I’m talking to you.
I can’t go into all the details of how I know this, but it was revealed to me today that there are indeed people out there who don’t seem to know anything about current events, don’t know what’s going on in their country or why they might want to have an opinion or thought about it all. Since I’ve been gasping about recent events involving police use of deadly force, protests around that and now the whole turns-out-the-USA-used-torture-afterall thing, this newest revelation, which probably shouldn’t be all that shocking to me anymore, left me gasping anew while holding onto both my stomach and head.
People. You must know what’s happening in the world, in your country, in your state and locality. Maybe not in depth all the time, I get that, but most of the time. Because, it turns out, it matters and it also turns out, it involves you. It might not be you getting beat up by police this week but maybe next week. You pay taxes. They were spent to torture people and the government that collected those taxes, and tortured those people, then turned around and lied to everyone about it.
Our federal legislators think that they can pretty much do anything they want rather than their job being to represent their constituency (that’s the people who elected them – you did vote, right?) as best they can and to do the best they can to provide good governmental services for everyone. Everyone being the voters/taxpayers.
Oh and on the subject of voting, a pitiful small percentage of people eligible to vote this last November actually voted.
This isn’t the USA I believe in nor the one imagined by the founding fathers.
What are we going to do about taking back our country? Start by reading the newspapers, listening to good news sources, talking to people. Register to vote and vote. Let your thoughts be heard by commenting on NYTimes articles and similar news sources. Write letters to the editor. Write your representatives and tell them where you stand. Don’t let them think they didn’t know what you wanted them to do. Protest or do whatever it takes to get action. Go to meetings locally.
Just do it. Because if we don’t all do it, nothing happens. If we all do it, we can do anything.
