There have been times—and they still will be with me for a while—when one quote from my hero Will Rogers comes back to haunt me as a bizarre outlier in his otherwise ocean of timeless and reassuring observations about people, politics, professions, and all that needs skewering or reassuring. Election 2012 brings it all up again...
When I reflect on the many layers of Election 2012--nationally and locally, and in other locales beyond my SoCal home of 18 years--something my man Will Rogers once said comes to mind:
"The country is not where it is today on account of any man. It is here on account of the common sense of the big Normal Majority."
That's hard to swallow at times. (Especially when I look at the all-red states, some with personal ties. I'm lookin' at you, AGAIN, my no-blue-county-even-Norman Sooner State.)
But really, you just have to get the Big Normal Majority the info it needs to make common sense COMMON. Sometimes, when someone pays big bucks to put up a smokescreen, the BNM just has to LIVE it and SEE it before they GET it....whether marriage equality, or trumped-up "crimes".... or who's really buying off who for what unfair profit. Will's "Big Boys" who caused the Depression are still at it, and we have to stay ever vigilant—and stay united, even with those who are being duped into self-division. They just don't "get it"... yet. But they will. Something will finally fall, or stick, for them, in their own life and experience.
In other worlds, in a more complex world, some things move virally fast. Some, just still need PATIENCE, and chipping away. (And the internet equivalent of FDR's REA rural electric coops for the vast heartland still dealing with sloooooow/expensive online access, or none at all.)
Even so: we've come a long way since 1980, much less 2000. That pendulum is swinging back.
Will's "Big Normal Majority" is really out there unawares still, just waiting to be expanded by awareness. We just need to keep workin' it.