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Showing posts with the label Rosa parks

Incrementalism

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One of the most frustrating things about being a Liberal is patience.  We are so desperate in our conviction to our beliefs that we want the world to shift over night.  We want peace, justice, compassion and civility to arrive like a torrential rain cleansing society of injustice and malaise.  We are filled with hope yet the very hope we cling to lays the ultimate seeds for much of our eventual frustration and dismay.   When we elect a candidate based on a message of hope and change we tend to envision it as if we are buying a product.  We simply have to take it home, open it up and we can sample the fruits of our labor and our money.  We hope it will be deliciously sweet, filled with all the promises that were made.  Often however, as the metaphor would come to suggest the flavor is much more complex. Little in America changes quickly. We always like to think it will yet we live in a system that for better or for worse does not allow this.  It can be frustrating at times as we se

Confederate Day

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Today as I look out from my window from the 12th floor of a federal building I stare over the top of a picture I hung on my desk as an inspiration.  It is a picture taken not long ago of President Obama sitting in the seat that Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks once occupied on a bus in Alabama when she refused to leave and move to the back of the bus.  He is looking out the window almost as if someone might request the same of him.  It is a sad reminder of a time not long ago when people were not equal in this country.  Yet step by step we move forward yet it is a constant struggle.  It is a lot like a crying child reaching for a candy bar in a grocery store, eventually they will be pulled along and assume a proper course.  It might hurt and embarrass the child's mother in the process but she knows what has to be done and eventually the screaming child will learn as well. Yesterday our President took such a step in acknowledging that LGBT people have a right to join in marriage just