Let's not give up on our fellow 'mericans

Shall we give up on our fellow 'mericans?

After all, they elected Reagan (and also Nixon) twice, and although we cannot accuse them of electing Chimpy, approximately half support the Cheney Administration. What if Kurt Vonnegut is right when he asserts “I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable”.

But surely the twentieth century, which all of us are time travelers from, gives us examples of surprising changes. When I was a child Negroes (as we called them) were prevented from living within the city limits of the town where I went to high school - while racism persists, things are substantially different now. Germany's role in world politics and relationship to the Jewish people has been transformed since World War II. I supposed that the apartheid regime in South Africa would end in a bloodbath - surprisingly, no.

There's a Hasidic saying, "no person is so bright that they don't have one speck of darkness, nor so dark that they don't have one spark of light". Krishna tells us in the Gita that divine and demonic tendencies are mixed in human nature. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream - that dream being that America would live up to its dream. As Paul McCartney put it, "there is still a chance that they may see" - not all of them, of course, but maybe enough to make a significant difference.