Oh no! We can't abolish slavery now - we have to fight the British Empire. Oh, no! We can't Remember the Ladies now! We have to consolidate the colonies.
To after the Civil War:
Oh, no! We still can't Remember the Ladies! We have to reconstruct the South and finally fulfill our Manifest Destiny.
To the 1960s:
Oh, no we can't fight for gender equality now! We're fighting corporatism and never-ending war.
To post 9/11:
Oh, no! The Magna Carta, Geneva Conventions, or US Constitution can't apply now! We have to catch some terrorists.
Later, sisters and brothers. Later is the promise to be broken in the future. Later is the lie on the lips of the enemy within. Abigail Adams recognized this in 1776, when she wrote her famous "Remember the Ladies" letter:
[T]he passion for Liberty cannot be Eaquelly Strong in the Breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow Creatures of theirs....
Because the Founders refused suffrage to women at the birth of this nation, we waited another 150 years to be granted the franchise, after being beaten, jailed, and killed for demanding full citizenship status – our "unalienable" rights.
Because the Founders refused to allow economic parity, millions died under institutionalized slavery. And, because the Founders refused to recognize "unalienable" rights of indigenous cultures, millions more died under the genocidal domestic policy known as Manifest Destiny.
Today we see the Sins of our Fathers being visited upon us. They had the rare chance to create an egalitarian society and they balked. Instead, they devised a system which reinforced a hierarchy based on sex, race and wealth, and thus sowed the seeds of the destructive evil empire we have become. The very ills the Founders decried (when they were the object of oppression), are the same ills created by their privilege-blinded vision of equality.
These are not marginal issues. Oppression is the cause of all conflict, and it is driven by lust for wealth and power. Oppression is what the democracy movement seeks to end. It cannot be relegated to "later."
The founder and president of The White House Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing women's leadership and fostering the entry of women into all positions of leadership, including the presidency, Marie C. Wilson, related:
