Category Archives: Politics

Looking Beyond 9/11

Yes, I remember vividly where I was and what I was doing on this day at this time 23 years ago. It was horrific and a terrible way to wake up, to watch such an event knowing that people were suffering and dying as I watched safely, stunned and in disbelief from my futon in my living room on my little 20-inch TV with the rabbit ears. I was getting ready for work and had turned the morning news on like I always did. I remember trying to think of how I would explain this to my children, and wondering if anything more would happen and suddenly wondering if we, too, were in danger. I remember hardly any traffic on the road, getting to work late — we were pretty much all late — all of us stunned, crying, and hardly any patients showing up that day. The hospital was on high security alert. I remember one physician in our office, who was always crass, being just as ill-mannered as she always was, and I remember thinking I wanted to tear her hair out for being such a tremendous bitch about it, having no heart for how overwhelmed people were feeling that day. I remember just how eerily quiet it was for many days due to air and ground transportation coming to a halt, and having this disarranged thought that it was also lovely and peaceful. 

This day, memorialized each year, no longer gives me a sense of patriotism — just immense sadness. I see what we’ve become since this day and how we’ve celebrated our patriotism right into being something worse than what we thought we were before that day.

I’m not going to applaud the USA on this day. I’m also not going to have an overdue honest discussion about how American imperialism causes so many of our own issues, including the tragedy on 9/11. Today, I am just going to go quietly about my business, praying for and remembering the truly innocent souls that were lost on that day at the hands and the whim of others that also included our own “leaders.” I’m going to be grateful for the heroes of the fire departments, other first responders and even private citizens who jumped into action, not even knowing all that they were up against. They saved some, they lost some, and many of them were also lost — literally and figuratively.

The first responders were doing their jobs, but really over and above what they were paid and trained to do. Some readers may not realize that they are not obligated as a condition of their employment to run into situations such as that. So I am grateful. In all honesty, though, I do wonder that if it had been my son, who is a Firefighter/Paramedic, if I would feel gratitude. I wonder if it would just be anger or immense sadness and loss. I pray I never find out.

I’m also not going to “God bless the USA” today. We hear talk and reminisce about how we all became family on 9/11 and subsequent weeks, suddenly recognizing our connectedness, having been jerked into remembering what was important, forced into the intense moment of NOW, foregoing the thoughts of the mundane day to day drudgery. But I’m not going to applaud behavior that we should exhibit everyday towards one another no matter what is going on. The goodness that did come from that day, that eked out, should be our mere baseline.

We also saw some repulsive behavior. I know in Phoenix, Arizona, where I lived at that time, we surely did. We saw horrible acts of violence against those thought to be Middle Eastern due to our complete lack of understanding and willful ignorance.
FEAR.
ANGER with no perceived outlet.
I won’t forget that either. And I won’t forget that we still suffer from this racist affliction to this day. In many ways, whether we were there or not, we were all victims of 9/11 in some form or fashion, and continue to be.

I will pray for and remember the service women and men who were called into action either here in the states or sent over to the Middle East after this to fight a “war” that was not of their own making. I’m praying for those still in the thick of it due to a country that creates ongoing war and sends some of our most vulnerable populations to fight and kill on its behalf, that still uses propaganda from 9/11 to incite, excite, and encourage acts of war.

So, no, I won’t be raising my fists in the air chanting today, or driving around town with an obnoxious 8-foot American flag anchored in the bed of my pickup flying behind me, or taking pictures of myself wrapped in the American flag. Instead, I will be praying for the souls that were lost on that day, in the days following, and in years after because of their exposure to all of the toxic chemicals from the fires and debris. Those people got up to go to work or go wherever it was they had planned, not knowing what a horrific day it would be or how it would end. I will pray for those who have lingering physical and/or mental trauma from what they saw, what they endured, or because of loved ones they lost on that day or ones lost as a result of war. I will not participate in the furthering of war or the romanticizing of a man-made tragedy.

