If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress

DRE

Well-known member
"The general sentiment of mankind is that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just. For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, or put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others. Such a man, the world says, may lie down until he has sense enough to stand up. It is useless and cruel to put a man on his legs, if the next moment his head is to be brought against a curbstone.

A man of that type will never lay the world under any obligation to him, but will be a moral pauper, a drag on the wheels of society, and if he too be identified with a peculiar variety of the race he will entail disgrace upon his race as well as upon himself. The world in which we live is very accommodating to all sorts of people. It will cooperate with them in any measure which they propose; it will help those who earnestly help themselves, and will hinder those who hinder themselves. It is very polite, and never offers its services unasked. Its favors to individuals are measured by an unerring principle in this—viz., respect those who respect themselves, and despise those who despise themselves. It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights. The poet was as true to common sense as to poetry when he said,

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.

When O’Connell, with all Ireland at his back, was supposed to be contending for the just rights and liberties of Ireland, the sympathies of mankind were with him, and even his enemies were compelled to respect his patriotism. Kossuth, fighting for Hungary with his pen long after she had fallen by the sword, commanded the sympathy and support of the liberal world till his own hopes died out. The Turks, while they fought bravely for themselves and scourged and drove back the invading legions of Russia, shared the admiration of mankind. They were standing up for their own rights against an arrogant and powerful enemy; but as soon as they let out their fighting to the Allies, admiration gave way to contempt. These are not the maxims and teachings of a coldhearted world. Christianity itself teaches that man shall provide for his own house. This covers the whole ground of nations as well as individuals. Nations no more than individuals can innocently be improvident. They should provide for all wants—mental, moral and religious—and against all evils to which they are liable as nations. In the great struggle now progressing for the freedom and elevation of our people, we should be found at work with all our might, resolved that no man or set of men shall be more abundant in labors, according to the measure of our ability, than ourselves....."

You can read the rest here. This is a speech that was given by Frederick Douglas in New York. There's 4 days left in Black History Month. There's a struggle going on everywhere so I thought it appropriate to post this here.

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. - From wikipedia.
 
It's a shame that, in many ways, the Irish have not yet - after hundreds of years - really thrown off the bonds of their oppressors (the brits)......

In the USA we have a black Prez, but I doubt the UK will have a catholic from Belfast as a PM anytime soon....or a king or queen for that matter....

Of course, I admit to being pretty clueless about the politics over there- except the woman who raised me lives there (Belfast) and virtually every male member of her family were locked up in jail at one time (for nothing)....

Very boring book to go through in total, but All on Fire:
http://www.amazon.com/All-Fire-William-Garrison-Abolition/dp/0393332365

is the story of perhaps the greatest abolitionist in US History. Yet, as the review on Amazon mentions, he is pretty much written out of history! I never heard of him until I found the book in the used college bookstore.

This stuff is all very complicated.......tens of millions of Americans honestly still view the southern side of the civil war as a noble and respectable effort.
 
It's a shame that, in many ways, the Irish have not yet - after hundreds of years - really thrown off the bonds of their oppressors (the brits)......

In the USA we have a black Prez, but I doubt the UK will have a catholic from Belfast as a PM anytime soon....or a king or queen for that matter....

Of course, I admit to being pretty clueless about the politics over there- except the woman who raised me lives there (Belfast) and virtually every male member of her family were locked up in jail at one time (for nothing)....

Very boring book to go through in total, but All on Fire:
http://www.amazon.com/All-Fire-William-Garrison-Abolition/dp/0393332365

is the story of perhaps the greatest abolitionist in US History. Yet, as the review on Amazon mentions, he is pretty much written out of history! I never heard of him until I found the book in the used college bookstore.

This stuff is all very complicated.......tens of millions of Americans honestly still view the southern side of the civil war as a noble and respectable effort.
Wow I've never heard of this guy and he has done so much for the abolition of slavery in America.

It's like they just buried him in history... Dude deserves to be more well-known.
 
Wow I've never heard of this guy and he has done so much for the abolition of slavery in America.

It's like they just buried him in history... Dude deserves to be more well-known.
There's so many of these stories from American history, that it's no wonder many don't reach the general populace. If you think about it, quite a few stories about the fight against slavery in American were only ever made general knowledge because someone decided to make a movie about it. Not even my wife knew who Medgar Evers was until we watched the movie about his exoneration.
 
