It is that hour when all things that haunt me come to a terrible
clarity before the light of dawn. It is the hour of truths when all my
decisions, made and not made, parade in succession before me to live
through one more time.
The idea of voting against my
conscience is so depressing to me that it is no joke that I have these
thoughts in my darkest hours. If it comes down to it next November and I
am faced and pressed by social conscience to do so, will I give up all
hope, hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton?
Because
when I see the future come to pass when the minimum wage ideal just fades into
the ether, when more jobs are shipped away and the families around me in
this small part of Iowa are further blown apart by poverty, as
corporate control rends all workplace protection asunder, and when the
war machine continues churning death for profit, and prison is our new
slavery, and when a child's choice comes down to military service as
there will never ever be affordable college, I will never have the heart
to vote again.
And I will not be the only one.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Thursday, December 3, 2015
License Plate 721 WJB
Knock knock knock
"I want to see my mother."
Knock knock knock
"I want to see my mother."
"I'm sorry Mr. Svensson. Visiting time is over."
"God damn it. What's wrong with you people?!"
"Mr. Svensson, we just can't accommodate people here after hours. You should know that by now. We go through this every week."
"I just want to see my mother!"
Mr. Svensson stormed out the automatic doors and back to his 1992 brown Toyota Camry, license plate 721 WJB He opened the trunk and pulled out the 2 handguns he had been saving. He knew he was right. Mr. Svennson was always right. He had God on his side.
He had a special jacket for this occasion, navy, made of a heavy matte denim.
The words "active shooter" rang in his head and he knew what he had to do. He plunged the 2 handguns into the pockets of his heavy denim jacket.
Jacob Svensson, active shooter. He knew he would never see his name on the news that night. He had played it all out in his head, over and over again, how this mass casualty suicide was going to go down.
Now was the day. Now was the time. It was zero hour. He slammed the trunk closed and straightened up. With a feeling of purpose that he had never felt before in his life, Mr. Svensson calmly strolled back through the sliding glass doors. The woman behind the petition glanced up and had barely registered surprise before Mr. Svensson riddled her body and face with bullets. She vanished on the floor behind her desk. He was surprised at how easy this was. Mr. Svensson remembered the girl in second grade who had thrown mud at him. It had stuck to the back of his jacket and all the kids laughed at him. When he got home, his mother had said, "It's ok, honey. We'll just wash it." But that wasn't the point.
The elevator opened. An orderly carrying a tray stepped out and looked at Mr. Svensson, confused. Her mouth opened as if about to say something and Mr. Svensson shot her in the face. There was a feeling of satisfaction that overcame him. She had brown hair like the girl in 6th grade. Mr. Svensson had accidentally gone into the girl's bathroom and she saw him sitting in the stall. The school didn't have doors on the bathroom stalls. That was one thing. The brown haired girl followed him back to class and announced Mr. Svensson had been pooping in the girl's bathroom. The teacher said, "Well I'm sure he will know which bathroom to use next time." But that wasn't the point.
Walking down the hallway of Hillside Gardens, he glimpsed through the open doors the sleeping residents. They all looked dead to him anyway. Mr. Svensson shot in the stomach a nurse who came out of a room. It was pretty quiet here. He had imagined people running and screaming while Mr. Svensson stood strong amid them. There was a girl once, when he was 14. Mr. Svensson tried to kiss her and she ran away. When he told his brother, he said, "What a homo. There's always other girls." But that wasn't the point.
Mr. Svensson approached room 16-A. It smelled bad here. Mr. Svensson said, "Hello, mother." and shot her through the temple. She had told him she loved him once, but that wasn't the point.
"I want to see my mother."
Knock knock knock
"I want to see my mother."
"I'm sorry Mr. Svensson. Visiting time is over."
"God damn it. What's wrong with you people?!"
"Mr. Svensson, we just can't accommodate people here after hours. You should know that by now. We go through this every week."
"I just want to see my mother!"
Mr. Svensson stormed out the automatic doors and back to his 1992 brown Toyota Camry, license plate 721 WJB He opened the trunk and pulled out the 2 handguns he had been saving. He knew he was right. Mr. Svennson was always right. He had God on his side.
