in these areas. But it was a public place that the public used, and it was a vital part of the community...and not just some area that those desperate people utilized because it was their last resort.

All of this leads me to John Edwards and his decision to use public campaign financing. Serious politicians aren't supposed to use public financing now, not if they "really want to win". Only if you're desperate, only if this is a complete area of last resort, is one supposed to use this imperfect public institution as a means to become President and help set an agenda for all of our imperfect public institutions.

And we want to know why our government doesn't work for us. Hmmmmm....

Edwards is a rich guy. Not only that, his campaign has raised some serious dough - more, I might add, than a good number of his Republican counterparts. But all of us on the left, all of us who want to protect and expand our public institutions have been sold the meme of the "money primary", that somehow "most electible" means "person with the most campaign cash". Not best ideas. Not best strategies to move the country forward. Not even best in running against candidates from the other party in the general election.

Just...cash. Money. Mulah. The almighty dollar-ino.

Personally, I think we need to change the way we look at this whole thing, if we believe in Martin Luther King's admonition that your ends are in your means. Maybe, just maybe, Edwards - this independently wealthy guy of $400 haircut fame - took a look at this insane methodology we're using to pick our presidents and thought to himself, "You know, I could either run on money or on people and ideas. Let's just go the public campaign financing route." I don't know if this was the thought process - I've never spoken to the man before in my life. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

It's never too late to change, and it's never too late to do the right thing. I'm glad Edwards took this step, even if it is somewhat late in the game. I'm not saying that all of the other candidates have to "join him", far from it.

But maybe they - and we - should step back and think about how this process has been corrupted. Maybe we should consider how this affects our country if our ends are in our means.

Maybe we should really start being the change we want to see.

John Edwards and Our Interconnected, Post-9/11 World

It's a dark, cool fall night in New England, where the diningroom/computer room/throughway to the kitchen/kids art area has finally ceased of all the activity it can handle within its modest 9' x 12' walls. Our family struggles with two small children, one of whom likely has mild autism. As parents our minds agitate over every bill, our souls rejoice over every word our children speak. Trapped in a house that we cannot sell in this current real estate market, we gird ourselves against the here-and-now and focus on the future.

We are like every other family on our block, and all of these families are interconnected with famililes from Great Britain, and Iraq, and North Korea, and Russia, and South Africa. What affects our one family directly affects all of these other families indirectly, and what these far-away families experience directly affects us indirectly.

To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are tied in the inescapable bonds of mutuality.

September is one of the hardest months for me, as it reminds me of younger days when my husband and I were DINKS (double-income no kids). Where was I on 9/11? I was in an up-and-coming, African American suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, working what many would consider a dream job: matching my professional talents with my passion for social justice.

On 9/11, I was on the phone, strong-arming a business executive, using an opening he had left wide-open for me to exploit. I was focused, shutting out the bright blue sky and crisp morning air outside my office so that only he and I existed in this moment in time. In tense negotiations, we were discussing the possibility of his company sponsoring an educational program on nonviolence...

...then the first plane hit.

We couldn't ever pick up that conversation again. It wasn't that we didn't understand its importance, it's just...well, let's say a lot of things went undone after 9/11. Best to put them away, try to hide the sensory memory of the experience.

I eventually left that job and wandered through this world, raising my children, having more conversations with more people about more money and what I would and would not do for them. But always, I carried in the back of my mind the memory of that day, the thick-as-mud irony of my small attempt to spread the message of nonviolence right when the World Trade Center was attacked.

The dark ironies seemed to continue: a cynical use of a national tragedy to play "Democracy dominoes" in the Middle East by attacking Iraq; our national leader declaring "you're either with us or against us" (and giving one the sinking sensation that - in addition to France and Russia - he meant you); a hooded man, arms akimbo, wires dripping off his body as if he was some decorative indoor palm tree in a shopping mall just waiting for the Christmas lights to be turned on.

Martin Luther King viewed the world through the lense of what he termed the "triple evils" of society: racism, poverty and war. It was in the middle of my wandering through my daily life that I encountered this message that gave me hope, that made me think, "Wow. Here's finally a presidential candidate who knew what King was actually talking about":



Being the jaded, research geek that I am, I dug deeper. I found his policies on poverty: http://johnedwards.com/issues/poverty/ and universal health care: http://johnedwards.com/issues/health-care/ . And I started to notice something: this guy's policies were all interconnected. This wasn't politics-by-laundry-list. This was the beginnings of a coherent strategy to take on King's triple evils proactively, to start the process of true justice by using the tools of our sometimes-corrupt-but-still-accountable Democratic system.

