One More In the Name of Love

It really amazes me that fifty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Americans are coming more apart than together and are drawn even more to people who divide us and set us against each other for selfish reasons and destructive agendas.  American civilization has not only become more divisive, it has become coarser, more violent and less free.  Poor people of all races and colors are constantly diminished and shamed, we have a President who seeks to maximize his power to the point of being authoritarian, and for every Trump voter who wants to return to an America that never was, there's a smug leftie who wants to celebrate differences without adhering to common standards - like civic duty and a shared purpose.  And when we're not denigrating each other's dignity, we're bombing people in other countries that stand in the way of American hegemony, just as we did in Vietnam . . . and Grenada . . . and Iraq . . ..

I really can't say anything that hasn't already been said about how far we have not come since the assassination of Dr. King, who was the apostle of non-violence, brotherhood, equality, and the rule of law, but Dr. King's last speech ever, delivered in Memphis fifty years ago today, pretty much sums up how daunting the long, hard climb to a better world was then . . . and is now.

This video is a edit of two excerpts from that speech, referring to plans to fight an injunction against striking sanitation workers in Memphis, whom Dr. King was there to help, to deny them there right to protest.  I tear up every time I hear this . . ..