Tuesday, April 7, 2009

MLK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92-r05TH9qs

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/vietnam.htm


Martin Luther King Jr. was opposed to the Vietnam War. He believed that the US government should conduct warfare through “nonviolent direct action in international dimensions.” MLK also believed the United Nations should be involved in negotiations between the US and Vietnam. King argues that LBJ’s involvement in the Vietnam War eroded the Great Society and withdrew attention from the Civil Rights Movement. Multiple clips of King’s speech are within the video. In each King is displaying his opposition to the Vietnam War. King was attempting to not to insult LBJ but to criticize the refocusing of the federal government’s activities to the War instead of focusing on the Great Society that inevitably caused some erosion of liberalism.

K. Klimusko

2 comments:

  1. Martin Luther King Jr. fought against issues he believed to be unjust, harmful and immoral without making attacks on individuals, instead he focused on the larger bodies of people within society. When addressing his opposition to using violence in the Vietnam crisis he did not directly blame, or attack, LBJ but the American Government as a whole. Even when fighting for civil rights, he did not attack individuals that were against him and his movement directly but instead criticized the society, laws and organizations that had created them. Criticizing an entire society or government placed a larger focus on the issue, as well as creating a solution, instead on having all eyes focused on a single individual. I believed this was a great strategy on bringing attention to what he saw as important issues without seeming to be threatening any individual person, focused on the fact that he was trying to change society itself for all, all individuals not a select few.

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