But while the intense speculation regarding Obama's decision about expanding the Afghanistan War, the designed-to-be-expanded ‘Global War on Terrorism', into a likely AfPak war is on everyone's front-burner, Obama has a multiplicity of other foreign policy decisions, and an even more vast array of domestic economic and social goals he desperately wants to pursue in the U.S.

Has any president, has any leader, ever had so many critical decisions to make at one time, and so many issues to speak to the American people about –-- and build their confidence that he can speak with them openly and address their combined problems?

Has any leader ever had such a problem in dealing with critical domestic issues that mean so much to him, and yet had such risks to his plans and hopes caused by a foreign war he would rather not have to speak about?

Like Obama, Rev. Martin Luther King was confronted with a similar monumental decision about whether to speak-out against the imperialist war ‘abroad', that was grinding up the working-class sons of both black and white Americans, or to continue focusing on his most heart-felt problem ‘at home' of inequality and racism's tyranny against young blacks.

For more than a year, Rev. King kept his focus on the racial battle at home, and would not be detoured by addressing the combination of multiple issues that would inevitably spring from taking-on the crimes of imperialist foreign war, domestic racism, and the ‘class-warfare' that linked these crimes of Empire.

Finally, on April 4^th, 1967, and at the Riverside Church in New York City, Dr. King decided that it was “A Time to Break Silence” not only about Vietnam, but Beyond Vietnam, and to speak the truth about the nature of Empire and the class-war that Empire always uses to maintain its unfair, unjust, and un-democratic control over the indivisible political-economics of power both ‘abroad' and ‘at home'.

Hopefully, Obama will reach the same monumental decision as Dr. King – and even more hopefully, average Americans of all colors will respond to a seminal outing of Empire by recognizing their common humanity, their common-wealth in country, their common ‘public interest' in democracy (against the ‘private interest' of Empire), and by treating this 21^st century messenger and leader against Empire and for democracy differently than Dr. King was treated.

I hope that Obama is benefiting, in his time of decision, from taking the time to re-read King's Riverside speech:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

King noted, “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit”

And today, hopefully, Obama will take note that, “The war in _______ is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit”

King continued:

“It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

And I hope that Obama recognizes that those “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism” are EMPIRE.

Finally, King concludes with, “If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

And I hope that Obama, in preparing to make his choice, recognizes that the multiplicity of those “jangling discords of our world”, those pressing problems ‘abroad' and ‘at home' are but the uniform fingerprints of one thing ---- EMPIRE.

Alan MacDonald

Sanford, Maine