Celebrates Martin Luther King’s Birthday with a Trip to Mars (and
By Michael I. Niman,
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 at age 39.
The American media, however, seems to have executed a post-mortem King
assassination of their own, silencing the reverend sometime around 1965.
It’s this earlier King – the one fighting the simple basic struggle
against segregation, who we celebrate every year on Martin Luther King Day.
For most children educated in
It’s this amnesia that created the social space for
George W. Bush to travel to
Bush’s visit came on the same day he announced plans to
expand the federal debt to pay for a fanciful space colonization plan.
The Washington Post estimates
that this program, seemingly more inspired by the comics of Bush’s youth than
by any real science, would cost American taxpayers at least $170 billion over
the next 16 years. While a relative
bargain when compared to the ultimate price tag for the
Flash Gordon Did It – Why Can’t We?
The idea of a trip to Mars isn’t new.
The pathetic reality of the new plan is that it isn’t the
work of a visionary or a dreamer. It’s
not about striving to see how far science can go.
There are certainly more pressing tasks for science, like saving the
planet from technology’s toxic byproducts.
No, this isn’t about determination or challenges.
It’s not even really about going to Mars. It’s about the 2004
And there are a few ancillary benefits as well, with the usual cast of characters, led by Halliburton Corporation, lining up at the trough to cash in. NASA, it seems, will be contracting with Halliburton to develop “mining technology” for Mars – a service that will be paid for whether or not any human ever sets foot on that planet.
al Qaeda in Space?
In saner times, the whole Mars initiative would have been
written off as “silly,” and shelved as it was during papa Bush’s reign.
But these certainly aren’t sane times, with Halliburton supporters in
Congress parroting lines about the need to militarize space.
The Mars program, they argue, will do just that – giving the
The offensive irony in Bush’s announcement concerns his
choosing to unveil his celestial ambitions during the celebration of Dr.
King’s birthday. When Bush said,
“We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe to gain a new
foothold on the moon and prepare for new journeys to worlds beyond our own,”
one didn’t have to think too long to imagine Dr. King’ response.
He already responded, as Amy Goodman readily pointed out on Democracy
Now, back in August of 1967, a month after George W. Bush turned 20 years
old. At the time, Dr. King argued, that “if our nation can spend $35 billion a
year to fight an unjust evil war in
During the same speech delivered to the 11th annual convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), he went on to outline a fundamental need for radical change that seems at least as pertinent today as it was when King first uttered these words:
“I want to
say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about "Where do we go
from here?" that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must
address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society.
There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question,
"Why are there forty million poor people in
Now, when I
say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the
problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war
are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. . . .
us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth
and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the
battering rams of the forces of justice.”
This is the real Dr. Martin Luther King – the King that
is invisible in most public school textbooks.
It’s this Martin Luther King who was gunned down in
The real Dr. King’s memory was more properly celebrated
The problem of police brutality in
The people who came out to make noise about police
brutality were marching for law and order, chanting slogans such as, “Police
brutality is a crime. Make the
criminals do their time.” The
mixed crowd of black and white Buffalonians from various walks of life were also
marching to honor King’s legacy – the legacy of a united community fighting
for justice. This is how to
celebrate Dr. King’s Birthday – in the street fighting nonviolently for
justice, just as King would be doing today at age 75 if he hadn’t been gunned
down so long ago.
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