"A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war ~ this way of settling differences is not just ~ a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

The ultimate weakness of violence
is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate....
Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
~ Martin Luther King Jr

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
~ Martin Luther King Jr

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
~ Martin Luther King Jr

These comments are from my friend Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, whose work can be seen at
www.centerforchristiannonviolence.org

There are two ways to be fooled: One is to believe what isn’t so; the other is to refuse to believe what is so. –Soren Kierkegaard

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because the lie is more comfortable. –Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Friends,

I don't know if Ministry of Truth and its Newspeak Department in Nineteen Eight-Four would have had the chutzpah and insolence to try to cleverly demean, diminish and transvalue Martin Luther King, Jr.'s truth and legacy the way the Uncle Tom—who today shamelessly serves the big plantation owners' of the White House he is permitted to live in, and the chain gang of Stepin Fetchits he brought along with him, are doing. See the attached Pentagon press release. The daily avalanche of calculated lies that pour forth from the executive branch and the Congress falsifying everything from the number of unemployed people in the U.S. to the daily murderous U.S. activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, is of primary interests to me. This is the simply the way all major governments work at all times—no exceptions ever. Ceaseless deception and violence is their stock in trade. What does primarily concern me is the clever denigration of the truth that Jesus proclaimed by word and deed, specifically the truth that the Way of God is the Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. struggled to the end—amidst all the frailties, fragilities and seemly unkempt vicissitudes of a human existence within the mystery of iniquity—to embody, teach and proclaim this truth of Jesus. To alter without the slightest piece of evidence the perception of who Martin Luther King, Jr. was spiritually, what he believed and what he would chose today is as clear an effort to re-write history as those school districts are doing who are minimizing his presence in elementary and secondary school history books. And, by immediate extension it is to make Martin Luther King's Lord, God, Savior and Model, Jesus, look like a Galilean peasant bumpkin, and utopian idealist, so impractical and unrealistic that any teenager could see that you can't live His way in the real world where nations rage against nations and the making of instruments to kill people is the biggest business of the planet.

So let's set the record straight on Martin Luther King, Jr. and by extension on Jesus:

In recent months several people have said to me: Martin, since violence is the new cry, isn’t there a danger you will lose touch with the people and be out of step with the times if you don’t change your views on nonviolence? My answer is always the same…Occasionally in life one develops a conviction so precious and meaningful that he will stand on it till the end. That is what I have found in nonviolence.” “I have decided I am going to do battle for my philosophy. You ought to believe something in life, believe that thing so fervently that you will stand up with it until the end of your days. I can’t believe that God wants us to hate. I am tired of violence.” “What kind of nation is it that applauds nonviolence whenever Negroes face white people in the streets of the United States but applauds violence and burning and death when these same Negroes are sent to the fields of Vietnam.

I am committed to nonviolence absolutely. I am just not going to kill anybody, whether it’s in Vietnam or here. I plan to stand by nonviolence…(because) only a refusal to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and lead toward community where people live together without fear. Humanity is waiting for something other than blind imitation of the past…If we want truly to advance a step further, if we want to turn over a new leaf and really set a new man afoot, we must begin to turn humanity away from the long and desolate night of violence. May it not be that the new person that the world needs is the nonviolent person…A dark, desperate, sin-sick world waits for this new kind of person, this new kind of power.

Now read the words (attached) of Jeh C. Johnson, General Consul for the Department of Defense and a 1979 graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, the same college Martin Luther King, Jr. graduated from in 1948. Mr. Johnson spoke at the Pentagon’s Commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. just prior to this year’s annual MLK, Jr. holiday. His speech was released world-wide through the Pentagon press office immediately afterwards.

Every first year law student is taught that there is no position that cannot be logically presented or defended. The rest of his or her three years in law school is spent learning how to do that well. I remember in the first year of law school a student by the name of Bill Long said in class to the contracts’ professor, a lawyer by the name of Hart, “But what you are saying is contrary to the truth of Natural Law.” Hart responded, “I don’t give a damn about the truth Natural Law nor do your clients. They’re paying you to get them their money or to keep them out of prison. They are not paying you to be an advocate for the truth of Natural Law.” Judging from this speech, Jeh C. Johnson learned his lessons well at Columbia Law School. He gave the Pentagon what they were paying him for—and he certainly could not have given a damn about the truth of Martin Luther King’s life for which he gave his life; nor for the truth of Jesus' Way which He lived unto His own murder.

The mind is below truth, not above it, and it is bound not to descant on it, but to venerate it. Truth and falsehood are set before us for the trial of our hearts.

-Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman

Charlie

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thanks, Joe - great submission, great thread.

John Judge on blogtalkradio:

Dr. Martin Luther King and his Political Assassination

Please join us this episode as we pay homage and tribute to the late great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In typical American mass programming fashion the life of Dr. King has been watered down and narrowly reshaped to fit the ideals and warped values of some elites and US political sycophants. Without a doubt, if Dr. King were alive today he would be against the illegal wars and mass bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He would be appalled at the rampant poverty that exists within America yet at the same time the US finds the funds to spend over a trillion dollars a year for military purposes! We will be deconstructing key components of Dr. King’s life that continue to be methodically ignored by the mainstream media, public schools systems, universities, and corporate politicians on both sides of the limited “isle”. We will also feature and exclusive interview with political researcher and scholar Mr. John Judge. John Judge will be breaking down the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and what really was behind the murder of this great man (Dr. King). This is a show you must listen to as it will provide crucial information regarding this political assassination, the life of Dr. King, and the role we all must play to forge a more progressive path towards Peace, Justice and Equality. Oh---and as always we will be playing some great resistance oriented and thought provoking Hip Hop Music.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/your-world-news/2011/01/18/dr-martin-luther...