38

Well, I’m 38… had to count it up this morning.  1968.  I look at the TV, and the picture’s just better.  The topic is the same.  Mass protests in the streets, emptying cities into the streets to protest.  I heard on that TV that they were all illegal aliens.  Sorry, you don’t fill the streets of over 100 cities and towns with illegals.  Citizens are genuinely angered by our policies toward immigrants.  The same talking head complained that the rage of the far left had spread into the middle.  That anger is spreading because there are good reasons for it to spread.  It’s not just the tree-huggers that are mad now.  The introverted liberal is starting to talk with friends, write on a blog.  These small reverberations are swelling out of every city.  Well, 100 of them, at least.
We’re seeing a social movement in its infancy.  This is the same kind of outrage that led to Ghandi’s independence movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil rights movement.  Of course, these two men do not encompass the totality of their causes.  They are iconic leaders that embody the best notions of peace and justice.  Without a leader, or a group of leaders, the immigration reform movement may wither under the many competing strategies.  I hope that a peaceful movement grows out of these demonstrations.  The most successful vehicles for social change have always been peaceful.  It’s the nature of our society.  We’re hungry for peace, fearful of change, and not nearly as bad as you might think we are.