When Martin Luther King, Jr. came out unequivocally against the war in Viet Nam, he was attacked from all sides, including strong criticism from many of his allies. They said that civil rights and peace didn’t mix, that he was hurting the cause of his own people. King responded that he understood their concerns, but nonetheless it saddened him. It saddened him, he said, because it meant that his allies didn’t really know him, and that they didn’t really know the world they lived in.
It’s easy to forget the revolutionary Martin Luther King when the dominant narrative—entombed in the gauzy haze of official memory—is such a sugary and uplifting story:
Once upon a time there were some mean white people (in the South) and some bad laws. But then a Saint came along and told us to love one another. He led a bus boycott, had a dream, gave a speech, and won a peace prize. Then, we were all better, and he got shot.
It’s sweet and simple, and in large part untrue. The real Martin Luther King, Jr. was an activist for just thirteen years, a loving and angry pilgrim in pursuit of justice, and he grew and changed dramatically each year of his journey. King’s speeches and sermons in the last years of his life are a chronicle of struggle, set-back, re-thinking, connecting issues, seeking new allies, going deeper, fighting harder.
In the last years of his life he was fighting explicitly for economic and global justice connected to racial justice. He spoke of the link between a rotting shack and a rotted-out democracy, between imperial ambitions abroad and betrayal of justice at home. He noted that the American soul was poisoned by war and racism, and raised the question of whether America would go to hell for her sins.
Concretely he said that the American people bore the greatest responsibility for ending the war since our government bore the responsibility for starting and sustaining it. He called the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” and argued that he could not condemn desperate, angry young men who picked up guns until he first condemned his own government. He urged resistance to the war and counseled youngsters not to join the armed services. And he said the U.S. was on the wrong side of the world revolution, that we would need to rekindle a revolutionary spirit in order to create a “revolution in values”—against militarism and racism and extreme materialism—that could lead to restructuring our economic and social system top to bottom.
In the spirit of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. we have to dare to see the world as it really is, and then to choose justice over tribe or nation or petty self-interest. We need to organize and mobilize against illegal wars of conquest and domination, send a sharp warning right now as the powerful mobilize to bomb Iran under the banner of the same exhausted lies and rationalizations, and press the demand for peace in concrete terms:
1. Withdraw all mercenary forces immediately.
2. Set a date-certain—within three months—for all U.S. troops to leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. Dismantle all U.S. military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
4. Renounce all claims to the natural resources of Iraq.
5. Call for the creation of an independent international commission to assess and monitor the amount of reparations the U.S. owes to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is only a start, and it is still a choice—solidarity with all people, or endless war and death. As King reminded us, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
Bill Ayers 
Ummmm, look like this unrepentant hero of the Left, didn’t have much respect for women, but what would you expect from a scumbag like Ayers.
http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=1008160
that speech about second america sounds like a bunch of whining babies to me, veryone as the same opportunity to study and maked something of themselves, and if they dont and end up in poverty then it is their own fault. The lazy I choose not to work welfare claimers of this country is what drags things down to where they are today.
I don’t find your tie-in with Dr. King at all convincing, Bill.
You assume that because Dr. King was against the Vietnam war, he was against all war, and that just is not true.
For example, Dr. King was a strong supporter of the State of Israel and its struggle against extermination by the surrounding Arab countries.
Unlike Ghandi, Dr. King realized that there is such a thing as evil in the world that sometimes needs to be stopped, or even destroyed. He had a well-thought-out understanding of good and evil, war and peace, and reconcilliation versus appeasement. His philosophy was not a simpleminded “War Is Not the Answer” bumper sticker.
I’m not saying that Dr. King would have been a supporter of the Iraq war – nobody can know “what if…” But it’s also definitely not logical to assume that he would have been against this war. If anything, unlike the behavior of “peace activists” in 2002, I think it’s fair to say that he would have worked hard for the *removal* of Saddam Hussein as a means of *preventing* the war in the first place.
Once again, you and those on your side of the issues have used the “Vietnam Template” as the Universal Answer for any position you take.
I am about your age, and, my friend, having since grown up, I can say that the “Vietnam Template” was wrong even back then… and it’s most *certainly* wrong now.
Regards,
SteveR
What kind of small-mindedness does it require for so many people to equate criticism of military imperialism with Anti-Americanism? If being American truly means having to support indiscriminate world-wide murder, state sponsored terrorism, and nation building, then I suppose being Anti-American isn’t a bad thing after all. The fact that so many of the responses are so emotionally defensive betrays the unsound footing of propaganda that most Americans hang their hats on. These folks might not agree with you, but I’m sure Dr. King would, and Ghandi, and Mother Theresa, and Jesus for that matter. And, Mr. Ayers, I hope you do get what is coming to you because it seems to me that you have a lot of good karma in store.