So today, I want to examine how I can be a catalyst for peace and look for where I fall short. I will just say, “God bless us all,” and pray that we all learn one day to come and go in peace and finally create a nation that heeds its own words written so purposefully long ago:

The Firemen and the Flag On the morning of September 11, 2001, Lori Grinker, a professional photographer with the internationally renown agency, Contact Press Images, left her apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. On her way to the subway, she glimpsed the Trade Centers on fire rising over the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. She began photographing. She quickly found her way to the Williamsburg Bridge, and walked all the way to the site of the attack at the World Trade Center where she spent several hours photographing the devastation. At approximately 3:30 pm she was standing in front of the bombed out windows on the second floor of Two World Financial Center when the three firefighters walked into her view and proceeded to raise the American flag over the smoldering ruins. Copyright copyright, Lori Grinker, 2001
“The Firemen and the Flag”
copyright, Lori Grinker, 2001
More peaceful days, please.

P.S. Here is a song I learned 20 years ago in church

“Let There Be Peace on Earth”
By Jill Jackson-Miller and Sy Miller

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me;
Let there be peace on earth,
The peace that was meant to be.

With God our creator*
We are family,
Let us walk with each other
In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me,
Let this be the moment now;
With every step I take,
Let this be my solemn vow:

To take each moment and live each moment
In peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.

Copyright by Jan-Lee Music, 1955, 1983. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
*Copyright-protected alternate lyrics.

W W J D

Remember those bracelets?

Personally, I find it difficult to activate that mantra when I am dealing with people who think it’s optional that people different from them, or those they don’t dare to understand, should be allowed to live their lives the same as the “rest of us” (OMG, that’s such a HUGE othering phrase!). I mean, what WOULD Jesus do with the folks that think it is their right to abuse, oppress, or ridicule someone else? Shouldn’t they be punished in some way? But then, I don’t believe in a God that punishes. So I find myself repeatedly examining what IS mine to do about people who stick to their guns (figuratively and literally) when it comes to their prejudices knowing that the backbone of prejudice is generally a lack of knowledge or experience.

Maybe there’s nothing for me to do… maybe there’s nothing that can be done. Maybe doing nothing and pretending this doesn’t happen is the thing to do. Right? It doesn’t affect me, so I’m just going to be positive, not talk about the hard things, and it will eventually, magically fix itself. I mean, I definitely don’t want to rock the boat or make the bigots and crazy Uncle __________ uncomfortable!

Buuuuut… WWJD?

Sidebar: In the parable of the Good Samaritan as a story-lesson told by Jesus as told by Luke who was taught by Paul in answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor,” this Good Samaritan stopped and helped a stripped and beaten Jewish guy even though back in the day these two groups hated each other. No one stopped to help him — not even another Jew! They didn’t want to get involved. But this Samaritan could have passed him by because he was “different” and they didn’t agree theologically, politically or socially speaking. And yet, he showed mercy. The Samaritan didn’t stop and ask him about his sexual orientation, or if he had a criminal past, didn’t care if he had piercings, didn’t know if he had a home or not, knew nothing of the presence of any addictions, didn’t ask if he was identified as a female at birth, had no clue if he had a side gig dressing in women’s clothing and partying like it’s 1999… he only moved on “love (the greatest commandment or law of all) thy neighbor.” WWJD? That.