He had a special jacket for this occasion, navy, made of a heavy matte denim.
The words "active shooter" rang in his head and he knew what he had to do. He plunged the 2 handguns into the pockets of his heavy denim jacket.
Jacob Svensson, active shooter. He knew he would never see his name on the news that night. He had played it all out in his head, over and over again, how this mass casualty suicide was going to go down.
Now was the day. Now was the time. It was zero hour. He slammed the trunk closed and straightened up. With a feeling of purpose that he had never felt before in his life, Mr. Svensson calmly strolled back through the sliding glass doors. The woman behind the petition glanced up and had barely registered surprise before Mr. Svensson riddled her body and face with bullets. She vanished on the floor behind her desk. He was surprised at how easy this was. Mr. Svensson remembered the girl in second grade who had thrown mud at him. It had stuck to the back of his jacket and all the kids laughed at him. When he got home, his mother had said, "It's ok, honey. We'll just wash it." But that wasn't the point.
The elevator opened. An orderly carrying a tray stepped out and looked at Mr. Svensson, confused. Her mouth opened as if about to say something and Mr. Svensson shot her in the face. There was a feeling of satisfaction that overcame him. She had brown hair like the girl in 6th grade. Mr. Svensson had accidentally gone into the girl's bathroom and she saw him sitting in the stall. The school didn't have doors on the bathroom stalls. That was one thing. The brown haired girl followed him back to class and announced Mr. Svensson had been pooping in the girl's bathroom. The teacher said, "Well I'm sure he will know which bathroom to use next time." But that wasn't the point.
Walking down the hallway of Hillside Gardens, he glimpsed through the open doors the sleeping residents. They all looked dead to him anyway. Mr. Svensson shot in the stomach a nurse who came out of a room. It was pretty quiet here. He had imagined people running and screaming while Mr. Svensson stood strong amid them. There was a girl once, when he was 14. Mr. Svensson tried to kiss her and she ran away. When he told his brother, he said, "What a homo. There's always other girls." But that wasn't the point.
Mr. Svensson approached room 16-A. It smelled bad here. Mr. Svensson said, "Hello, mother." and shot her through the temple. She had told him she loved him once, but that wasn't the point.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Midwest Working Class and the Great Decline
I wonder if The Great Depression was called The Great Depression during The
Great Depression? Or was it history that looked back and named it so?
How did our middle class diminish so drastically? If we have learned one thing in this 21st century, it is that we cannot trust the robber barons not to rob. "Trickle down" economics is a fallacy and a fantasy for the wealthy who long had their buckets in place to catch any spill-over.
I will give history a heads up and name this The Great Decline.
It encompasses more than the decline of the middle class, it encompasses the politics of hate and contempt. We are led to be contemptuous of those who have less. We are embroiled in a war on words. We mention race or racism are immediately called racists. We talk about the disparity of wealth distribution and charges of class warfare are leveled against us. The Relentless Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness is fueled by Fox New Corp and the Koch brothers. It encompasses a populace so divided, and so unsure of themselves that they routinely vote against their own economic interests or vote not at all.
Last summer I moved from a lifetime in Silicon Valley to Iowa. I have moved away from the abstract liberalism of the Bay Area to a place where the reasons we need Bernie Sanders are strikingly obvious. This is not the America I learned of as a child. The America I learned of as a child was full of opportunity so that anyone could pull themselves up and have a decent wage, a good life, and a chance to raise children who could achieve even more.
What I encounter here in this Midwest is starkly different. I do not recognize this America. The American dream is that we are all able to pull ourselves up, but there are entire rungs of the ladder missing here. The rungs of the ladder that one can reach to and pull oneself up with are gone. They have just vanished and people are left dangling at the bottom over an open pit where they will fall headlong into homelessness.
