MLK--Monumental Man
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was a complex man, to say the least. Now he's a monumental man.
Despised and investigated by J. Edgar Hoover for a variety of anti-American activities, idolized by his followers for his struggles on behalf of African-Americans, held in contempt by Jackie Kennedy, unparalled leader of the Civil Rights Movement, MLK now has an imposing monument on four acres erected in his honor on the Washington Mall.
The controversial 30 foot, 16 ton Chinese-sculpted statue, 11 feet taller than the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, was 20 years in the making at a cost of some $120 million. It was finally dedicated on October 16th after an earthquake and Hurricane Irene spoiled the planned opening on the anniversary of King's €I Have a Dream€ speech.
Another earthquake of controversy ensued following the dedication. Among other critics, some objected to the failure to incorporate reference to God anywhere on a memorial to a Baptist minister and poet Maya Angelou contended the main inscription on the Buddha-esque monument €makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit.€
The abbreviated King quotation reads, €I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.€ More than twittish arrogance, the words create the image of a drum and bugle corps leader.
In an startlingly frank article on the Dream speech and the monument by an African-American columnist, Robert E. Pierre observes that King might not recognize either the monument inscription or himself today based on that inscription.
Newsday titled the publication of Pierre's piece in its printed edition, €Let Memorial Stand for the Real MLK.€ Online, Newsday re-titled the article, €Pierre: Recalling MLK the Revolutionary,€ a more accurate representation, more reflective of who and what Rev. King really was.
As Pierre points out, the €content of their character€ and €table of brotherhood€ parts of King's €Dream€ speech were secondary to his incitement to revolution and his ominous prediction that €The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.€
He's right. There's not much character content and brotherhood associated with violent revolutions nor in King's acknowledged Communist sympathies.
Pierre does mention that little-known facet of King's career but fails to comment on the minister's womanizing, the reasons J. Edgar considered him a national security threat, or how MLK's supporters pressured federal and state legislators into declaring the only national holiday honoring an individual American. (Washington and Lincoln were lumped together in €President's Day€ in 1971.)
Pierre does reveal, without apology, that King was more viscerally revolutionary and outwardly radical than most of his contemporary counterparts or subsequent idolizers would care to admit.
He sarcastically speculates that, €It's easy to see either the tea party or growing €occupy' movements taking up the [character and brotherhood] slogans. But I guess revolt is not so good for business€ and adds with an angry smattering of truth, €Nor were King's exhortations against war, the hypocrisy of the media, American arrogance and corporate greed. It seems that we have whittled away the outrage and righteous indignation from King's popular image.€
Indeed, despite how he is inaccurately remembered, Dr. King's €popular image€ as one of a peacemaker, MLK and his memorial are monumental jokes.
Robert E. Pierre, a fellow black, is finally admitting the truth that millions of people have long known that King was a radical revolutionary who campaigned against American interests and our soldiers in the 1960€s, who characterized the United States as €the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,€ and who preached and advocated upheaval far more than he preached or advocated about religion.
In what could easily be the words of the Occupy Wall Street radical fruitcakes, Pierre concedes the true motives behind King's activism: €Let's be clear, King saw across international borders and color lines,€ euphemistically saying King favored United Nations-style multi-racial internationalism in lieu of American patriotism and exceptionalism.
Pierre tries to sucker his readers into believing his internationalist tripe at the same time he incites blacks to revolt. As he writes, the MLK monument is €there because [King's] words and actions along with hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers forced people to listen.€ Pierre reminds us that in King only €when necessary used words like terror and revolt to remind the powers that be that he wasn't asking but demanding.€
€Hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers€? Has the race war Dr. King hoped for been declared? €Forcing people to listen€? Has a black Big Brother been declared America's dictator? Have we reached a point where a 13% minority is no longer €asking but demanding€?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Dr. King launched that war almost fifty years ago, we have been forced into submission, have met all demands, and Big Bro Barack Hussein Obama is in process of negotiating our terms of surrender.
If the anarchic Occupy Wall Streeters had any foresight, instead of carrying on over banker greed they would march on Washington sporting signs depicting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and set up their makeshift tents at the base of his monument. They could chant his forgotten words, €whirlwinds of revolt,€ settle in, and prepare for the national chaos they and other revolutionaries crave.