Over time, either the policies grew or my knowledge of them did, but I discovered the same consistency in John Edwards' stance on labor: http://johnedwards.com/issues/working-families/ (King, by the way, was an unabashed supporter of unions and organized labor) as well as the environment: http://johnedwards.com/issues/energy/ .

Recently, he's put out a plan to combat terrorism that is the closest I think one can realistically get to protecting our country by not just going after global terrorists structures but also the root causes of terrorism:



All of this has made me very hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we'll have a Presidential candidate that can implement not just King's words, but his policies.

Maybe John Edwards, once elected, would fall short on that. Maybe the realpolitik of Washington would crush his progressive policies and my soaring expectations. If so, he's got one seriously jaded, vocal blogger on his hands.

But I think at least he deserves a chance.

Women, Wiretaps, and Smears: the FBI and Coretta Scott King

"This is a woman who basically was trying to raise four kids and honor her deceased husband...I don't know how that was a threat to anybody's national security."

--Isaac Ferris, Jr., Coretta Scott King's nephew and spokesman for The King Center in Atlanta (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gdZ6WjVZ0RMNg6RHMfRBWm1t7f2Q)

Today's news of the FBI conducting surveillance on Coretta Scott King for years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination sent my mind reeling. To think of anonymous, small armies of government bureaucrats, sitting in cubicles lit by dim, flourscent lights searching through Mrs. King's personal letters, reading logs of field agents meticulously recording the schedule of her comings and goings, and even having the audacity to critique her autobiography is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie.

It's bizarre.

Unthinkable.

Yet, it happened.

Houston television station KHOU broke this story today: http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou070830_ac_scottkingfiles.85e64faa.htm l. It shows the extent that certain elements in our society - including our own government - will go to when confronted with an eloquent, plain-spoken argument for social change.

In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm) delivered on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated, Dr. King argued that, "...A time comes when silence is betrayal...". In a relatively few short minutes he became one of the government's biggest domestic threats, more than the Black Panthers, more than Malcolm X. King was able in this speech to meld the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement and the movement toward economic populism together into one seamless garment, saying:

"...we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor..." (my emphasis added)

King's threat was real: he was already at this point working on the Poor People's campaign, a cause that would bring together working people and poor people of all races to use nonviolence to demand economic justice from our government. He was poised to bring together disparate factions of the left and right, rich and poor, young and old by articulating how our nation's dependence on the military-industrial complex and the foreign policies it spawns adversely affects normal, every day Americans from widely divergent walks of life.

The urgency to stop him was real. The tactics employed by our government through the COINTEL program were brutal (http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm). His voice being silenced exactly one-year-to-the-day of delivering this landmark speech has always looked suspicious.

But after being silenced, why did the government continue these tactics against Mrs. King? Why did they start a meme that literally hounded her the rest of her life, making her the butt of political cartoons (one where she and her children were depicted as pick ninnies) and encouraging right-wing radio talk show hosts to label her "the Black Widow"? As KHOU reports:

"...One agent even read and reviewed her 1969 book "My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr." and made a point to say Scott King's "selfless, magnanimous, decorous attitude is belied by.. (her) ..actual shrewd, calculating, businesslike activities." (http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou070830_ac_scottkingfiles.85e64faa.htm l).

Why did the FBI employ these same tactics against close advisors like Ralph David Abernathy:

"...In the report the FBI details an uncertain and "shaky" Abernathy who was "concerned about his possible assassination as well as his position as President of the SCLC..." So the agent makes a recommendation: "It is felt that by notifying Abernathy directly upon receipt of information relating to threats against his life, some rapport may be developed with him..." The report also adds that doing this would give the benefit of "the disruptive effect of confusing and worrying him by reminding him of continuous threats against his life." (http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou070830_ac_scottkingfiles.85e64faa.htm l).

The FBI was worried that someone might stand up in the void left by MLK, might continue the work that he started on a summer day in a quiet church nestled in the chaos and confusion of New York City.

So, in the midst of visits to the White House, where Mrs. King and her children posed for photo ops and were told what a wonderful man their husband and father was, our government was reporting to these very same men with the sympathetic eyes where Mrs. King was going, who she was talking with, and how to sully her repuation just enough to make her a less credible threat.

This story has an upside, as all stories do. The government ceased its surveillence of Mrs. King around November, 1972. The American Civil Liberties Union issued a press release today calling for an immediate re-writing of the guidelines the FBI uses to spy on people in public places (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/315 30prs20070831.html).

And, a Presidential candidate paid tribute to King's seminal speech, illustrating its urgent, timely call to end our silence and finally be patriotic about something other than war:



If we want to stop the type of injustice Mrs. King experienced, it isn't enough to hold investigations or write better laws and policies (as important as these action are). We need to change who we are as a people.

Silence is a betrayal.

Stand up, speak out. Be the change you want to see.