The King's Day...

It's that time of year again. Yesterday, was the third Monday in January, which this year was close to his birthday on the 15th. In a couple of months we'll see the media winding up in recognition of the fact that he was cut down 40 years ago come this April 4th.

And what is he remembered for?

For having "had a dream"?

For having been to "the mountain top"?

My personal choice would be his understanding of the necessity for nonviolent solutions in particular to conflicts between nations. -- an understanding which was flowering into maturity in the time before his murder.

"It's not a question of nonviolence as opposed to violence -- it's a question of nonviolence as opposed to nonexistence!" This was something he repeated several times in various ways in speeches he gave up to just a couple days before the end.

Earlier, Dr. King had recognized that war could be a "negative good" -- that is, a war fought to avoid subjugation to a tyranny. However, as the clock of human history clicked all too quickly into the '60s, he came to understand that our weapons had become so destructive and so demonic, that a war of negative good was no longer possible. If our species is to survive, war must be discarded as a means of resolving conflicts, in particular between nations.

Indeed, he saw that peace is not a goal, but a means to achieve the goal.

They [our leaders]are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.

In my own words, the means justify the ends

What is the difference between a terraist with a bomb and a world leader a hand on a red phone? As far as I can see, the one can kill a lot more of us!

The fact is, dear hearts: All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!