There are great divides in this country. In Silicon Valley, I never felt without opportunity. The culture raised me to believe in my talents and abilities. I feel that I get an equal rate of return for whatever effort I put in and often times more. But here in Iowa, I see hard working people who take on 2 or 3 jobs. Each are twenty-five to thirty hours per week with no benefits, sick leave or paid time off. There are no allowances or leeway. They are "asked" to work holidays. It is reprehensible that we are treating the very backbone of our society this way. Iowa is a very family oriented state. It is a great place to raise children. These parents have to keep their child home from daycare when they themselves are sick as they cannot afford it. Schools and daycares give the children their meals provided by the Iowa Food Bank. 3 out of the 4 public elementary schools in the neighboring Mason City are rated below the national poverty level and children are given their meals there.
Not long ago, I read a Facebook thread regarding people who work in fast food. There were comments like, "McDonald's was not meant to be a career path." and "If you want more money, get a better skill set." There is some ignorance of circumstance in these particular statements and I will raise my hand first to admit that at one time, these sentiments may have come from my own mouth.
From my view, there is not the vast array of job opportunities that I had become use to in the San Francisco Bay Area. People work their entire lives in retail, or restaurants, or fast food here. These people are white. Yes, I will talk about race. In California our Latino brothers and sisters take the jobs no one else wants. Much like my great-grandparents from Germany, Denmark, and Ireland, people come to America for a better life.
Bernie Sanders wants to end this abuse of the American worker. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Bernie Sanders wants to end the corporate welfare that makes taxpayers take up the slack when corporations like Walmart routinely send their employees to sign up for food stamps and other social services. This corporate welfare model applies to nearly every job situation I see out here.
How can we have American companies employ us and we still do not have enough money to eat? Bernie Sanders wants to end all this.
We are Americans. These are American corporations. These are American jobs. We are the richest and strongest country in the world. This abuse of the American working class must end and we must all work together to see Bernie Sanders as President of the United States.
Great Depression? Or was it history that looked back and named it so?
How did our middle class diminish so drastically? If we have learned one thing in this 21st century, it is that we cannot trust the robber barons not to rob. "Trickle down" economics is a fallacy and a fantasy for the wealthy who long had their buckets in place to catch any spill-over.
I will give history a heads up and name this The Great Decline.
It encompasses more than the decline of the middle class, it encompasses the politics of hate and contempt. We are led to be contemptuous of those who have less. We are embroiled in a war on words. We mention race or racism are immediately called racists. We talk about the disparity of wealth distribution and charges of class warfare are leveled against us. The Relentless Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness is fueled by Fox New Corp and the Koch brothers. It encompasses a populace so divided, and so unsure of themselves that they routinely vote against their own economic interests or vote not at all.
Last summer I moved from a lifetime in Silicon Valley to Iowa. I have moved away from the abstract liberalism of the Bay Area to a place where the reasons we need Bernie Sanders are strikingly obvious. This is not the America I learned of as a child. The America I learned of as a child was full of opportunity so that anyone could pull themselves up and have a decent wage, a good life, and a chance to raise children who could achieve even more.
What I encounter here in this Midwest is starkly different. I do not recognize this America. The American dream is that we are all able to pull ourselves up, but there are entire rungs of the ladder missing here. The rungs of the ladder that one can reach to and pull oneself up with are gone. They have just vanished and people are left dangling at the bottom over an open pit where they will fall headlong into homelessness.
There are great divides in this country. In Silicon Valley, I never felt without opportunity. The culture raised me to believe in my talents and abilities. I feel that I get an equal rate of return for whatever effort I put in and often times more. But here in Iowa, I see hard working people who take on 2 or 3 jobs. Each are twenty-five to thirty hours per week with no benefits, sick leave or paid time off. There are no allowances or leeway. They are "asked" to work holidays. It is reprehensible that we are treating the very backbone of our society this way. Iowa is a very family oriented state. It is a great place to raise children. These parents have to keep their child home from daycare when they themselves are sick as they cannot afford it. Schools and daycares give the children their meals provided by the Iowa Food Bank. 3 out of the 4 public elementary schools in the neighboring Mason City are rated below the national poverty level and children are given their meals there.
Not long ago, I read a Facebook thread regarding people who work in fast food. There were comments like, "McDonald's was not meant to be a career path." and "If you want more money, get a better skill set." There is some ignorance of circumstance in these particular statements and I will raise my hand first to admit that at one time, these sentiments may have come from my own mouth.