(See all sources at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5747.)
Despised and investigated by J. Edgar Hoover for a variety of anti-American activities, idolized by his followers for his struggles on behalf of African-Americans, held in contempt by Jackie Kennedy, unparalled leader of the Civil Rights Movement, MLK now has an imposing monument on four acres erected in his honor on the Washington Mall.
The controversial 30 foot, 16 ton Chinese-sculpted statue, 11 feet taller than the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, was 20 years in the making at a cost of some $120 million. It was finally dedicated on October 16th after an earthquake and Hurricane Irene spoiled the planned opening on the anniversary of King's €I Have a Dream€ speech.
Another earthquake of controversy ensued following the dedication. Among other critics, some objected to the failure to incorporate reference to God anywhere on a memorial to a Baptist minister and poet Maya Angelou contended the main inscription on the Buddha-esque monument €makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit.€
The abbreviated King quotation reads, €I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.€ More than twittish arrogance, the words create the image of a drum and bugle corps leader.
In an startlingly frank article on the Dream speech and the monument by an African-American columnist, Robert E. Pierre observes that King might not recognize either the monument inscription or himself today based on that inscription.
Newsday titled the publication of Pierre's piece in its printed edition, €Let Memorial Stand for the Real MLK.€ Online, Newsday re-titled the article, €Pierre: Recalling MLK the Revolutionary,€ a more accurate representation, more reflective of who and what Rev. King really was.
As Pierre points out, the €content of their character€ and €table of brotherhood€ parts of King's €Dream€ speech were secondary to his incitement to revolution and his ominous prediction that €The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.€
He's right. There's not much character content and brotherhood associated with violent revolutions nor in King's acknowledged Communist sympathies.
Pierre does mention that little-known facet of King's career but fails to comment on the minister's womanizing, the reasons J. Edgar considered him a national security threat, or how MLK's supporters pressured federal and state legislators into declaring the only national holiday honoring an individual American. (Washington and Lincoln were lumped together in €President's Day€ in 1971.)
Pierre does reveal, without apology, that King was more viscerally revolutionary and outwardly radical than most of his contemporary counterparts or subsequent idolizers would care to admit.
He sarcastically speculates that, €It's easy to see either the tea party or growing €occupy' movements taking up the [character and brotherhood] slogans. But I guess revolt is not so good for business€ and adds with an angry smattering of truth, €Nor were King's exhortations against war, the hypocrisy of the media, American arrogance and corporate greed. It seems that we have whittled away the outrage and righteous indignation from King's popular image.€
Indeed, despite how he is inaccurately remembered, Dr. King's €popular image€ as one of a peacemaker, MLK and his memorial are monumental jokes.
Robert E. Pierre, a fellow black, is finally admitting the truth that millions of people have long known that King was a radical revolutionary who campaigned against American interests and our soldiers in the 1960€s, who characterized the United States as €the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,€ and who preached and advocated upheaval far more than he preached or advocated about religion.
In what could easily be the words of the Occupy Wall Street radical fruitcakes, Pierre concedes the true motives behind King's activism: €Let's be clear, King saw across international borders and color lines,€ euphemistically saying King favored United Nations-style multi-racial internationalism in lieu of American patriotism and exceptionalism.
Pierre tries to sucker his readers into believing his internationalist tripe at the same time he incites blacks to revolt. As he writes, the MLK monument is €there because [King's] words and actions along with hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers forced people to listen.€ Pierre reminds us that in King only €when necessary used words like terror and revolt to remind the powers that be that he wasn't asking but demanding.€
€Hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers€? Has the race war Dr. King hoped for been declared? €Forcing people to listen€? Has a black Big Brother been declared America's dictator? Have we reached a point where a 13% minority is no longer €asking but demanding€?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Dr. King launched that war almost fifty years ago, we have been forced into submission, have met all demands, and Big Bro Barack Hussein Obama is in process of negotiating our terms of surrender.
If the anarchic Occupy Wall Streeters had any foresight, instead of carrying on over banker greed they would march on Washington sporting signs depicting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and set up their makeshift tents at the base of his monument. They could chant his forgotten words, €whirlwinds of revolt,€ settle in, and prepare for the national chaos they and other revolutionaries crave.
(See all sources at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5747.)
