ashamed

"People - American or Serbian - are not to be condemned but understood. It would be much more salient to try to listen and communicate with people, not to treat them as 'others,' to understand those 'moral values' who maintained Milosevic (or Bush) in power for so long. Not just to condemn homophobia, conservativism, and misogyny."

--Andrej Grubacic

i just read the above in a moving essay on znet called Don't Blame the People, and stand guilty of doing so.

especially that first sentence, that's where it's at. for a long time i've tried to live up to dylan's wisdom, "don't criticize what you can't understand." lately, however i've fallen into the us/them hole. no attempt at understanding leaves no way out of it.

bottom line, i've a long, long way to go. help. please.