From my view, there is not the vast array of job opportunities that I had become use to in the San Francisco Bay Area. People work their entire lives in retail, or restaurants, or fast food here. These people are white. Yes, I will talk about race. In California our Latino brothers and sisters take the jobs no one else wants. Much like my great-grandparents from Germany, Denmark, and Ireland, people come to America for a better life.
Bernie Sanders wants to end this abuse of the American worker. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Bernie Sanders wants to end the corporate welfare that makes taxpayers take up the slack when corporations like Walmart routinely send their employees to sign up for food stamps and other social services. This corporate welfare model applies to nearly every job situation I see out here.
How can we have American companies employ us and we still do not have enough money to eat? Bernie Sanders wants to end all this.
We are Americans. These are American corporations. These are American jobs. We are the richest and strongest country in the world. This abuse of the American working class must end and we must all work together to see Bernie Sanders as President of the United States.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
A Place of Integrity: Thy Name is Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders holds a place in my heart reserved for my grandfather and his plain-spoken integrity. On MSNBC and in interviews over the last months, Bernie is led in question to criticize Hilary Clinton. He refuses. In Iowa, August 16, Bernie rebutted a Washington Post reporter by telling him that he would not participate in "that sport you like."
This is the appeal of Bernie Sanders. When I see and hear Bernie Sanders speak, there is a longing, and a feeling for a time and place when people dealt with each other on a more honest level. I am tired of slick politics. I am sick of the hate-filled double speak and fact-free rhetoric that infects our society and turns us upon each other.
I work with young kids. Often houses built from blocks by a child will be kicked over by another, more aggressive child. I then sit down with them both and we work on how we can rebuild together.
There are many things that need to be rebuilt in this country. Bernie Sanders will spur the creation of jobs to rebuild our roads and bridges. But that is just the physical. There is far more that has to be rebuilt in this country and that is the American spirit.
There is so much that has been kicked over. It is our economic certainty. We now worry if our children can ever afford college and worry if paying for food outweighs paying for heating this month. How did we sink to this?
It is our dignity in the American workplace that has been kicked over. We have lost that can-do American spirit from years of abuse at the hands of corporations who hold the strings to our government. That proud slogan of Made in America? How often do you see that?
Our indignity encompasses low wages and abusive hiring practices. Our abuse encompasses routinely being sent to sign up for food stamps, no paid vacations or sick days, no payment of overtime and workers being locked into workplaces. All this has kicked over our home built of trust, our home built on security, and we see our future turning to rubble of which there is no way to dig ourselves out.
This is America and we are a great country full of great people. We are diverse. We believe different things. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate not bought and paid for by the corporate machine. What Bernie Sanders is doing is bringing us together and bringing our focus back to our basic needs which are not those of giant corporations, but the needs of We the People.
The reason Bernie Sanders is pulling record crowds is that we are realizing It Is Not Our Fault. We have been brainwashed, slowly and effectively to forget the protection in the workplace afforded to our parents and grandparents. We forget, as unions are demonized, the hard won benefits that made this country the most upwardly mobile society in history. As wealth accumulates at the top, our ability to move up the income ladder has degraded considerably, and entire rungs of the ladder are missing as we dangle precariously above a pit called economic despair, and yes, homelessness.
We are told to blame ourselves.
Bernie Sanders speaks to this despair. He does not believe families should work full-time and have to resort to food stamps. He does not believe families should struggle just to afford childcare costs. He states that it is a moral outrage that any American go without healthcare. He believes a higher education should be within reach of every American.
Healthcare, childcare, education, and a living wage, these are the building blocks of society. We are rebuilding America anew and Bernie Sanders is the voice of each and every one of us.
This is the appeal of Bernie Sanders. When I see and hear Bernie Sanders speak, there is a longing, and a feeling for a time and place when people dealt with each other on a more honest level. I am tired of slick politics. I am sick of the hate-filled double speak and fact-free rhetoric that infects our society and turns us upon each other.
I work with young kids. Often houses built from blocks by a child will be kicked over by another, more aggressive child. I then sit down with them both and we work on how we can rebuild together.
