Dear all of you excellent dKos folks, and crazy rogues as well, this is a love letter to you.
This profound segment on MSNBC Joy Reid’s THE REIDOUT about “Pig Laws” has me reflecting on how much I have learned in the past decade or so, that I was blithely unaware of all of my life. I am deeply grateful for all the principled, active, intelligent, brave souls who have finally succeeded in pounding so many extremely important topics into the forefront of American knowledge and awareness, so much so that even an isolated, basically happy, privileged country bumpkin hippie like myself can not miss it.
The 1619 Project, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, Me Too, Pride, Dreamers, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the movie “13th”, Truckers Against Trafficking, prison reformers, Occupy, migrant workers and asylum seekers, 350.org, NRDC,Doctors Without Borders, and so many more have opened my eyeballs to the incredible suffering (physical, mental, economic, etc.) and unfairness inflicted on my fellow humans (and the rest of the earth, let’s face it). I am glad so many of you hang out at this clearinghouse called Daily Kos; about a million of us (I have no idea how many kossacks there are) gain and learn from your experiences and knowledge and heart every day - how to be better, more aware and fully developed people and better advocates for our fellow humans.
I have lived as friends among those whose ancestors died at Wounded Knee and Battle of the Little Bighorn. My grandmother and mother were staunch human rights supporters and scrappy KKK and neo-Nazi fighters. I had read quite a bit about the Holocaust and Russian Revolution in high school, and still have a deep dread of Nazis and authoritarianism.
But raised as I was in the clean air and waters of the Rocky Mountain west, among skiers and coyotes, kayakers and bears, cowboys and moose, I ask for your forgiveness that I really did not know much of what so many others experienced currently and throughout history. I hold you all in the highest esteem for the amazing movements you have created and fights you have waged and the courage and grace you have shown and continue to show.
I thank you for the education of this fish-belly white mountain dweller. I hope I am ever someday able to demonstrate I am a worthy student. I still live in a dreamscape of western mountains, but I am far more aware of those in need around me. I reach out, volunteer, march in demonstrations, watch for signs of people being trafficked at truck stops. I pick up hitchhikers, and I share whatever I have when I can help someone. It’s not enough, and never will be, but I will spend all of my days trying to do right by anyone I can help along the way. THANK YOU ALL, and FIGHT ON!!!
Love,
Back Porch Philosopher
P.S. Thank you, too, Joy Reid.