belief, attitude and the way you carry and present yourself count for more than anything else in my mind.  Those who believe themselves to be of an underprivileged class tend to find themselves treated as such.  Those who believe they are equal to anyone tend to find themselves treated as such.  Make of this what you will.

Americans are entitled to their civil rights in the United States. The most important of these rights are in the amendments to our Constitution. The first ten of these amendments were required to simply get the Constitution passed.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The right to peacably assemble, the right of free speech and the right to petition for redress of grievances shall not be abridged.

In practice our civil rights have always been a battleground in America. On the battleground of civil rights the forces of entrenched power and privilege are represented by riot police and the forces of social justice carry satyagraha, soul force per Gandhi and MLK Jr.

Worth reviewing thinking about today and everyday:

  In 1857 Frederick Douglass said:

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. 

The lunch counter in Greensboro.

Local students demonstrate at the Capitol.

Law enforcement just doing their jobs, trying to enforce the segregation laws in effect. But the crowds had no respect for the law.

Here is a picture of the integration of the school system in Little Rock:

So many folks to my right want to claim they understand and support social justice and want to decry its current practitioners. I suspect in 1957 the folks around Olympia who are angry at the Port demonstrators have much in common with the gentile example of southern feminity on display in the picture above. My guess is that woman, if she is asked today, would claim to be in support of lunch counter integration, school integration, and civil rights.

That doesn't make her enlightened, it makes her late.

Today, I give thanks for the people who will break unjust laws to serve peace and social justice. I give thanks for people who will risk arrest, beatings, the vocal threats that are part of a long movement for justice.

There is a meme out in the "vast right wing conspiracy" that you will see play out here on Olyblog on a regular basis. The gist of this meme is to demean any current movements toward peace and social justice by praising earlier movements and trying to separate these earlier "noble" efforts from current day work for peace and social justice.

I have seen this play out here recently in terms of trying to separate the lunch counter demonstrators of Memphis back in the early 60s from the peace port demonstrators here in Olympia. I have seen this right wing meme play out with great respect and affection claimed for tank man of Tiananman Square with a simultaneous attempt to create distance between this man in China who went into the street to disrupt military traffic and my friends and neighbors who went into the street here over the past month with the exact same goal.

Here is another picture from the peace and social justice work that led up to tank man facing down a line of tanks:

The struggle at Tiananman Square was direct action, complete disruption. The Army was blockaded on many main thoroughfares as the military was sent to "restore order."