It’s not hard to guess how Jesus would have treated trans folks, brown, black, or white folks (In case you missed the geography and ancestry lessons, Jesus wasn’t white.), gay and queer folks, drag queens, people without homes, immigrants (especially the brown ones, because lordy y’all are so welcoming to immigrants from European and other Caucasian-hegemonized countries — but I digress….), prisoners, addicts, etc. I don’t think he would have found them to be of such little value at all. I also don’t believe he would have felt his existence threatened in any way by any of them, nor do I believe that he would have felt that his own existence was somehow subtracted from or made less-than by their existence, AND I don’t believe he would have felt he was in any way superior to any of them. (Taking a breath….) YES, all that can exist in the same space at the same time… much like people. <side-eye>

In fact, I believe Jesus was not only a healer, a Rabbi (hopefully if you’re a follower, this is not news to you), and prophet, but a social worker and an activist as well. And dare I say it? A socialist. <gasp> But somehow so many of us hide behind fair-skinned, blue-eyed, light brown-haired Jesus when we want to protect our prejudiced, bigoted behaviors. I wonder what Jesus would have said about that. Some of us even go to churches and other places of worship that encourage that behavior which is not like what Jesus taught at all.

In my best Jesus voice (because I do have one in my head): Oh, never mind. I’m saving that for another post. You’ll have to wait a minute.

From the very beginning of Jesus, and even the beginning of the thought of Jesus, we have resisted changing our thoughts and mindset while claiming to be a follower, a student, a worshipper. We have continually tried so hard to make Jesus wrong without saying that he was wrong out loud. We have manipulated scriptures since even before Jesus; we seek out places of worship and groups that identify and align with our behaviors that are based outside of love, and then turn around and call ourselves “saved,” as if that elevates us somehow. Declaring it doesn’t make it so, but daily behavior and thinking does — or doesn’t. Choices, right?

I mostly think we just need to be saved from ourselves. It’s not like we don’t have the instructions. We have them, but we’re satisfied letting someone else tell us what they say. And I still don’t know what is mine to do about people who can’t figure out how hypocritical they are as Christians who think they can justify limiting someone else’s existence. WWJD? I’m honestly not sure, but I’ll keep asking.

Screenshot of a Twitter post reads: I say this as a theologian: Th3eology is important. But God cares way more about how we treat & love our neighbours (especially our oppressed neighbours) than the accuracy of our theological beliefs about God and Scripture. Prediction: A lot of the folks who weigh in opposing this are going to weigh in unkindly. They're also going to tell me to learn from slaveholders like American puritans - thereby proving the original premise of my tweet.
The post that got the thinkie thing going this morning.
Graphic reads: I will respect your opinion as long as youor opinion doesn't disrespect anyone else's existence. Caption reads: I don't know to whom credit for this belongs. But I totally agree.
I don’t know to whom credit for this belongs, but I totally agree.

Stop Calling It Political To Excuse Yourself

Jesus wasn’t sent here to make you comfortable and complacent. You can get your ears tickled at home. Go to church to stretch your mind and heart. If you’re in a church where your pastor won’t speak on the harsh things about humanity (or inhumanity) as well as the ones that make you feel good, tell me, who is up in there actually following Jesus then? Jesus called out ALL the nonsense! Put your grown person pants on and stop listening to the Church of Mainstream Media and Politicians who politicize pain. We’re here to expose and learn from the pain, not run from it.

But I Love ALL People

I often wonder if we truly came to realize how much our apathy, our overt and covert racism, homophobia, genderism (or pick an ism/phobia) hurts us on a personal level — would we finally do something about it? If we found out it was making us sick, if we felt it in our own lives, on our own bodies, in our own homes, in our own minds, would we finally be compelled to do something? Or would we still just be stuck on “right” to save face and suffer silently, or blame it on “them?” I think we put a lot of energy into saving face, and a lot of running from the truth… or even mangling it, covering it up. We think, “I’m not the one; surely it’s not me,” and even get mad when confronted.

We put a LOT of energy into this, and yet we think we remain unaffected by the covering up, the pretending, the avoidance to look at ourselves squarely and honestly. We put on a mask when we go about our daily business outside of the home, but when we return the mask is put away and we discuss all about “those people,” and we have strong opinions on people we can’t even see honestly. We pretend (or do we really believe this) that if we don’t talk about it, refuse to give it attention, that we somehow are not contributing to the racism, the homophobia, Islamic hatred, etc. We tell ourselves and others that we just won’t participate in the discussions because that would be contributing to the problem. But…

WHEN HAS IGNORING SOMETHING EVER MADE IT BETTER?

