We hope you had an enjoyable weekend - or at least got the chance to spend some time outside.
If you did get outside, maybe you saw still expanding growth of the Occupy protests. They seem to be happening everywhere these days - in Minneapolis, in Lincoln, in Omaha, in DC, and in places all over the world. The media continues to focus on both the peaceful arrests of protestors, and the occasional violence - like in the protests in Italy - because many in the media still don't seem to understand what the protests are all about.
Sadly, it appears that much of the media would rather focus on the political garbage being flung about as the 2012 election battles begin to take shape.
The real issues that are behind all of the anger of the Occupy protestors are things that some groups of Americans have been facing since well before the days when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington - the kind of extreme economic inequality that takes away any real chance to succeed for millions of Americans.
The issues of jobs and justice were exactly what Dr. King was fighting for when gave his historic "I Have a Dream" address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial nearly fifty years ago.
In Washington, DC this weekend, there was another march for those same reasons - The Justice and Jobs March. Many of the Occupy protestors joined that march - and, we feel, rightfully so.
President Obama continues to beat the drum for jobs, much as he has in one way or another since before he ever took office. Lately, his focus on jobs has become a near-deafening pounding to those who are listening to what the American people actually care about.
While writing legislation is the job of the Legislative Branch, this President did the job that Congress either refused to do or was incapable of doing. He wrote, had scored, and delivered complete, a jobs bill to Congress, so that they could debate it and maybe solve the problems of some of those millions of Americans out of work.
Disgustingly, Republicans in Congress wouldn't even discuss allow the bill to be debated, as they stalled the bill in Senate procedures last week - further proving that their priorities are politics, not helping their constituents.
The President remained unbowed, however, much as Dr. King did in his struggles for racial justice. The President said in his weekly address, that he'll now begin pushing Congress to vote on each piece of his jobs bill, one by one if he has to, beginning with teachers and first responders, like police, fire, and medical personnel.
At the dedication of the monument to Dr. King, President Obama also reminded everyone of the odd similarities between then and now.
He said, "It is right for us to celebrate today Dr. King’s dream... yet it is also important on this day to remind ourselves that such progress did not come easily... it is worth remembering that progress did not come from words alone. Progress was hard. Progress was purchased through enduring the smack of billy clubs and the blast of fire hoses. It was bought with days in jail cells and nights of bomb threats. For every victory during the height of the civil rights movement, there were setbacks and there were defeats.
"Our work is not done... First and foremost, let us remember that change has never been quick. Change has never been simple, or without controversy. Change depends on persistence. Change requires determination... when met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the “is-ness” of today. He kept pushing towards the “ought-ness” of tomorrow..."
"We can’t be discouraged by what is. We’ve got to keep pushing for what ought to be, the America we ought to leave to our children, mindful that the hardships we face are nothing compared to those Dr. King and his fellow marchers faced 50 years ago, and that if we maintain our faith, in ourselves and in the possibilities of this nation, there is no challenge we cannot surmount."
