Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated 37 Years Ago Today. Why?

By Rev. Martin Luther King

"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.


Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

,..."the people". He had the media's attention and he was preparing to expose the corporate totalitarianism that constituted US foreign policy.

What's really bad NOW is that the neoCONs are not only looking to enslave to corporate totalitarianism other countries but also our own as well by bankrupting all institutions and funding which serve to empower our people.

They are very evil fucks in charge of this country.

Reportedly the SAME VEFs since then

they just turn up in a new position of power.

:evilgrin:

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!

You got it!

:evilgrin:

Fascists.


"They are very evil fucks in charge of this country."

be any more ashamed of my country...
I don't have a tv, I don't suppose they had this on the msm tonight?

is, in my opinion, the greatest American speech. Not only does it directly confront the war, it goes to the heart of the economic system. When he announced plans for the Poor Peoples' Campaign, and let it be known how far he was going to go to challenge the system, the decision was made to kill him.

That's the speech that got him killed.

Read it here and you will agree.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

Communist?

wanted him neutralized. Seems like they were worse than the FBI in their surveillance of MLK. Check the book out.

He was profoundly anti-VietNam War.

also details the relationship between the FBI and the specific group of AI that was following King around the USA. Hoover's FBI loaned and traded intell officers with other agencies, and with the military.

I've not read that book. Is it still being published?

The author has since found a couple small errors in the research that went into it, but the book still stands as the single most important work on the King assassination.

because of specific concerns about his planned Poor Peoples' Campaign, which would have literally shut down Washington, DC during the summer of 1968. King made people very nervous with that plan.

The Rev was accessing ALL people,...which was what he was, an access to ALL people.

That threatened the corporate establishment enough,...to assassinate him.

a lot of money is made off poverty. He knew that poverty could be reduced. The country had both the resources and ability to reduce poverty in the late 1960s. But the economic system demands poverty ... and the proof may be that Reagan was elected but 12 years after King's death. Reagan institutionalized poverty, wiping out the foundations of LBJ's Great Society.

by a clique that included Bush's relatives (Geo. Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush) were so similar to what MLK had planned it's scary. Those earlier guys had their heads cracked in Wash. DC in 1932 but a guy, USMC Gen Smedley D. Butler, blew the whistle on the attempted coup d'etat.

See Jules Archer's book The Plot to Seize the White House (if you can find it-- $300 in book searches) or the movie "The Plot to Overthow FDR (Smedley D. Butler) www.ihffilm.com/r547.html

I think that King's plan was actually far closer to that of "Coxie's Army" of the poor and unemployed, who were intent on marching to Washington, DC, and creating a tent city. Coxie was, of course, arrested when he got to Washington.

The newspapers of the day described Coxie's followers as "tramps, and no-gooders ... Dagos ... anarchists, highbinders, and the worst class of criminals"; "Jew pack-peddlers"; and "thieves, robbers, thugs, escaped convicts, (and) murderers."

King's plan was based upon Coxie's, and not the incident you mention.

Power Hunger World :(

We forget too soon, and that's what they thrive on.

It sounds so eerily familiar....
Amazing how history can repeat itself.

Ann Arbor

It's odd, because at the time, MLK's power among his constituency and the media had been on the wane for quite awhile. His brand of pacifism had fallen out of favor and there was much more attention being paid to the newer leaders who were more confrontational aobut civil rights and the Vietnam War. Hoover still paid him attention, but I doubt that he was seen as a big of a threat as in years past. On top of that, Hoover felt that he had the goods on him if he wanted to destroy him politically.

It was just a crying shame. He could have been a steadying voice of moderation. Or, maybe, he would have been a stumbling block on the war at a time when more angry, vociferous people were required. Whatever the case, his death was senseless - and pointless.

for the first time made common cause between black Americans and the Vietnamese people. If that had continued, the racial aspects of the war would have come to the forefront and the idea of fighting Communisms would have had to take a back seat. That would have put a serious dent in the rationales not just for the Vietnam War but any further wars in Asia and Latin America.

