1000th Post - Things Are Getting Better. Really.

Okay, it's actually my 1005th post, or something like that. And it's long, so thanks for your indulgence.

A brief review of where we've been:

300 Years Ago: War is rampant in the world. We didn't call them World Wars back then because it took a long ass time to get around the world. Chariots were about the fastest armored personnel carriers of the day, and they were slow and if the horses died, your chariot became a really heavy paper-weight. Human life meant nothing. 99.5% of the world was miserable and the other .5%, consisting of nobles and very wealthy merchants were only slightly less miserable. Medicine was a joke. The major religions dominated all facets of daily life. A fair trial was almost unheard of. Punishment for criminals was brutal. Social programs were almost non-existent.

150 Years Ago: If you lived in the US and weren't a white male, you weren't shit. Slavery ruled the day and most everyone thought that was pretty okay. Women were second class citizens at best and afforded nearly no rights. Not only was inequality the rule of the day, those who thought inequality was a bad thing were looked down upon. Criminal justice was still a joke and religion still held huge sway over the population.

75 Years Ago: We'd managed to get rid of slavery as an official institution but there is still massive segregation in the US. We had finally granted women the right to vote, although a lot of people still thought it was a bad idea. Equality was still nearly unheard of. Still, there was something going on back in the roaring 20's that seemed to spark a movement in the US toward modern progressive thinking.

50 Years Ago: A woman's place is in the kitchen, or knocked up and pregnant. While World War II has taught us that women can do the same work as a man, it's taking us a long time to embrace this fact. Getting an abortion can make you an outcast. Getting involved in a relationship with a person outside your race is still widely villified...and don't even get us started on them there queers.

25 Years Ago: Women have come a long way. Still a long way to go to achieve true equality but women are a growing force in offices and other traditional male areas of work. Racism has begun to lose its grip in most places, especially communities that have been integrated for awhile. Most people don't think it's okay to be a bigot anymore. Many of us don't think war is such a good idea anymore. Still okay to do a little fag bashing though.

10 Years Ago: Progressive agendas continue to advance. Homosexuality is no longer seen by most as some sort of disease. Women slowly but surely closing the salary gap. Racism in the US at an all time low.

The point of this post is that we, as progressives or democrats or liberals or whatever you choose to call yourself, are winning. Its inevitable...because we're right. Yeah, it's been a tough several years under Bush but overall, things are getting better. Really. Like any challenge (and advancing the democratic agenda is a challenge, because people embrace change slowly and only grudgingly), for every two steps we take forward, we take one back as well. The Bush years are a step back, but we'll have a new, shiny Democrat in the white house soon and we'll be able to start taking those slow, hard steps forward again. Sometimes you have to take a step back from the headlines and look at where we've come from.

Progress *IS* human evolution. Next time some idiot fundie tells you they don't believe in evolution because they've never seen an ape turn into a human, point out that humans are constantly evolving! We may not grow a third arm or an extra boob (pity, that) but our thinking evolves all the time and it evolves because forward thinking people like you are pushing the evolution. I'm sure progressives 50 years from now will look back on us and go "man, what where those people thinking? Who cares if gays and lesbians get married? Why was this even a big deal?"

So remember, that despite this administration and a host of other problems going on in the world, progressive thinking is, however slowly, winning. Change at a country-wide level happens very slowly. Change occurs when people are forced to admit that their old was of thinking was wrong. Humans, as a whole, don't like to be wrong, so it's hard, but it's happening. I was born in the 70s, child of the 80s, teen and young adult of the 90s. I remember in the 80s, you could tell a nigger joke or a fag joke at my school and people would laugh. You couldn't do that at my high school in the 90s, even if you were alone with your race/gender group because it wasn't funny for most of us anymore and because there were progressives even in my teens standing up and saying "that's not funny, that's not right!" and the beautiful thing was...it was catching. Once one person figured it out and stood up, so did a few more, and a few more after that, and then a lot more, then practically everyone.

Each time you stand up for a Democratic/Progressive value, you make someone else think and maybe you win them over...and they spread the message.

We have a long way to go, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Things are getting better. Really.

Keep ya head up!