Check in if you're a white person who thinks Zimmerman should have been convicted of something....

[calimary]

349. This angry white female looks forward to him STAYING the most hated man in America.

For a LONG time.

O.J. Simpson never got free of it. Yes. Time has passed. And people forget. And they don't care anymore. And it doesn't register on a lot of them anymore. But there's still plenty of people who won't forget - and refuse to. It's almost like keeping a vigil. In a VERY small way (and I don't in ANY way mean to minimize the trauma and pain here) it's almost like the Jewish community with its "Never Forget" view of the Holocaust. If you forget, it ceases to exist. It fades away and loses its impact, importance, and relevance. And a lesson like that MUST NEVER EVER EVER be forgotten, or allowed to fade from public consciousness or become diluted into "meh, it wasn't all THAT bad..." Because if you forget a wound as grievous as the Holocaust, it will be that much easier for conditions to build back up toward allowing it to happen again.

Take a lesson from what's happening now, politically. We ARE, in actuality, seeing this play out with the CONservative and republi-CON mindset, every time one of them talks about how "we don't need Glass-Steagall..." or "we don't need the Voting Rights Act..." because some of the issues that those measures sought to remedy have, to some extent, been addressed, or corrected, or at least mitigated - lessened in their impact. But the minute you lift those restrictions, or do away with the rules and containments and restraints and checks-to-bad-behavior, then the bad behavior can, and does, resume - unchecked. We are witnessing it at this very moment with what's happened at the state level just since the recent Supreme Court disaster regarding gutting the Voting Rights Act. These things are ALWAYS needed in order to address the "if you won't behave, we're gonna have to MAKE you behave"/"they won't do it unless they're FORCED TO" part of human nature.

It's like putting up a dam or a levee to hold back the certain threat of floodwaters. After awhile, when the floodwaters don't come anymore, or they stay contained, people in the town below grow complacent and sloppy, and start wondering what that big concrete eyesore that's so expensive to maintain is still doing there, and why we can't just pull it down? "Gee, do we really need it anymore? After all, there hasn't been flooding here in 50, 60 years!" (Or MY personal favorite that I've heard some so-called "moderate" republ-CON women say about protecting the right to choose - "meh, NUTHIN'S GUNNA HAPPEN." "Not gonna happen." - calimary: "OH YEAH, WANNA MAKE A BET???&quot Okay, so go ahead then. Have it your way. Dismantle the wall. And see what happens next.

We ALL need to remember the advice Mad Eye Moody gave to Harry Potter: "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!!" Unfortunately, we cannot afford to drop our guard for even a nano-second, and even after we think it's slam-dunked! Look what's happened to us women when we did that regarding our right to choose - didn't stay vigilant, didn't make sure the ground we'd gained was protected, and well-guarded, and reinforced. Many of us figured it was a done deal and that was that and the problem's solved so now it's time to move on to other things. And ever since, the enemy stayed awake, and focused, plotting and strategizing and working-working-working to dismantle and do away with it, in whatever ways, methods, and strategies they could, while our movement took its collective eyes off the ball. And NOW, what we have is legions of women scratching their heads in utter bewilderment, and saying "But I thought this was SETTLED!" and "I thought we dealt with this YEARS ago! WHY do we still have to keep fighting for this?"

If you too are bewildered that this is happening, you've been asleep for too long. Or you're naive and don't really understand or appreciate the virulence of your enemy - that always lies in wait and ALWAYS is waiting for that moment when they know you're asleep and you've dropped your guard. You've taken what you've accomplished and fought for and finally won - for granted. And those against you are just gonna keep at it, against you, until they finally succeed in taking away what you fought so hard to win, and dismantling everything you fought so hard to build.

They don't post 24-hour guards and build alligator-infested moats around the castle for nothing....