Change actually does occur pretty fast generally

[AllentownJake]

Whether you are speaking about evolution, a society, or politics.

The environment that creates the change may take time to develop, but like anything else, once the ingredients are there and it is heated, change happens normally overnight.

Put it this way, in the course of Human History for 6000+ years of civilization, most countries were dictatorships ruled by Kings whose title passes down by blood.

Within a very short period of time, historically speaking, the entire European world went from this form of government to representative democracy.

Another example is the Woman's rights movement. It took years for the right to vote to be offered to women in this country, but one day, the flood gate just opened up.

British Empire and the African slave trade the same thing, fall of communism, you name it. Change generally is fucking fast.

Change actually is seldom slow. There might be a slow march to the awareness of the need for change, but generally speaking, when it occurs it is lightning quick.

The Change is slow memo is bullshit. You might not have the right environment for change, but when the temperature is right, it happens like a strike of lighting.

[juno jones]

1. K&R! n/t

[polichick]

2. Yes, once you reach critical mass change can be lightening fast...

I thought we had reached critical mass in terms of the citizen mandate given to this administration, but that assumed the prez wanted change the way we did.

k&r

[AllentownJake]

3. For as much as people saw what happened in October 2008 as a potential disaster

I look back at it as a waste opportunity. People think we avoided a comet, I think we stifled an opportunity to reform society.

Doesn't really matter, whatever was momentarily avoided will be back. The conditions that created the problem have been exacerbated not reformed, thus logically it will happen again, and bigger. It happened in 1998 as well. There is only so much you can do, do put a cork on a steaming pot that is about to explode.

[Laelth]

4. Perhaps, on health care, the temperature isn't right yet.

But I suspect we are getting close.

I just don't think the Federal Government can do it. On the other hand, one or more state governments could, and then we might see a ripple effect that switches the entire country to single-payer in a matter of a few years. That's certainly what happened in Canada.

:dem:

-Laelth

[AllentownJake]

5. Generally speaking the Federal Government is the last to do anything

Except in those meteor impact type movements. It's very design is to stifle as much change as possible whenever possible.

[AndyA]

6. I suspect the perception of the rapidness of change depends on which side of the fence you're on.

Equality for gay people has taken a very long time, with many setbacks. Stonewall was 1969, 40 years ago, and still no equality for gays in many, many areas.

People who are ill and desperately need health care but can't afford it might not feel the progress has been quick in coming.

The sands of time pass quickly by. Few are the choices we are given.

Edit to add: You mentioned the women's rights movement. While women have more rights today than they did in the early 1900s, once again we are dealing with those who feel they can tell women what they must do about pregnancy. That seems to be a huge step backwards in women's rights to me. So sometimes ground is made, sometimes ground is lost. For those actively involved, I would bet they'd say it's been a long, hard battle.

[FrenchieCat]

7. You are kidding, right?

"It took years for the right to vote to be offered to women in this country, but one day, the flood gate just opened up"?

But one day, the flood gate "just" opened up?

You do diservice to those women who fought for equal rights for so long in this country....
to somehow try to make it appear that all of the sudden, there it was.

in 2009, Pres. Obama signed a bill for equal pay regarding women....

that was done nearly 90 years after women won the right to vote.

Your premise is ridiculous on its face, but more than that,
your lazyness by omitting any evidence beyond your self serving pronouncements
is an insult to the intelligence of DU posters who might read it.
I call foul!

