Hello, this is Blase Bonpane with a comment.

When Dr. Martin Luther King spoke at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 he referred to his country as, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." 

Dr. King was speaking of the military take over of the United States of America. That military take over is reflected in the run away waste and environmental destruction of limitless military adventures and expenditures. 

That military take over is obvious in the absolute lack of diplomacy in our dealings with other nations.

That military take over is obvious in our open plans to massacre civilians in Iraq. 

That military take over is clear as our nation is incapable of delivering adequate health care and and public education. 

Dr. King said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Just as Dr. Martin Luther King was considered anti-Christian by many reactionary
Christians in 1967, so some of his fellow religionists consider Rabbi Michael Lerner to be outside the pale in 2002.  

Here are some of Rabbi Lerner's thoughts to compare and contrast with those of Dr.King. And I quote:

We are outraged by the immoral acts of Palestinian terrorists who blow up Israelis at Seder tables, or while they shop, or sit in cafes, or ride on buses. 

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in 1948, and recent research by Israeli historians has shown most fled not because they were responding to the appeal of Arab leaders but because they feared acts of violence by right wing Israeli terrorists or were forced from their homes by the Israeli army. Palestinian refugees and their families now number more than 3 million, and many live in horrifying conditions in refugee camps under Israeli military rule. Sharon has always opposed any deal that would involve abandoning the West Bank settlements, which he helped to expand in the 1980's precisely to insure that Israel would never give up the occupied territories. 

Sharon recently set out to destroy the institutions of Palestinian society and has done so with murderous brutality with little regard for human rights and with great harm to many civilians.

Non-Jews are doing no favors to the Jewish people when by their silence they help the most destructive elements of the Jewish world pursue immoral policies that almost certainly will generate more hatred of Jews.

This is Blase Bonpane.

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