A Tale of Two Railroads, feat. Conductor Zinn

The great sage Howard Zinn -- which former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels despised and thus put Mitch on the wrong side of history, progress, and the future -- said “You can’t be neutral on a moving train, I would tell...[my students]." In Zinn's memoir he went on to explain, "Some were baffled by the metaphor, especially if they took it literally and tried to dissect its meaning. Others immediately saw what I meant: that events are already moving in certain deadly directions, and to be neutral means to accept that.”

You can wallow in denial about the social-cultural shifts currently struggling to progress in the world -- seeking to make this world more open or free. And you are either working with this 'underground railroad' which is a marvelous alternative 'train' for goodness, openness, and freedom and seeking to liberate the oppressed OR you are a 'slave catcher' sending slaves back to a land where it is legal -- and keeping things as they are, just as Howard Zinn implied. And legal certainly doesn't always mean right.

Today, the anti-CRT and anti-wokism mantras, merriment, and movements are seeking to stop today's underground railroad from taking more people to freedom and safety in the proverbial open and free 'North' and instead are taking them back to the tradition-laden and oppressive 'South'. Mississippi finally rid itself of the Confederate imagery on their state flag. Americans actually killed uniformed black veterans returning from WWII, and all while happily dining with the imprisoned Nazi German soldiers still in the US after that war. Today, almost everywhere I go I have to listen to little jokes about 'wokeness'. The 'woke joke' is trying to oppress those who are working on conductor Zinn's underground railroad of freedom. Instead, we need to fully open a 'railroad' to our moral 'North' and open our eyes wide to fully see a real future with: freedom for all and thus oppression for none AND tolerance. appreciation, and celebration of and for diversity.

― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times