Source: King, Martin Luther Jr. Beyond Vietnam and Casualties of the War in Vietnam. New York: Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, 1986.
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DOMESTIC IMPACT OF THE WAR
November 1967, National Labor Leadership Assembly for Peace
Mr. Chairman, distinguished () guests, my brothers and sisters of the labor
movement, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted
I am to be here this afternoon and to be some little part of this extremely
significant assembly. And I want to try to talk very honestly and frankly
about this great problem this great issue that we face as a result of the
war in Vietnam. Some of my words may appear to be rather harsh but they
will be as harsh as truth and as gentle as a non-violent devotee would be.
I want to use as a subject "The Domestic Impact of the War in America."
This conference is historic because it is an affinic expression of the
conscience of the labor movement. As has been said already this afternoon,
tens of millions of Americans oppose the war in Vietnam. Never in our
history has there been such a passionate, popular resistance to a current
war. In addition to the millions upon millions of ordinary people, eminent
scholars, distinguished senators, journalists, businessmen, professionals,
students, and political leaders at all levels have protested the war and
offered alternatives with an amazing tenacity and boldness. But one
voice was missing. The loud clear voice of labor. The absence of that
one voice was all the more tragic because it may be the decisive one for
tipping the balance toward peace. Labor has been missing. For too long
the moral appeal has been flickering, not shining as it did in its dynamic
days of growth. This conference, a united expression of varied branches of
labor reaffirms that the trade union movement is part of forward looking
America. [Applause]
That no matter what the former resolutions of higher bodies may be, the
troubled conscience of the working people can not be stilled. This
conference speaks for millions. You here today will long be remembered
as those who had the courage to speak out and the wisdom to be right.
[Applause]
Now what are some of the domestic consequences of the war in Vietnam?
It has made the Great Society a myth and replaced it with a troubled and
confused society. The war has strengthened domestic reaction. It has
given the extreme right, the anti-labor, anti-Negro, and anti-humanistic
forces a weapon of spurious patriotism to galvanize its supporters into
reaching for power, right up to the White House. It hopes to use national
frustration to take control and restore the America of social insecurity
and power for the privileged. When a Hollywood performer, lacking
distinction even as an actor can become a leading war hawk candidate
for the Presidency, only the irrationalities induced by a war psychosis
can explain such a melancholy turn of events. [Applause]
The war in Vietnam has produced a shameful order of priorities in which
the decay, squalor and pollution of the cities are neglected. And even
though 70% of our population now live in them the war has smothered, and
nearly extinguished the beginnings of progress toward racial justice.
The war has created the bizarre spectacle of armed forces of the United
States fighting in ghetto streets in America while they are fighting in
jungles in Asia. The war has so increased Negro frustration and despair
that urban outbreaks are now an ugly feature of the American scene. How
can the Administration, with quivering anger, denounce the violence of
ghetto Negroes when it has given an example of violence in Asia that
shocks the world. [Applause]
The users of naval guns, millions of tons of bombs, and revolting napalm
can not speak to Negroes about violence. Only those who are fighting for
peace have the moral authority to lecture on non-violence. [Applause]
Now I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not equating the so-called
Negro violence with the war. The acts of Negroes are infinitely less
dangerous and immoral than the deliberate acts of escalation of the war
in Vietnam. [Applause] In fact, the Negroes in the ghetto goaded and
angered by discrimination and neglect have for the most part deliberately
avoided harming persons. They have destroyed property. But even in the
grip of rage the vast majority have vented their anger on inanimate things,
not people. If destruction of property is deplorable, what is the word for
the use of napalm on people. What would happen to Negroes if they not only
set fires but killed people in the vicinity and explained blandly that some
known combatants had to die as a matter of course. Negroes would be
called savages if we were so callous. But for generals it is military
tactics.
In the past two months unemployment has increased approximately 15%.
