To most Americans, Martin Luther King Day signifies the rare chance to watch "The Price is Right" outside of a dentist's office. This year, however, broadcasters afforded daytime TV viewers a glimpse of a dream more illusory than a new Jennifer Convertible living room set: that of Barack Obama, Mark II, the "Second Coming." Eight hundred thousand faithful, maybe even a million, swarmed the parade route, blocking the left-hand paths of egress of the DC Metro's hundreds of escalators like the Beltway foreigners they were. After about three blocks of walking and waving, and with all the grandeur of the day's "relatively mild weather," the President of the United States disappeared back into his up-armored Cadillac limo, an eight-inch titanium door locked and sealed behind him, the roar of the crowd piped in via microphones.
It was one of those events that neatly cleaves two "eras," like when a horse tramples a king's only son. America has advanced into the golden hours of Barack Obama's second term, and like any enlightened society, must swoon as publicly as possible for the hero of the moment: a remorseless mass murderer who wants your grandma eating cat food. Such enthusiasm must have been humbling, which was why Obama chose to be sworn in upon one of Martin Luther King's bibles. A keen student of history, Obama previously honored Dr. King's legacy by stitching into an Oval Office rug one of MLK's favorite quotations: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Wise words that no doubt inspire much reflection, trod upon daily as they are by all the President's men, seeking permission to fire missiles into a mud hut, in some country.
No doubt, humanitarians like John Brennan and Lanny Breuer feel, when called to the carpet before the Commander-in-Chief, that they are veritable galaxies in the "moral universe." After all, thus far in the “Obama era,” society has lauded anyone able to "correctly" answer a question Dr. King posed in his 1967 speech "Beyond Vietnam": whether humanity should choose "nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation." King clearly believed in the former, and was thus pilloried for a year by the "white moderates" of Life Magazine as a stooge of "Radio Hanoi," right up until somebody murdered him at the Lorraine Motel.
Not a profitable line to spout. Just ask the heroic revolutionaries of Egypt, approaching the second anniversary of their victory of nonviolent resistance - only to see the vampire Mubarak reawakened, and his successor a repressive goon. "Violent coannhiliation," on the other hand, has drawn some serious suction with the movers and shakers of the world this past week. Mali seems to have captured the hearts and minds of Western militarists, rather than the other way around; but for the overgrown children who have gotten rich urging war liberal intervention in any country that can fill a bombsight, there's precious little difference. Just as with Libya, the immense historical and cultural complexities of these countries aren't nearly as important to policymakers as what a cross-eyed star child like Max Boot says. Why should it be otherwise? Nobody was ever hacked to death by the Malian Army and dumped in a well because they lied to Charlie Rose.
In the West's excitement this week to get it on with the "Taliban of Timbuktu," it might've been easy to forget about the OG Taliban, the ones we've been fighting since Pets.com was a blue-chip stock. Prince Harry emerged from the haze of nudity and inbreeding he usually resides in to express his insensate reflections on his tour of duty in Afghanistan, scouring Afghans off the face of the planet from an Apache attack helicopter. In a boon for the NRA, Harry admitted it had been a "joy," since "I'm one of those people who loves playing PlayStation." This "Sgt. Spicoli" monologue isn't a put-on, and the only thing remarkable about these banal admissions is the speaker; Harry's defense of "taking a life to save a life" would be cited by every soldier in the chain of command. Nevertheless, even the most elite Americans feel it slightly untoward to emulate a literal warrior-monarch. That's why they attend a mock coronation at Davos every year.
Is there anybody out there who rejects the whole amoral boilerplate you have to sign to be somebody? Well, besides MLK, one hero was born this week, a brawler who demanded a decent set of values to govern this stinking world. On Tuesday, George Gordon, Lord Byron, celebrated his 225th birthday, and we can only hope that through sheer perspicacity, he might yet manage a physical comeback. If anyone's capable of coming back from the dead, it's Byron, scourge of the Lake Poets and warrior of the righteous. And so as we await the "second coming" of that true messiah, of the dawning of the "Second Byronic Era," in which drone strikes, inaugural galas, and austerity measures are a thing of the past, we can only take comfort in the example of the last time Byron flayed a withered, conservative, and deeply inequitable society, in his remarkably brutal "Dedication":
"You — Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion...
...deem as a most logical conclusion,
That Poesy has wreaths for you alone:
There is a narrowness in such a notion,
Which makes me wish you’d change your lakes for ocean."