It’s sad that the mainstream American media has downplayed King speaking
out against the war. I read one article where he was portrayed as missing
a few nuts and bolts for speaking out against the war.
I also have experienced discrimination as a result of speaking out against
the War in Iraq. It’s truly sad what our country is coming to: fascism.
I’m not aware of an equivalence between anti-Americanism and criticism of what I’ll call “an aggressive military” (I object to strongly to the term “military imperialism” – words matter and those words are loaded with inaccurate connotations).
However, these two lines of thought are highly correlated, so it’s worth asking “why?”.
My personal belief is that “most” (though certainly not all) objections to “most” projection of American power stem from a fundamental belief that America is more of a force for evil in the world than a force for good.
Clearly if you believe that America is more a force for evil in the world, it holds that any projection of American power is a furtherance of that evil. I believe this to be the fundamental driver of most anti-war sentiment in America today.
Of course, there is a principled case to be made against any war (including Iraq) on grounds other than this. There are also those who believe in the principles behind the war, but were dissatisfied with it’s execution.
But both of these views are a fairly small minority; I’m confident that a poll of those who oppose the “principles” behind going to war in Iraq, you will find that upwards of 80% of them also believe the US to be “generally a force for bad in the world.”
Certainly Bill Ayers holds this view, and I don’t think I’m on very shaky ground when I postulate that Barack Obama feels the same way.
People who hold this belief (and there are alot of them – I figure about 30% of the US population), may convince others and perhaps even themselves that they are “patriotic”, but by any reasonable definition of the word, they are certainly not.
Being “American” means something; it is not just a geographic area sandwiched by Canada and Mexico. It stands for the ideals laid out in our Declaration and Constitution, and by the traditions, institutions, attitudes, culture, beliefs, etc. which have worked to make the United States the most successful, most free, most content civilization for the most people in the history of the world.
Not perfect, mind you, but the best we imperfect men in our imperfect world have been able to gin up so far.
And I’m sorry to break it to some of you, but Socialism, Marxism, Multi-culturalism, Secular Humanism, Post-Modernism, Islamism and many of the other 20th century “isms” imported during the 20th century are as foreign to being “American” as Monarchism. We tolerate them because of our ideals, and they may yet destroy us. But that doesn’t mean they are “American” – they are not.
But what about the rest of the world, you ask? Good question. Well, we haven’t always exported the best of what we have to offer, that’s for sure. Back when the dominant world economic system was Mercantilism, we did a fine job of it.
It was a nasty system by today’s standards, using power to dominate and exploit people and resources throughout the world. It was effectively Imperialism, and it was the way the world worked. Even just in the last 100 years, you had Mercantilist empires run by Germany, Japan, the UK, the Dutch, the Ottoman Empire, the Russians and others. Most parts of the world were part of this system, either as a mercantilist power or a vassal state. We happened to be pretty good at it.
Unfortunately, much of the righteousness of those who believe America to be a force for evil isn’t contextualized properly, and these adherents are making the error of judging the actions of the past by the moral standards of today. I would assert that the US has almost always been on the “right” side of any reasonable moral standard in place at the time.
Also recall that the Mercantilist world system ended only when we – the US – effectively put it to rest in the second world war. It wasn’t until then that the overseas Mercantilist empires dissolved, and were replaced with (mainly) voluntary trade among (mainly) sovereign nations and international free market capitalism began to emerge.
What has our military accomplished in the last 100 years? Well, we freed Europe twice from militarism, conquest and fascism, and Asia once. We did not stay as a conquering or controlling power, but only in a mutually-agreed protective alliance of free nations. And when asked to leave (e.g., Philippines, France), we left.
We saved 48 million South Koreans from the wretched fate of those 22 million trapped behind in the North. We did not stay as a conquering or controlling power, but only in a mutually-agreed protective alliance of free nations.
We won the cold war, liberating over 100 million Eastern Europeans from the mind control, material deprivation and environmental devastation which was Soviet Communism.
All over the world we slowed the spread of a cancerous communism, buying the time needed to save much of the world from suffering under it’s horrors while it collapsed from our pressure and it’s own hollowness.
We have maintained relative security in the world, compared to the Darfurian hell which would await a world without our virtually unique combination of power, moral courage and general benevolence.
