America Still Has a Heartbeat...

I'm awed.

The scenes out of my hometown (DC) right now are impressive. The streets are filled with caring, empassioned, righteous, brave Americans of all different colors, ages and backgrounds. Recently, I've felt like giving up. Giving up on social change in America (and the world), which is basically what I've been about my entire life. Everything has felt completely dark.

But today I'm seeing candles. Thousands upon thousands of candles in the street. And just as the first Women's March (which I participated in, thank God, as it honestly was the hope and inspiration that got me through the subsequent first three years of the 45 administration) heartened me and gave me strength to go on, now these utterly beautiful, engaged, caring, protesters in the streets all over our country (and even in other countries on our behalf), but especially in DC, are bringing tears to my eyes. Heartened tears. Tears of hope.

I thought America ended on February 5th. Murdered by the complicit Republican Senate, which ruled that the current and and all future POTUS are above the law. I thought: that's it. Everything that so many sacrificed so much for, and worked so hard for, for our entire history, is over. Because they've killed the constitution now. The constitution, which I was raised by my beloved momma to think was/is everything. The foundation that this country is built on.

But you know what? It's powerful, but, at the end of the day, it's a document with words in it. It's the people that gave it life, and it's the people who give our laws, our checks and balances, and our entire everything that is "America"--the highest ideals of, and idea of, and reality of, America--life. Or death. And I'm realizing something, as tears fill my eyes: the Senate didn't kill America. They dealt a blow to the constitution. That's all. And that's not nothing. But that's not everything. We ain't dead yet, folks! And why? Because of WE, THE PEOPLE.

We are still here. And as long as we rise, and as long as we march, and as long as we make our voices heard, and, as my hero, Bernie Sanders always says: stand together, there is nothing we can't do. Including SAVING THIS COUNTRY.

My God, we're not dead yet. America still has a pulse! And all of these protesters, lighting one candle instead of cursing the darkness, have lit up my darkness. And given me hope. Maybe this truly is the proverbial darkness before the dawn. If we, the people, usher in the dawn, it will come. If we all keep lighting candles.

America still has a heartbeat! It's us, y'all! The constitution is beautiful but it isn't the heartbeat. That's in all of us, we, the people. <3

Thank you, Bernie

Thank you, Bernie

Thank you for being the first political figure in my lifetime who truly represents me, everything I stand for, and everything I dream in my wildest dreams for my country and the world.

Thank you for changing the conversation in this country.

Thank you for giving eloquent, clear and inspiring voice to everything I’ve believed since I was 19 years old and had long since given up on a presidential candidate ever actually fighting for.

Thank you for the validation that came from learning, when I was 19 years old, that the new mayor of Burlington, Vermont was a democratic socialist, just like I had only months earlier realized I was, after discovering it on a college group study trip to Europe. You were the only person in America, let alone the only politician in America, who even knew what I was talking about, let alone shared that world view with me and identified as such.

Thank you for making “single payer healthcare” a kitchen table topic that doesn’t instantly get laughed out of the room.

Thank you for being a true social change activist, and a successful one, dedicating your entire life to effecting social change and trying to bring America to economic and ethical health.

Times may—hell, they do—seem very, very dark right now. It may seem like we will never get to the America you and I, and so many, many others (I know now that there are many of us, thanks to you and our movement), want and understand that we desperately need to get to for the aforementioned economic and ethical health of our country. But you know the old truism: it’s always darkest before the dawn.

Bernie, you have started something that no one can now stop. You have inspired people and gotten people to think, you’ve put ideas out there and sparked people’s imaginations. No one can undo that. And now we go on. Not me, us. From the deepest, most idealistic, imaginative and hopeful depths of my heart and soul, I thank you, Bernie.

"Not me, us!"

