Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh on WAR

"The moment I met MLK, I knew I was in the presence of a holy person" (Thich Nhat Hanh).

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What heart!

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke strongly against the US War on Vietnam, arguing that this country was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony" [201] and saying:

The U.S. government [is] "the greatest

purveyor of violence in the world today" [202].

He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing -- among other things -- that the country needed serious moral change:

• "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: 'This is not just'" [203].

I may be cheating on my wife, so don't say holy.

Dr.  King opposed America's Vietnam War because, among other things, it took money and resources that might have been spent on social programs here at home.

The US Congress continues to authorize ever more spending on the military, which means death and destruction, and less and less on social betterment programs, which means American progress.

One short month is not enough! We continue.

Dr. King summed this up by saying, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense [the Dept. of War] than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death" [203].

He pointed out that North Vietnam "did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands" [204] and accused the US of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children" [205].

Dr. King also criticized US opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms [206]. His opposition cost him significant support among White allies, including Pres. Johnson, Pastor Billy Graham [207], union leaders, and powerful publishers [208].

"The press is being stacked against me," King said [209], complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children" [210].

Life magazine called the speech... More

• American racism is about fear, skin color, and culture