It’s time for another inauguration so let the Presidential worship begin. The scene couldn’t be any more scripted had it been written by a Hollywood screenwriter. Barak Obama will mount the stairs and be sworn in on Martin Luther King’s Bible on Martin Luther King’s Day.
However the similarities end there. Obama is as close to King as a mollusk is to a human. With numerous wars and occupations being waged on many fronts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and now Syria, and who knows where else, and billions of American’s hard earned dollars feeding these actions and supporting over 900 military bases around the world, Obama has moved further away from the message of King. King’s words are falling on the deaf President’s ears; “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
King adds, “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power; we have guided missiles and misguided men.” That is a good description of the guided drone attacks this President is so fond of that is killing innocent families daily. He seems to be indifferent to the fact that 90% of the death by war and aggression is collateral damage of the innocent. Besides, King, like Christ, admonishes us to love our enemies. “When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy that is a time when you must not do it.” Love is a creative force according to King, which encompasses goodwill for ALL men and is exemplified by refusing to defeat an individual.
King raged against the evils of militarism, poverty and racism. One might assume that the rise of an African American to the Presidency would be a sign of the end of racism in America, but that is hardly the case. Not only has racism survived, but is perpetrated by both sides of the color barrier and continues to fester under ever segment of society. Fueled by debilitating poverty, lopsided incarceration rates and a broken education system that doesn’t teach children how to think but what to think, the problem still remains. Sure, some legal barriers surrounding this issue have been eliminated, but the heart of the problem is disturbing the heart of the country.
And now, in the wake of more gun violence, this President is eager to step all over the Constitution with unreasonable gun laws that may be coming from the insecurity of the powers that be. Gun laws won’t stop the killing but may make the establishment feel a little safer as they squeeze the populace for more money and more control. What has gotten lost in the weapons argument is that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. It’s been the recurring theme on the planet for thousands of years going back to clubs and spears. Maybe 2nd Amendment rightists ought to take King’s advice to heart, “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
Healthcare is another area where the system has failed the American people and no Obamacare is going to heal it. Obama has received more money from big pharmaceutical companies and mega insurance companies that are influencing policies than any other president. Without Universal Healthcare, and the extended care of the vox populi who have made the leaders of this country so fantastically wealthy, we are just another greedy, self-centered society. King says, “Of all the forms of equality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”
When we speak of a broken political system, we must include the banking system and Wall St. About the wealthy, King says, “Individual capitalists of the West are investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America only to take the profits out with no concern for social betterment of the countries.”
In conclusion, King nailed it when summing up the negative influence of the powers that be; “The greatest purveyor of violence: my own government; I cannot be Silent.” So stay awake, alert and aware of how the government is moving and shaking for knowledge protects and ignorance endangers. King said, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
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