1776
Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John, who is attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, asking that he and the other men--who were at work on the Declaration of Independence--"Remember the Ladies." John responds with humor. The Declaration's wording specifies that "all men are created equal."
1820 to 1880
Evidence from a variety of printed sources published during this period--advice manuals, poetry and literature, sermons, medical texts--reveals that Americans, in general, held highly stereotypical notions about women's and men's roles in society. Historians would later term this phenomenon "The Cult of Domesticity."
1821
Emma Hart Willard founds the Troy Female Seminary in New York--the first endowed school for girls.
1833
Oberlin College becomes the first coeducational college in the United States. In 1841, Oberlin awards the first academic degrees to three women. Early graduates include Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown.
1836
Sarah Grimké begins her speaking career as an abolitionist and a women's rights advocate. She is eventually silenced by male abolitionists who consider her public speaking a liability.
1837
The first National Female Anti-Slavery Society convention meets in New York City. Eighty-one delegates from twelve states attend.
1837
Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, eventually the first four-year college exclusively for women in the United States. Mt. Holyoke was followed by Vassar in 1861, and Wellesley and Smith Colleges, both in 1875. In 1873, the School Sisters of Notre Dame found a school in Baltimore, Maryland, which would eventually become the nation's first college for Catholic women.
1839
Mississippi passes the first Married Woman's Property Act.
1844
Female textile workers in Massachusetts organize the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) and demand a 10-hour workday. This was one of the first permanent labor associations for working women in the United States.
1848
The first women's rights convention in the United States is held in Seneca Falls, New York. Many participants sign a "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" that outlines the main issues and goals for the emerging women's movement. Thereafter, women's rights meetings are held on a regular basis.
1849
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. Over the next ten years she leads many slaves to freedom by the Underground Railroad.
1850
Amelia Jenks Bloomer launches the dress reform movement with a costume bearing her name. The Bloomer costume was later abandoned by many suffragists who feared it detracted attention from more serious women's rights issues.
1851
Former slave Sojourner Truth delivers her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech before a spellbound audience at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio.
1852
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, which rapidly becomes a bestseller.
1859
The successful vulcanization of rubber provides women with reliable condoms for the first time. The birth rate in the United States continues its downward, century-long spiral. By the late 1900s, women will raise an average of only two to three children, in contrast to the five or six children they raised at the beginning of the century.
1861 to 65
The American Civil War disrupts suffrage activity as women, North and South, divert their energies to "war work." The War itself, however, serves as a "training ground," as women gain important organizational and occupational skills they will later use in postbellum organizational activity.
1865 to 1880
Southern white women create Confederate memorial societies to help preserve the memory of the "Lost Cause." This activity propels many white Southern women into the public sphere for the first time. During this same period, newly emancipated Southern black women form thousands of organizations aimed at "uplifting the race."
1866
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the American Equal Rights Association, an organization for white and black women and men dedicated to the goal of universal suffrage.
1868
The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, which extends to all citizens the protections of the Constitution against unjust state laws. This Amendment was the first to define "citizens" and "voters" as "male."
1869
The women's rights movement splits into two factions as a result of disagreements over the Fourteenth and soon-to-be-passed Fifteenth Amendments. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the more radical, New York-based National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe organize the more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which is centered in Boston. In this same year, the Wyoming territory is organized with a woman suffrage provision. In 1890, Wyoming was admitted to the Union with its suffrage provision intact.
1870
The Fifteenth Amendment enfranchises black men. NWSA refuses to work for its ratification, arguing, instead, that it be "scrapped" in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment providing universal suffrage. Frederick Douglass breaks with Stanton and Anthony over NWSA's position.
1870 to 1875
Several women--including Virginia Louisa Minor, Victoria Woodhull, and Myra Bradwell--attempt to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the courts to secure the vote (Minor and Woodhull) or the right to practice law (Bradwell). They all are unsuccessful.
1872
Susan B. Anthony is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York, for attempting to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot; she is turned away.
1874
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded by Annie Wittenmyer. With Frances Willard at its head (1876), the WCTU became an important force in the fight for woman suffrage. Not surprisingly, one of the most vehement opponents to women's enfranchisement was the liquor lobby, which feared women might use the franchise to prohibit the sale of liquor.
1878
A Woman Suffrage Amendment is introduced in the United States Congress. The wording is unchanged in 1919, when the amendment finally passes both houses.
1890
The NWSA and the AWSA are reunited as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. During this same year, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr found Hull House, a settlement house project in Chicago's 19th Ward. Within one year, there are more than a hundred settlement houses--largely operated by women--throughout the United States. The settlement house movement and the Progressive campaign of which it was a part propelled thousands of college-educated white women and a number of women of color into lifetime careers in social work. It also made women an important voice to be reckoned with in American politics.
1891
Ida B. Wells launches her nation-wide anti-lynching campaign after the murder of three black businessmen in Memphis, Tennessee.
1893
Hannah Greenbaum Solomon founds the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) after a meeting of the Jewish Women's Congress at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. In that same year, Colorado becomes the first state to adopt a state amendment enfranchising women.
1895
Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes The Woman's Bible. After its publication, NAWSA moves to distance itself from this venerable suffrage pioneer because many conservative suffragists considered her to be too radical and, thus, potentially damaging to the suffrage campaign. From this time, Stanton--who had resigned as NAWSA president in 1892--was no longer invited to sit on the stage at NAWSA conventions.
1896
Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Margaret Murray Washington, Fanny Jackson Coppin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Charlotte Forten Grimké, and former slave Harriet Tubman meet in Washington, D.C. to form the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).
1903
Mary Dreier, Rheta Childe Dorr, Leonora O'Reilly, and others form the Women's Trade Union League of New York, an organization of middle- and working-class women dedicated to unionization for working women and to woman suffrage. This group later became a nucleus of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU).
1911
The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) is organized. Led by Mrs. Arthur Dodge, its members included wealthy, influential women and some Catholic clergymen--including Cardinal Gibbons who, in 1916, sent an address to NAOWS's convention in Washington, D.C. In addition to the distillers and brewers, who worked largely behind the scenes, the "antis" also drew support from urban political machines, Southern congressmen, and corporate capitalists--like railroad magnates and meatpackers--who supported the "antis" by contributing to their "war chests."
1912
Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull Moose/Republican) Party becomes the first national political party to adopt a woman suffrage plank.
1913
Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union, later known as the National Women's Party (1916). Borrowing the tactics of the radical, militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in England, members of the Woman's Party participate in hunger strikes, picket the White House, and engage in other forms of civil disobedience to publicize the suffrage cause.
1914
The National Federation of Women's Clubs--which by this time included more than two million white women and women of color throughout the United States--formally endorses the suffrage campaign.
1916
NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt unveils her "winning plan" for suffrage victory at a convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Catt's plan required the coordination of activities by a vast cadre of suffrage workers in both state and local associations.
1916
Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first American woman elected to represent her state in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1918 to 1920
The Great War (World War I) intervenes to slow down the suffrage campaign as some--but not all--suffragists decide to shelve their suffrage activism in favor of "war work." In the long run, however, this decision proves to be a prudent one as it adds yet another reason to why women deserve the vote.
August 26, 1920
The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified. Its victory accomplished, NAWSA ceases to exist, but its organization becomes the nucleus of the League of Women Voters.
1923
The National Woman's Party first proposes the Equal Rights Amendment to eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender. It has never been ratified.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html

