Assassinations and History

November 22 is the fiftieth anniversary of President John Kennedy's assassination.  It is a time to reflect on how the world may have been different without the political assassinations that have marred human history - not just JFK's but others that might have made a difference.  

 

John Kennedy's assassination in 1963 was the fourth of a US president. It was the first of three assassinations in the 1960's that took the lives of charismatic liberal political leaders in the United States. The civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and JFK's brother and Democratic Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy were both killed within a two-month span in 1968. How much different would the America and the world have been had these men lived? 

 

November 4 was the eighteenth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli radical.  It now appears that the death of Rabin's fellow peace prize winner PLO leader Yasser Arafat  on November 11, 2004 was also an assassination - by polonium poisoning by person or persons unknown. As reported in Al Jazeera on November 6: "A 108-page report by the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, which was obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera, found unnaturally high levels of polonium in Arafat’s ribs and pelvis, and in soil stained with his decaying organs."

 

Vietnam

A question long debated has been whether John Kennedy would have escalated the Vietnam War as did his successor Lyndon Johnson or whether Kennedy would have withdrawn American forces. An argument could be made either way. On the one hand, Kennedy subscribed to the failed domino theory used as justification for this tragic war and Johnson inherited Kennedy's "best and brightest" advisors. On the other hand, Kennedy was growing increasingly skeptical of the war and disenchanted with his advisors.

Robert Kennedy's assassination almost certainly delayed the end of the Vietnam War. If Robert Kennedy went on to win the Democratic nomination in 1968, he would have defeated Nixon. Certainly, Bobby Kennedy would have ended the Vietnam War long before 1975. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

 

Domestic Programs and Politics

The assassinations of the Kennedy's and of Martin Luther King likely did not have much effect on the domestic programs of the 60's and early 70's. In 1964, the election of the most liberal Congress in decades with Johnson's landslide victory over conservative Barry Goldwater led to the enactment of the most progressive legislation since the New Deal. The Civil Rights Movement made significant progress with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1968. Lyndon Johnson's other Great Society programs, some of which were stalled initiatives from John Kennedy's "New Frontier", were enacted by the liberal Congress and then expanded by Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford. The "War on Poverty" (e.g., the Economic Opportunities Act of 1964), medical care for the elderly and the poor (Medicare and Medicaid), Federal aid to education provided by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act, improvements to Social Security - all came about in this period.

Although the assassinations of the Kennedy's and of Martin Luther King may not have made a great difference in the domestic programs of the 60's, the deaths of these great leaders did effect the national political atmosphere. JFK's call for the new generation to step forward in leading the country to the beckoning New Frontier inspired many. MLK's message of unity, brotherhood, and social justice and RFK's idealistic vision may have counteracted or mitigated the mean-spiritedness and stigmatization of the poor, the greed and the hatred of government that has developed with such force in some quarters over the past three or four decades. There is no way of knowing how this would have played out in the long term but we surely would be looking at a better version of than America democracy than we are now.

 

 

Israel and Palestine

 

Probably no single event has had as great an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli fanatic in 1995. The assassin was angered at Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords which were to form the basis of the two-state solution. Rabin was succeeded by fellow Labor Party member Shimon Peres until 1996. A 17 year period of primarily right-wing Israeli governments began with the formation of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. The years since Rabin's death have been marked by little-to-no progress in the creation of a viable state for the Palestinian people. No Israeli since Rabin has been far-sighted enough to engage the Palestinians. No Israeli since Rabin has been able to bring Israelis back from, in Chris Hedges' words, "the psychosis of permanent war." Had the promises of the Oslo Accords been acted upon and a Palestinian state created, the Middle East would be a more stable, more secure region today. Israel would be at peace and unthreatened. Palestinians would have attained justice.
Images
JFK and quote is from Prose Before Hos website
Yitzhak Rabin is from Wikipedia entry.

Jim Wallis' "On God's Side"

I've been reading On God's Side by Jim Wallis. The book could well serve as a moral compass for politicians of all stripes. The title, of course, refers to Abraham Lincoln's famous quote: "...my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side."

Jim Wallis has long been one of my favorite writers. He is an evangelical preacher, social activist, public theologian, the founder and president of Sojourners ("Faith in Action for Social Justice") and the editor of Sojourners magazine. On God's Side continues his fine tradition of badgering political and religious establishments. In the first part of the book, he discusses inspiring the common good; in the second part, practices (i.e., actions and behaviors) for the common good.

