MLK: the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism ... (listen to this speech)
PM
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world
revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of
values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society
to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit
motives and property rights are considered more important than people,
the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are
incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the
fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the
one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside,
but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that
the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will
not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on
life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a
beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs
restructuring.
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." It will look at our
alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not
just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to
teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay a hand on the world order and say
of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." 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
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.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well
lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a
tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so
that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.
LISTEN TO MUCH MORE:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/16/special_dr_martin_luther_king_jr
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“In the course of history, there comes a time
when humanity is called to shift
to a new level of consciousness to reach
a higher moral ground. A time when we
have to shed our fear and give hope
to each other. That time is now.”
~ Wangari Maathai
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xox PM