[AllentownJake]

8. One day you could vote, a day before you couldn't

You missed the entire temperature thing.

You think the American Revolution was an overnight sensation. It was built on 400 years of philosphical thinking and writings and 1000 years of British history starting with a King killing a meddling priest.

One day, things are different. It might take years for the temperature to be right for a boil, however like a boiling pot of water, once the temperature hits boil, the world looks much different and there are always those occasions when someone drops a piece of Lava into a pot and the water boils immediately.

[FrenchieCat]

11. One day you earned pennies on a man's dollar,

and the next decade, nothing had changed,
and then the decade after that,
and so on and so forth.

Again, you put out an argument stating that change happens quickly.
I say to you that it does not.....and you haven't proved that what you are
saying is correct.......because change is hard and slow....
and the fact that you would omit what it takes to get to an actual change,
makes your op even that much more ridiculous.

[AllentownJake]

13. Once the water hits boil

BOOM

depends on what you consider change to be, the temperature may rise slowly, in some cases very rapidly, however until the water hits boiling, it doesn't happen.

[FrenchieCat]

15. sounds good.......

but again, this is your opinion not really supported by any facts.
To omit the fight, and only see victory is what fools do.
It is what Bush did in reference to Iraq.

[AllentownJake]

17. The "fight" is increasing the temperature

and the "fight" involves more than just the actual fighting.

In all those scenarios you mentioned there were other human events happening in nature, religion, and science that shaped man's view of the world around him.

The Romans had all the technology necessary to build rail roads, industrial production, electricity, etc.

They just never had the need for such things, simply put, because Human Life had no intrinsic value. Subjecting another man or woman to slavery, torture, rape, etc meant nothing to a Roman. It wasn't till they messed with some poor Jewish Carpenter in some far away province, that social attitudes changed and people began to think what they were doing to other people.

[arcadian]

32. Are you being paid to post here?

I'm asking this in all seriousness.

[timeforpeace]

33. The real question is, by the post or by the word?

[FrenchieCat]

9. and......

this pronouncement...."Within a very short period of time, historically speaking, the entire European world went from this form of government to representative democracy."

"Short period, historically speaking" doesn't mean a thing based on how you are attempting to
illustrate what you are talking about.



