One of the many things so many of you have taught me since joining this site, is that when I'm struggling with something I'm usually far from alone.
And I have been struggling. Struggling to find the determination to keep going in the face of so much that feels overwhelming. It has been a rough year on top of too many rough years.
There have been mass shootings and one killing after another of people of color by the police. There have been unceasing Republican attacks on voting rights, women's rights, and worker's rights. There was the shooting in Santa Barbara of young women, and the young men who the shooter deemed as taking his rightful place with women. There was the resulting conversation about that shooting with so many women sharing their stories and so much ugliness in response.
Big money seems to keep pulling all the strings and our voices seem to count less and less. There has been the Supreme Court gutting of the Voting Right's Act and the Hobby Lobby decision.
There has been the utter failure of MSM to report the facts and not spin. There has been the increasing threat of Climate Change and Republican "leaders" unwillingness to do anything about it. It's knowing that over half of the United States population doesn't "believe" in evolution. It's the Ukraine, Syria, Iraq. It's flooding in Bangladesh. It is Central and South American children running for their lives to America, and the hate that greeted them.
It's Michael Brown's body lying dead in the street for four hours and the faces of his parents. It is the images and stories coming from Ferguson in the wake of Michael Brown's murder.
It's knowing that far too many of us are myopic, at best, and don't care enough to act about an issue until it suddenly becomes personal.
America, Grieving
America, grieving...
your oily fingers on
the wheel of the world,
your black heart of prejudice...
you pull the crumbs
from the mouths of the needy,
and litter your walkways
with the bones of children.
you poison your own crops,
and defile your own water.
you educate your children
in prisons dark, and
on foreign sands fighting...
for freedom, no!
you batter the people of color,
bruise them with your stars and stripes...
your hanging trees condemn you!
you cut the hearts out
of your working people,
and feed them fear and lies.
the stench of your excesses
rises to meet god,
the god you've created
in your blackened jealousy.
you taunt the spirit
with cries of freedom,
free speech, free thoughts...
and then break it with the
oppressive load of your debts.
Wall Street and big oil,
and the corporate demons...
no democracy here!
America, grieving...
your own will rise up,
and take down your flag!
by Eric Cockrell
It's as if everything that is wrong, everything that is painful and threatening has reached critical mass and is pouring out into the open. There has been one damn thing after another, an incessant drumbeat of woe.
I'm feeling staggered by it all. Grieving - for us, for our dreams, for my children and grandchildren, for this beautiful blue world.
So what do we do about it? For if there is one thing that I do know, it is that we must do something. There is far too much at stake to give in to despair.
I know that no matter how overwhelmed I feel, there is no choice but to keep going.
I know that there are people out there doing the hard, important work to make things better, no matter how distant that "better" might seem.
I need to see them here, on this site. We need to inspire one another again. We need to remember the best of us and not just the worse. We need stories of hope, of action.
At least I do. I desperately need some balance.
Yes, defining a problem is crucial. Bringing a problem out into the light vital.
But so is discussing solutions to those problems and acting.
I'm tired of the debbie downers. I'm tired of the lack of balance. I'm tired of defeatism being dressed up as worldly wise cynicism.
So what about you? How are you doing? What are you doing?
What can we, together, do to bend the arc of justice? What are others already working on to accomplish just that?
For they are -
Worried about Climate Change? There's big doings going on this month around the globe, and especially in New York City. People will be gathering by the tens of thousands in NYC to organize and march in the People's Climate March on Sunday, September 21st. The following week the United Nations is holding its first Climate Summit.
Worried about Voter Suppression?
The League of Women Voters is fighting back and could use your help.
Take the League Challenge - Help Us Register New Voters
By: Jeanette Senecal 09/11/2014
Register to Vote in 2014
The days are getting cooler and shorter, students are back in school and soon the leaves will begin to fall. These are just a few of the signs that Election Day is nearing. In less than two months, millions of voters will head to the polls to have a say on our country’s future and the issues that matter most.
Help us make sure no one is left out. In order to get all eligible citizens to the polls on Election Day, the League of Women Voters needs YOUR help! Research tells us that personally asking people to register and vote is the single-best thing we can do to help more Americans participate. Help us register new voters by sending our eCard to the people in your life who need to register to vote or update their registration.
Join them and make a difference. Don't know about you but that always makes me feel better.
Join Moral Mondays. The work they have been doing to fight back against attacks on Voter's Right's, Women's and Worker's rights and more in North Carolina is inspiring.
The organization is spreading into other states - including Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Indiana. Our own nancyjones is helping organize Moral Monday in Gainesville, Florida. They held their first rally this week. Nancy has a great diary up about it, so please give her some respect and tips.
Moral Mondays is fusion activism at its finest. Moral Mondays, like The League of Women Voters and other organizations, are working their hearts out to make things better for us all.
And yet, except for the few, who knows about those efforts? Where are the stories about them on this site, a site supposedly dedicated to electing more and better Democrats, a site dedicated to fighting for justice? Where are the stories about the people and organizations that are doing just that?
Unfortunately they are few and far between. Our own Denise Oliver Velez has tried and tried again to bring Moral Monday's efforts to our attention. Slowly the word is spreading, but not nearly fast enough.
Why aren't we all paying attention to groups and people that are fighting for Justice?
Why aren't we helping get the word out about them? Why aren't we working as hard inspiring people to help fix problems, as we are to complain about them?
Which wolf are we feeding here?
Balances
In life
one is always
balancing
like we juggle our mothers
against our fathers
or one teacher
against another
(only to balance our grade average)
3 grains of salt
to one ounce truth
our sweet black essence
or the funky honkies down the street
and lately i've begun wondering
if you're trying to tell me something
we used to talk all night
and do things alone together
and i've begun
(as a reaction to a feeling)
to balance
the pleasure of loneliness
against the pain
of loving you
Nikki Giovanni
The thing is, none of us are alone in this. What affects one of us, can affect us all.
So I'm reaching out to you and asking for some hope, some inspiration, some balance.
I need your stories about what you are doing to make things better so that I can help make things better. We all need that.
I've seen us lift each other up before. We've accomplished amazing things together. If it was the first Subscription drive or saving someone's home or weaving words of love all over a beautiful quilt for one of us who was ill - it all changed lives. I've seen us galvanize GOTV in crucial elections. I've seen us fall down, get up, and go on stronger than ever. Lets do it again.
This is such a crucial election, one that I think is even more important than the 2016 Presidential election.
So much is riding on the vote this November and Republicans know it. They wouldn't be trying so hard to take away our vote if our vote did not matter!
If you have a story to share about GOTV efforts in your area, I want to know about it. If you have ideas about helping get out the vote, I want to know about it.
This is our time. This is our story. This is when we decide to either turn back or keep going. I hope we keep going. There is still so much good in this world and it is worth fighting for.
It is almost the middle of September. Voting day is a month and a half away.
Which wolf are we going to feed?
2:30 PM PT: Ok, I'm rolling on the floor laughing at this and thought you all would enjoy the news as well. You know that Georgia Republican legislators and Secretary of State are pitching a fit about voter registration drives. Here's why -
Running Scared
Georgia’s Democrats have registered more than 85,000 minority voters (and counting). Republicans never saw it coming.
http://www.slate.com/...
I'm loving it. :)
4:54 PM PT: Now this is what I'm talking about. If you will, please read and support this amazing effort.
If ALEC can make laws, so can Daily Kos! The Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act of 2015, Draft 3
http://www.dailykos.com/...