05-26-2022, 05:42 AM
(05-26-2022, 02:33 AM)Velasco Wrote: Nothing short of violent revolution against the capitalist class can save it. There will be a period of even more acute suffering, but it won't be forever..."The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" - Gil Scott Heron, 1971
Worth another listen, but 51 years on, and 84 years since Hughes' poem, the incremental changes can be tedious. MLK borrowed the phrase "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," and wrote and spoke of it in 1958/1964.
The bend toward justice may be agonizingly slow, but non-violence is still the correct path forward. That, and generations being brought up to respect each other, especially those who may not look like you. How many generations? As many as it takes. I have no realistic expectation that the necessary changes will occur in my lifetime, yet I can see that slow bend toward justice in the hearts of my son, and many nieces, and nephews, and even their children.
That said, with the number of guns in America, any violent revolution will end very, very badly. We can't shoot our way out of the problems we've created.
Velasco, my friend, most of the people in my very diverse community treat each other with respect, and I far prefer living within that diversity, than sealing myself within some ethno-cultural bubble, or lashing out at those who seek inclusion. I feel sorry for folks who must live in areas where all of their neighbors may look and think the same as they do.
I may be hopelessly optimistic to think that we are bending that arc toward justice, but I will never resort to violence to force that change. Yet, I will gather, and raise my voice in protest along with the millions, and millions of my bothers and sisters who have grown weary of the bullshit that tries to drive wedges to break us apart.