corrente

The Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera gets it right in their MLK Day editorial:

…lack of economic opportunity helps to explain why African-Americans compose 26 percent of the Army's enlisted personnel — meaning that they hold a disproportionate share of the lowest-ranking and most dangerous positions.

As he condemned the Vietnam War in 1967, Dr. King framed it as an issue of social justice. "I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."

King continued, "We were taking the black men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem."

Emphasizing that he was deeply and equally concerned about Vietnamese victims and U.S. troops, King dwelled on the plight of our soldiers: "For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war. ... We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved."

Last week, the Bush administration announced that it was ending its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The president's original rationale for war was thus decisively cast aside. And the words of Dr. King indict today's leaders as convincingly as they did yesterday's.

It’s sure good to see someone connecting the dots, especially with Republicans falling over each other to hijack and sanitize Dr. King’s memory. Hope everyone had a great holiday full of peace and justice action. Hope everyone has some peace and justice plans for the 20th, too. If you feel like sharing…