If you let it, this might set you free from the invisible box you have created for yourself and probably the children you might be influencing…. Do you know that you don’t even have to understand how or why people are who they are to just let them live, and even to love them? And here’s the REAL personal freedom…. Once you are able to embrace that, it’s no effort to embrace them just as they are. That’s where love lives, and that’s what it looks like.

We like to say that we love all people, don’t we? It sounds right, and feels good to say — even seems logical. For added theatrics or emphasis, we even wave our hand when we say it as if we’re brushing off how ridiculous it is to even have to say it out loud.

  • You have a good relationship with your Black neighbor, and your kids even play together.
    • But do you love Black PEOPLE?
  • That Muslim woman in the next cubicle is hilarious, and you frequently lunch together.
    • But do you love Muslim PEOPLE?
  • The Mexican woman who babysits your children during the past four summers is a wonderful addition to your lives and with whom you entrust your children. She even teaches them Spanish!
    • But do you love Mexican PEOPLE?
  • You’re nice to Emily, the transgender checker at the grocery store that you look forward to seeing every week.
    • But do you love transgender PEOPLE?
  • Your love your cousin who is gay and you get along great with him and his husband.
    • But do you love gay PEOPLE?

I’m sure you’re onto me by now, and may have already begun making excuses before you reached the end of the list or stopped reading the list altogether. Hopefully none of that’s true and you get the point. But if it is true, I hope you ask yourself why that is, and I hope you go even further and begin really thinking about this. One thing that can happen is that you will start showing up as the person you’ve been saying you are. You remember — the one that loves all people!

I get it. (I don’t, actually, but I do know something about this personally.) You’re secretly afraid of what other people in your circles might think. You don’t want to admit it, but it’s true. You’re afraid of what you will lose, and this is a driving force for so many of us that causes us sometimes to double down on the excuses, and why so many of us turn to apathy, ignoring, or defending all the “good people on both sides.” We are more afraid of how we might look, what we might lose, or even who we might have to talk to in a new way.

Freedom. That’s what you get. You get freedom from the excuses, freedom from toxic ideas and people. You get new vision, and you get to do the work of self-repair, self-reflection, and self-love instead of the arduous work of covering up, the laziness of apathy and tolerating, and the sweat-work of defending terrible people, systems and ideations. You get freedom from the pain of giving and being an assist to systems that hurt other people. You will lose some; you will. And then you will be free from people who won’t operate on a higher level of humanity.

Operating from this is also work, but it isn’t the kind that hurts us on a soul level or the level of hurting humanity. In fact, it’s actually restorative on a cellular level. And the best part of all… you will be on your way to telling the truth when you say, “I LOVE ALL PEOPLE.”

A Just Verdict ≠ Justice Served

Today’s verdicts made it feel like a good day, and it was for that. Remember, we still don’t even have sentencing done yet. George Floyd’s murderer could receive up to 40 years in prison for second degree murder, up to 25 years for third degree murder, and up to 10 years for second degree manslaughter. We’ll see soon, and hopefully I’m surprised and he receives the fullest extent and it sets a precedence that can’t be ignored.

But George Floyd’s murderer is himself a symptom, a symbol of something much bigger than he is. The murderer is just the oozing abscess on the ass of the dirty system many of us seem to be blind to, or afraid to tell the truth about. That system is still alive and well.

Justice has not yet been served, and just, “no…” Floyd did not sacrifice his life, nor was it sacrificed for some invisible greater cause. STOP IT. He was MURDERED. It is not time to relax or spit empty, pain-inflicting platitudes.

