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In reply to the discussion: Facetime [View all]freshwest
(53,661 posts)You expressed this with the clarity and wisdom that comes from a life well-lived. This is a true editorial on our 44th president. I will be reading your words along with these, which I sometimes need to feel peace in the midst of challenging circumstances. Thank you so much. Your words show the optimism of Howard Zinn when he said:
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.
If we remember those times and placesand there are so manywhere people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we dont have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. ~ Howard Zinn