Whack a Mole on All Our Ills - Week of MLK Day and the New Presidency

 Whack a Mole on All Our Ills

    Week of MLK Day and the New Presidency

    I have written and analyzed the import and impact of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day before.

    It is a big deal, when we Americans and others think about what our holidays mean. We have national holidays commemorating and celebrating our veterans, the war dead, the founding fathers, and the religious and other national causes that we remember and value. Juneteenth has now been incorporated as newer federal holiday, again celebrating our collective freedoms and human and civil rights, honoring those that were under enslavement and those fallacies of our past. Us, the United States, the greatest country on the earth. In many ways we are, in 2025.

    Doctor Martin Luther King, I am thankful to you for many reasons. Having a paid day off has been pretty cool for many years. Your lasting legacy has been huge, as most of us acknowledge.

    I have made conjecture as to what the Doctor would be saying and observing if he were still alive today. I am sure our country and world would be better off had he lived past the 1960s. But we cannot change that dreadful assassination.

   Every time and age have their problems, their ills. Martin took on a few and things worked to his and our favor that made us better, more equal, fairer.

    We have always had forms of racism, forms of segregation and economic bias and exploitation. There has always been inequality, unfair treatment of those different and in minorities. We have people problems always, but there are other problems that can affect all of them.

    Issues such as natural disasters and environmental degradation, which most of us believe are accelerating as the humans of our planet are polluting and breaking down many normal and healthy standards that the planet Earth has been used to for millions of years.

    But things have been changing based on population growth, fossil fuel consumption and depletion, pollution and contamination, ozone holes and climate change due to global warming.

    It is happening. 

    To deny this is kind of like denying that the oceans are rising. This is measurable and provable, yes?

    Anyway, would Martin Luther King be about preserving the earth and environment and going green in the 2020s? Would he be against abortion? Would he still preach the Bible fervently and be about moral decency and keeping the Ten Commandments? Would he have helped the African-American community lives better standards?

    Who knows?

    We have our share of challenges and trials today. We have to figure them out.

    Is the biggest problem illegal immigration? The laws need to get better, but is it the immigrants' fault?

    I am a Republican, but I am not as extreme as many are today. The answers are to be approached, handled, and resolved.

    It is not rocket-science. But a lot of it is science.

    We are grateful for our past and the ills we have conquered, have moved past. Many ills still remain. Poverty, poor education, moral decay. Drugs, violence. Some say that the laws and law enforcement is to blame.

    I think marijuana and THC leads to more mass shootings.

    We have wars and terrorism. We have pandemics, fires, hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornados, energy crises...

    We have plenty to work on. Cleaning up the oceans, the air, stopping the ice masses from melting.

    We have seen likely dozens of huge glaciers disappear in our lifetime. 

    We need to keep hacking and whacking away at the societal ills.

    Some see religious beliefs and institutions as causing the problems. Others see them as an answer. The real solution might very well be between.

    Promise and hope in 2025 and beyond. Gratitude, grit, and level headedness should prevail.

    North Korea, China, Russia, Iran: a few others may learn to get along with the rest of us. Maybe Miguel Diaz-Canel can help us arrive to the Promised Land.