John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESSS T V
“US government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world”
Dr. King, a man I greatly admired, was, of course, right,
although few Americans then would speak in such terms, days when intense, unquestioning
patriotism was expected.
It was quite ordinary for even the most minor critic of American policy then to be threatened and shouted down with “Love it or leave it!” The “it” being their country, the United States.
Recall that Dr. King was speaking in the early days of the Vietnam War, the most massive war crime of the era.
America’s deliberately-induced war slaughtered 3 million Vietnamese and a million Cambodians and left a lush and beautiful land a hellhole of bomb craters and poisons, including 20 million gallons of Agent Orange, and millions of landmines and unexploded cluster bombs.
Many victims died hideous deaths, as being burned alive by napalm, a substance which clings to you like sticky jelly while it burns ferociously.
Rapes and torture were commonplace, and there were many atrocities, perhaps the greatest being Operation Phoenix which saw belly-crawling night-time intruders into villages cut the throats of 40,000 village leaders over time.
America’s Vietnam War is rightly called a holocaust.
Dr. King’s growth, from a leader in civil rights to becoming a devastating critic of American government, likely cost him his life.
The FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover loathed Dr. King. He even had a secret COINTELPRO program to discredit King and drive him to suicide with terrible, threatening letters. I am sure a number of other power establishment figures had similar attitudes. Power deeply resents being embarrassed by truth.
Many regard King’s death, with its great many unexplained details and contradictions, as likely the work of such establishment figures who began to see him as a risk to national security.
Why would such people hesitate when America had become comfortable with assassinating foreign leaders quite regularly?
Such is the reward for genuine support of human rights and freedom in America, a place where only power and money count, and “human rights” is a line used in Fourth of July speeches.
I remember the evening his death was announced on television, and I couldn’t stop weeping.