C.S. Lewis' character of Aslan the lion, the creator and leader of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia), is given as an exemplar of a leader working for the common good. Aslan makes "every decision and action in the best interest of the people and the land...always paying special attention to the weakest and most vulnerable." The concept of the common good, writes Wallis, is "something that has been lost in an age of selfishness."

Wallis takes both Republicans and Democrats to task for not serving the "common good". At first, this bothered me: what's he talking about? Surely the problem with not serving the common good is on the right end, not the left end, of the political spectrum. After making this general statement, though, Wallis gradually clarifies his position. Not only are Republicans defective in their ability to advance the public good; Democrats do not go far enough!

In the first section of his book, "Inspiring the Common Good", Wallis provides the heart of his biblical and theological argument for a "gospel of the common good." He writes of the Beatitutdes ("Blessed are the poor in spirit...those who mourn...the meek...those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (justice)...the merciful...the pure in heart (have integrity)...the peacemakers...those persecuted for righteousness' sake") and the Sermon on the Mount as the place to begin to understand what is meant by Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom of God.

After briefly relating his college and activist experiences in the late 60's and early 70's, Wallis dicusses the "Judgment of Nations" in Matthew 25, probably one of the most challenging texts of the New Testament. It's one of the few places where Jesus makes a point of saying who better be watching their backs at the Last Judgment. "Jesus, unlike our religious institutions, continually speaks out against judgmentalism. But the only time Jesus is judgmental himself is on the subject of the poor." The condemned, the goats, are shocked by what Jesus will say to them at the Last Judgment. "When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or without clothes, or a stranger, or sick, or in prison?" He will answer them, "Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me." [Click here for a link to Matthew 25.  The text of the "judgment of nations" is in verses 31 to 46.]

Wallis makes two particular points in his discussion of Matthew 25. The first is that "nations", as well as individuals, are being judged. This is about collective as well as individual decisions about who or what is most important. The second is that "Christ's judgment here is not about having the wrong doctrine or theology; it's not about sexual misdeeds, or any other personal sin or failure. The everlasting judgment here is based on how we have treated the poorest and most vulnerable in our midst and in the world...[The] good or ill we have done to them [is]...the moral equivalent of how we have treated him."

The interests and well-being of the poor are not represented well in American politics. Today it is the rare politician who goes out of his or her way to advocate programs for the poor or working class. Poverty doesn't play well in American politics and "pollsters tell both parties that talking about 'poor people' and 'poverty' will not be popular." There are even those in our nation who stigmatize the poor and blame the victims of social injustice, rather than the system that has made it so. For examples from today's headlines, one needs only look at recent attempts to slash the food stamp program. On an upbeat note, Wallis relates the mostly-untold story of how "faith community leaders protected low-income entitlements in the sequestered automatic cuts agreed to in the August 2011 debt-ceiling deal." Two years later, it looks like it's time to gear up again.

When discussing the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan, Wallis writes: "The basic ethic from the Good Samaritan parable - that there are no boundaries for our definition of "neighbor" - needs to be the moral guide and compass for us now in an increasingly globalized world." He further develops the theme with a discussion of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's "beloved community," the spiritual and philosophical vision that inspired and drove his efforts for civil rights. The beloved community is one which "welcomes all tribes." Quoting Dr. King: "All I'm saying is simply this; that all life is interrelated, that somehow we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

On God's Side forces us to reexamine many other issues in light of Matthew 25 and the parable of the Good Samaritan - including immigration reform, the global nature of "our neighbor" (for example, how our clothes and mobile phones are made), the dangers inherent in American exceptionalism, and the war on terror. On the war on terror, Wallis calls for the application of the principles of conflict resolution. He writes of "forging alternative and more creative responses to issues of injustice and violence and rejecting the cycle of terrorism and war that marks Washington's failed strategy and failed moral logic." He excoriates what he calls the theology of war "coming from some political leaders...and even from some...religious communities...Effective campaigns of fear too easily convince anxious people and could lead our nation to decades of virtually endless wars."

Will Jim Wallis' theological and biblical argument for the common good and Martin Luther King's wish for the building of a "beloved community" resonate with today's political leaders and citizens? Or have we gone too far down the road to divisiveness and fear of the "Other"? Will we need to wait for the next generation of political leaders to bring about a truly just, equal and democratic society? The second section of Jim Wallis' On God's Side, "Practices for the Common Good" attempts to provide an answer. I'll take this up in a future post.

