"It's time to Thump the Bible Thumpers with the Bible"

[stone space]

8. Sometimes it seems like we allow the right wing to frame our discussions...

...and make our definitions for us. They are very good at this.

The religious right has co-opted what it means to be a christian.

We become adjusted to thinking in their terms, and allowing their concepts to colonize our minds, and we risk losing alternative viewpoints more compatible with our own values.

Dr. Martin Luther King's speech at Western Michigan University (Dec 18th, 1963). Transcript at http://www.wmich.edu/sites/default/fi..., starting at p. 17 ff., second to last section.
More on Dr. King at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_L....

"The Lost Tape

The tape recording of the live broadcast of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s December 18, 1963 speech was lost for almost 30 years. The tape was rebroadcast at the time of Dr. King's assassination in 1968 but was later lost until 1997 when Phill Novess contacted WMUK general manager, Garrard Macleod.

A copy of King's address had been found on a reel ‐ to ‐ reel machine that Novess had acquired from his grandfather, Phillip Novess. The senior Novess owned a small grocery store on the east side of Kalamazoo and accepted the reel ‐ to ‐ reel tape recorder as collateral for groceries in the early 1970s.

When he sold the grocery store and the tape player had not been reclaimed, Novess took it home and put it in his basement. He gave the tape to his grandson for restoration purposes. Novess' business, Eclipse Media Group, specializes in noise reduction and restoration of audio tapes.

Novess restored the tape with the assistance of Kevin Brown, of Brown & Brown Recording & Music Productions in Portage."
(Source: http://www.wmich.edu/sites/default/fi...)

Martin Luther King (1963) - Proud to be Maladjusted!

by grtv



Martin Luther King talks about "maladjustment" (1967). Proud to be maladjusted, King's speech is timeless, and especially relevant to our present society:

'Modern psychology has a word…”maladjusted.” Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. In order to have real adjustment within our personalities, we all want the well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurosis, schizophrenic personalities.

But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination.

I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry.

I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.

I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence. But in a day when sputniks and explorers are dashing through outer space and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence, and the alternative to disarmament. The alternative to absolute suspension of nuclear tests. The alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation. This is why I welcome the recent test-ban treaty.

In other words, I’m about convinced now that there is need for a new organization in our world. The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment–men and women who will be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos. Who in the midst of the injustices of his day could cry out in words that echo across the centuries, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’