Hopeful thought for fellow Berners: no matter what happens in 2020, in 2024, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be old enough to be the first woman President. Let that sink in. Think about how much we (Bernie and all of us) have changed the dialog in our country. We have already done that, no one can undo it, and, no matter what, our movement will go forward. Hopefully, we win the nomination and the Presidency in 2020. America desperately needs that. But even if we don't: we have US. We have brilliant, passionate, eloquent young leaders like AOC. And, whether it happens in 2020 or later, one day, our platform will be America's reality.*

( * Unless it's too late by then and we lapse into total fascism and oligarchy, which we're pretty close to at this very moment, but this was supposed to be a hopeful thought/musing! I'm just saying: whether we win or not-so-much this year, in some ways, we truly have already won, because we've really started a movement and, no matter what, it, and we, will GO ON.)

A Rose By Any Other Name Still Smells As Sweet

As an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter who has many friends among my fellow Democrats who are not, I find it very dismaying, upsetting and ironic to read posts and comments on social media mischaracterizing Bernie and we who support him. Bernie Sanders is the most decent, classy person and campaigner I’ve ever witnessed. In 2016, journalists and debate moderators were constantly trying to bait him to personally attack his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and he would not. For example, he refused to entertain questions on the whole email server thing, and said he wanted to stick to the issues. He constantly said, throughout 2016, that he hoped the debate between candidates for the nomination would be substantive, stick to the issues, and avoid personal attacks. And he stuck to that and ran a beautiful campaign.

His entire life’s work, platform, choices and actions, up to and including his 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination for President have all been about INCLUSION, respect, civil rights, social justice, economic fairness and a society that invests in and is for and about all the people, not just the wealthiest individuals and corporations. At every campaign rally, from 2016 through the present, he talks about how “we cannot allow anyone to divide us up. When we stick together, black and white, straight and gay, men and women, old and young, there is nothing we cannot do.”

Most of us who support Bernie, do so precisely because of the decency of both the man and his platform, period. I, and every other actual Bernie supporter I know, are kind, fair-minded, loving human beings. So it hurts to see us constantly mischaracterized on cable news networks and on social media as being the opposite, and I won’t even give the specific words that are being used ANY oxygen.

What is so ironic is, I see and hear all this commentary about how terrible Bernie and, particularly, us Bernie supporters are. Yet, from our perspective as Bernie supporters, it sure seems like WE are the ones taking a lot of incoming missiles and being generalized about.

Perhaps if people would actually take the time, and make the effort, to listen to what Bernie himself actually says, and what is actually in his platform, and his life’s choices and actions, instead of believing what is said *about* Bernie and those of us who support him, by the media and those who aim to take down his campaign, they would realize that Bernie stands for respect, tolerance, pluralism, civil rights, social justice, economic justice and inclusion. There is zero way, if you actually LISTEN to what Bernie says, that anyone could misconstrue it as being--as the media and those who oppose Bernie are working very, very hard to have you believe, and are clearly having success at getting you to believe--the opposite.

Democratic Party: Embrace Your Base!

I'm trying to figure out why the political party I've been a member of my entire life (since age 17--I think I somehow registered at 17, so in 1979, but if it wasn't at 17, it was 18, 1980, okay--suffice it to say, dinosaurs still roamed the earth), and that I have been a consistently loyal, voting member of, ta boot, is treating the only presidential candidate in my entire life's history who actually represents me as a mortal threat to the party and our country.

The only other presidential candidate I have ever been this excited about, this passionately FOR, was my beloved Al Gore. But even Al, who is, obviously, great on climate change, and a great human being and leader, did not represent ME--my exact platform and exact world view in virtually every single way, on every single issue, and as a WHOLE--like Bernie Sanders does. His platform is my platform (except he's for open primaries and I'm not, but there had to be SOMETHING--some small issue--we disagree on). He's a democratic socialist, I'm a democratic socialist. His heart is in Vermont and my heart is in Vermont. He's for all the things I've been fighting for my entire, entire, ENTIRE life: peace, protecting the environment, single payer health care/universal health care, federally mandated maternity and paternity leave for workers, federally funded child care, everyone paying their fair share of taxes. I mean, I could go on, but the man is MY candidate. His platform represents me. Me, a lifelong Democrat. Me, whose lifelong party is now acting like, if this truly great candidate wins our nomination due to the will of the Democratic voters, it would be the end of the world.