March on Washington

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."

- Martin Luther King

 

 

Fifty years ago, on August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington, D.C.  The theme of the March on Washington, as it came to be called, was "jobs and freedom."  It was probably the largest rally for human rights in the history of the United States.  It was here that Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, a call for racial harmony and equality.  The March spurred the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which have done so much to ensure our democracy.  The latter legislation, renewed by overwhelming majorities in Congress in 2006, was effectively destroyed by SCOTUS' 5-4 decision in Shelby County vs. Holder.  Shelby County vs. Holder, coming at a time of Republican-orchestrated voter suppression efforts across the country, undoubtedly ranks among the worst Supreme Court decisions in history.

The Republic has come a long way since that day 50 years ago.  We have an African-American President.  De jure segregation has ended. De facto segregation is becoming less common.  Only in the most backwards parts of the country among the most backwards segments of society is blatant racism tolerated.  Still, challenges remain.  Voter suppression efforts are among the most obvious assaults against the freedoms won in the Civil Rights era.  Mistreatment of immigrants, discrimination based on sexual orientation, prejudice against Muslims, racial profiling - these all argue that we have a long way to go before true equality is reached in this nation.

This Saturday, August 24, a smaller crowd, though still numbering in the tens of thousands, gathered in Washington to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic event.  Speakers praised participants and leaders in the earlier civil rights movement and addressed today's equality issues.  There has been plenty of coverage of Saturday's rally and I'll just give a couple of links here...

CBS News' coverage of Saturday's rally - especially stirring is John Lewis' speech today - "the vote is precious...almost sacred..it is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy". Lewis was arrested 40 times during the 1960's and is the only surviving speaker from the 1963 March.

MSNBC's coverage of Saturday's rally

...and a link to MLK's speech

Link to Complete Audio and Text of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (American Rhetoric website)

"And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

- Martin Luther King

MLK, BHO, and Non-Violence in the 21st Century

Barack Obama was officially sworn in for his second term in a low key ceremony at the White House on Sunday.  His victory in 2008 and here again in 2012 is a testimony to the efficacy of the work of the civil rights workers of 50 years ago.  On Monday as President Obama was more publicly sworn in, the nation celebrated the most famous of those mid-twentieth century heroes, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   King’s legacy is one of non-violent resistance that was instrumental in ending the institutionalized racism of those days.  Opposition to war goes hand-in-hand with nonviolence and towards the end of his life, MLK became more and more outspoken an opponent to the Vietnam War.  In an ultimate irony, his death, his assassination, came as a result of violence, specifically gun violence - once again in the news these days.   

Effective as non-violent resistance was in the twentieth century in Gandhi’s India, in pre-Civil Rights America, and in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, it is unfortunately not much in vogue as a tactic or as a strategy today.  Admittedly, there are a few recent examples where non-violence has been effective.  The Arab Spring is one such example.  The Occupy Movement has the potential to be another.  What all the great non-violent movements of the past had in common was their ability to appeal to the public’s moral sense, to the innate sense of justice of the majority, to the sense of human decency of those who held power.  

Basic to the effectiveness of non-violence is a common respect for life and for justice.  If the public audience or the holders of power lack this basic sense, then the task of the non-violent protester becomes more difficult. 

So where does non-violence stand today in the value scheme of the 21^st century human?   Sadly, things have not progressed much in this regard from 50 years ago.  Non-violence is not the tactic of choice, say, of the Islamic extremists who took over the natural gas plant in Algeria – ultimately resulting in the deaths of 37 hostages and 29 militants.  Nor is it the preferred tactic of today’s American “hawks” – the neocons who are pushing for a more militant stance against Iran.  Witness their attempt to derail Chuck Hagel from his nomination as Defense Secretary because he dared point out the obvious – that a war with Iran would have serious consequences for the region.  These are the same band of neocons who led (or more appropriately, misled) us into war with Iraq in their attempt to implement their Project for a New American Century.  We saw how well that turned out.  Unbelievably these neocons still get attention, they have not gone away.  You would have thought that their arrogant, jingoistic approach to international relations would have longed ceased to merit any consideration whatsoever.

