If the Civil Rights Movement happened today, Would Bush have already locked MLK up in Gitmo?

[berni_mccoy]

Interesting question. Would today's government consider someone like MLK a potential threat and/or terrorist?

[meegbear]

1. No, but he'd be marginalized by the media

[Fresh_Start]

2. yes to both; in Gitmo and marginalized NT

NT

[Kucinich4America]

3. Nah, they would just shoot him

Like they did in 1968 :( Only this time they would blame it on the "terraists"

[Jamastiene]

4. The government back then did.

The FBI kept a big, huge surveillance file (more like filing cabinet full of files) on MLK, Jr.

The difference is that today, MLK, Jr. would be in jail and on his way to Gitmo faster than he could say, "I have" He wouldn't even be able to get the "a dream." part out before they declared him an "enemy combatant" and whisked him away to torture him. This country has turned to pure T shit since Chimpy took over and ran it into the ground.

I guess you can tell I am disgusted with the state of our union.

[Vanje]

5. He wouldnt have needed to

Not when the media will help the administration "swift boat" him.

[Atman]

6. No one would even know it was happening because the media wouldn't cover it.

:shrug:

.

[iamjoy]

7. Nah, But He'd Be On A No Fly List (eom)

[notadmblnd]

8. he'd be a threat, protestors would be hosed down and tasered

Blackwater security types would be patrolling the streets of the cities randomly killing civilians for shits and giggles... Rev King and his cohorts would be rounded up taken to Gitmo and water boarded... They would film his children being raped repeatedly and make him watch it in a effort to get him to talk...I could go on and on.

[ben_meyers]

9. In 1963 RFK had the FBI open an investigation

So I'm sure the same would happen today.

On October 10, 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy committed what is widely viewed as one of the most ignominious acts in modern American history: he authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin wiretapping the telephones of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy believed that one of King's closest advisers was a top-level member of the American Communist Party, and that King had repeatedly misled Administration officials about his ongoing close ties with the man. Kennedy acted reluctantly, and his order remained secret until May of 1968, just a few weeks after King's assassination and a few days before Kennedy's own. But the FBI onslaught against King that followed Kennedy's authorization remains notorious, and the stains on the reputations of everyone involved are indelible.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200207/garrow

[ngant17]

10. He would have been targetted for assassination

rather than to spare the government the formality of a kangaroo court in Gitmo.

And this is exactly what happened. It's been reasonably established that there were government agencies involved in the MLK assassination.

It's also reasonable to expect some covert agencies with ties to the goverment would want to assassinate a President Obama.

[AndyTiedye]

11. If the Repiggies Controlled the Media in the 60's Like They Do Today…

We probably never would even heard of Martin Luther King before they whisked him away to prison, along with anyone else who attempted to organize a civil rights movement.
We would have had the riots, but the media would have spun them to justify further repression.

We never would have heard of Watergate either. The current administration gets away with a Watergate every day.

They would have kept the Vietnam War going at least another 10 years (with the same end result).

[TahitiNut]

12. The question seems to infer that the "civil rights movement" was/is a far more transient event than

... it is/was. I regard the "civil rights movement" as ongoing, personally. Nonetheless, it seems some don't realize how long Dr. King was leading and facilitating non-violent activism. His efforts preceded Brown v. Board of Education, gained national recognition with the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), and reached a summit with the 1963 March on Washington, but didn't end there. Dr. King was subjected to the worst kinds of harrassment by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, but he persisted through three different Presidencies.

It should be understood that when Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on that day in 1955, Dr. King was only 26 years old! He'd received his Ph.D. a mere 6 months before.

[berni_mccoy]

13. Thanks for that reminder Tahiti. I did not mean to phrase it that way, but it certainly

sounds as if I'm thinking that way (though, I'm not).

[allalone]

14. nothing that obvious

the fbi did a good job of trashing him when he was alive. little did we know.
he has come to be more appreciated over the years.