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AWARE returns to the streets to demonstrate against our wars this
Saturday -<br>
<br>
Saturday, April 1st, 2-4PM<br>
corner of Main and Neil, downtown Champaign<br>
<br>
Please join us for any or all of that time.<br>
<br>
Fifty years ago next week - April 4, 1967 - civil rights leader
Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech, "Beyond Vietnam". <br>
How little has changed in half a century? May our vision be as
uncompromising as his was then.<br>
<br>
(The full text is here: <a
href="http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm">http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm</a>
)<br>
<blockquote>
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<span><span> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>"Why are you
speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you
joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil
rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the
cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them,
though I often understand the sour</span></span><span><span><span>ce
of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly
saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers
have not really known me, my commitment or my
calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they
do not know the world in which they live.<br>
<br>
[...]<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br>
<span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span><span>
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charset=utf-8">
<span><span><span
data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody"><span>"I knew that I
could never again raise my voice against
the violence of the oppressed in the
ghettos without having first spoken
clearly to <b>the greatest purveyor of
violence in the world today -- my own
government. </b>
For the sake of those boys, for the sake
of this government, <b>for the sake of
the hundreds of thousands trembling
under our violence, I cannot be silent.</b>"<br>
<br>
[...]<br>
<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
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<span><span> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>"[The people of
Vietnam] must see Americans as strange liberators.
[...] Even though they quoted the American Declaration
of Independence in their own document of freedom, we
refused to recognize them. [...]</span><br>
<br>
<span>When Diem was overthrown they may have b</span></span><span><span><span>een
happy, but the long line of military dictators
seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms
of their need for land and peace.</span><br>
<br>
<span>The only change came from <b>America, as we
increased our troop commitments in support of
governments which were singularly corrupt, inept,
and without popular support.</b> All the while the
people read our leaflets and received the regular
promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now
they languish under our bombs and consider us, not
their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move
sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land
of their fathers into concentration camps where
minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they
must move on or be destroyed by our bombs."<br>
<br>
[...]<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br>
<span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span><span>
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charset=utf-8">
<span><span><span
data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>"We
are at the moment when our lives must be
placed on the line if our nation is to
survive its own folly. Every man of
humane convictions must decide on the
protest that best suits his convictions,
but we must all protest.</span><br>
<br>
<span>Now there is somethin</span></span><span><span><span>g
seductively tempting about stopping
there and sending us all off on what
in some circles has become a popular
crusade against the war in Vietnam. I
say we must enter that struggle, but I
wish to go on now to say something
even more disturbing.<br>
<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
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<span><span> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span><b>The war </b>in
Vietnam is <b>but a symptom of a far deeper malady
within the American spirit,</b> and if we ignore
this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering
reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and
laymen concerned" committees for the </span></span><span><span><span>next
generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala
-- Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about
Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about
Mozambique and South Africa. <b>We will be marching
for these and a dozen other names and attending
rallies without end, unless there is a significant
and profound change in American life and policy.</b></span><br>
<br>
<span>And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam,
but not beyond our calling as sons of the living
God."<br>
<br>
[...]<br>
<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
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<span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>"<b>In 1957, a
sensitive American official overseas said that it
seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side
of a world revolution.</b> During the past ten
years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression
which has now justified the presence of U.S</span></span><span><span><span>.
military advisors in Venezuela. <b>This need to
maintain social stability for our investments</b>
accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of
American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American
helicopters are being used against guerrillas in
Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret
forces have already been active against rebels in
Peru."<br>
<br>
[...]<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br>
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<span><span> <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>"<b>A true
revolution of values will soon cause us to question
the fairness and justice of many of our past and
present policies. </b>On the one hand, we are
called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside,
but that will be only an initial act. One day w</span></span><span><span><span>e
must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be
transformed so that men and women will not be
constantly beaten and robbed as they make their
journey on life's highway. <b>True compassion is
more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to
see that an edifice which produces beggars needs
restructuring.</b>"<br>
[...]<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br>
<span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span><span>
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charset=utf-8">
<span><span><span
data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>"<b>A
true revolution of values will soon
look uneasily on the glaring contrast
of poverty and wealth. </b>With
righteous indignation, it will look
across the seas and see individual
capitalists of the West investing huge
sums of money in Asia, Africa, and So</span></span><span><span><span>uth
America, only to take the profits out
with no concern for the social
betterment of the countries, and say,
"This is not just." It will look at
our alliance with the landed gentry of
South America and say, "This is not
just." The Western arrogance of
feeling that it has everything to
teach others and nothing to learn from
them is not just."<br>
<br>
[...]<br>
<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
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<span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span
class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>"This business of
burning human beings with napalm, of filling our
nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting
poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples
normally humane, of sending men home from dark and
bloody battlefields physi</span></span><span><span><span>cally
handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be
reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. <b>A
nation</b> <b>that continues year after year to
spend more money on military defense than on
programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual
death.</b>"</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br>
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