I find Tom Friedman to be among the most pernicious and odious of the basking sycophants in our nation's press corps. He has been wrong about everything (e.g. the world is not flat, no matter what the taxi drivers of Bangalore tell you) and has aided the Bush administration in perpetrating their crimes against humanity by layering a liberal gloss on the efforts to kill brown people. At least people like Bill Kristol admit they want to kill more brown people (well, not they, themselves, actually -- they want our hired guns to do so).
Friedman's latest effort is a call for a Muslim Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now, MLK. Jr. is one of those names we invoke when we want to feel good about ourselves. In death and mythology we all love MLK, Jr. I wish they would make a MLK, Jr. teddy bear that would intone his dulcet cadences soothingly as we drift off to sleep.
But if you have ever read him -- or even anything in depth about him -- you will know that he was a brave and fierce warrior for the cause of justice. He put himself on the line time after time, and ultimately gave his life for the cause. King pissed people off, and not just white supremacist extremists. Read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail for a taste of his uncompromising spirit.
Even better, read his speech from April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence where King finally, belatedly comes out against the Vietnam War.
I tried to read through for easily digestible excerpts to post here, but I really cannot do that in fairness to the speech or to the reader.
As I read my rage, my sadness, and my hopefulness rise and fall with the waves of his words. At the end I am left with one conclusion:
What this country needs right now is an American Martin Luther King, Jr.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment