[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5279]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  MILITARISM, MATERIALISM, AND RACISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, this is the 49th anniversary of the 
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  Dr. King, Jr., was, sadly, struck down in Memphis, Tennessee, by an 
aberrant individual who wanted to kill him and chased him all over the 
country. It so happened that Memphis was the spot that he had that 
final opportunity.
  In Memphis, there will be activities today celebrating the life of 
Dr. King and commitments to community service in his spirit.
  Ironically, today, while it is the 49th anniversary of his 
assassination, it is also the 50th anniversary of his greatest speech, 
in my opinion. Not the ``I've Been to the Mountaintop'' speech that he 
made the night before in Memphis, the great speech where he said: I 
have been to the mountaintop, and I may not get there with you; but I 
want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the 
promised land.
  His greatest speech, in my opinion, was the speech at the Riverside 
Church in New York, in Manhattan, on April 4 of 1967, when he spoke of 
the three isms that bother this country and are the enemies of this 
country: militarism, materialism, and racism.
  The speech was called ``Beyond Vietnam.'' A prescient Dr. King saw 
the need to get out of Vietnam, to make a unilateral step, cease the 
bombing, save lives. He was indeed right about that. We should have 
gotten out of Vietnam then, but we didn't.
  It was months later that Richard Nixon interfered with the peace 
process for political reasons and got word to Vietnam not to 
participate; that they might get a better deal from Nixon; and that 
stopped President Johnson from possibly concluding the war in 1968.
  The racism, the militarism, and the materialism are still pervasive. 
Dr. King wouldn't like what he sees today. We have a budget giving 56 
or $57 billion extra to the military and cutting away from diplomacy 
efforts, foreign aid efforts that militate against war. And it takes 
away from funding for people, African Americans and poor people in 
America, who need government assistance.
  That is part of what Dr. King was concerned about in this ``Beyond 
Vietnam'' speech. And here it is 50 years later and we still suffer 
with the same tight budget and the same misguided priorities.
  We have an Attorney General who is looking at ending consent decrees 
on police violence against African Americans in Baltimore, Maryland, 
and also in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.
  We are going the wrong direction, and it is sad that one of our 
greatest prophets and one of our greatest leaders told us about it 50 
years ago.
  Have we learned.
  The disparity in wealth is greater than ever in this country. The 
rich are getting richer and richer and richer. It is incomprehensible 
that there are billionaires--and there are lots of them out there--and 
that the tax breaks that we offer in the Tax Code are going to give 
millionaires and billionaires hundreds of thousands and millions of 
dollars of tax breaks at the expense of government programs for people 
who don't have enough.
  There is no consideration of a minimum wage. And Dr. King was strong 
on believing that if people worked a full-time job, they shouldn't be 
paid a part-time wage.

                              {time}  1015

  We need to go a lot further. We need to reflect on Dr. King's 
Riverside speech and understand that it is still a guide for us, and we 
need to look at a more understanding budget that cares about people 
first and not the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower 
warned us about; that we try to avoid wars through diplomacy and 
foreign aid and goodwill; and that we support our people with WIC 
programs and LIHEAP programs and Meals on Wheels and health care and 
public education; and that we try to give tax breaks to the middle 
class--large tax breaks, and not tax breaks to those who already have 
enough.
  Thank you, Dr. King. You served us well. We mourn your loss. We 
remember your words.

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