Friday, April 3, 2009

The Anniversary of a Very Sad Day.. April 4, 1968

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day we lost a great man. Life magazine looks back with some never before seen photos.

Here is a gallery of shots that were taken just after the tragedy that struck us all April 4th, 1968. Yes it was 41 years ago today we lost the man who was Dr. Martin Luther King.



I think often about how he lived and what he would think now. Some say he wouldn't approve of Pres. Obama because of his stance on the war, because he was a peaceful man. I don't think anyone can really know that.

I would like to think he was a wise enough man to know that sometimes defense in needed. Yes, Iraq was wrong, yes, Viet Nam was wrong. But, just as in WWII with Japan when they attacked us in Hawaii, al-Qa'ida attacked us.

I don't know.. I guess we may never know.

2 comments:

Fran said...

There is no doubt MLK was adamantly into non violence. I never thought MLK would "disapprove of Barack Obama", but I do think he would think perpetuating wars was wrong. He would vehemently disagree with Obama on that issue.
Because King was also aware that poor folks were particularly vulnerable to wars-- you don't usually see the "rich man's sons" fighting the front lines of wars.
But you do see poor folk & black folk- people of color.

How long will we be avenging 9-11? A million Iraqis have died.. (ooops! wrong war???), more US soldiers have died in that war than originally died in 9-11.

That bloodlust cost $606 billion dollars & counting.
7 years later in Iraq & 8 years later in Afghanistan, the wars go on, and now we have people living in tent cities?

Foreclosures, Bankruptcies, poverty, millions without healthcare- major financial meltdown & still we have billions for wars?

King was about non violence, peace, justice, jobs , education.

I really don;t think he;d buy this revenge idea- in his own words.... a country that spends more on wars than programs of social uplift are destined for spiritual death.

I wrote this in Feb:
Even though Dr. King was shot and killed, the taking of his life only made his words and actions, his life's work even stronger.
So as we move forward in the 21st century, I certainly hope we never look back at the things Dr. Martin Luther King jr. did as "something of the past", as a person who headed up a movement that practiced non-violence and the teachings of Gandhi (his mentor), as some historic relic. He did not fight that fight for us to become complacent- to allow discrimination, to turn away from injustice, to accept violence... even in foreign countries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Ve5GoHFDg&feature=player_embedded

Annette said...

Fran.. look what you said:

How long will we be avenging 9-11? A million Iraqis have died.. (ooops! wrong war???), more US soldiers have died in that war than originally died in 9-11.

Did I not say that was wrong, yes it was, very very wrong. And Pres. Obama is stopping that, or trying to. But it is not something he can just snap his fingers and say ok ollie ollie alls in free, and everyone come home. It just doesn't work that way. It would be nice, but that just can't happen.

As for "avenging" 9-11, I don't believe we are avenging 9-11. That is so not what I think we are doing. As long as there are threats coming from al-Quai'da, and there are still threats coming from them, we are vulnerable to attack. So are our allies, that is not revenge or getting back at them, that is DEFENSE. We are still defending ourselves because Bush took us into the wrong war and went to Iraq and allowed al-Quai'da to regenerate and rebuild itself in the areas we are now having to go back into stronger.

I am sorry, this is just one area that we are going to disagree. Just as we had to fight in WWII, I believe we have to fight this until we affect a surrender of al-Quai'da.