The MLK Test for Presidential Candidates
Happy Memorial MLK Birthday Day. Have you wondered what Dr. King would think of the presidential candidates if he were alive?
Barack Obama gave a speech took the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta – the same church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped rev up the civil rights movement.
“If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community. “The divisions, the stereotypes, the scapegoating, the ease with which we blame the plight of ourselves on others, all of that distracts us from the common challenges we face: war and poverty; inequality and injustice,” Obama said.
But he added that “we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean,” citing homophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant bias in the black community
“I wasn’t born into money or great wealth, but I had hope!” he declared, bringing the congregation to its feet, cheering and clapping. “I needed some hope to get here. My daddy left me when I was little, but I had hope! I was raised by a single mother, but I had hope! I was given love, an education, and some hope!”
Very inspiring, but some are still wary of the rhetoric if it doesn’t deliver on substance.
blackagendareport.com – Give the Candidates the MLK Test
Dr. King said the “triple evils” of his day were militarism, racism, and economic exploitation. … In addition, Dr. King said he was “compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor” in the U.S. … Senators Obama and Clinton fail the Martin Luther King Test, miserably. Obama wants to add 100,000 troops to the U.S. Armed Forces, at a cost of over $100 billion – even as he proposes partial withdrawals from Iraq. Clinton seeks 80,000 new soldiers and Marines. As sure as the sun rises, a bigger U.S. military means more wars, and no money for domestic “change.”
The only candidate who would pass the Martin Luther King Test is Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, whose platform for peace, truly universal health care, a living wage, and an end to corporate domination of American life harkens back to that “shining moment” in the Sixties that King mentioned, when there were “hopes” and “new beginnings.”
While I agree that Obama and Clinton are not as good as Kucinich on some of the transcendent issues that concerned MLK, I see no mention here of John Edwards. Comments?