WHAT WOULD Martin say?
Over the exactly 40 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, it has been a frequently irresistible temptation to speculate on what King might think of current events.
So it's inevitable that this year many people are wondering aloud about what King would think about the state of race relations as exemplified by the candidacy of Barack Obama. What would he say about the fact that a black man has a good chance to be nominated (and elected) president of these United States?
And what would King say about the state of race relations as exemplified by a comment from a Hazleton Democrat reported this week in the Centre Daily Times? "I'm not crazy about voting for a colored guy, but that's not why I don't support Obama. I'm not prejudiced. I just like Hillary."
Well, we don't presume to know what MLK would say. Besides being fairly sure that a 79-year-old Rev. King would be buoyed by the fact of Obama's candidacy, we don't even dare guess which Democrat he would support - and who would call him "Judas" for it.
But we are fairly confident that we know what Martin Luther King would say about the war in Iraq, our foreign policy and the injustice of income inequality. He already said it.
Today is another King anniversary. On April 4, 1967, exactly a year before his assassination, Martin Luther King spoke out against the Vietnam War in terms as biting as some employed by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - or even the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah.
In that sermon at the Riverside Church in New York, King made what he called a "passionate plea to my beloved nation" and then challenged its notion of itself as the undisputed good guys.
"We've committed more war crimes than almost than any nation in the world," said King four decades before Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
"I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken," he said two generations before the war in Iraq reduced America's moral standing in ways undreamed of in 1968.
In that same speech, King called for a "radical revolution of values" - away from" things" to "people." That was more than 30 years before Americans were advised to respond to national crisis by going shopping.
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar," he said. "It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth," declared King when the gap between rich and poor was much narrower than it is now.
In the months before he died, Martin Luther King embraced a discomfiting critique of American society and an audacious vision of change.
It was not popular. His "firm dissent" from American policy perplexed many of his friends, alienated many allies and increased the rage of his enemies. At the time of his death, many fewer people were listening to him.
Forty years later, are they any more ready to hear? *