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As President Bush announces a billion dollar plan for space
exploration, back here on earth, today he will visit the grave
of Martin Luther King. What would Dr. King say
We’ll hear a speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
and we will be joined in our studio by another civil rights
leader: Jesse Jackson.
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:40 Rev. Jesse Jackson On “Mad Dean Disease,”
the 2000 Elections and Martin Luther King
INTRO: On the anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr.'s birthday we are joined in our studio by another renowned
civil rights leader: Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Today, January 15, is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
birthday. He was born in 1929. He would be 75 years old today.
It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around
the time of his birthday, we get perfunctory network news
reports about "the slain civil rights leader."
The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life
is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing,
as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage:
King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting
his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963);
marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally,
lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from
1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end
of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently
as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're
not shown today on TV.
In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized
racial discrimination in the South, most major media were
his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically
showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used
against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to
eat at a public lunch counter.
But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965,
King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities.
He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human
rights" -- including economic rights. For people too
poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King
said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.
Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line
were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried
the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for
"radical changes in the structure of our society"
to redistribute wealth and power.
By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent
opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall
U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his
"Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's
Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before
he was murdered -- King called the United States "the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."
Later, we will play an excerpt of that speech. But first,
we are going to speak with another renowned civil rights leader
– Reverend Jesse Jackson. He was with Martin Luther
King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel the day King was
assassinated. Rev. Jackson joins us in our firehouse studios
today.
This past Sunday, Rev. Jackson called for major corporations
to begin investing at least 5 percent of its assets in minority-owned
investment firms. Speaking in Harlem, Jackson noted how none
of IBM's $66 billion pension fund or General Motors $100 billion
pension fund is managed by African-American money managers.
- Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader. He is the founder
of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition, a progressive organization
fighting for social change.
Link: www.rainbowpush.org
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Bush’s New Space Program Criticized
Over Costs & Nuclear Fears
INTRO: Bush announces plans to set up a permanent base on
the Moon and to send astronauts to Mars. Questions arise over
the cost, the military’s role and the Mars-Halliburton
connection.
President Bush called on Wednesday for a massive expansion
of U.S. presence in space. He called for the establishment
of a permanent base on the moon and for astronauts to travel
to Mars and beyond. He said the ambitious project would eventually
establish "a human presence across our solar system."
The Washington Post estimated the project will cost at least
$170 billion over the next 16 years. The Pentagon and private
companies will also collaborate with NASA on the venture.
The final cost is unknown. President George H.W. Bush also
proposed an ambitious expansion of the space program but the
idea went nowhere in part because of the estimated $500 billion
pricetag.
But now fiscal conservatives are expected to back this plan
because it will expand U.S. military supremacy in space. It
remains unclear what role the military will have on the Moon
if a permanent base is created. The Pentagon has been discussing
a military base as far back as 1959 when it proposed to put
150 rockets on the moon.
The Global Resource Action Center for the Environment warned
on Wednesday that the Bush initiative "will create a
new arms race to the heavens."
Among the private companies that will benefit from the space
program may include Halliburton and Shell Oil. According to
a 2001 article in Petroleum News, NASA has been working with
Halliburton, Shell, Baker-Hughes and the Los Alamos National
Laboratory in identifying drilling technologies on Mars.
The Washington Post is also reporting that the roots of
the space proposal was based largely in Bush’s 2004
re-election bid. The paper reports the idea came up when presidential
advisors were searching “for a bold goal that would
help unify the nation before Bush's reelection race and portray
him as visionary.”
The president's father proposed sending men to Mars when
he was in office in 1989, but the project went nowhere after
its cost was estimated at up to $500 billion.
- President George W. Bush, speaking at NASA headquarters
on January 14, 2004.
- James Van Allen, astrophysicist considered to be one
of the founding fathers of space exploration. He is professor
emeritus of physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa.
His discovery of the earth's radiation belt made him one
of the country's most celebrated scientists. What is now
known as the Van Allen radiation belt is a region of high-energy
electrons and protons surrounding the earth at heights between
250 and 40,000 miles. Van Allen was involved in the first
four Explorer probes, the first Pioneers, several Mariner
efforts, and the orbiting geophysical observatory. In 1987
he received the National Medal of Science.
- Marc Schlather, president of the space advocacy group
ProSpace and the executive director of the Space Roundtable
at the United States Senate.
Link: www.prospace.org
Flashback: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. On The U.S. Space
Program
INTRO: Today on MLK's 75th birthday, we look back to August
16, 1967 when Dr. King said "If our nation can spend
$35 billion a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam
and $20 billion to put a man on the moon it can spend billion
of dollars to put God’s children on their two feet right
here on earth."
When President Bush announced his ambitious space plans yesterday,
we at Democracy Now! decided to look back through the Martin
Luther King archives to find out what he said about the space
program in the 1960s.
After hours of research, we tracked down a clip recorded
on August 16, 1967 at the Eleventh Annual Convention of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta,
Georgia.
King said: "If our nation can spend $35 billion a year
to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam and $20 billion to
put a man on the moon it can spend billion of dollars to put
God’s children on their two feet right here on earth."
Listen to an excerpt of President Bush announcement of his
space plans and King's "response."
Link: stream.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=webactive/demnow/
dn20040115.ra&start=0:18.2
Read the transcript for King's full speech, "Where Do
We Go From Here?"
Link: www.stanford.edu/group/King//publications/speeches/
Where_do_we_go_from_here.html
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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