Take that breath today – but tomorrow – well, it’s another day in the same exact system Floyd was murdered in. Don’t be that person that can’t/won’t admit that the problems still not only exist, but are cemented in. We do this same weird dance with elections/politics, and I suspect this won’t be different. One just verdict doesn’t equal justice, nor does it dismantle this corrupt, racist, bankrupt system. So…

Breathe in this moment tonight.
Exhale and stand back up tomorrow. Keep it moving. Keep the pressure on.

“If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, that’s not progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. They haven’t pulled the knife out; they won’t even admit that it’s there.” -Malcolm X.

Malcolm X – If you stick a knife in my back…. https://youtu.be/XiSiHRNQlQo

Scouting Gun Control Issues

So I wrote the post (pictured above) after news of a mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado. This is on the heels of a mass shooting in Georgia. I wrote it right before I went to bed, and I was feeling just done with the madness. Well, if you are a thinker or a writer, as usually happens, once I laid down in the quiet, the thoughts flooded in.

A little more on this….

Everything I said in that post is 100 percent how I feel. They’re my thoughts. My wish is that I knew what to do about it, knew how to effect actual, lasting change, but my belief is that it’s not a gun problem, but a heart and soul condition. (Shameless plug: I think I have a blog post about that somewhere.) I used to think that we just need to ban every single kind of firearm, but my thoughts on that have slowly, continually evolved. I still wish we lived in a world where they didn’t exist, never existed at all, but I can wish that until the cows come home and it won’t change a single thing. So….

__________________________________________________________________________

Learn better; do better. Thoughts evolve, and that’s okay.

My thoughts on gun control are evolving as over the years I have come to understand and see how these types of laws can affect communities that aren’t White, and communities that sit in the lower income brackets. This is true of so many of our laws and beliefs. I believe in our 2nd Amendment as I understand it (not in the fear-based, bastardized version so many self-appointed “patriots” vomit out), but I don’t believe just anyone deserves to own a firearm either. So what are the correct parameters? I doubt we’ll ever find agreement on this either.

__________________________________________________________________________

The Black Panthers showed up and we clutched our pearls.

Remember that time in 1967 when the Black Panthers showed up on the steps of the California State Capitol and then-Governor Reagan (R) and his NRA cronies decided we needed gun control laws right away? Well, I don’t remember because I was barely 3 years old, but it’s not hard information to find. But yes, the NRA wanted gun control laws after that incident! (If you never stopped to wonder “why,” here’s your chance.) What I do vividly remember many times is White men and women parading, storming, and protesting at various state capitol buildings, other federal buildings and lands armed to the freaking gills. What I also remember about those incidents is the government, the twisted NRA, and many so-called patriots saying NOTHING and doing NOTHING about it. Essentially, what I’ve seen is blatant inequality, and the silence I hear is actually an action, a stand.

__________________________________________________________________________

Well now, that’s a problem.

So there I was with a pretty strong thought about guns and owners, heels dug in, rock solid sentiments. The problem is it centers my own personal fears and knee-jerk reactions rather than the whole picture. It leaves out the welfare of a whole lot of people. Is this the crossroads or a complete shift? I guess I’m not totally sure yet, but I know it is different, and I know that if my thoughts or actions contribute to hurting another group through inequality or inequity, then that’s a clue that some shift needs to happen. It’s a clue tapping at me letting me know that something is unbalanced, unfair, and requires more thought. I have always chosen to be a scout rather than a follower — someone who continually seeks out a higher consciousness and willing to change direction when or where I see I can do better. I’m not afraid to find out I’m wrong. I’m not afraid to change. I’m not afraid to realize my thoughts may have been imitated without thought and it’s okay to change direction. All of that might piss off some folks, but that isn’t always what’s most important. So I adjust, transform, or switch directions.

__________________________________________________________________________

So here I am with little direction, nagging thoughts, armed with a scout mentality.