Great scene in that book where even the "liberal" citizens of Boston thought he went too far (he was relentless) and a mob attacked him...would definitely have done him in! He somehow escaped barely through a window - but it was 2,000+ people chasing him!

Point of the whole thing is - there was a lot of leg work done from day one up until emancipation. It didn't just happen.....

What never ceases to amaze me is the rewriting of history we still hear "The Civil war was really about the industrial north vs. the agricultural south". Makes absolutely no sense since there have been vast ag societies without slave labor and vast industrial societies WITH slave or forced labor.......

My current hometown area (Northampton area in MA.) is quite steeped in abolition and civil rights, and we have a large statue of Sojourner Truth, a local resident, in town (Florence). There were actual communes where folks lived their philosophy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth#.22The_Truth_Calls_Me.22

Looks like she ties in with Garrison too:
"In 1847, she went to work as a housekeeper for George Benson, the brother-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison. In 1849, she visited John Dumont before he moved west.[5]
Truth started dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert, and in 1850 William Lloyd Garrison privately published her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave.[6] That same year, she purchased a home in Northampton for $300, and spoke at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts."

Damn, you could fill libraries with this stuff. There's a good new internet site for ya, 8!
 
There's so many of these stories from American history, that it's no wonder many don't reach the general populace.

It was actually against the law for even a pamphlet from the north to be posted to the south....which had ANYTHING to do with civil rights or the rights of man! So much of the country and history was kept in the dark. This has continued up until the present day in an "under the table" fashion. The Texas school book commission is famous for their "conservative" take on things and regularly writes folks out of history books. Texas pretty much sets the standards in history books - I think this is historically due to a large population. That is, they bought the most books, so set the standards!

Hopefully, the tablets and the internet will change this stuff.

In my primary school, we got a fairly watered down version of the whole thing. We may have done a bit of study on the really famous dudes like George Washington Carver, but the true evils were not impressed onto us.

This may elicit some chuckles, but I think the original TV Series "roots" as well as Amistad and others did more to teach the general public about reality than school did.

It's hard to imagine that a candidate for President of the US, Michele Bachmann, actually believes and says things like:
"Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith."
 
There's so many of these stories from American history, that it's no wonder many don't reach the general populace. If you think about it, quite a few stories about the fight against slavery in American were only ever made general knowledge because someone decided to make a movie about it. Not even my wife knew who Medgar Evers was until we watched the movie about his exoneration.
I voted for Gary Johnson last election cause I've realized America's problem is the establishment. I feel like Obama is part of it and has actually not done for equality or even for our basic freedoms. There's too much federal government dictating what's right or wrong instead of leaving it up to the people.
 
It was actually against the law for even a pamphlet from the north to be posted to the south....which had ANYTHING to do with civil rights or the rights of man! So much of the country and history was kept in the dark. This has continued up until the present day in an "under the table" fashion. The Texas school book commission is famous for their "conservative" take on things and regularly writes folks out of history books. Texas pretty much sets the standards in history books - I think this is historically due to a large population. That is, they bought the most books, so set the standards!

Hopefully, the tablets and the internet will change this stuff.

In my primary school, we got a fairly watered down version of the whole thing. We may have done a bit of study on the really famous dudes like George Washington Carver, but the true evils were not impressed onto us.

This may elicit some chuckles, but I think the original TV Series "roots" as well as Amistad and others did more to teach the general public about reality than school did.

It's hard to imagine that a candidate for President of the US, Michele Bachmann, actually believes and says things like:
"Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith."
wtf.......WTF! What a foolish woman!

You know that reminds me of this lady here too.

"For those of you who don’t know, Margaret Sanger is the celebrated “birth control activist, sex educator, and nurse. She coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood.”

What is often not publicized is that she was also extremely racist.

“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea ifit ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” — Margaret Sanger’s December 19, 1939

Margaret Sanger Quotes PDF
 
I voted for Gary Johnson last election cause I've realized America's problem is the establishment. I feel like Obama is part of it and has actually not done for equality or even for our basic freedoms. There's too much federal government dictating what's right or wrong instead of leaving it up to the people.