At this moment tens of thousands of people and anti-poverty programs
are being abruptly thrown out of jobs and training programs to search
in a diminishing job market for work and survival. It is disgraceful
that a Congress that can vote upwards of $35 billion a year for a
senseless immoral war in Vietnam cannot vote a weak $2 billion dollars
to carry on our all too feeble efforts to bind up the wound of our nations
35 million poor. This is nothing short of a Congress engaging in political
guerilla warfare against the defenseless poor of our nation. [Applause]
Thank God we have John Conyers is Congress, I only wish that we had more
like him. [Applause]
The inflation of war cuts the pay of the employed, the pension check of
the retired and the savings of almost everyone. Inflation has stopped
creeping and has begun running. Working people feel the double impact
of inflation and unemployment immediately. But Negroes feel its impact
with crushing severity because they live on the margin in all respects
and have no reserve to cushion shock. There is a great deal of debate
about the nation's ability to maintain war and commit the billions
required to attack poverty. Theoretically the United States has resources
for both. But an iron logic dictates that we shall never voluntarily do
both for two reasons. First, the majority of the present Congress and the
Administration, as distinguished from the majority of the people, is single
mindedly devoted to the pursuit of the war. It has been estimated by
Senator (Harkey) that we spend approximately $500,000 to kill a single
enemy soldier in Vietnam. And yet we spend about $53 for each
impoverished American in anti-poverty programs. Congress appropriates
military funds with alacrity and generosity. It appropriates poverty
funds with miserliness and grudging reluctance. The government is
emotionally committed to the war. It is emotionally hostile to the
needs of the poor.
Second, the government will resist committing adequate resources for
domestic reform because these are reserves indispensable for a military
adventure. The logical war requires of a nation deploy its well fought
and immediate combat and simultaneously that it maintain substantial
reserves. It will resist any diminishing of its military power through
the draining off of resources for the social good. This is the inescapable
contradiction between war and social progress at home. Military adventures
must stultify domestic progress to ensure the certainty of military success.
This is the reason the poor, and particularly Negroes, have a double stake
in peace and international harmony. This is not to say it is useless to
fight for domestic reform, on the contrary, as people discover in the
struggle what is impeding their progress they comprehend the full and
real cost of the war to them in their daily lives.
Another tragic consequence of the war domestically is its destructive
effect on the young generation. There can not be enough sympathy for
those who are sent into battle. More and more it is revealed how many
of our soldiers can not understand the purpose of their sacrifice. It
is harrowing under any circumstance to kill but it is psychologically
devastating to be forced to kill when one doubts it is right.
Beyond the tragedy at the front, at home the young people are torn with
confusions, which tend to explain most of the extremes of their conduct.
This generation has never known a severe economic crisis. But it has
known something far worse. It is the first generation in American
history to experience four wars in twenty-five years, World War II, the
Cold War, the Korean War, and the war in Vietnam. It is a generation of
wars. It shows the scars in widespread drug consumption, alienation,
and the feverish pursuit of sensual pleasures. Yet we can not call this
generation of the young the 'Lost Generation.' We are the 'Lost
Generation' because it is we who failed to give them the peaceful society
they were promised as the American Heritage. [Applause]
And finally the whole nation is living in a triple ring of isolation and
alienation. The government is isolated from the majority of the people
who want either withdrawal, de-escalation, or honest negotiation. Not
what they now given, steady intensification of the conflict. In addition
to the isolation of the government from its people there is our national
isolation in the world. We are without a single significant international
ally. Every major nation has avoided active involvement on our side.
We are more alone than we have been since the founding of the Republic.
Lastly, and more ironically, we are isolated from the very people whom we
profess to support, the South Vietnamese. In their elections the pro-war
forces received less than 1/3 of the vote. In the countryside most of the
area of South Vietnam is in the hand of the Vietcong. And the army of South
Vietnam has so reduced its role in the fighting it may shortly become the
first pacifist army on the warfront. [Laughter - Applause]
The war that began with a few thousand Americans as advisors has become
almost totally an American war without the consent of the American people.