I’m going to stay in this inquiry until I have a solid direction. It’s important to me that the footprint I leave on others isn’t one on their backs. It’s important to me that my activism supports our Black and Brown communities in equality. It’s important to me to self-examine regularly and make sure I’m in alignment with what I say I want in the world, and that I’m not aligned out of fear. I’m going to have a conversation with a friend of mine whose ideas have also changed around gun ownership, whose ideas were much like mine and have also evolved quite a bit over the past year or so. I was invited to go to a shooting range event by that friend, and my husband and I are going to attend. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never shot a gun in my life, and they’ve always scared me. I have no clue what I might learn, who I might get to talk to, but I’m open to it all because personal evolution is calling. I’ll blog about my experiences and thoughts.

Always choose to be a scout.

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Revolution won’t happen without evolution, revelations, and reevaluation.
Debora Lynn Garcia

It’s a System and I Take It Personal

I know you might find me confounding and even exasperating at times. I know you may not understand (or care) why my voice is so loud and my energy so explosive.  It’s possible that you think I don’t handle things appropriately, whatever that means to you, and I’m sure some of you think I do too much and others think I don’t do enough. It is what it is. I’m sure I could use some balance.  I am sure of a lot of things, and I am sure that I will not apologize for any of this. I appreciate the truth in matters, even when it forces me to change direction or it makes some “side” look bad and it doesn’t feel good. I may not always get it right, but I know I get it wrong less. I am a human being first, and a mother second, but the second feels like my most important job. Like most people I am a lot of other things as well – hooks and edges, bumps and curves, questions and answers, some broken parts – but both of those pieces, human and mother, drive me the most.  What I want for my family is nothing less than I would wish for yours, but NEVER at the EXPENSE of the LIVES of mine. 

Election Day Is Coming in Like a Freight Train on Fire with No Brakes

Tomorrow is a big day. I hope you voted or will be voting tomorrow.

I voted!

I hope you vote/d for a world that leaves no one out, a world that embraces everyone, a world that can evolve into a world that works for all, where every single person knows they belong. My understanding is that many of us voted OUT of fear instead of voting fear out. I’m talking about the propositions and measures in this instance. (I understand that many of us definitely voted out of fear for our presidential choice. But… if you know me, you know I will be talking about that one later, no matter who wins.)

There’s so much vitriol around elections, (and I’m guilty as well) and in my mind, this insane level of it began when Obama ran. It just seemed there was so much hate towards a Black man and his campaign. I’ve studied long enough to know that hate stems from fear, but my GOD…. I honestly wonder, when is it JUST hate, plain and simple? The hate, anger, and fear is so thick that we’re losing childhood friends, family members, and other friends from our circles — be it by our own choices or theirs.

2020 has been the perfect shit storm, hasn’t it?
Many of us talk like once the election is over, or once we hit the new year, that miraculously it’s all going to go back to some kind of unusual peaceful normal. What even IS that? To me that sounds similar to the coronavirus president’s motto, “Make America Great Again.” I mean, what IS “great,” anyway? Is it:

  • Citizens that cheer on a man who should be stately, but instead makes fun of others like a second grader who doesn’t know any better?
  • Police being allowed to mame and kill people without due process?
  • Healthcare costs only the wealthy can actually afford?
  • Separating children from their immigrant parents, never to be reunited again?
  • Defunding our schools?
  • A country full of people either too uneducated or too unwilling to see how our past affects its citizens to this day?
  • A mass of citizens who think a flag is something to be revered over human bodies, decency, and the actual country it represents?
  • Water, air, and land so polluted it’s uninhabitable, poisons our bodies, and has species of plant and animal disappearing forever?
  • An election and political system so fraught with bribery, lies, and deceit that we can barely figure out who to even vote for anymore?
  • Drilling into our Mother Earth to its own detriment and, ultimately, ours?
  • Lifetime politicians who end up being in it so long they think they actually are anointed for it?
  • A prison bail system that is created only for the wealthy or those willing to risk it all?
  • A death penalty system so flawed with a mindset to follow that is so flawed it believes it’s okay if we get it wrong sometimes?
  • Citizens who will believe a man with a 100-word vocabulary over scientists?
  • Same citizens who think that somehow COVID-19 is either a hoax, or isn’t that bad because either “people are only dying because they had preexisting conditions,” or “it’s not really that many people dying?”
  • Citizens so horribly callous that they justify in their minds the atrocities we create against other sentient beings?
  • People who would rather lie or believe lies than to just admit fault and move on in a better light?

