PDA

View Full Version : What were the political views of MLK?




GeorgiaAvenger
01-16-2012, 05:39 PM
Such as economic views, welfare programs, social issues, war...etc?

Machiavelli
01-16-2012, 05:47 PM
Would of supported Ron Paul if alive today.

moderate libertarian
01-16-2012, 05:57 PM
What were his views on US bombing of Vietnam, US supporting Israeli occupation of Palestinians , Rev, Jermia Wright's school of thought and someone like Obama?


Once I know that, I'll be able to better answer this question.

bushido
01-16-2012, 06:51 PM
Just read some of his speeches and you can get a feel for what he preached. To me, Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of great inspiration, not a man of solutions.
It seems to me that his idea is that Democracy holds the solution, that it is simply us as One Public that must break the chains of injustice and find a way.
I'm not sure what his ideas are as far as the "role of government" is concerned, especially since our government and nation has changed drastically since his assassination.
Someone please educate us if you have further insight into such philosophies he held as I am sure many people would find them very interesting and enlightening.

Meanwhile, here are a few quotes I picked out from one speech in Monticello, New York, September 8, 1962

War
War stacks our nations with national debts higher than mountains of gold. War fills our nations with orphans and widows. War sends men home psychologically deranged and physically handicapped. And we’ve got to come to see now that there is something basically and fundamentally wrong with a world that seeks to solve its problems on the battlefield. . . .

In a day with Sputniks and Explorers dashing through outer space, and guided ballistic missiles carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence, it is either nonviolence or nonexistence, and the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation.

Poverty & Economic Injustice
The problem is economic injustice. . . . We know that there is still in our world a great gulf between superfluous, inordinate wealth, and abject, deadening poverty. We see it in our nation and we see it in other nations. And we must always maintain a keen sensitivity to these conditions, for there is something wrong with a situation that will take the necessities from the masses and give luxuries to the classes.

Somehow, we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny and we must see this over and over again. I think about the fact that right here in America, one-tenth of 1 percent of the population controls almost 50 percent of the wealth. Some changes must take place here, and I don’t think the answer is in Communism, certainly not. Communism is based in ethical relativism, a metaphysical materialism, a denial of human freedom, and a totalitarianism that I can never accept. I believe that we can work within the framework of our democracy to make for a better distribution of wealth, and I believe that God has left enough and to spare in this world for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life. I will never be satisfied, and I will never be content, until all men and all women can have the basic necessities of life.

In the last two years I have done a little traveling in some of the other continents of our world, been in Africa, Asia, and South America, and in all of these countries and continents, I’ve noticed extreme poverty.

I said to myself, can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned? And something within cried out oh, no, because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India. And somehow I had to think about the fact that right here in America, we spend more than a million dollars a day to store surplus food. I say to you this afternoon, that I know where we can store that food free of charge, in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of people of Asia and Africa and South America.

Maybe we spend far too much of our national budget establishing military bases around the world rather than bases of genuine concern and understanding. All I’m saying is simply this: that all life is interrelated, and whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

FrankRep
01-16-2012, 07:08 PM
MLK was a Socialist.


http://0.tqn.com/d/g/60956.jpg

Getting to Know Martin Luther King Jr. (http://racerelations.about.com/b/2012/01/15/getting-to-know-martin-luther-king-jr.htm)


About.com Guide
January 15, 2012


Almost 44 years after his 1968 assassination, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as more of a legend than a man. He's largely recognized for leading the charge to end Jim Crow in the United States, but his opposition to the Vietnam War, support of labor unions and view that poor people had rights are largely overlooked.

If King were running for office today, he'd likely be labeled an anti-American socialist because of his political beliefs. But because his perspectives on morality, war, poverty and so forth are frequently ignored on the federal holiday in his honor, it's easy to reduce him to being a harmless and saint-like practitioner of nonviolence. On the contrary, King's political agenda made him very dangerous. He not only opposed war and racial segregation but also capitalism and materialism, the two isms responsible for turning the U.S. into a world superpower. King probably would've hated the idea of department stores such as Sears and K-Mart having MLK sales on his birthday. Because of his political ideology and his influence on marginalized America, the FBI kept tabs on him--not exactly a move a government agency would make on a guy who didn't pose a threat.

In an effort to paint a more complete picture of who King was and why the U.S. government viewed him as dangerous, I've compiled notable quotes from King's lesser-known speeches and a list of facts that many people don't know about the slain civil rights leader. Are you aware, for example, that King opposed the Vietnam War, in part, because he viewed it as a threat to poor people? If nothing else, the causes King supported reveal a man far more complex than he's remembered as today.



Related Articles:

Myths of Martin Luther King (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/epstein9.html)

The Economics of Martin Luther King, Jr. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/archives/fm/02-91.html)

Martin Luther King: The Celebration of a Myth (http://thenewamerican.com/history/american/2798-martin-luther-king-the-celebration-of-a-myth)

Socialist "Saint" - Martin Luther King (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/829049/posts)

onlyrp
01-16-2012, 08:22 PM
Would of supported Ron Paul if alive today.

Nonsense. Not even Farrakhan supported Ron Paul, until Obama betrayed him.

acptulsa
01-16-2012, 08:34 PM
'It is not enough to say you must end war. You must love peace and sacrifice for it.'--Martin Luther King, Jr.

He may not have been right on every issue. But he was exactly right on some issues.

outspoken
01-16-2012, 08:39 PM
George Orwell was a socialist as well... So was Albert Einstein. The problem with such great minds is that they really didn't understand nor respect economics. Human nature is such that you cannot just empower man through govt no matter how well intended. The road to hell IS paved with good intentions.

I like to believe if MLK were alive today and saw the net result of socialism particularly in the urban setting and the decimation of minority families that he would have a change of heart and support Ron Paul.

FrankRep
01-16-2012, 09:47 PM
I like to believe if MLK were alive today and saw the net result of socialism particularly in the urban setting and the decimation of minority families that he would have a change of heart and support Ron Paul.

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton haven't have a change of heart yet.

onlyrp
01-16-2012, 09:51 PM
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton haven't have a change of heart yet.

But Farrakhan has, only as far as who he doesn't support for President, not as far as what people he hates.

Zap!
01-16-2012, 10:30 PM
Radical leftist.