Author Topic: Martin Luther King Jr. - Bipolar Phony (Read 2245 times)

Vladimir · « **on:** February 17, 2011, 12:10:16 AM »

I was reading King's so-called masterpiece, "Beyond Vietnam" and I coulnd't help but notice this point:

In this particular speech, he uses the rhetorical question to ask his audience if he can deny spreading his love towards the Communists and revolutionaries, etc. He uses his perverse form of "Christianity" to back up this rhetorical question.

Literally a few paragraphs later, he blasts Ngo Dinh Diem, perhaps one of the most Christian leaders of the 20th century, in castigating terms. Diem was a devout Catholic with spotless personal conduct. While King sympathizes with Ho Chi Minh (who had many affairs with various women, many of whom died at his party's orders) and says in that corny Protestant fashion "don't we have to love everyone?" ,etc he calls the Catholic Diem one of the worst dictators and tyrants ever? King also sympathizes with Buddhists in this speech.

What a phony is all I have to say. I really don't even see what is so heroic about his civil rights movements. If you really think about it, all he did was muddy the waters of a civil (legal) issue by throwing in his faux "Christianity" and trying to turn a black/white (no pun intended) legal matter into some great moral revolution or whatever. Negroes deserve equal rights because they are American citizens - not because they are black!

(anyways sorry for the grammer of this post and my other posts - of late I feel myself slowly regressing into illiteracy)

Kailyn · « **Reply #1 on:** February 19, 2011, 04:21:17 PM »

I've read this speech. Could you explain how it is "bi-polar" and "phony." And by that I don't mean, why his political views regarding Vietnam were wrong, but how the speech is rhetorically flawed.

Vladimir · « **Reply #2 on:** February 19, 2011, 10:46:32 PM »

Quote from: Kailyn

I've read this speech. Could you explain how it is "bi-polar" and "phony." And by that I don't mean, why his political views regarding Vietnam were wrong, but how the speech is rhetorically flawed.

He makes the false assumption that the Vietnamese people as a whole wanted the Americans out of VN and would like to have Ho Chi Minh in power. False then; false now.

Kailyn · « **Reply #3 on:** February 19, 2011, 11:26:49 PM »

But even if he made a false assumption, that doesn't amount to rhetorical inconsistency (bi-polar), or being a "phoney." It amounts to being in error regarding a complicated political situation.

Vladimir · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2011, 11:32:49 PM »

Quote from: Kailyn

But even if he made a false assumption, that doesn't amount to rhetorical inconsistency (bi-polar), or being a "phoney." It amounts to being in error regarding a complicated political situation.

King= phony because he masquerades as a Christian

Kailyn · « **Reply #5 on:** February 24, 2011, 04:10:31 PM »

Can you explain how this speech demonstrates that he is masquerading as a Christian?

ServusSpiritusSancti · « **Reply #6 on:** February 24, 2011, 04:22:29 PM »

Well to bring up another subject MLK Jr was supposedly a freemason...

Kailyn · « **Reply #7 on:** February 24, 2011, 04:39:30 PM »

To be frank I have no interest in defending Martin Luther King Jr. The OP addressed issues within a particular speech that I found rhetorically compelling. I am not yet convinced his contentions are correct.

roscoe · « **Reply #8 on:** February 28, 2011, 12:57:46 AM »

MLK( like Hoover) was a Freemason/ Communist--Hoover was a Trotskyite.