Martin Luther King – Authority Will Seek To Use Every Method To Silence Dissent And To Perpetuate Evil

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a moral crisis maintain their neutrality.  There comes a time when silence is betrayal…..Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against the apathy of conformist thought of ones own bosom.”

This is one of the greatest and most stirring  speeches ever given, anywhere, by one of our greatest leaders - a speech against a government gone mad on war, hate and death against poor in lieu of investment in our citizens and our society who are denied access to society’s capital while the war machine spends endlessly to kill, maim and destroy.  Any parallels to today?  Evil never changes.  Nor do their methods used to manipulate society.   

King was a leader who refused to submit to illegitimate and immoral authority but rather sought truth for anyone repressed by the tyranny of economic exploitation, war and racism.  And in return many who had no regard for freedom or human dignity were encouraged by the state’s paranoia against him.  For that, his life was taken by paranoia, hatred and evil.   Sound familiar across any dynamics today?  Any public figures you can think of today where the exact same paranoia is encouraged?  A communist?  Kenyan, anti-colonial worldviews?  Not an American citizen?  Evil never changes.  Nor do their methods used to manipulate society.  

“All men are brothers.  All men are created equal.  Every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth.”  Many in positions of authority in business and government clearly do not even remotely reflect these human values whether it is a neoliberal economic model of exploitation and a race to the economic bottom of the barrel or through the lack of social justice and dignity which every American has a right to or denied access to economic opportunity by a for-profit banking system and their twisted manipulation of greedy politicians or authority’s megalomaniacal and morally bankrupt view of their responsibility to humanity or to the shared prosperity and commitment to each other as stated in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.