MLK’s intertwined trio – racism, materialism, and militarism – are alive and well in the 21st century U.S. of Empire. During the mid-20th century, the civil rights movement relied on the federal government to ultimately do the right thing to protect civil and voting rights through federal laws. But what of the 21st century? People of color in the United States have been systematically denied their voting rights by new federal laws that have turned over our electoral system to proprietary for-profit corporate interests. People of color are being incarcerated in record numbers. People of color are being systematically targeted by over-exuberant law enforcement policies, officers who are being more and more heavily armed by Pentagon hardware. We could go and on. One wonders if MLK, if he were alive today, might have advocated for a more decentralized approach to a more compassionate world. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” and we would argue, decentralization. Free Vermont, and long live the UNtied States.