15 comments

  1. F. Beard

    What a hypocrite Romney is! His wealth almost certainly came from the use of leverage – the theft of purchasing power from the entire population, especially from the poor and especially from poor blacks via loans from the counterfeiting cartel, the banking system.

  2. Susan the other

    Martin Luther King makes Mitt look like Tinkerbell. I have never in all my years watched such an offensive person as Mitt Romney.

    1. Peter Pan

      Tinkerbell is very upset over this offending comparison. The last person that upset her had nightmares for a week.

      She is nothing like that corporate facist whore, Mittrack H. R’Obamaney.

  3. Abigail Caplovitz Field

    Shorter version:

    MLK: The current distribution of power and wealth in America is amoral and must be fundamentally changed. Making that change means investing in our people instead of weaponry and war. And we want good paying jobs, not charity.

    Mitt: I like the current distribution of wealth and power in America, and if you don’t, you’re just envious of me. Elect me and I’ll maintain the wealth & power status quo by investing your money in weaponry on an unprecedented scale.

  4. James

    WOW! I can’t imagine a starker (or weirder) juxtaposition than these two, and I think an apology may be in order to the good Dr King’s family for besmirching his name so as to even mention that other guy in the same breath. I mean really now, Romney, a pol so transparently phony that not even the conservative right – the bunch that brought us Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, et al, can bring themselves to sink so low. I think that really says it all.

  5. MichaelC

    Beautiful indeed.
    The contrast is a jolting reminder of how small the people who have access to power always are. It reminds us that MLKs contemporary peers (Im looking at u OWS) are as reviled and courageous as he was in his time.

    Here’s hoping my grandkids will be watching a Bill Black speech with as much awe and reverence as I have watching him.

    Will you occasionally re post this clip as an antidote de jour, please?

    1. Darren Kenworthy

      They envied his righteousness, and that he was a devout and compassionate human being. They envied that his life truly testified to his proffession of Christianity. They envied that he was courageous enough to speak truth though he walked through the valley of the shadow of death. So they murdered him.

      How long, oh Lord?

      1. F. Beard

        O LORD, God of vengeance,
        God of vengeance, shine forth!
        Rise up, O Judge of the earth,
        Render recompense to the proud.
        How long shall the wicked, O LORD,
        How long shall the wicked exult?
        They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly;
        All who do wickedness vaunt themselves.
        They crush Your people, O LORD,
        And afflict Your heritage.

        They slay the widow and the stranger
        And murder the orphans.
        They have said, “The LORD does not see,
        Nor does the God of Jacob pay heed.”

        Pay heed, you senseless among the people;
        And when will you understand, stupid ones?
        He who planted the ear, does He not hear?
        He who formed the eye, does He not see?
        He who chastens the nations, will He not rebuke,
        Even He who teaches man knowledge?
        The LORD knows the thoughts of man,
        That they are a mere breath.
        Psalm 94:1-12 [bold added]

  6. William

    Speeches like this one in which he preached revolution, and using the word “revolution” many times in a speech, had the Powers scared pantless. They were certain that if left alone he would lead to an overthrow of the government and the entire social structure. He HAD to be taken out, and Ray wasn’t even on the scene.

    The entire fascinating story has been written about in amazing detail in two books by William Pepper, a close associate of King and who became Ray’s attorney. Required reading for every American–will forever strip away any illusions one has about the degree to which the security apparatus will conspire and break laws to achieve their own ends.

    If you want to find out how three active duty Special Forces teams, following official written orders, had King literally “in the crosshairs” as a backup to the actual assassin, read Orders to Kill.

  7. Max424

    “We spend three hundred, and twenty-two thousand dollars, for each enemy we kill in Vietnam,* while we spend –in the so called– War on Poverty, in America, only about fifty-three dollars for every person we classify as poor.”

    Forget about the Mitt Romney juxtaposition, right?

    You find yourself on the national stage, and you start talking about economic class divisions, in America, they won’t take your megaphone, they’ll take your life.

    Maybe OWS is doing it right. There is relative safety in the obscurity, of having numbers.

    *I wonder how much we spent on each of the 1 to 3 million non-enemy combatants we killed in the War in Vietnam (and Laos, and Cambodia). Roughly the same amount, is my guess.

    It gets expensive, killing people, whether they’re fighting back or not.

  8. David

    I watched the excerpts from King’s “Viet Nam” and “Mountain Top” speeches on Monday’s Democracy Now! and found myself brushing away some tears thinking about how low we’ve sunk since then, especially over the lack of eloquent expression of, and rational debate about, the deep moral and cultural issues of our time. Of course, even back then King’s talent and training enabled him to run rings around the clay-footed politicians of that day such as LBJ and Nixon, who were no better than Romney in terms of oratory or ethics. So, in some ways, the video really shows that nothing has changed. But when I think that the only people in the public eye who are challenging our encroaching corporatist state are the likes of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, I get really depressed. Obama certainly has not taken the torch from King.

    I do have a suggestion for the video–drop the musical overlay. I found the music a big distraction. I think the message would be far more powerful if people could just listen to the two men and not have the opening bars of Fast Car competing for attention. If you want the viewers to really appreciate how far we’ve fallen, then let the speeches make the message. Otherwise, it’s just a another music video.

    1. Judy McC

      Well said! We can hope the Occupy movement may yet bring changes, but these problems are very long-standing.
      @ Micheal C: I include Chris Hedges along w/ Bill Black among my heros of today.

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