With all that is going on related to Israel’s war in Gaza, including yesterday’s announcement that a ceasefire agreement has been reached, I’m surprised to find myself led to write about Vietnam today.
With Martin Luther King Day approaching, I’ve been turning my attention to his work and words. Something I’ve written about often
See: https://quakersandreligioussocialism.com/?s=martin%20luther%20king
Beyond Vietnam
Most of King’s supporters strongly urged him not to speak about Vietnam, feeling that would detract from the focus on racial justice.
On April 7, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famously insightful, prophetic speech about another illegal U.S. war of choice – “Beyond Viet Nam: A Time to Break the Silence” – in which Dr. King said: “Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken: the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.”
Dr. King’s verdict, in this speech, on the momentous first anniversary of which he was taken from us, was that “This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Dr. Martin Luther King’s Prophetic Warning, Denouncing the Merchants of Death by Kathy Kelly, ZNetwork, 1/13/2025
Beyond Gaza
A similar speech titled “Beyond Gaza” could be given today, almost sixty years after King’s speech.
This country continues to “make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments”.
“This business of burning human beings with napalm…” continues today with burning children, women and men from the relentless bombing in Gaza.
Future
Will we change? Or in another sixty years will someone be writing “Beyond _______”?
unflinching 