Friday, October 11, 2013

Fighting the same battles

Someone recently told me, "We keep fighting the same battles. Who has power changes. When it's strategic to act changes. Who's on our side changes. But it's still the same battles."

And it's true.

It sounds kind of depressing, but it doesn't have to be.  Optimists would say that the "arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

And that sounds plausible, though I guess you'd have to ask a historian.

But I also think of my late cousin Richard. A labor organizer who got his start (I believe) organizing with the United Farm Workers, he used to joke that over the course of his illustrious career unions went from their strongest point in history to their weakest.

And while there are many things in the world today that are better than they were, there are also many things that aren't so good and have even gotten worse in recent years.

I often think of life as a sine wave - sometimes good and sometimes bad.

But maybe the sine wave does...bend towards justice.

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