At least Obama is the President for the next four years and perhaps he can resist the drumbeat towards a war with Iran that will, sooner or later, be emanating from the lunatic fringe on the right.  Within American society today, there exists a tendency to favor the violent solution over the nonviolent – we have by far the highest rate of gun ownership and gun deaths among developed industrialized nations; our military expenditures exceed those of the next 13 (almost 14) highest defense budgets combined; the US public, unlike those in almost every other nation on Earth, still overwhelmingly supports capital punishment.  “A recent Gallup Poll measured Americans' abstract support for the death penalty at 63%, the second-lowest level of support for capital punishment since 1978, and a significant decline from 1994, when 80% of respondents were in favor of the death penalty.” [My emphasis added; quote is from the Death Penalty Information Center web page]

John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated by a gun man 50 years ago this coming November, said “war will cease to exist when conscientious objectors to enjoy the same prestige as warriors.”  That day has yet to come. 

Both MLK and JFK were renowned for their speeches.  On Monday, Barack Obama gave a rousing speech that rivals some of theirs.  He emphasized equality, fairness, and opportunity.  He promised to respond to climate change and mentioned our need to come together as a people to meet our challenges.  There was even a nod toward diplomacy as the primary means of managing international relations.  After the obligatory mention of our “strength of arms”, he said, “We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully – not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.”  Not exactly Nobel Peace Prize winner quality but on balance better than war-and fear-mongering.

A few of the more memorable passages from his speech:

We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.

… we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.

We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.

…we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.

The President laid out a progressive vision for our nation – whether he will be able to fulfill the vision is another matter.  The opposition is gearing for a fight.

Links

Algerian HostageCrisis [CNN]

Neocons’ Project for A New American Century [Global Research’s Centre for Research onGlobalization]

Death Penalty Information Center

Comic relief: Mitch McConnell’s “They’re coming for your guns” email…just in case you thought there would be any cooperation from Republicans [Huffington Post]

MLK Day 2012

Today as we celebrate what would have been the 83rd birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., there is an African-American in the White House and The Greatest heavyweight boxer of all time is about to turn 70. 

Because of Dr. King's work and those of thousands of lesser known civil rights activists, Barack Obama was able to be elected President of the United States in 2008, something totally inconceivable at the time Martin Luther King began his efforts for social justice and peace more than 50 years ago.  In 1964, MLK was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and discrimination using civil disobedience and other non-violent methods.  At 35, he was the youngest person ever to receive this Peace Prize.  His efforts culminated in Congress passing and President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Martin Luther King's opposition to the Vietnam War is less widely known.   As he became more outspoken against the war, he lost the support of some former allies in the struggle for civil rights and his popularity among the American populace began to drop.  Some credit the example of Muhammed Ali who announced his intention to resist induction in 1966 (and subsequently be stripped of his heavyweight crown) with influencing Dr. King to take this more vocal stand against the war.   Muhammed Ali was and is so much more than a boxer.  His former rival, George Foreman, describes Ali in words that have also been applied to Martin Luther King - a prophet, a hero, a revolutionary.  Both King and Ali opposed the Vietnam War on moral grounds and both were ostracized for it.   In the end, history has proven them right. 

Opposition to war still meets with charges of "unpatriotic" or "un-American".  This will never change as long as jingoists, self-styled patriots and militarists can raise the specter of the "other" and strike fear into the minds of the citizenry.  And it won't change until the military-industrial complex's money is taken out of the political system.

A more disturbing trend though is the increasing tendency to blame the victims of social injustice and inequity.  Efforts to ameliorate the damaging effects of poverty and of the Great Recession are met with cries of "income redistribution" and "socialism".  There is an illness, a new meanness in the body politic.  As Tony Judt wrote in his 2010 book, Ill Fares the Land, “As recently as the 1970’s, the idea that the point of life was to get rich and that governments existed to facilitate this would have been ridiculed.”

Couple this with the ongoing Republican attempts to reverse gains in voting rights and this illness may become endemic and long-lasting.  Do we really want a nation where corporations are granted "personhood" and the right to pour unlimited money into the coffers of politicians who will defend their interests while we deny up to 5 million of our "real" citizens the right to vote?

Martin Luther King and Muhammed Ali were true heroes.  They were unafraid to speak truth to power.  We should always do likewise. 

And here's hoping that Obama, in a second term, will be able to fulfill the promise of hope and change that he inspired in us and in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in 2008.

Links
NPR's "Story behind the "Beyond Vietnam"
"Why I Am Opposed to War in Vietnam" [Excerpts of a Sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967]
TLBC Oct 31, 2011 post on the organized Republican effort to disenfranchise voters likely to vote Democratic in the next election.  
George Foreman Interview (ShortList, reported in UK Daily Mirror)