Saturday Reading -- Patriotism and Protest

We've heard a lot about the anti-American sentiment imputed to Reverend Wright and, by association, Senator Obama. Consider this text:

Dives went to Hell because he passed by Lazarus every day, but he never really saw him. Dives went to Hell because he allowed Lazarus to become invisible. Dives went to Hell because he allowed the means by which he lived to outdistance the ends for which he lived. Dives went to Hell because he maximized the minimum, and minimized the maximum. Dives finally went to Hell because he wanted to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty.

And I come by here to say that America too is going to Hell, if we don't use her wealth. If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty, to make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to Hell.

The speaker? Martin Luther King, Jr., addressing striking workers in Memphis, Tennessee, March 18, 1968. Reverend King, for whom we have a national holiday. Reverend King, whom we hold up to our children -- and rightly so -- as a model of what peaceful yet passionate protest can achieve.

Read the whole speech. See what you think. I just heard some audio on American Public Media's Weekend America. Did King sound angry? Yes. Was he being unpatriotic, un-American, or un-Christian? No.

Just something to think about as the truth and the election go marching on....