I still have hope

Hello all;
  I was watching the news last night.  A rare night off, I'd taken a vacation day to prepare the house for guests.  I don't often get guests, and mostly it's just me and the dog and she doesn't care if it's a bit messy.  But, I suppose if the needs of decent society must invade my sanctum sanctorum - my little sanitorium, the very least I could do - and never let it be said that I didn't do the very least I could do! - is make it presentable for decent folks.  Now, if only I knew some....
  Anyway, watching the news, watching the city of Baltimore express their anger, outrage, frustration, and in some odd instances their greed and mayhem needs, I sit in awe at history dejavu.  Once again, the foil to their frustration stands the line of police in combat gear and I find myself remembering past images, past days of growth pains:

This picture comes from the growth pains of the 1960's.  The police, standing as the ugly enforcer of a society that doesn't wish to see an aspect of that society as real, equally deserving and respected citizens.  This next picture is far closer to us:

 
  These pictures come from Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, some 50 years after the first picture above.
And finally, this is from Baltimore, last night:
  The difference I see in this picture over the others is the complexion of the skin of the officers.  The uncomfortable sameness I see is, again, citizens finding themselves on the outside of a society - by their own making or by the making of those in the positions of power?? I don't know.
  I don't know the answers.  But, as Jon Stewert mentioned in his show, we don't just go from "everything is fine" to "fire".  There are steps, there are indicators, there are things that are ignored and quite suddenly there is that straw that breaks the backs of those whose anger and frustration with a system comes crashing down and fire erupts.
  But, what drives me utterly nuts, what leaves me wondering how this seems to keep happening is this:

 
  A generation, another generation, and the beginning of a third, know this song.  We know it word for word.  Do we just not understand the words?  Are we just parrots, squawking the sounds around us?  Look at the audience!  Look at the people sing the words.  How are we still having these same problems from when Peter, Paul and Mary first sang this song back in the 1960's?  How can this song be such a part of who we are and yet we are still blind, deaf and dumb to the same things?