FBI ‘honors’ Martin Luther King Jr., 50 years after plotting to ‘neutralize’ him

https://thegrayzone.com/2017/01/17/fbi-honors-martin-luther-king-jr-neutralize-him/

by nagums • 6 years ago

59 17 6 years ago

cwkoss• 6 years ago

Does the US have a mechanism for retroactively stripping people of rank?

Seems like there have been a lot of old white dudes who did evil things for intelligence services, retired with honors, died, and then declassified knowledge of their crimes is made public.

Would be nice if he had something like a posthumous dishonorable discharge to apply in these cases.

JumpCrisscross• 6 years ago

Would be nice if he had something like a posthumous dishonorable discharge to apply in these cases

This is a politician's dream. Rally your base over a dead guy's stickers and jewelry so you don't have to tackle the problems of today.

krapp• 6 years ago

Reminds me of the time when a Pope had a former (and formerly living) Pope exhumed and his corpse put on trial[0], retroactively nullified his papacy, then had him reburied in a pauper's grave from which he was dug up again and then thrown into a river.

The papacy was hardcore back then.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

refurb• 6 years ago

Yeah, this wouldn’t be abused in the least.

akimball• 6 years ago

The US government was found guilty at trial of conspiring to assassinate King. They paid an award to the estate.

tehlike• 6 years ago

I am reading it right that they were awarded only 100$?

lynndotpy• 6 years ago

The point was to show that the trial was not about the money.

ozten• 6 years ago

Not exactly... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/government-mlk-assassinati...

CincinnatiMan• 6 years ago

Are any of the FBI staffers of modern day also ones that were present 50 years ago? Is it possible the people that compose the FBI currently have different morals and viewpoints from the ones from 50 years ago? The organization known as the FBI is just a collection of people, and the members that make it up can change over time, it's not an everlasting entity itself. Thus it seems unfair to say/imply the FBI is being hypocritical in their message.

t-writescode2• 6 years ago

A large amount of the American way of thinking is to believe that people cannot and will not change, and so that's not a question that would traditionally be asked.

It's wrong, but it powers a lot of American thinking.

machello13• 6 years ago

Do you have any sources for that, or is it just prejudice?

LatteLazy• 6 years ago

Does that actually follow?

If you run an organisation and recruit people who think on a certain way, train them in a way that makes them more likely to think that way, and promote the ones that think that way, wouldn't the organisation stay pretty similar even as actual humans join and leave?

Lots of organisations (political parties, religions, whole classes of people) have remained largely the same for very long periods this way.

Im not saying the FBI is the same today as it was 50 years ago. I'm just saying institutional memory is a thing (as is institutional racism...).

hulitu• 6 years ago

No. No. No.

jjk166• 6 years ago

If the majority of the FBI staff were replaced all at once, perhaps, but a gradual ship-of-theseus style replacement leaves it the same organization. I doubt that individual modern FBI staffers have the same views as their forebears, but the institution still bears the legacy of its past actions.

umeshunni• 6 years ago

I read the title as FB instead of FBI and assumed it was yet another hit piece by the NYT or Guardian blaming Facebook for MLK's assassination.

FBI ‘honors’ Martin Luther King Jr., 50 years after plotting to ‘neutralize’ him

Related Stories