Be careful what you wish for....leaving it to "the people" is a lot of what started the problem!

I take a different view - that the large cruise ship (this country) moves and turns very slowly, and that any President is locked into incremental change for a number of reasons. Presidents do not rule by decree (in general).

Measured in the rear view mirror of history, Obama is going to look quite good. When he first was elected, I guessed he'd rank in the top 1/3 of Presidents. Now I think he's headed to the top 1/4.

It seems to me that ALL of the following actions, some very major, are pro-equality:

1. Covering almost 100% of the people with some health care access
2. Gays in the service, women in combat, etc. etc.
3. Equal pay for women - pushing now for higher min. wages
4. Always pushing to keep taxes low for lower incomes
5. Pre-school FREE - as he is now pushing....

And much more. Yeah, I understand the pull of libertarianism...but we just ain't there yet, and may never be.
 
Speaking of foolish women lol

PHOENIX — An Arizona woman, in despair at the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama, ran down her husband with the family car in suburban Phoenix on Saturday because he failed to vote in the election, police said on Monday.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/1...cause-he-failed-to-vote-and-let-obama-to-win/

holly-solomon.jpg

Holly Solomon, 28, was arrested after running over husband Daniel Solomon following a wild chase that left him pinned underneath the vehicle.
 
Be careful what you wish for....leaving it to "the people" is a lot of what started the problem!

I take a different view - that the large cruise ship (this country) moves and turns very slowly, and that any President is locked into incremental change for a number of reasons. Presidents do not rule by decree (in general).

Measured in the rear view mirror of history, Obama is going to look quite good. When he first was elected, I guessed he'd rank in the top 1/3 of Presidents. Now I think he's headed to the top 1/4.

It seems to me that ALL of the following actions, some very major, are pro-equality:

1. Covering almost 100% of the people with some health care access
2. Gays in the service, women in combat, etc. etc.
3. Equal pay for women - pushing now for higher min. wages
4. Always pushing to keep taxes low for lower incomes
5. Pre-school FREE - as he is now pushing....

And much more. Yeah, I understand the pull of libertarianism...but we just ain't there yet, and may never be.
Okay I'mma be honest with ya man. I don't care about over half the stuff on that 1 through 5 list.

I'm talking bout Obama's lame stance on the internet and copyright infringement. Letting Hollywood and the music industry sue innocent people by baiting them with accusations of copyright infringement and them not being able to afford the litigation. Stuff like that and crap like SOPA that almost passed and now him possibly looking at videogames as an excuse for the nation's violence when it's really just down to bad gun control. Japan has more violent and perverted videogames and they don't have crazy school shootings like we do..
 
Ah, that's detail stuff! When you go bankrupt or die because you never got medical treatment, the tunes and internet become a bit less important!

Obama probably doesn't even know what to think on the internet and copyrights. The entire system of IP is somewhat screwed up now (I'm an inventor with patents, trademarks, etc.) and it may be decades before we can straighten that mess out!

I'm sure he does lots of things wrong. I always look at it simply as "Could I do a better job or do I seriously know anyone else who could?". With GW, I could honestly say that I and MANY people I know could have done better.....and that's a sad commentary on a dude we elect Prez.
;)
 
This may elicit some chuckles, but I think the original TV Series "roots" as well as Amistad and others did more to teach the general public about reality than school did.
No, that's absolutely true. People may knock the entertainment industry's portrayal and accuracy of historical events, even when they're fictional characters in historical settings, but done right, and it can bring history to people's attention when they might have otherwise never known about it. Not to say that there isn't justification for criticism, but I think we underestimate how powerful a tool that can be.

Case in point, whatever you think of CSI and their spin-offs, training programs saw a major increase in applicants as a result of the show's popularity. That's a good thing, even if grandma thinks every police station looks like the Starship Enterprise. So even though I cringe, just a hair, when I see a new civil rights experience adapted to a movie or teleplay (do they still call them teleplays?), because I know creative license will change details and possibly even merge characters into one person, I'm proportionally happier to see the story hitting the mainstream. Because I know people interested in the subject will do the same thing I do when I see a "based on/inspired by a true story". Go check Wikipedia and it's sources.
 
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