City of Woes

I came across this very good article during my daily internet surfing, but it was the section this section from Mr. King that caught my attention.

"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate,” King wrote from another era as he sat inside a Birmingham jail. “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

No matter how much I think i've read about martin luther, I find myself continually stumbling upon brilliant pieces of his writing time and time again. While this is in reference to race issues in America I think it says a lot about the state of apathy everyone seems to have for any sort of positive change within Canadian society these days. It seems no matter what the issue is, all people have for answers are half baked partial remedies at best.

For instance the increasing cost of University in Canada.
I meet people whom are clearly very smart, and well read, but then they have almost opposing attitudes and ideas. While they might be in favour of free education for all on a grade school level, and even for free University, they then reverse all of this by seeing an increase in the cost of University Tuitions as fair and justified. As a result they are either in favour of a tuition freeze, or slight increase, both of which do nothing to solve the problem, that being, that the cost of University is already too expensive and that having the most educated portion of your work force being burdened by debt is crippling to the economy. There seems to be strange disconnection between the reality of a social problem and how we feel and think about their solutions. To even suggest free University in Canada seems to blow most peoples minds, despite this being available in almost every Western Democracy.

It does not appear that people's beliefs follow any sort of moral, ethical, political principles, or a continuous stream of logic that would lead a person to any sort of scientific based conclusion, but rather a collection of feelings and attitudes that people seem to have adopted from someone or something else. Yet we all pretend the debate is based upon attitudes of left or right, expert versus amateur. anyhow i don't know where im going with this, I just wanted to post the King bit and then got carried away.