I am stunned, shocked and disgusted with my party's centrist spokespeeps right about now. You've got James Carville, for example, running around saying he's "terrified" and that Bernie's platform is a ...wait for it...this was last night on MSNBC..."utopian fantasy". You've got basically the entire party running around talking about: how do we STOP SANDERS?!!!

My question to my party, after I have spent a LIFETIME shouting into the intense wind that the party needs to stop trying to be "Right Lite" and to woo Republicans and Independents, and instead needs to  EMBRACE THE BASE, stand for progressive/liberal issues and be a true ALTERNATIVE to the Right, show some backbone, and GROW THE BASE, is:  why, when someone (Bernie!!! 💜) comes along and does that, inspires entire new generations (Millennials, Gen Z and beyond) of young people, brings them, enthusiastically into the party, fired up, and with a substantive, LIBERAL/progressive platform to get behind, WHY, WHY, WHY are you trying to "stop" him?!!!

Isn't this what we WANT? Don't we want to bring massive numbers of young people into our base, our party? Don't we want to have a fired up, impassioned grassroots base, people who VOTE, people who go out in the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep snow and knock on doors, a candidate who casts off corporate lobbyists and is funded solely by said grassroots? Isn't this all amazing, inspiring, breathtaking, heartening, and, in a word, GOOD?

What is your ever-lovin' problem, James Carville et al.? Quit your disparaging and realize that YOU are what the party should be terrified of: pundits and party spokespeeps who show shocking levels of overt disdain and outright, inexplicable anger over a beautiful grassroots influx of young people, your beautiful long-suffering grassroots of not-as-young-as-we-used-to-be liberal Democrats who have been putting up with YOUR ruining of our party since 1984, to be precise, when you decided we needed to be Reagan Lite and, face it, you've never gotten over that misguided decision. And now you are finally being forced to HEAR US: your ACTUAL base. You know: LIBERALS. PROGRESSIVES. We are who you should embrace, not be terrified of!

EMBRACE YOUR BASE!

BERNIE 2020! It's a GOOD thing!

I've Been Waiting for Today My Entire Life

Long ago (1980), in a galaxy far, far away, known as “Vermont”, there was an idealistic young college student. She wanted to change the world and believed that her generation was the one to do it. She was concerned about climate change (then referred to as “global warming” and/or “The Greenhouse Effect”). She was concerned about The Cold War/nuclear weapons. She was concerned about social justice.

In this remote galaxy of Vermont, this idealistic student went to a tiny, idealistic, experimental college called Goddard. It was full of idealistic, creative, imaginative students and teachers. At one point, she went on a group Independent Study trip to Europe (mainly Germany) for four weeks. Of course, she ended up in an alternative record shop, rifling through some political buttons they had. One had a beautiful sunflower on it, kind of like a Georgia O’Keefe painting, and it said something in German, like “Alternative die Grunen”. The girl asked around, “What does this button say?” She started asking questions about it. Thus she learned about the European Green Party at that time, and about social democracy/democratic socialism. And about how the European Greens were all about the environment, just like she was.

On that trip, the girl was studying European preschools and comparing them to American preschools, and she got to go and observe several preschools throughout Germany, Denmark, Holland and a few other countries. All of this led to the girl learning all about countries that value and invest in their children, and how, in Democratic Socialism/Social Democracy, there is federally funded early childhood education, and maternity and paternity leave, and “single payer health care”, wherein everyone is covered, it comes out of taxes just like our public schools do, and that’s that. No in-network and out-of-network (not that that was a thing yet in the states—most people had indemnity insurance back then), no being afraid to leave your job because you would lose your health insurance, no deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance or premiums. Health care is paid for by taxes, and everyone has it. Early childhood education is also available to everyone, and VALUED. Federal maternity and paternity leave is a thing. WOW! I’m a democratic socialist, she realized! (She also thought, at the time—1980--that she wanted to join the Green Party but, much to her sadness and frustration at the time, upon returning to the States, she learned that it didn’t even exist yet here, which is fine, as now—2020--she detests the American Green Party, so we’ll skip past that part of our tale—she remained a Democrat, as she already was, and still is to this day.)