The second reason he was assassinated was to make an example of a man who would speak up so as to issue a threat to anyone so emboldened.This is the same kind of threat that was issued to Tom Daschle,Patrick Leahy and Mark Dayton with the Anthrax laced letters.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

the post you responded to, to be nonsense unworthy of answering, your comment deserves attention. Thus, from King's speech "A Time to Break Silence":

"Increasingly, by choice or 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 investment.

"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, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. ...

"These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up like never before. 'The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.'"

Of course, Martin was not the first black leader to connect civil rights and Vietnam. Malcolm X had, and Muhammad Ali was fighting Uncle Sam in 1968, with King serving as a spiritual advisor. The FBI had taped several conversations between King and Ali, which would later play a role in the US Supreme Court over-turning Ali's draft evasion conviction.

Did this cause a fear in America? Let the reader decide, based upon J Edgar Hoover's March 4, 1968 memo: "For maximum effectiveness of the Counterintelligence Program, and to prevent wasted effort, long-range goals are being set. ....

2. Prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been such a 'messiah'; he is the martyr of the movement today. ... King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed 'obedience' to 'white, liberal doctrines' and embrace black nationalism ..."

Seems pretty clear to me.

This makes me very angry. A lot of his words truly resonate with me and I'm pissed off that the 60's revolution didn't take. Now the right wing is stronger than ever and it's up to a new generation to do something about it.

fourteen siblings, and most of them were police on either the state or federal level. They always called King a communist, and they believed it. My father always pointed to the "Time to Break Silence" as proof that King posed a threat to the economic system. (!) And he did, though he was in no sense a "communist." It wasn't until the Reagan-Bush 1 era that my father, who was financially comfortable, recognized that King had been right after all. (Your post sure brought back some memories!)

I would never have thought someone in your family would have those feelings. It just goes to show that appearances and stereotypes are usually quite worthless. :)

Of course, my brother thinks Howard Dean is a commie...LOL! He's a dittohead extraordinaire. :D

especially in the national "police" agencies, people were convinced in the mid-1960s that this country was under attack. The amount of social unrest was really reaching a high level by 1967. Other DU-oldies will remember this, and it is stretching the truth to say some of the foundations of the system were crumbling. Then along comes Martin, no longer willing to march quietly, to request the right for black people to drink coffee at a diner then use public restrooms.

One uncle who worked in southeast Asia came to strongly dislike John and Robert Kennedy. Of course, by 1967, John was dead, but Robert had undergone a transformation.

It's not a lie to say that Martin and Robert, though not in a coordinated effort, were heading in the same general direction. And they would have brought this country to higher ground. If those two men had lived, there would have been revolutionary change instituted at the highest levels of our society. Political, economic, and cultural changes.

But those who ran the country brain-washed the intel communities into believing that these two were dangerous, even "communists." As a kid, I used to listen to the "grown-ups" discussing and debating politics at the family get-togethers. I think that most of the men changed their views by the 1990s, but not all of them.

Dr. King was for equality. The powers-that-be are for ignorance.

Dr. King was for justice. The powers-that-be are corrupt.

Here's another person who understood the power relationship of the national security state to the nation's wealthiest elite. He, too, was silenced:

Steve Kangas, Liberal Resurgent


“In 1999, a journalist who had written exposes of Richard Scaife was by all appearances murdered in the Oxford Centre of Pittsburgh, PA - the office complex of the foundation of his subject - Scaife. Richard Mellon Scaife is the heir of the Mellon fortune and a major funder of the Heritage Foundation and other right wing organizations, although, like the Coors family, Scaife also funds abortion and gay rights organizations. Shortly before his death in February 1999, Kangas catalogued the gruesome accomplishments of the CIA and issued a scathing indictment of their paymasters - the very elites who created the CNP!” -- The Council For National Policy

The Origins of the Overclass

by Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.
How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

By the 1950s, the CIA had riddled the nation’s businesses, media and universities with tens of thousands of part-time, on-call operatives. Their employment with the agency took a variety of forms, which included:

* Leaving one's profession to work for the CIA in a formal, official capacity.

* Staying in one's profession, using the job as cover for CIA activity. This undercover activity could be full-time, part-time, or on-call.

