In honor of MLK

In honor of the great ones

Today, as I contemplate and seek to honor the great man - Martin Luther King, Jr. - I am struck by the feeling that I am living through the 1960's again. Those years - when I was quite young - I experienced only tangentially and then more fully in later years as I revisited that time of great upheaval.

There was great fear of the widespread destruction that could result from a nuclear war and the insanity of MAD (mutually assured destruction). There was great fear of societal transformation as oppressed citizens - both blacks and women - revolted. As they pushed hard against their treatment as "less than" and second class by the ruling elite and the lazy calm of the status quo.

In the midst of this fear and upheaval, there were many who saw opportunity to further inflame those fears and profit in the midst of upheaval. The corporate profiteers who were very invested in the fear of nuclear war saw great opportunity in the predictable need for even more expensive weapons.

Political opportunists - like Barry Goldwater and the KKK - saw a malleable electorate unsettled by threats they did not understand.

In the midst of this, a man who himself had suffered injustice - chose to respond differently. Whether because of his training as a minister or simply his decency as a human, he did not respond to fear with hate. He did not respond to upheaval with repression.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a perfect man. Many in his day - J. Edgar Hoover, even Bobby Kennedy - chronicled the flaws of the man. They were unable to see beyond their own fears and prejudices. They were unable to see that MLK offered a path that should have been obvious to any supposed Christian nation. MLK offered hope instead of fear. He offered love instead of hate. He preached non-violence - even as he suffered violence at the hands of his own government.

And so on this day to honor him, I think it needful for us to remember that in this current time of fear mongering- in this current time of global threats from evil men - we do not have to succumb to the darker angels of our nature.

The threat from ISIS - although serious - cannot compare with the threat of global, nuclear annihilation that could have happened with merely the push of a button.

The fear of societal change by conservative Christians - the legalization of gay marriage, the Decriminalization of marijuana - looks vaguely similar to my parents fear of interracial marriage in the 1960's, women burning their bras, and students burning their draft cards - all in protest of an unjust status quo.

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and the rest of the Republican presidential candidates are using that proven propagandist's program of FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt. It worked for Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany. It worked for Karl Rove after 9/11.

They. Them. Those people. They are not like us. They are different. They are to be feared and eliminated.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

We have been given a cosmic second chance. A do-over opportunity on a massive scale.

We can continue - insanely - following the failed path of fear and hate.

Or we can honor the man who died for his belief that - in the end - love and hope win out over fear and hatred.

Happy MLK Day.

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