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Never put out of your mind the warning that the "Mad-Eye Moody" character told Harry Potter's Defense Against the Dark Arts class - "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!"
If we had remained vigilant after our side made a few inroads, instead of rolling over and going back to sleep on the assumption that the problems had been solved (whether it was getting rid of Nixon or advancing women's rights or civil rights or getting out of Vietnam), the bad guys would not have been able to gain the ground they have. Because we'd have been watching and we'd have been vigilant, and we would have seen them coming. As is, they've had 40 years to regroup and work behind the scenes and under the radar and in the shadows where they knew we weren't looking (and they knew we weren't paying close attention anymore and our eyes were OFF THE BALL - because we all assumed we'd fixed what was broken and addressed what had been overlooked, and had taken care of things). We let our guard down because we thought the coast was clear again. Well it WASN'T!!! The jackals just slunk back a few yards and waited for opportunitites to strike. And they have. And they've WAY outstripped us and left us with miles and miles of lost ground to have to fight for, anew, and win back.
Moral of the story: we can NEVER let down our guard, even if we think we've won, or even if we think we've set the bad guys back "permanently". They won't see it that way, and they won't cry "Uncle!" and they won't give an inch. And they sure won't give up and go away and concede the point or the issue to us.
The sooner we fully understand that, and the more vigilant we keep ourselves, the better equipped we'll be to put out the small fire before it mushrooms out of control and burns up hundreds of thousands of acres. Which is what has happened, culturally and socially and politically and scholastically in this country.
We let down our guard and now we have all kinds of battles to fight all over again. Just consider the single example of a woman's right to choose, and how those schmucks never stopped trying to whittle it away, micron by micron. It took them decades, but look where they are now - poised to throw that hard-won right directly into the garbage disposal. Most of us figured it was a done deal and not anything to worry about anymore because we'd solved the problem, and our daughters and younger sisters grew up thinking there wasn't any further problem because this had just been dealt with already and they didn't have to be concerned. I've seen this in my daughter's friends - who are now just starting to wake up and realize that the right we elders marched and protested and petitioned and struggled and suffered for so long to win - is now on the verge of being snatched away - FROM THEM.
We can NEVER afford to get complacent, AGAIN. So much of what we've worked for is opposed by increasingly emboldened 13th-century thinkers who've gained ground on us and sure won't be resting on THEIR laurels. Why we ever did, I don't know...
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