I’m sorry. I just don’t see the “great.” Also, truthfully, I’m not really sorry. I’m a lot of things about it, but I’m not sorry that I don’t have the capacity to be unable to grasp how people ALLOW themselves to become this way.

When did even “just” ONE life become so meaningless — so worthless?
God, forgive us. We’ve become SO ugly.

I’ll be waiting to see if we can pull ourselves up and out of this abyss we’ve thrown ourselves into. I’ll be waiting to see if we FINALLY learn from this election to start paying attention to what’s going on under our noses. I’ll be waiting to see how many go back in the shadows until the next election when they think it’s time to come out and yell again. I’ll be waiting to see how many of us decide it’s time to do something about this F’ed up system the very day after the election. And I’ll be waiting for my comrades who’ve been with me and before me all along to pick up our mantles once again and hit the streets and the airwaves for a world that revolves in love. ‘Cause honey, this ain’t it.

It would be nice to see you there.

Think about it.

Political Hypoxia

“The trouble is, we think we have time.”

Jack Kornfield

Centrist ideals and actions, passivism, and just plain refusing to see (cognitive dissonance) are killing this planet. Essentially, it is killing us. You may have the urge to blame it on those that are obviously being destructive, or obviously protesting that climate change is even real. But every time you make up an excuse for our government officials and political groups ignoring the issue of climate change, you are aiding and abetting those that intentionally have ill will for this planet as evidenced by their desires for personal gain over a survivable planet. And when you think about it, you have personal gain issues, too. Yes. “We have more important issues at hand,” has been said to me. I wonder what that could be? I’ll tell you what it is, and it’s not what you think. It’s your fear – your irrational fear that Trump is the biggest thing we have to defeat – over anything and everything else. F.E.A.R. I don’t know about you, but most people don’t operate in their best thinking when they are coming from fear. We’re all afraid, but we shouldn’t let our fear have us operate from the inability to move out from in front of our noses, unable to see the bigger picture.

Right now the Amazon Rain Forest is burning at phenomenally faster rates than have EVER been known! Some of this is on purpose – for monetary gain. How disgusting! Climate change is killing it as well. We laugh, scoff and wag our fingers at climate change deniers… but how is waiting around for a better time to do something about it any better? In my opinion, that’s even WORSE, because we know better.

I am in an ongoing fight and struggle for equality for all persons on this planet, as many of you may be. If you know me, or have read many of the things I write, this is likely not news to you. Off the top of my head right now, I can’t think of anything more important to me than seeing a world that works for all. Full disclosure is, I selfishly do this because ultimately that’s the world I want for my grandchildren. I’m probably not going to see it. Maybe, but probably not. That’s OK. That’s the bigger picture. It doesn’t mean I’m ignoring the louder, more current concerns or that I’m not afraid. But the bigger picture speaks louder to me than the current, temporary ones. Does that mean that I/we ignore the current madhouse? No, not at all. What it means is that we should not put all our eggs in the basket of fearing the current madhouse. There has to be a balance. But if we’re reacting now without any regard for later, that is a God-awful strategy for our future. If your child is crying because he has a wet and soiled diaper and he’s hungry, but you just realized you’re out of diapers and formula, are you going to run out and get diapers to avoid the current mess, but wait on the formula because it’s less pressing at this moment? Or do they both require your full attention?

