Barack Obama as proof that the United States has made progress toward...

[Pandafan10]

...Abraham Lincoln’s goal? In the Gettysburg Address , Abraham Lincoln tied the nation’s birth to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. From November, 1863, up to the present the United States has struggled to realize those ideals. Progress toward them was uneven, and at times the nation regressed. Yet many point to the election of Barack Obama as proof that the United States has made progress toward Lincoln’s goal.

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

 

[john]

The Revolution lives on in the hearts and minds of the people of the USA.

I've watched the USA from this side of the pond (UK) grow into a mature and advanced democracy which includes all of the people all of the time.

The new or second wave of the Revolution started in the 1950s and rolled on into the present era when Black Americans (now usually called African-Americans) rose up and with the Constitution at their head, began the force for change.

I'm not sure of the year, but when I was a young man (teen) the now world famous American Heroine Rosa Parks USA, drew attention to the plight of Black folks in America,
http://www.yellowcakewalk.net/2007-03-31/Rosaparks.jpg

Here in UK we have never ever had segregation of any kind and knew nothing about it until WW2 when White American forces stationed here began demanding it. Winston Churchill was absolutely furious and called the American military to order - by Royal Command - no segregation here in UK. I cannot emphasise that too much.

The American people have shown the world the way forward. I cannot express to you just how important it is.

The Battle Standard of Liberty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm_imE1a37Q


CHANGE
In truth, change comes over time. In my youth, here in UK, there was a great deal of open racism not just directed against Blacks, who were few in number, but against the Irish and other non-UK citizens etc.

What happens in reality is that the people of the past grow old and die and the new generation takes up the torch of freedom and races forward holding it aloft on high.

I have noticed this in my life time (b1941 London UK). People are many times more tolerant now than they were. When I was a child UK was governed by Victorians and Edwardian - these were people of the previous (19thC) who had hard ideas of how things should be based upon their rule of the then British Empire. This all went rapidly starting in the early 1950s and by the early 1960s it was no more (or very little of it left).

It's easy to forget that Winston Churchill was a Victorian who was already of near pensionable age when he became Prime Minister in c1940 WW2. When he died in c1963 an entire era died with him and we then became of the 20thC but we had a long way to go.

America is the torch bearer for Freedom - never forget that. The nearest equivalent in the EU is France and the two revolutions are connected by one man, LaFayette. But that's another story.

QUAKER