don't hang around

"Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily -- whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence -- whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.


'Among free men,' said Abraham Lincoln, 'there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.'


Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. 


We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands.  We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment.  We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire.


Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others.  Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home.  Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.


Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul."


---------------------------

























I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will


It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die
Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will


I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me don't hang around
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will


Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knocking me
Back down on my knees


There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will


_____________________________


{speech excerpt, Robert F. Kennedy, April 5, 1968 at the Cleveland City Club}
{song lyrics, "A Change Is Gonna Come" -- Sam Cooke, 1964}





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