This is where we are. Mother Earth is SCREAMING for help, but many of us can’t seem to focus our energy on anything other than the mess in front of us. It’s urgent, yes, but there’s something bigger and also urgent that is starving for our attention as well. And if we don’t take care of it, there won’t be one single reason for any of the rest of it. The thing about starvation is, once it’s noticeable, there’s very little time to correct it, if at all. And even once it’s corrected, there may be lasting, irreversible damage to the point that saving it is in reality only slowing down the inevitable.

This is not about how much or little you might be doing for a better world. This is not about making the important work any of us are doing now suddenly worthless. IT’S ALL IMPORTANT. IT’S ALL NEEDED, ALL NECESSARY. But operating out of fear to the degree that we let ourselves be led by the nose, to ignore the underhandedness of those that we allow to represent us is going to be our end. And we do this for the short-term goal out of fear. Fear has us blind. Fear has us deaf. Fear has us cutting ourselves short. It’s sad. It’s maddening watching some of those that I love, appreciate, and think so highly of, and know without a doubt to be otherwise intelligent folks give it all up for the moment.

If you think we have bigger fish to fry than climate change, or that it can wait until after the next election, you clearly need the oxygen that we are currently running out of. This is dire. If you actually think the DNC or GOP has your best interests at heart, you MUST be suffering from hypoxia and can’t think straight. Wake up… while you still can. How is it that you can look the other way while they make up their own rules and decisions, mostly ignoring what the voters want, bowing to them out of fear instead of standing up to them and being fearless. Last election, and it looks like the upcoming one as well, so many people wanted to blame people like me for a sub-par candidate losing the election. You should be blaming yourselves and the DNC who led you by the nose KNOWING BETTER. Many of us tried to tell you, and you ridiculed and laughed at us. We’re telling you again, and you’re still laughing.

I wish I could say that “I told you so” tasted sweet, but I have to wade in the bitter poison right along with you.

Your social justice and equality issues also do not take a bigger stage than climate change. Again, these issues are not less important, but to be perfectly clear, they won’t be an issue at all if we keep ignoring climate change or putting it off until ____________. If you care so much about social dynamics and the struggles that are going on right now in our communities of color and our underserved communities, then you absolutely SHOULD be thinking about climate change. Why? If you have your community activism hat already in any arena involving those communities, then I already know you are aware of how they get hit the hardest, the fastest, and the longest when anything bad comes down the pipeline. They also take the longest to recover – if ever. Sometimes it’s actually by design, sadly, and sometimes it’s because of positioning. Here are just a few examples: housing crisis, redlining, gerrymandering, poverty, bank bailouts, war on drugs, high cost of pharmaceuticals, disparities in healthcare, inflation, etc. DO YOU THINK FOR ONE SECOND THAT AS OUR CLIMATE AND EARTH DETERIORATE THAT THESE COMMUNITIES WON’T SUFFER HARDER, FASTER, AND LONGER THAN OTHERS – THAT SOMEHOW THEY’LL ESCAPE THE USUAL ROLL CALL FOR THIS? Like I said, if you already have your community activism hat on, it shouldn’t be hard for you to see how this will go. All our work will be for not if we refuse to address our climate issues NOW – not after the election; not after… anything else. NOW.

Look, I am also guilty of waiting to fully address climate change, and not being willing to realize that if our world deteriorates, there is no point at all to anything else that I work for, strive for, pour my heart and soul out into. My selfish reasons for the other activism work that I do has to be, and is, the same for climate change. I want my grandchildren to grow up in a world that their Gram helped make better and survives for them. I don’t want them to suffer from the effects of racism, classism, bigotry, hunger, violence, xenophobia… and I most certainly don’t want them to suffer because they can’t breathe or the little food that’s left or the water is poisoning them. As a bonus, I would also like to live out the rest of my life on a planet that is being loved and nurtured, knowing it’s going to be a safe place for my Milani Jhené and Joshua Rey, and whichever beautiful grandbabies that might come next.

We need to stop wishing for a better tomorrow before all we can wish for is any tomorrow.

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