As another observance of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday passed and we once again celebrate Black History Month, I’m still haunted by Jonathan Eig’s recent op-ed, “We have lost sight of MLK’s radical vision.” He argues that we have romanticized King’s message and “lost sight of his radical anti-poverty and anti-war visions.” Indeed, we have swapped out King’s radical visions for the safer and more convenient conclusion of his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Why is it considered “radical” to advocate for social equality and justice, when they are included as core values in the U.S. Constitution and other foundational documents? The only thing radical is that King had the audacity, in a time of war and social upheaval, to challenge Americans to live up to their own principles.
King’s views evolved throughout the 1960s, as the costs and casualties of the Vietnam War escalated. He didn’t simply call for his dream of social equality but identified the obstacles to achieving it: “the triple evils of poverty, racism and militarism.” He directly confronts these evils in his speech “Beyond Vietnam” and writings “Racism and the White Backlash” and “The World House,” which includes this warning: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”
Even in schools that teach Black history, King’s writings against militarism are rarely discussed. They should be and not just in February. Against the background of American tanks and other costly advanced U.S. weapons being sent into yet another war in Europe, domestic shootings, crime and police brutality continue to increase at home. King’s writings should serve as a catalyst for a continuous national discussion about “the triple evils,” which affect so many levels of our culture.
And these views are not just the “radical” ideas of a black civil rights leader. In Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, the white conservative president also gave a “radical” speech that is wholly ignored today. Eisenhower, a World War II hero, five-star general and two-term Republican president who presided over the Korean War armistice, did not give a nostalgic speech urging us to make America great again.
Rather, the seasoned soldier and statesman warned the incoming Kennedy administration and the American people against allowing the U.S. economy to become dependent upon and controlled by what Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex,” a term since aptly expanded to the military-industrial-congressional-media complex. Eisenhower detailed in practical terms the corrosive consequences that endless increases in Pentagon spending on expensive high-tech weapons and foreign wars would have on the American way of life and American ideals, and the special interests that benefit. Spoiler alert: It is not soldiers who benefit.
Eisenhower’s warning was ignored, and the ensuing decade saw more than 58,000 Americans die in the Vietnam War, a costly strategic failure that also ended the military draft and the time-honored American tradition of the citizen-soldier. Further fulfilling Eisenhower’s prophecy, the annual budget of the U.S. Defense Department is now approaching $1 trillion, while the budget of the understaffed U.S. State Department is just over $50 billion.
The U.S. is pledging to “stand up” to Russia in Ukraine, to stand up to China in Taiwan and Japan, to stand up to Iran in Israel and Saudi Arabia, and to continue standing up to North Korea, 70 years after the armistice. The U.S. also stood against “terrorism” and the Taliban in Afghanistan for 20 years, which ended in another costly strategic failure. Now March brings the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which failed to achieve the goal of bringing democratic stability to the Middle East. Instead, continued fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia has mired much of the region in poverty and chaos.
A wise person observed that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the U.S. has allowed its good intentions — spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world — to slowly drag it down the road to the hell of endless war. An old military adage states: to defend everywhere is to defend nowhere. The biggest problem facing the U.S. military today is not a reduced budget but a lack of priorities resulting in too many missions for too few troops, even as the Army struggles to meet enlistment goals and reduce alarming rates of suicide and drug and alcohol addiction. This is obviously not sustainable, in monetary or human costs.
King was clearly influenced by Eisenhower’s farewell speech and updated many of the president’s concerns in his own critiques connecting poverty and militarism. When a prominent white conservative leader and a prominent Black liberal leader agree on major issues that keep so many people from achieving their American Dream, it suggests the public and policymakers should listen and take bipartisan action.
So, more than half a century later, what are we waiting for? We cannot afford more strategic failures, and we cannot afford the endless fight to win “hearts and minds” overseas, while losing them at home.
