The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward Justice (M.L. King Jr.)

[pegkerr]

minnehaha B recommended the following article to me, and I'd like to recommend it to you and get your reaction. I went back and re-read it after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 which, yeah, you all should see.

Common Ground: Finding Our Way Back to the Enlightenment
by Thomas de Zengotita

It reads in part:

...deep political engagement is, if not unnatural, at least unusual. It takes something extra to influence people in this way to cause them to extend their sense of self to encompass multitudes of strangers...No matter how justifiable the emphasis on identity, no matter how empowering the turn to specifics of experience that go with being black or gay--that is in spite of all the undeniable gains we owe to identity politics, I want to argue that progressive politics is still, as a matter of fact rather than rhetoric, based on Enlightenment principles and has been all along. And I want to argue that progressives should acknowledge this basis explicitly and stand together on this foundation once more--or that'll be all she wrote. Time is not on our side.

Read more.

What did you think of Fahrenheit 9/11? Did it surprise you? Did you think it was effective? What didn't work? If you aren't going to see it because you refuse to see it, why not? (Other than to save eight and a half bucks, of course.)