creative maladjustment

 Have you ever heard of the "The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment"?

No?

Well, there is no such thing...but there should be.


 A non-violent rebel who broke the law fighting for justice and human rights wanted to create the above department.

He claimed that human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Martin Luther King believed there were certain things in this world that it was not appropriate to be adjusted to; things like bigotry, discrimination and segregation.

"This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Our planet teeters on the brink of atomic annihilation; dangerous passions of pride, hatred and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; and men do reverence before false gods of nationalism and materialism. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority." MLK

Monday Juan Cole wrote about new areas where we non-conformists are maladjusted.

"We are told by the Republican minority that is holding the country hostage in the Senate that we are maladjusted if we object to 37 million Americans not being covered by health care. We are maladjusted if we want to see banks regulated. We are maladjusted if we want a change in  income tax so that the richest, with their billions in bonuses, pay more for government social services from which they and their corporations benefit. We are maladjusted if we object to escalating the war in Afghanistan or to covert drone assassinations in Pakistan or to starting a whole new war in Yemen. We are maladjusted if we object to racially profiling Arabs and Arab-Americans. We are maladjusted if we object to mountain top removal coal mining, or, indeed, if we object to destroying the world with the burning of coal in general. We are maladjusted if we won't disfigure our shorelines with oil rigs. We are maladjusted if we support choice for women or marriage for gays."

i didn't think Juan had enough down so as another non-conformist i'd like to add a few more:

There are those out there who think we are maladjusted if we believe man may be impacting his environment adversely and we should do something about it.  We are maladjusted if we support minimum wage. We are maladjusted if we want to even the playing field just a tad through public education.  We are maladjusted if we want to end corporate welfare.  We are maladjusted if we want to decriminalize marijuana use.  We are maladjusted if we want to end our dependence upon fossil fuels.  We are maladjusted if we want to reauthorize assault weapon bans.  And finally but certainly not the end of areas where we are so very maladjusted because we want accountability for pre-emptive invasions, torture, wiretapping, rendition, and a host of other things that aren't coming to mind just now.

King called for an end to militarism and far-flung imperial wars. He rightly claimed that war was the enemy of the poor.

"The fact that our militarism has only grown significantly in the intervening decades makes it more comfortable to sweep these aspects of King's message under the national rug. With Obama mobilizing more soldiers and military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than Bush did, authorizing more drone attacks that have killed more innocent civilians than Bush did, expanding military bases in South America, and requesting and receiving the largest military budget ever in the history of not only this nation, but any nation in history, it is easier to simply close our collective lips about this King." Ryan Van Lenning

This week we have all been affected by the devastation in Haiti. We have stepped up by focusing on those in need, we contribute what we can, volunteer where we can and wish we could do more to help those devastated by mother nature.

Perhaps this year as we witness ever more defense spending and military engagements and the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and even the middle class drops out, we will listen a little more closely to this giant of a man who still has much to teach us: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Finally, "I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted." MLK