Peace, Progress and Policy: Happy King Day

  Given the momentous nature of today January 21st, 2013, we at Jambangle believe it right and proper to take time to recognize the momentous nature of today's occurrences. We simultaneously celebrate the birth date of Martin Luther King, Jr.(activist and theologian) whom, if he were still alive, would be 84 today. And we also recognize the beginning of the second term of the 1st African American president, Barack Hussein Obama.  These events speak to the possibilities of human achievement. King whose message and adult life was committed to achievement of a radical peace, that would embrace all of humanity and the establishment of pervasive justice as the foundation of our civilization, is celebrated, honored and followed as a model for the most one of the most progressive visions offered by a citizen of this nation. King's unqualified commitment to peace, are deeply relevant to the times in which we live. The US' constant state of war (Iraq, Afghanistan) have done irreparable damage to the people's of those nations, strain the credibility of international structures of governance and wear away at the fabric of our own society, reflect the same hunger for war that enshrined the nation 4 decades ago. King's message remains tragically necessary for our times. The necessity of King yet lives even as his body has expired. Yet, despite our failure to grow beyond the fear and violence of our international domination, the fact that we take time to remember his commitment to the creation of a more perfect state of living, his "Beloved Community", the fact that there still burns the flame of his vision and the desire to nurse it to higher degrees, suggests there may yet be hope for us as a nation and a species. Today is a day of celebration as we remember King and his work we implicitly celebrate the better angels of our own collective natures, for he is but a small piece of a larger possibility within us all. I believe in peace.I believe in justice. And I believe peace and justice can be achieved.
  "Fondly do we hope and fervently do we pray, that this great scourge of war will pass away." And fondly do we hope that our newly sworn in President will take to heart the work of Dr. King and truly embrace it as the center of his policies. For all of his rightly celebrated accomplishments President Obama, and the history making achievements of his elections, the President continues the ways of war against un-offending communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Vietnam ate away at the hope for an America renewed, drone strikes and inflated Pentagon budgets eat away at the lives of America's poor and working peoples. In the midst of today's celebrations, in the midst of the pomp and pageantry we can not forget that the point is to work toward the more perfect union and the work of our ancestors is not yet done.