The girl returned to Vermont, energized to the hilt re social democracy, which NO ONE was talking about at the time. ZERO humans in America. And she learned, when she brought it up excitedly to everyone she knew, that it was “too idealistic” and/or a commie pinko idea that only a naïve, young hippie-type would possibly have/entertain. Still: this is me, she knew: this is my heart, these are my priorities for my country and politics and the world. This is what makes sense. She so wished that there was an American equivalent to the European Greens, or that her own party would be so concerned about the environment, and want to change America’s investment priorities so that we would invest in PEOPLE, and not the military-industrial complex and tax cuts for the very rich. But her country was going the EXACT OTHER WAY: Reagan had just come to power in the 1980 election, her first election, at age 18 (she voted for CARTER, just for the record). Her country went the exact opposite direction from ALL of her beliefs, and would remain on that horrendous track for her entire adult life. But, back to 1980 for a moment…

Just a year later, this young college student in the galaxy known as “Vermont" started to hear about a young mayor over in Burlington, who also was for single payer health care. Wait—someone else in my country is talking about single payer health care?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, yes, and guess what: HE’S A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! TRUE STORY! Guess what else? He cares about the environment, and the nuclear arms race, and maternity and paternity leave, and child care. He cares about social justice. His name is Bernie Sanders and he basically had me at ALL OF THAT!

For many years to come, Bernie remained our little secret, up in Vermont. I remember, in 2004, talking with some fellow Al Gore aficionados, as we were all crestfallen at the realization that Gore was NOT going to run in 2004. Who did we want to run? Who was our dream/ideal candidate? Some names were bandied about, and then I—by the way, I’m the girl in this story, if you haven’t figured that out yet—said, you know, I REALLY wish Bernie Sanders, who is a great Senator up in Vermont, would run. About 85% of people in that conversation had no clue who he was. The other 15% said that would be great but, one, it will never happen. And, two, “you’re too idealistic, Edna. No one would ever vote for Bernie.” Too idealistic. Too idealistic.

WELL: I meant to post this early this morning, long before now, late afternoon, but I’ve been too busy at my grueling job. The young girl is all grown up now, with a really stressful job and boss, which, among other things that unfolded in her life, resulting in the aforementioned “growing up”, you would think might have resulted in all the idealism, spirit and hope being ground clean out of her. But NO!!! I’m still the idealistic, democratic socialist environmentalist HIPPIE FREAK FLOWERCHILD THAT APPARENTLY TERRIFIES THE JAMES CARVILLE’S OF THIS WORLD only now: there are so many more of me!

I am so gratefully glad and gladly grateful that I lived to see this day, 2/11/2020, the 2020 New Hampshire primary and BERNIE SANDERS is the FRONTRUNNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, our country may have ended last week but I still have an ember of hope, and its name is BERNIE…and us. “Not me, us!”

GO, New Hampshire, vote, vote, vote!

I've been waiting for this moment my whole life.

Goodnight Moon

I'm dreading tomorrow. I don't want my country to end.

The senate is about to set two terrible, America-altering precedents that POTUSes are above the rule of law, and that it is perfectly fine for POTUSes to obstruct Congress and thus they (the Senate) are about to end the separation of powers, in addition to the rule of law.

I don't want to go to bed tonight, as maybe somehow that will prevent tomorrow from coming.

I'm exhausted and can't believe everything going on all at once in our country in just the last few days and upcoming days. I feel shell shocked on so many fronts. No clue how I'm going to function at my demanding, stressful job tomorrow. Barely made it on time today after the Iowa Caucus situation went into the wee hours and beyond yesterday. And now here I am up way too late again. If you sleep, you miss something epic in America right now.

Yet, if you don't sleep, that is a bad thing. So...good night, moon, and all. Good night, America as I know it, this is maybe the last time I can say that.