As one listened and looked on as President George Bush deliver his 7^th State of the Union address, one could not help having the feeling that all seemed well with the Union.

For one, there was this image presented to the world that despite the critical political differences between the two major political parties in the country, there was this overt display of cordiality among all the members of the U.S. Congress. The image became even more positive when the president, a most beleaguered leader with a record low popularity rating, entered the chambers of Congress. His Congressional supporters as well as his foes rallied as if one grand band of “All the President’s People,” greeting and applauding the president. The cynical among us may say this show of camaraderie was only a show of respect for the office of the presidency, and not for the man who now holds that office. Maybe so, but still, for us from the Caribbean where politics is akin to tribalism, where an unpopular prime minister/president would most likely be jeered and embarrassed even in the Houses of Representative, the image of unity in the chambers of the U.S. Congress was an impressive lesson in democratic unity.

Last Monday, January 15, the 78^th anniversary of the birth of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was commemorated. The commemoration was marked by the usual marches, banquets, rallies, and the airing of Dr. King’s speeches, especially the famous “I Have a Dream” speech made at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, at the end of a massive march he led to that city in August 1963.

As American blacks, move further away from that fateful day of April 4, 1968 when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, one cannot help but feel that the commemoration of King’s birthday has become rather hollow. Although the worth of King’s contribution to the civil rights of black people in American cannot be denied, we wonder if the blacks born since 1968 really appreciate what King did; or even how effective King would have been today in mobilizing the black community.

A reader asked us how is it that the president of the United States does not have the power to decide on reforms of the country’s immigration policy, a measure that he has said he is greatly in favor of, but yet he alone has the power to decide on sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq? He was suggesting that events of the last few months are in fact a lesson to many Caribbean immigrants on the workings of the American Constitution.

The president has relatively little power in getting legislations he favors through the Congress because there are checks and balances inherent in the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as in the Judiciary – the Supreme Court, which precludes him getting his way. However, in matters of war, the Constitution has named the president Commander-in-Chief, giving whoever holds this position the right to make and put into effect decisions like when and how to go to war. So when President Bush announced that more soldiers would be going to Iraq, it was his right as Commander-in-Chief.

We have come full circle, once again, to the start of a new year – symbolic with new beginnings and resolutions. But let’s forget about the resolutions, they never last anyhow. Instead we should set realistic goals, based on upon our most fervent hopes. Like we wrote in our year-end editorial, what we really have left after Christmas and the old year passes is hope. As a people we have much to hope for, and to borrow words from the title of Senator Barack Obama’s book, we all should have the audacity, the boldness, to hope and be persistent in seeing these hopes realized for our selves, communities, state, nation, Caribbean home-lands, and internationally this year.

Among the many things that we have the audacity to hope for, these are the most important:

Internationally:  Hope, that the rest of the world will make a collective effort to solve the awful atrocities that continues to take place in Darfur, Sudan and other places in Africa. For too long, lip service has been given to Africa’s problems. We have sat back and looked on, as thousands of African lives have been lost in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Congo, Rawanda, Liberia, Somalia, and now Darfur. In our opinion Africa is in greater need of international attention than the Middle East where there is constant international focus. Granted that the resources of oil is relatively low in Africa, but alternately the human resources is much more important. So why is the rest of the world allowing it to bleed away. We must persist diligently for a solution to the problems of Africa in general, and Darfur in particular.