There are many things that need to be rebuilt in this country. Bernie Sanders will spur the creation of jobs to rebuild our roads and bridges. But that is just the physical. There is far more that has to be rebuilt in this country and that is the American spirit.
There is so much that has been kicked over. It is our economic certainty. We now worry if our children can ever afford college and worry if paying for food outweighs paying for heating this month. How did we sink to this?
It is our dignity in the American workplace that has been kicked over. We have lost that can-do American spirit from years of abuse at the hands of corporations who hold the strings to our government. That proud slogan of Made in America? How often do you see that?
Our indignity encompasses low wages and abusive hiring practices. Our abuse encompasses routinely being sent to sign up for food stamps, no paid vacations or sick days, no payment of overtime and workers being locked into workplaces. All this has kicked over our home built of trust, our home built on security, and we see our future turning to rubble of which there is no way to dig ourselves out.
This is America and we are a great country full of great people. We are diverse. We believe different things. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate not bought and paid for by the corporate machine. What Bernie Sanders is doing is bringing us together and bringing our focus back to our basic needs which are not those of giant corporations, but the needs of We the People.
The reason Bernie Sanders is pulling record crowds is that we are realizing It Is Not Our Fault. We have been brainwashed, slowly and effectively to forget the protection in the workplace afforded to our parents and grandparents. We forget, as unions are demonized, the hard won benefits that made this country the most upwardly mobile society in history. As wealth accumulates at the top, our ability to move up the income ladder has degraded considerably, and entire rungs of the ladder are missing as we dangle precariously above a pit called economic despair, and yes, homelessness.
We are told to blame ourselves.
Bernie Sanders speaks to this despair. He does not believe families should work full-time and have to resort to food stamps. He does not believe families should struggle just to afford childcare costs. He states that it is a moral outrage that any American go without healthcare. He believes a higher education should be within reach of every American.
Healthcare, childcare, education, and a living wage, these are the building blocks of society. We are rebuilding America anew and Bernie Sanders is the voice of each and every one of us.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Body Politics
I have always thought my legs were fat.
Athletic to be more charitable.
Recently I was wearing dark wash skinny jeans and playing with a 5 year old boy. At some point he exclaimed, "Your legs are skinny!"
I blurted out, "I love you! That's the BEST thing anyone has ever said to me!"
Oh God help me. If this had been a girl, I know this would be an issue and a scar for the rest of her life. At 5, the girls at my preschool are already comparing who is thinner.
As it is, my loss of control did not help this boy in anyway. The thing is, I didn't know what to say afterward to mitigate the damage that had just flown out of my mouth.
I damaged him. I damaged future society.
I view my body through a lens of a male dominated and patriarchal society. I grew up consuming the culture of fashion and Diet Pepsi. I don't even know what it's like to view my body objectively. Is any woman capable of that? Is there some magical, mythical land called Body Acceptance?
At 2, I was voted the cutest little girl on Ramona Street in Palo Alto. They somehow missed the future Nobel prize winner in biochemistry that lay latent within me.
Where is the line? Where is the balance? We love beautiful things. At what point is appreciating someone's physical beauty corrosive?
And then there is the measure and standard of beauty. I read a great story by a large (for American standards) woman who constantly had to deal with dismissiveness and sometimes straight up hate towards her because of her weight. She went to Jamaica and people would stop in the street to tell her how beautiful she was. It was an eye-opening piece for me, this idea that beauty is a variable thing, based on a society's preference,
I had an experience on a MUNI bus in San Francisco. I was coming home from working as a nanny. My hair was up in a messy ponytail. I had a zipped up hoody on, and I was wearing what I can only describe as really awful librarian glasses. Three guys behind me started commenting in loud voices how ugly I was. I casually took my ponytail out and shook out my hair. I tied my hoody around my waist, I was wearing a tank top. I threw my glasses into my backpack. I had to walk past them to get off at my stop and as I did, one of them jumped up and followed me off the bus. He began apologizing profusely for his friends as the bus drove away, saying they were drunk. I didn't answer. I didn't know what to say. I just looked at him and walked away.