This is an historic isolation that can not be rationalized by self
righteousness or the revival of unproved dangers of imminent aggression
from China. China's incredible internal turmoil suggests it presently
threatens only itself. The war domestically has stimulated a profound
discussion of the nature of our government. Reported members of Congress
and distinguished political scientists are questioning the trend towards
excessive executive power.
Senator George McGovern has summed up these views in the following words,
"Congress must never again surrender its power under our Constitutional
system by permitting an ill-advised, undeclared war of this kind. Our
involvement in South Vietnam came about through a series of moves by the
Executive Branch. Each one seemingly restrained and yet each one setting
the stage for a deeper commitment. The complex of administration moves
involving the State Department, the CIA, the Pentagon and various private
interests, all of these have played a greater role than has Congress.
Congress can not be proud of its function in the dreary history of this
steadily widening war. That function has been one largely of acquiescence,
in little understood administrative efforts. The surveillance, the debate,
and the dissent since 1965, while courageous and admirable, came too late in
the day to head off the foolish course charted off by our policy makers."
"For the future," the senator concluded, "members of Congress and the
Administration will do well to heed the admonitions of Edmund Burke,
distinguished legislator of an earlier day, 'A conscientious man would
be cautious, how he delve in blood.'"
The nature of our government is also under scrutiny by the young generation.
I have spoken in recent years before hundreds of thousands of young people
in their colleges, in the slums, in churches and synagogues. Their comments
and questions reflect a sharply rising body of opinion that the inability to
influence government to adopt urgent reforms is not a consequence of any
superficial ignorance, lethargy or prejudice, but is systemic. There is
more serious discussion today about basic structural change in our society,
that I can recall, over a decade. We have thus far avoided a recrudescence
of McCarthyism. It is constantly threatening but it has not yet been able
to gain a secure foothold. It is not for lack of trying by the ubiquitous
Congressional committees. They are trying to bring down a blanket of
intimidation, but a healthy resistance holds them in check. We must
constantly be alert to this danger because if its evil is added to all the
others, we will have opened the door to other national disasters. It is
worth remembering that there is a strong strain of dissent in the American
tradition even in time of war. During the Mexican War, the intellectual
elite of the nation, Emerson, Thoreau and many others were withering critics
of our national policy. In the Congress, a relatively unknown first term
congressman made a scathing address on the floor denouncing that war. The
young congressman was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. At the same time a young
army lieutenant, almost decided to resign his commission to protest the war.
His name was Ulysses Grant. So we must keep dissent alive and not allow it
to become another casualty of the war in Vietnam. [Applause]
As I move to my conclusion, let me ask you to indulge a personal reference.
When I first decided to take a firm stand against the war in Vietnam, I was
subjected to the most bitter criticism, by the press, by individuals, and
even by some fellow civil rights leaders. There were those who said that
I should stay in my place, that these two issues did not mix and I should
stick with civil rights. Well I had only one answer for that and it was
simply the fact that I have struggled too long and too hard now to get
rid of segregation in public accommodations to end up at this point in
my life segregating my moral concerns. [Applause]
And I made it very clear that I recognized that justice was indivisible.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And then there are
those who said 'You're hurting the civil right movement.' One spoke to
me one day and said, 'Now Dr. King, don't you think you're going to have
to agree more with the Administration's policy. I understand that your
position on Vietnam has hurt the budget of your organization. And many
people who respected you in civil rights have lost that respect and don't
you think that you're going to have to agree more with the Administration's
policy to regain this.' And I had to answer by looking that person into the
eye, and say 'I'm sorry sir but you don't know me. I'm not a consensus
leader.' [Laughter - Applause] I do not determine what is right and
wrong by looking at the budget of my organization or by taking a Gallup
poll of the majority opinion. Ultimately a genuine leader is not a
searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. [Applause]
On some positions a coward has asked the question is it safe? Expediency
asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it
popular? But conscience asks the question is it right? And there
come a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor
politic nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him
it is right. [Applause]
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