"Representative Democracy" 1215 mid-20th century
This period saw the growth of greater representation of the people and the freedom to vote within nation states. Political parties were born and competitive elections and suffrage for women became increasingly common. Increasingly, democracy became based on written laws which ensured fixed terms and secret ballots, backed by independent judiciaries.


1215 - England
Nobles force King John to sign the Magna Carta establishing written law as a higher power than the rights of the king. The transfer of some power from the king to the nobles introduces basic freedom and property rights to "free men".

1295 - England
Edward I adopts the idea of an elected body or "Model Parliament". It includes clergy and aristocracy, as well as representatives of boroughs and counties. A similar system was used by Simon de Montfort - but Edward is the first king to call a parliament.

1642-51 - England
Charles I attempts to arrest five MPs sparking a war between parliamentary and Royalist supporters. In 1649 Charles is beheaded and England becomes first a commonwealth and then a protectorate under Oliver Cromwell from 1653. The monarchy is restored in 1660.

1679 - England
Habeas Corpus Act is passed which enshrines in law the rights of the individual to legally challenge their imprisonment by the authorities.

1689 - England
The Bill of Rights legally establishes the civil and political rights that an English citizen living within a constitutional monarchy ought to have. The Tory faction, later the Conservatives, emerges in this period, heralding the birth of the party system.


1789-99 - France
French Revolution, a period of political upheaval which sees the removal of King Louis XVI who is later executed. Power is transferred from an absolute monarchy to a republic based on citizenship and the rights of the people, although women cannot vote. (don't forget Napoleon, who set things back quite a bit!)

1847 - Switzerland
A brief civil war leads to a national referendum, one of the first recorded uses in modern history, on a new federal constitution. Switzerland still holds more referendums than any other country.

1856 - Australia
The first secret ballot is reportedly held in the former Australian colony, now state, of Tasmania on 7 February 1856. Ballot papers with the names of those standing are printed at public expense. Secret balloting subsequently spreads to other countries.

1867 - Britain
Second Reform Act virtually doubles the size of the electorate by increasing the number of men who can vote. All male householders are given the right to vote and lodgers paying £10 a year rent.


1906 - Finland
Women achieve the right to vote and to stand for election. Suffragettes in Britain adopt disruptive tactics in their bid for enfranchisement. Women's work in World War I munitions factories proves a turning point and in 1918 women over 30 gain the vote.

1933 - Germany
Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor after Reichstag elections. His Nazi party passes the Enabling Bill giving him absolute power and Germany becomes a one-party state. The triumph of fascism and communism leads to a dark age for democracy in many European countries.
Modern Democracy" mid-20th century
While decolonisation led to the birth of the world's largest democracy (India), national independence movements led to many one-party states and military regimes. The end of the century saw democracy flourishing in Eastern Europe and Latin America after decades of totalitarianism and military rule.


1956 - Hungary
Soviet tanks crush pro-democracy protests. More than 3,000 are killed in the violence and hundreds of thousands flee.


1968 - Czechoslovakia
The "Prague Spring" of political reforms is crushed by Soviet tanks. Dozens are killed and many thousands flee the country which remains under Soviet control until 1989.


1989 - Germany
Hungary opens its border with Austria, allowing thousands of East Germans to escape to the West. After the Berlin Wall falls, largely-peaceful demonstrations in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania lead to the dismantling of one-party systems.

1990 - Poland
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa becomes the first democratically-elected president, marking the end of Soviet control. The Solidarity party won parliamentary elections in 1989.

1995 - Yugoslavia
The Dayton Accord sets Bosnia on the road to independent statehood after a bloody civil war. Six independent countries have emerged out of the ruins of Yugoslavia, with Slovenia and Croatia the first to declare their independence in 1991.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/why_democracy/timeline/html/non_flash.stm

[AllentownJake]

12. The entire temperature thing

It took years for the components that made this machine I'm typing you to be developed. However 30 years ago when some guys in their garage assembled them and started selling them to other guys in their garage rather rabidly one of these machines made it's way into every household in America.

New Deal Reforms, Civil Rights Movement, Woman Rights Movement, Abolition Movement, etc

All took time to raise the temperature, when the temperature was hot enough BOOM

Honestly in the history of civilization, the replacement of monarchs with elected officials is one of the most amazing things as how quickly it occured, and how fast it is spread. The ironic thing, is the speed would be even faster if it was not for the intervention of other countries that have done it themselves.