* Staying in one's profession, occasionally passing along information useful to the CIA.

* Passing through the revolving door that has always existed between the agency and the business world.

CONTINUED...

http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Overclass.htm

,...for their particular weaknesses in character.

Where the hell are the ones who developed a strong character based upon the "values" which this country is suppose to pursue?

It was never about "values" and they never were strong in character. They were buried in carrots and pissed all over humanity, even Americans. Vile, weak parasites who deserve their addictions, ulcers, migraines and black hole existence.

From December 1963 until his death in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to "neutralize" him as an effective civil rights leader. In the words of the man in charge of the FBI's "war" against Dr. King:

No holds were barred. We have used techniques against Soviet agents. brought home against any organization against which we were targeted. We did not differentiate. This is a rough, tough business. 1

The FBI collected information about Dr. King's plans and activities through an extensive surveillance program, employing nearly every intelligence-gathering technique at the Bureau's disposal. Wiretaps, which were initially approved by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were maintained on Dr. King's home telephone from October 1963 until mid-1965; the SCLC headquarter's telephones were covered by wiretaps for an even longer period. Phones in the homes and offices of some of Dr. King's close advisers were also wiretapped. The FBI has acknowledged 16 occasions on which microphones were hidden in Dr. King's hotel and motel rooms in an "attempt" to obtain information about the "private activities of King and his advisers" for use to "completely discredit" them. 2

FBI informants in the civil rights movement and reports from field offices kept the Bureau's headquarters informed of developments in the civil rights field. The FBI's presence was so intrusive that one major figure in the civil rights movement testified that his colleagues referred to themselves as members of "the FBI's golden record club." 3

<snip>

IV. ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

Introduction and Summary

In October 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy approved an FBI request for permission to install wiretaps on phones in Dr. King's home and in the SCLC's New York and Atlanta offices to determine the extent, if any, of "communist influence in the racial situation." The FBI construed this authorization to extend to Dr. King's hotel rooms and the home of a friend. No further authorization was sought until mid-1965, after Attorney General Katzenbach required the FBI for the first time to seek renewed authorization for all existing wiretaps. The wiretaps on Dr. King's home were apparently terminated at that time by Attorney General Katzenbach; the SCLC wiretaps were terminated by Attorney General Ramsay Clark in June 1966.

In December, 1963 -- three months after Attorney General Kennedy approved the wiretaps -- the FBI, without informing the Attorney General, planned and implemented a secret effort to discredit Dr. King and to "neutralize" him as the leader of the civil rights movement. One of the first steps in this effort involved hiding microphones in Dr. King's hotel rooms.

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIb.htm

media manipulation program...ostensibly still in effect, until proven otherwise.

I've read a few things that show the organized attempts to discredit King in the media, that go far beyond J Edgar's fascination with Martin's personal life. I think that it is still clearly in effect, although it may be a bit more sophisticated.

It is a tragic episode that should never be forgotten. Many of the greats have become martyrs trying to stop the rest of us from becoming the same!

MLK, you will always have my undying respect and admiration!

chlamor, thanks for reminding us all! Easy to forget given the wall to wall POPE-O-Vision.

The Christians in this country defined Christianity in their terms, some, still do. They recognized the truth of the teachings that MLK spoke and were afraid, because the truth threatened their mangled interpretation of the Word to suit their leanings.

Look, all the truth speakers scared people who supposedly believed in their faith. What I am trying to say is, look through history, to so called people of faith (Romans, Jewish, RC's; Roman, Portuguese, Spanish Inquisitions, Anglican's etc.) dark periods. It was not the truth of their beliefs that caused these dark times, but, particular interpretations of these beliefs to suit particular agendas that they erroneously used to live in these dark times.

So, to pick on religious people will not change the situation, because they only choose that part of their beliefs that will support their positions. I guess, if you are going to be a bad person or not, you are going to be a bad person, regardless of religious belief or not, vice aversa.

King was killed for exactly the same reasons Jesus was killed.

nationalist movement ... Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Elijah Muhammad all aspire to this position....


...


