Back to the future?

When did 2013 become 1950 all over again?

In history class, when I was in high school back in the very early 1990’s, we studied the civil rights movement and learned about all the progress the country had made since the likes of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and so on and so forth.

In the year 2008 we elected the first black man to the Presidency of the United States.  Amazing! All that progress, all that forward motion towards a nation of greater equality, and I know I was not alone in hoping maybe we’d have greater prosperity as a result of that.  The dawning of an actual, factual new age!

Here we are, five years later, and I am continually being stunned and amazed by the news.  Women, granted voting suffrage in the USA in 1920, are having to fight for their rights to control their own bodies. They are being denied their basic rights in the name of…well, I can’t rightfully figure out in who’s or what’s name these things are being done for.  In addition to that, homosexuals, transgendered and other non-heterosexuals are fighting for the right to show their affection for one another and marry – and, oh yeah, maybe ALSO get all the financial benefit enjoyed by those who are hetero.  And on top of all of these things, it would appear that certain protections put in place to allow minorities easy access to voting are “unconstitutional”, and multiple legal issues are showing that racism is FAR from dead in this nation.

Are you as outraged as I am that after all these decades of supposed “progress”, we appear to be heading RIGHT BACK into the 1950’s?  We are going back to white elitists denying the vote to those they fear will take them out of power, we are going back to women being second class citizens, and we are seeing black people feeling as if they have to take ludicrous precautions to avoid being shot solely based on the color of their skin.

The travesty of these things are striking on multiple levels.  That they are even taking place in this day and age is inexcusable.  How on earth did these backwards thinking, unthinking people come to power and gain the ability to undo a half century of forward progress?  Why is the press not doing any research anymore, and only working as a propaganda machine for their corporate parents and political interests?  What happened to fact checking, investigative reporting, and unbiased content?

Why have we let the partisan and paranoid continue to feed on fears?  Why are we not standing up and trying to reclaim the progress of the past 50 years towards greater equality for ALL?

We are spied upon by our own government in the name of “protection from terrorism.”  We keep re-electing the same leeches over and over again to suck up to the wealthy and powerful and their agendas, rather than being of and by US, the people.  We complain and make noise and bitch about how awful this or that is, but we do not do anything substantive about it.

Why not?  Because it will not be easy.  Because we have been lulled by decades of “status quo” into thinking we can coast along without change.  Because we are ALL struggling to balance our barely-sufficient jobs with our family and social lives.  Because we fear that if we DO try to move against the government, the police-state we are so afraid of becoming WILL silence us.  Because most of us are really on the peripheral of ALL of these awful things, and believe that we will continue to be unaffected by them.  I am sure there are many more reasons and excuses than these, both more and less valid.

We cannot remain still, we have to continue to move forward!  We cannot keep letting the paranoid, partisan and phobic continue to dictate the discourse of our nation.  We must end the control of special interests and their money on our politicians.  We need to remind these people whom they work for, and that WE THE PEOPLE deserve proper representation.  We need to rekindle the civil rights movement, and expand it to cover ALL Americans, no matter race, creed, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or what-have-you.

This is 2013.  We are well into the 21^st century, and we need to continue FORWARD.  We cannot and should not go back to the past.  We need to stop denying rights to ANYONE, we need to get our nation back on track to being progressive and commendable.

Everyone is welcome to their own opinions, we are a nation of free speech and civil liberties and freedoms, but those are meant for EVERYONE.  We have to stop the denial of those rights based on personal morality.  Men cannot continue to deny women their rights, heterosexuals cannot continue to deny homosexual rights, whites cannot continue to deny blacks their rights, etc etc.  We must continue the forward progress of equality for ALL.

This nation has long called itself a beacon of justice, of hope, of progress in the modern world.  We need to live up to that now more than ever.  Let’s each do our part and make it the reality once again.  Let us celebrate our unity, not our divisions.  If we cannot get those in power to work for us, we need to replace them.  We need to stop patronizing those who use their money and power to corrupt and influence the process.

We need to remember and take action in any way we can, not to divide and conquer, but to unite and inspire.  Let us work together to end the false divisions of our nation, and reunite for the greater good.  Only if we strive towards progress together can we show those in power they need to change accordingly…or get out of the way.

Think about it.  Then, working together, let us find ways to act upon it.