To this day, I don't know how to think about this event. Why did I feel compelled to make myself "prettier?" What if I had been the age I am now? What if I were 70? If that would have happened now, how would I handle it? I don't even know how to look at my body objectively. I don't know what that is even like. Is any woman capable of that? Is there any woman out there who sees herself beautiful no matter her size or shape?
It starts so very very young for us. I don't think I will ever get away from this damage and critical thinking. I often tell girls how pretty and beautiful they are. I feel they will not believe it of themselves if I do not tell them and reinforce it. Am I helping? Or am I hurting?
I have another troubling story to admit here. I never thought that my mom was beautiful, or even pretty. She would make disparaging comments about her own body and looks and I internalized that. She said it was more important to be smart.
I did not believe her.
Soon after she died, I was in my Menlo Park business photoshopping a picture of her for my dad. A co-worker wandered by and spontaneously exclaimed, "Your mother was beautiful!" And suddenly I saw it. My mother is beautiful.
By anyone's standards, she was beautiful. She was beautiful and I never saw it.
Because of her words, I could not see it.
We can damage each other. We can hurt each other. We hurt ourselves by mutilating our bodies and risking death to obtain some elusive and unobtainable goal.
Acceptance.
I don't know how to do it.
I don't know how that feels.
All I know is I have to be careful with my words. I have to be aware of what I say and how I speak of others and especially of how I speak about myself.
Athletic to be more charitable.
Recently I was wearing dark wash skinny jeans and playing with a 5 year old boy. At some point he exclaimed, "Your legs are skinny!"
I blurted out, "I love you! That's the BEST thing anyone has ever said to me!"
Oh God help me. If this had been a girl, I know this would be an issue and a scar for the rest of her life. At 5, the girls at my preschool are already comparing who is thinner.
As it is, my loss of control did not help this boy in anyway. The thing is, I didn't know what to say afterward to mitigate the damage that had just flown out of my mouth.
I damaged him. I damaged future society.
I view my body through a lens of a male dominated and patriarchal society. I grew up consuming the culture of fashion and Diet Pepsi. I don't even know what it's like to view my body objectively. Is any woman capable of that? Is there some magical, mythical land called Body Acceptance?
At 2, I was voted the cutest little girl on Ramona Street in Palo Alto. They somehow missed the future Nobel prize winner in biochemistry that lay latent within me.
Where is the line? Where is the balance? We love beautiful things. At what point is appreciating someone's physical beauty corrosive?
And then there is the measure and standard of beauty. I read a great story by a large (for American standards) woman who constantly had to deal with dismissiveness and sometimes straight up hate towards her because of her weight. She went to Jamaica and people would stop in the street to tell her how beautiful she was. It was an eye-opening piece for me, this idea that beauty is a variable thing, based on a society's preference,
I had an experience on a MUNI bus in San Francisco. I was coming home from working as a nanny. My hair was up in a messy ponytail. I had a zipped up hoody on, and I was wearing what I can only describe as really awful librarian glasses. Three guys behind me started commenting in loud voices how ugly I was. I casually took my ponytail out and shook out my hair. I tied my hoody around my waist, I was wearing a tank top. I threw my glasses into my backpack. I had to walk past them to get off at my stop and as I did, one of them jumped up and followed me off the bus. He began apologizing profusely for his friends as the bus drove away, saying they were drunk. I didn't answer. I didn't know what to say. I just looked at him and walked away.
To this day, I don't know how to think about this event. Why did I feel compelled to make myself "prettier?" What if I had been the age I am now? What if I were 70? If that would have happened now, how would I handle it? I don't even know how to look at my body objectively. I don't know what that is even like. Is any woman capable of that? Is there any woman out there who sees herself beautiful no matter her size or shape?
It starts so very very young for us. I don't think I will ever get away from this damage and critical thinking. I often tell girls how pretty and beautiful they are. I feel they will not believe it of themselves if I do not tell them and reinforce it. Am I helping? Or am I hurting?
I have another troubling story to admit here. I never thought that my mom was beautiful, or even pretty. She would make disparaging comments about her own body and looks and I internalized that. She said it was more important to be smart.
