Martin Luther King Jr (repost)

(This is a repost from April 4th, 2008)

Sadly, nine months since I posted this the first time, it is still very appropriate. I was reflecting on some of Martin Luther King's his speeches this morning and came across "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence" (you can download the mp3 to listen to the speech) delivered exactly one year before his death. The speech makes many points that parallel our current war in Iraq. Writer Juan Cole outlined his analysis of King's stance against the war in Vietnam with what he assesses as "10 Things Martin Luther King would have done about Iraq" here. Below are some very wise, forthright, and challenging excerpts from King's speech:

"But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government."

"Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition."

"If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war."

King closes with a statement of hope, eloquently saying:

"If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

Re-Routed Overnight

There's a fascinating post on blast walls in Iraq at the Subtopia blog. These blast walls are often installed under cover of darkness, and the post called "In the Business of Blast Walls" features several eerie night-vision photos of the construction process. Check it out.

photo by flickr member jetsetjer
photo by flickr member James Gordon

Accompaniment

I was researching the work of Giulio Aristide Sartorio - a painter I remembered from a trip to Italy some years ago, when I came across a series of war paintings of his that are fantastic. I paired excerpts form the series with aesthetically similar paintings or painters. I'm not meaning to imply one painter looked at the other painter, but it is always interesting to me to see similarities between artists. Unfortunately, the page on which I found these works by Sartorio is written in Italian so I do not translated titles - the series is from 1917-1918.

Giulio Aristide Sartorio, "Attacco aereo di Venezia" ("Air Attack of Venice"), 1917-1918
"Buildings Lancaster", 1930, by Charles Demuth (Source: Wiki Commons), Oil on board, 24 x 20 in
Giulio Aristide Sartorio, "Bombardamento di Quota" ("Bombing of Quota"), 1917-1918
George Bellows, "A Morning Snow: Hudson River", 1910 (Source: Wiki Commons)

Giulio Aristide Sartorio, "L'isola di Fagarè" ("The Island of Fagare"?), 1917-1918James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Harmony in blue and silver: Trouville (1865)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Giulio Aristide Sartorio,"Gli Austriaci ripassano il Piave" (The Australians Crossing the Piave"), 1917-1918 Frederic Remington (American, 1861–1909), "The Scout: Friends or Foes", 1902–5,
Oil on canvas; 27 x 40 in. from the Met Museum

translations by the talented Patti Hallock

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination. A tragic loss for our nation and for the world. I was reflecting on some of his speeches this morning and came across "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence" (you can download the mp3 to listen to the speech) delivered on this very day, exactly one year before his death. The speech makes many points that parallel our current war in Iraq. Writer Juan Cole outlined his analysis of King's stance against the war in Vietnam with what he assesses as "10 Things Martin Luther King would have done about Iraq" here. Below are some very wise, forthright, and challenging excerpts from King's speech:

"But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government."

"Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition."

"If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war."

King closes with a statement of hope, eloquently saying:

"If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."