5 Dr King Quotes We Embrace

Today is the official holiday celebrating Martin Luther King.

And in honor of the event and of him, we thought we'd share 5 of his quotes which have impressed us the most and why so.   These aren't the super-famous quotations that everyone knows such as the "I Have A Dream..." speech or 'Free at Last!' but still have importance and meaning, and were either spoken or written by King.

* Dr. King's quotations in blue font

“And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.” 

We as a nation love to place Dr King on a mantle and focus Only on all the things he spoke about concerning love vs hate, peace & non-violence and racial equality.  And because we're a cowardly politically-correct society, we as a nation also love to pretend that MLK only spoke on those things.

But King addressed poverty and the economic model for this nation; how capitalism (which really for the last century has increasingly become corporation-centric), deprives those who do not nor wish to pursue that life the economic means to better oneself.

And how in the process of controlling how one is to successfully make a living (Ex: must get a degree i.e. get Heavily in debt to have any chance to 'make it') and making so many people fully dependent upon government for their financial survival due to intentional lack of opportunity,  Individuality is also controlled-- as much in capitalistic economies as communistic.

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” 

At A&G, we believe strongly in the importance of the Individual vs the Collective.  We believe people are more important than corporations, and the Individual more important than the populace.

We believe in Individual identity and thought.. Individual values and spirituality.. and we believe no one else.. No other person or group of people have the right to control or curtail another Individual's Life, Liberty or Pursuit of Happiness, even if under the cloak or ruse of a greater "common" good.

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” 

For such a very short quote, it says a lot of truth.  Hitler may have took over the rest of Europe by trickery, coercion and eventually force, but in Germany he and his political party were elected into office by majority of the German citizens.

And thus every act of control instituted by Hitler.. whether it be state control of corporations, book burnings, the social ostracation and eventual extermination of Jews, or depriving its citizenry of the right to bear arms were legally executed.

“I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” 

Many people may choose or wish to see that quote as something dated i.e. specific only to the life and times of Dr King... That somehow such a quote doesn't apply today..

We believe those people utterly and completely wrong.

We at A&G think of this quote after about a decade of ongoing war in costing the US Treasury untold Trillions in dollars, and thousands of lives.. We think how the Occupy Movement was systematically crushed by the various police across the country; mere puppets to the Office of Homeland Security who orchestrated it..

When one moves in a circle yet stands in place, how much Progress was really made?

“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.” 

There is an ongoing academic and spiritual 'war' in America where those who embrace science tend to be atheist or agnostic; who look upon religion and God snidely as something invented to keep the people controlled over thousands of years.

And there's an element of faith-based people who called themselves Creationists who take a very specific, literal interpretation of the Bible.  For example, they believe the world was created in six literal days and all of human existence is merely a few thousand years, whereas many would question such a strictly specific belief.

We agree with Dr King --there needs not be a war between the two.  If one believes God created everything in the universe, then He created science as well.  And for the power of science to answer the questions of the cosmos and the biological question of why we exist, it can never begin to ask the question of the moral/ethical 'why'.