I did not believe her.
Soon after she died, I was in my Menlo Park business photoshopping a picture of her for my dad. A co-worker wandered by and spontaneously exclaimed, "Your mother was beautiful!" And suddenly I saw it. My mother is beautiful.
By anyone's standards, she was beautiful. She was beautiful and I never saw it.
Because of her words, I could not see it.
We can damage each other. We can hurt each other. We hurt ourselves by mutilating our bodies and risking death to obtain some elusive and unobtainable goal.
Acceptance.
I don't know how to do it.
I don't know how that feels.
All I know is I have to be careful with my words. I have to be aware of what I say and how I speak of others and especially of how I speak about myself.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
How Do We Talk To Our Replublican Friends About Bernie Sanders?:
*or*
(You disagree with me so by definition, YOU'RE WRONG!)
How do we talk to those whose ideals and values are very different from our own?
How do we talk about Bernie Sanders to those who jump to disagree?
How do we find common ground?
We don't have to convince those who agree with us, we have to persuade those who do not.
So how do we talk to a Republican?
We are all Americans. This is our common ground. One of the American values we hold high is family values. We, as Americans, value the strength of family. We value the ideal of our children achieving their goals, and of achieving more. We value education. We value a family structure that if one or both parents are working, the family should not be struggling. A strong family unit can only be strong if the basic needs are met. If the parents are working, childcare should be in place and a family should not have to struggle to make that so. I think we can agree on that. There should be enough food for the family to eat. I believe we agree on that. The parents should be able to reasonably pay rent or mortgage without fear of losing their home if they, or one of their children fall ill. This one, for whatever reasons, we struggle to agree upon. But I think as Americans, we can agree that these values are a baseline.
Unfortunately this is not the America we are living in. Parents working full-time must also receive food stamps. It is shocking how many schools across this country feed meals to their students because entire communities are below poverty level.
These are not American values. These are not Bernie Sanders' values. Bernie Sanders wants to adjust the minimum wage to support a family in 2015 so they can depend upon their own income and are not routinely directed to receive social services by our own American corporations.
Republicans agree than an educated America is a strong America. If our Republican friends are worried about our national security, then they will certainly agree that nothing is more important than a higher education. Our first line of defense starts with our scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Our student loan system is predatory and corrosive. Bernie Sanders advocates college affordability and a college education should not be out of the reach of anyone.
These are just a couple areas, that we, as Americans can find some common ground.
Here are some more thoughts of how we can talk about Bernie Sanders from my conversation with Colin Cole, Field Organizer for Bernie Sanders. We met in a small Mason City, Iowa coffee shop.
"Democracy, if it is working properly, is a good system. It works. The people. and what they want their government to do, should be relatively in sync. So if the majority of your constituency - whether that be in a city, or a state, or the United States - feels a certain way, in a democracy the government will represent those views, and the people will be satisfied."
Our democracy is not currently working and our voices are not being heard. Colin went on to talk about how, yes, we each have one vote in the ballot box, but individuals can spend millions promoting their candidate, and attack others with influence that you and I will never have. Thus my vote really does have less power when another's wealth can influence so many.
As Americans, if we can agree that a properly functioning democracy will lead to a good outcome, then our Republican friends should consider Bernie a "gateway" candidate, - whose goal is to fix the system-, so that you and I will better have our voices heard, AND our Republican friends will have a better chance to elect the candidate of whom they really want and best represents their interests next time around.
(You disagree with me so by definition, YOU'RE WRONG!)
How do we talk to those whose ideals and values are very different from our own?
How do we talk about Bernie Sanders to those who jump to disagree?
How do we find common ground?
We don't have to convince those who agree with us, we have to persuade those who do not.
So how do we talk to a Republican?
We are all Americans. This is our common ground. One of the American values we hold high is family values. We, as Americans, value the strength of family. We value the ideal of our children achieving their goals, and of achieving more. We value education. We value a family structure that if one or both parents are working, the family should not be struggling. A strong family unit can only be strong if the basic needs are met. If the parents are working, childcare should be in place and a family should not have to struggle to make that so. I think we can agree on that. There should be enough food for the family to eat. I believe we agree on that. The parents should be able to reasonably pay rent or mortgage without fear of losing their home if they, or one of their children fall ill. This one, for whatever reasons, we struggle to agree upon. But I think as Americans, we can agree that these values are a baseline.
