It all needs to change. All of it.
We cannot go back to normal, post-election, unless we want to end up right back here sometime in the future. Returning to a normal that wasn’t good for everyone never ends well. That’s why we study history. To learn from it.
Our normal included a wealth gap with massive disparities in income. It included systemic racism. Blatant sexism. Cultural hegemony. Environmental destruction. Xenophobia. A faltering education system. Healthcare for some but not all. Complacency. Greed. Money in politics. An over-bloated military-industrial complex. And on and on.
Will we ever be able to compete in the global market effectively? Will other countries trust us again, as they did after World War II? Will we put a stop to our endless wars in the Middle East, free ourselves from Russia, and realign ourselves with our alliances to discover new, innovative ways to make positive changes in the world?
We need to not only re-enter climate-change talks but to own them. The Green New Deal should really be called America’s new promise to ourselves and the world. The Green New Deal is, after all, appropriately named after FDR’s program to re-build the middle class after the Great Depression. It addresses economic inequality AND climate change.
There is no easy fix, and there are many obstacles.
The religious right, for instance, is a big threat. Without a secular approach, I see no way out.
Enough with the division over religion. One is not superior to others. Bill Maher recently reminded his viewers that almost all of our Supreme Court Justices are Catholic. What if they were all Muslim or Jewish or Atheists?
I am, by no means, against spirituality or any religion. We just can’t be ruled by it. Separation of church and state? What a joke. We are still arguing about school prayer, and churches are still tax-exempt.
This is all done by design by those in power to distract us. It’s false. All of it. They want to keep us fighting over religion, climate change, race, immigration and so on. We live in quicksand and we always have, for the most part. Our denial of history, of our actual, cruel history that is not taught in schools, about Native Americans and slavery. What big government is. What small government means. What is a fiscal conservative? Low taxes, reduced government spending and minimal government debt is not working for all of us.
The truth is we need big government. Yes, we were founded on a revolution, but it was against a monarchy, not big government as such. Government overreach can be discussed rationally, but this freedom-from-government movement we engage in has led to our demise.
If the last 4 years have taught us anything, it should be that without leadership we do not have the ability to just govern ourselves. We need to elect leaders who will listen to us and understand what we need. But, mostly, we need to educate ourselves about all of it.
Perhaps it sounds simplistic, naïve even, but without education and knowing how we got here, we are easily led by false prophets that promise us everything and deliver nothing. If we don’t study what went wrong, we will end up right back here as a failed American experiment.
This time, it will be documented. This time, they won’t need endless research, as was done after the Roman Empire fell, to learn what happened to America. This time, it’s in every book, every TV show, every movie used to distract us from reality. It’s all recorded, to be studied by others for centuries if the planet survives.
Re-think everything. Take the best of what we offer as a democracy and learn to improve on it. Adapt a true social democracy, as others have.
Here we sit, one week away from a decision that will change the country and our union forever. It has to. It must go our way. Every fear, every hope, and our future rests on this election.
People always say this is the election of our lives. Well this one, this one, really is.
So, here we are, waiting, continuing to do our part till the very end, fighting against the gestapo tactics being used to suppress our voice. We all worked for this outcome, and even if the election is stolen from us, we will no doubt fight against that as well.
It’s been said many times, but in this case time really will tell.
In the next couple weeks, our future will change forever. Are we ready? Are we open to have that conversation?
If not, the consequences will be dire.