Montana Maven On Why We Fight

Caption: Rosa Parks, someone who mattered.

Image credit: Ebony Magazine/Wikimedia

Quote of the day from Montana Maven, regarding health care reform:

Looking backwards, change does seem slow for the cause of justice. But if Mother Jones or Eugene Debs or Sojourner Truth or Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King or Dr. Margaret Flowers had only looked backward and minded their “Ps” and “Qs” and waited for the promised land, women would still be wearing corsets and African Americans would still be at the back of the bus. Somebody should have told Jesus to sit down and shut up. “You know Rome wasn’t built in a day and it will eventually fall. So go eat some figs. You know we can’t get rid of these guys. We don’t have the 60 votes.”

No, without people who are impatient for change and who see justice as their sole guiding light who cannot sit down and shut up, there is no justice. These people cannot “circle the wagons” or “get in line” or all those other weasel phrases that are the bleats of a patriarchal sociopathic system that is in its death throes. Management speak, weasel words and cliches are like the bleats of the dumbass dinosaurs as they sink into the tar pits. Close your ears to them and fly high.

Throwing The Game

How much more needs to be said? Human progress never happens because people are willing to settle for what they have. It's a result of the people who aren't satisfied, the ones who want something better. That's true whether we're talking about science, technology, or human rights.

I added those links, by the way. Each leads to a biography on a website that either was inspired by the examples of that person, or a site that tries to inspire others based on that person's example. The link for Dr. Margaret Flowers leads to an interview she did with Ed Shultz, shortly after she was arrested for "disrupting" a Senate round table discussion on health care that didn't include any patient advocates. What those links should show is that these are people who mattered. The clowns who tell you to be happy where you are won't matter, at least, not in a way that will inspire anyone.

The next time someone says you should be happy with the slow rate of change, and be thankful for what you have, tell them that maybe if they feel that way, why don't they just be happy with what they were born with, and give the rest to us. If you want a multimedia exhibit for the phrase "pathetic rationalization", record the response.