Unfortunately this is not the America we are living in. Parents working full-time must also receive food stamps. It is shocking how many schools across this country feed meals to their students because entire communities are below poverty level.
These are not American values. These are not Bernie Sanders' values. Bernie Sanders wants to adjust the minimum wage to support a family in 2015 so they can depend upon their own income and are not routinely directed to receive social services by our own American corporations.
Republicans agree than an educated America is a strong America. If our Republican friends are worried about our national security, then they will certainly agree that nothing is more important than a higher education. Our first line of defense starts with our scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Our student loan system is predatory and corrosive. Bernie Sanders advocates college affordability and a college education should not be out of the reach of anyone.
These are just a couple areas, that we, as Americans can find some common ground.
Here are some more thoughts of how we can talk about Bernie Sanders from my conversation with Colin Cole, Field Organizer for Bernie Sanders. We met in a small Mason City, Iowa coffee shop.
"Democracy, if it is working properly, is a good system. It works. The people. and what they want their government to do, should be relatively in sync. So if the majority of your constituency - whether that be in a city, or a state, or the United States - feels a certain way, in a democracy the government will represent those views, and the people will be satisfied."
Our democracy is not currently working and our voices are not being heard. Colin went on to talk about how, yes, we each have one vote in the ballot box, but individuals can spend millions promoting their candidate, and attack others with influence that you and I will never have. Thus my vote really does have less power when another's wealth can influence so many.
As Americans, if we can agree that a properly functioning democracy will lead to a good outcome, then our Republican friends should consider Bernie a "gateway" candidate, - whose goal is to fix the system-, so that you and I will better have our voices heard, AND our Republican friends will have a better chance to elect the candidate of whom they really want and best represents their interests next time around.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Coffee, Tea, or Me
For reasons I will not disclose, I cannot drink coffee anymore.
I like to travel and I absolutely depend on Starbuck's free WiFi, and I NEED lattes with 2-3 extra shots daily. Coffee shops are my home away from home.
"Coffee? I don't drink coffee. Do you have any tea?" SLAP!
SHUT UP! Hear that little superiority dance in their voice? I don't want to be THAT PERSON. I already annoy people enough with my goings on, "Oh, I have such a delicate disposition. Is it gluten-free?" I gleefully bore people to death with my rambling monologues about the glorious future for each and every one of us if we just embrace organics!
So
I
am
drinking
tea.
If I could make that sentence droop and fall off the page, I would.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
Moan and complain.
Here's the thing. I have everything I need in this life and mostly everything I want. What's a little coffee in the larger scheme of things?
EVERYTHING.
SHUT UP!
ok. That's my brain going off the rails for a moment.
Like sports, coffee is a great social lubricant. Everyone can talk about coffee.
Except those assholes who only drink tea. AND I'M ONE OF THEM NOW!
I like to travel and I absolutely depend on Starbuck's free WiFi, and I NEED lattes with 2-3 extra shots daily. Coffee shops are my home away from home.
"Coffee? I don't drink coffee. Do you have any tea?" SLAP!
SHUT UP! Hear that little superiority dance in their voice? I don't want to be THAT PERSON. I already annoy people enough with my goings on, "Oh, I have such a delicate disposition. Is it gluten-free?" I gleefully bore people to death with my rambling monologues about the glorious future for each and every one of us if we just embrace organics!
So
I
am
drinking
tea.
If I could make that sentence droop and fall off the page, I would.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
Moan and complain.
Here's the thing. I have everything I need in this life and mostly everything I want. What's a little coffee in the larger scheme of things?
EVERYTHING.
SHUT UP!
ok. That's my brain going off the rails for a moment.
Like sports, coffee is a great social lubricant. Everyone can talk about coffee.
Except those assholes who only drink tea. AND I'M ONE OF THEM NOW!
I expect to get slapped upside the head any day now.
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