[SOCALS]

10. Obama doesn't want to rock

the boat probably because he wants to get reelected. It is possible that after reelection he will implement the changes he promised

[AllentownJake]

14. Not likely

He wants to return the world to where it was before George W. Bush. In his own sick way, George W. Bush was a meteor and he's tyring to put back together Jurrasic park.

[uponit7771]

18. K&R....VERY VERY APT desicription seeing who Obama surounded himself with but I'm still believe the

...world before Obama was an idealistic one that continued the concentration of affluence that RayGun began.

Obama is now seeing that feeding the banks didn't help the middle class one iota

[AllentownJake]

19. He was built by that world

Why wouldn't he think it is good.

[goldcanyonaz]

16. Only if there is follow through, take my diet for example...

It's not going very well, but it's because I'm still eating too much.

Even purchased a elliptical, but the only time I have come in contact with it was when I put it together.

:cry:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. And the world in 2008 was very different from 1993 or even 2004

Which is why the favorable comparissons of current HCR efforts to earlier "weak" proposals is silly.

The time was/is right.

[AllentownJake]

21. George W. Bush was a meteor that hit the country

and the administration appears to be in a desperate attempt to rebuild the world of 2001 and not create the world of 2020.

Right now is a 1933 time frame, and the President blew his chance at reform because he was too worried about pissing off some campaign donors in New York.

Populist attack on the Finance Industry first than Health Care. FDR didn't take office than go after Social Security. He built a trust factor in how he handled the 1933 banking crisis and the reforms he imposed on Wall Street.

[dave29]

22. real meteors do not discriminate

if you voted this way or that. The point I am making is change will happen sometimes regardless of ingredients. Sometimes we have no control over change... or anything for that matter.

[AllentownJake]

26. Oh it didn't discriminate

If it wasn't for a bunch of cowardly democrats, George W Bush's financiers would be living the reality that most Americans are living in.

[OnyxCollie]

23. It takes a catalyst.

“In every social change... there is a relation between time and force. Generally speaking, the greater the force the more rapidly social change will occur.”

--Waltz, K. (1954). Man the state and war. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 58

[Egnever]

24. LOL what a rediculous post

[AllentownJake]

27. Not really

arguing that things evolve slowly, in any facet of life, is ridiculous. Things happen in spurts of stability and slow growth, and rabid expansive growth.

On the reverse side, decay generally happens slowly, until it reaches a critical mass, than it generally destroys something overnight.

[BeyondGeography]

25. On re-orienting 1/6 of the world's largest economy? No wonder you're so disappointed.

[AllentownJake]

28. Seeing I think we were are in a decay phase

and nothing is being done to stop it, yeah, I'm pretty disappointed.

[readmoreoften]

29. People organize during periods of low struggle, the people erupt, the prepared organizers lead

I can't think of anything that has ever happened without struggle and organizing. To the general public, change happens quick. To organizers, it takes decades. But you are 100% correct. It doesn't happen through patient ideological evolution of the ideas of voters. No way.

[Odin2005]

30. A good book to read is "The 4th Turning".

There is a cyclical pattern to historical change. Most institutional change occurs in periods the book calls "Crisis Eras", whjich occur once every 80 years. The last Crisis Era was the Great Depression and WW2. Before that was the Civil War. And before that was the American Revolution. In between each Crisis Era there is an "Awakening Era" of rapid cultural change. The period from 1964 to 1984 was the last Awakening Era.

[Teaser]

31. I love how no one here ever uses the word "sometimes"

.

[HughMoran]

34. Change is slow, change is fast - whatever. There's no formula either way

It kind of depends on what the change is and how many people need to agree to get it done.

Simple thinking is for simpletons (sorry most of DU).

[treestar]

35. ???

It took decades for women to get the vote. Over a century. Yeah it happened overnight in 1920, but that's because it finally worked after a century.

??? It took a century.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

36. Dumbest. Post. Ever

Or at least this week.

The idea that political change came to Europe quickly pretty much requires you to toss out everything you know about European History. It took the centuries and not a few bloody revolutions for the European parliamentary systems to become what they are today (and it's still evolving).

That's like saying that if you stare just at the finish line, it only takes a runner just a split secone to complete a marathon. Sure it happens fast, if you ignore everything that lead up to it.