Unfortunately, we did not have the political will to stop Communism in Vietnam and Cambodia. We had the military capacity, but were sapped of the will to win by internal divisions and protest. Was that a good thing?
To those self-righteous – like Bill Ayers – who believe that they did “good” by enabling a Communist victory in Indochina, I say you are are in fact directly and personally responsible for the deaths of approximately 25% of the Cambodian population (1.5 million people) in the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge. Was that moral? Really?
Pol Pot thought he was an intelligent, politically enlightened, moral, thoughtful leader too. And he was a starry-eyed idealist if ever there was one.
To we act in our own self-interest? Of course we do! But certainly in the last half century it’s generally been an unlightened self-interest which understands that the security, wealth and prosperity of the world is also in our national self-interest.
But what about Iraq?
This war is ugly, and alot of people have died. But all wars are ugly, and people always die in them. All of our wars have been far bloodier and uglier than this one, and the question is not “is war bad” – the question is “is the alternative to war worse?”
Apparently the Iraqis themselves today – on balance – believe that the alternative of Saddam Hussein was worse (look it up – the polling data is pretty clear). Recall the hundreds of thousands of innocent people slaughtered by Saddam and the tens of thousands likely being killed annually by the “sanctions” now touted by some as the reasonable alternative. And recall the abject terror under which the subjects of his fiat state lived, and the oppression of the Shia and the Kurds.
There is no question that this war has liberated them, and that they believe (again – check the polls) they now have a much better future.
We went to war for many reasons, especially the very REAL threat of WMDs and terrorists coming together in a very strategic part of the world. Plus the fact that they were daily flagrantly violating the terms of the cease fire under whose terms we ended hostilities in the first gulf war. And there were a half dozen other reasons – all in our national interest and in the interest of the majority of the Iraqi people.
Oppose the war if you like, but don’t fall for the stupidity of those who argue that somehow this was all about “lies” and that decision-makers were motivated by a desire to do evil. The reality is that there were – and are more so today – extremely thoughtful, moral and highly rational reasons for this war.
I don’t want to do evil, I know enough about the circumstances of the decision-making, and I know the difference between “telling a lie” and “believing/predicting incorrectly” in a world of imperfect information.
And I believe on balance that this war was the lesser of two evils. You can’t close your eyes to the rational argument, cover your ears and chant “Kevin lied, people died” because I don’t have any other motivation other than my own conscience. My conscience lef me to conclude that this was the right thing, just as I believe that the consciences of the decision-makers involved led them to the same conclusion.
But again, it’s the ideas stupid. If you have listened to a one-sided argument in an echo chamber and been convinced that “America is bad” then I would expect nothing less than full-throated opposition to any projection of American power.
However, if you have a real and balanced understanding of our country, our imperfect world and the realistic alternatives available in a real world, you would be more likely to give the US the benefit of the doubt. You would then be more likely to listen to balanced, rational arguments on both sides and ignore the silliness.
Some of you would still oppose the Iraq war, but I would venture to say that many – perhaps most – of you would not.
“A living example of the suicidal conceit of affluence, Ayers is a product of a wealthy society (and an extremely wealthy family) whose wealth caused him to become unmoored from the reality of the world and lost in an echo chamber of self-righteous and self-destructive academia.”
Expand a little and you define what?? (academia aside).
Kevin,
Although I disagree with your position on the war and with your characterization of America’s (flawed) benevolence, I must respect your opinion as having originated in rational thought and intellect. Your responses are in sharp contrast to people like (the poster) USMC who say things like “ROT IN HELL YOU COMMUNIST BASTARD!” in response to another’s thoughtful and fully rational position. These are the small minded and blind patriots I refer to, not you. Your opinions are valid and fully justified. Contrary to what you might believe of me I have never spent a day of my life where I wished to be anything but an American. And I have never believed that America was a fundamentally evil society. I highly value the rights and protection that this country affords me as one of its citizens, and I am proud of the generosity of our citizenry whenever disaster strikes the world. While I believe the American benevolence you speak of was true of America in our recent history, only a fool would assume that it is and will forever be true. I quote Thomas Jefferson “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” I think that time may already be upon us.
and here’s another for good measure “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” — Thomas Jefferson
One more thing. Kevin, the one sided echo chamber you mention surely exists, but the echo I’ve heard my entire life kinda sounded like your words:
“We have maintained relative security in the world, compared to the Darfurian hell which would await a world without our virtually unique combination of power, moral courage and general benevolence.”
It was not until I was taught the power of critical thinking did I learn to unlearn this type of romanticized patriotic love for one’s country.