Dear BISHOP:

It pains me to have to write this letter to call to your attention a matter which, if brought to public light, may cause the church a great deal of embarrassment. I wish to remain anonymous with regard to the information because in divulging it I may have violated a trust. I feel, however, that what I am writing is important enough that my conscience is clear.

Specifically, I'm referring to the fact that Reverend and Mrs. are associating with leaders of the Black Panther Party. I recently heard through a close friend of Reverend that he is a revolutionist who advocates overthrowing the Government of the United States and that he has turned over a sizable sum of money to the Panthers. I can present no evidence of fact but is it possible Reverend is being influenced by Communists? Some statements he has made both in church and out have led me to believe he is either a Communist himself, or so left-wing that the only thing he lacks is a card.

I beseech you to counsel with Reverend and relay our concern over his political philosophies which among other things involves association with a known revolutionist, , head of the Black Panther Party in New Haven. I truly believe Reverend to be a good man, but his fellow men have caused him to go overboard and he now needs a guiding light which only you can provide.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Christian. 119





http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIc.htm

I admit that when I mention him, people give me that kind of slanted "are you a conspiracy theorist?" The problem is that there are conspiracies, but what has been effectively done is the waste basket approach to language. The moment someone uses the invented phrase "conspiracy theory" it automatically demotes the possible real facts to speculation and rumor.

So, as a conspiracy factualist, I suggest you read Mark Lane. He is incredibly arrogant, but he is astonishingly well informed.

In case anyone still thinks that JFK was hit by a magic bullet in Texas, please consider the 3 pronged: JFK, RFK, and MLK round of hits. Yes, three crazy people, unrelated, pulled this off... in the history of our country, how many hits have there been on important public figures (note, important as in progressive, humane, dignified)? I am biting my tongue because I want to vent and relate what my own speculations create in this picture. Given obvious reasons, I cannot do so. So, read Mark Lane.

is one of the smartest, most well-informed source of information on the violence that took the lives of several of the greatest American leaders between 1963 and 1968. His book with Dick Gregory is a classic work on Memphis. I think very highly of Mark Lane, and Dick is as honest and brave a man as America has ever produced.

in the early 1990s, but the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, coming two months apart in 1968, effectively wiped out the only truly progressive leaders in my lifetime who had a significant national following.

MLK was moving beyond the civil rights movement to critique economic injustice and the miitary-industrial complex. RFK was a firebrand for economic justice, speaking with the zeal of one who had recently been shocked to learn that some people in America couldn't afford to buy food. And their messages were gaining adherents. They were strong, charismatic figures who could have rallied the masses, brought all races together to forge a new society.

That could not be allowed to happen. Just as the fat cats destroyed VISTA (the domestic Peace Corps) when volunteers began telling poor people about their rights, they had to destroy two leaders who could upset their sweet deal.

My first doubts occurred in the mid 1980s, when Alexander Cockburn pointed out that the assassins of JFK, RFK, and MLK had all been "loners" who supposedly kept detailed diaries in tiny printing but all claimed that they had been framed.

But even though I was a high school senior in 1968, I was not very politically savvy, and the full impact of the assassinations didn't hit me until I watched Eyes on the Prize II after having lived through the Reagan and Bush Sr. years. Seeing King's and Kennedy's speeches to adoring crowds and reliving the announcements of their assassinatoins, I was struck with a deep, wrenching sorrow for this country and what it could have been.

The thought still brings tears to my eyes.

WAKE UP - RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

Come on!
Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never edit
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it'll never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this...
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
'Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Uggh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!


I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

'He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obediance to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence...and embrace black nationalism'
'Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers...And neutralize them,
neutralize them, neutralize them'

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow

I really like that. It's funny, but that is one of Nancy Grace's favorite songs. (grin)

His success in expanding civil rights to minorities.
His opposition to Vietnam and US imperialism.
His social justice focus expanding beyond race to include class inequalities.

Because he had a huge following (including many in "middle class" America) and could have led an effective anti-war and social justice movement, King had to be "neutralized" (to use the parlance of CIA assassination theory).

It's sad (and unsettling) to ponder how so many of the progressive, liberal, and radical leaders in America during the '60s were "neutralized." :evilfrown: