bingle

Do you disagree, then, that things like civil rights, worker's rights and women's rights were progressive vs. conservative issues? It's easy to look at the flow of history and see the modification of ideas into their present form. That's not to say that today's conservatives are pro-slavery, but you can look and see the pro-slavery values changing to anti-civil-rights values changing into today's anti-affirmative-action values. A lot of the people on either side of the civil rights issue are still around, and it's hard to pretend that that attitude has vanished entirely from the conservative viewpoint. Mostly it's just a changing of where the lines are drawn.

The same with worker's rights - in the 20s it was "reds" and "socialists" campaigning for worker's rights, and today we enjoy weekends, OSHA, and 40-hour weeks. However, we're still fighting for universal health care and a living minimum wage - and it's the same groups on either side of the fight.

Earlier it was anti-contraceptive people against the early planned parenthood-type places, now it's anti-abortionists - but the sides haven't changed, just the piece of the issue we're looking at.

In the 60s it was anti-Vietnam, now it's anti-Iraq, but it's the same groups going at it.

In fact, this constant progress is the only thing that keeps me as a progressive from sobbing in frustration sometimes - I know it has to change. The other night I watched "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" and thought about how the issue now isn't interracial marriage but gay marriage - and I hoped that the worries over gay marriage would look as quaint to the next generation as the worries over interracial marriage looked to me.

Bingle