It is supposed to be our 10 year history. David and I started out together. I was writing my first blog when he was
learning how to build websites. Because
David is the father of my grandson; I have always had this very special love
for him. For the blog, we worked our way
through several years of refining how to post pictures, how to save pictures
and how to back up the articles I wrote.
He installed a calendar so that I could track all of my grandchildren. Of course, David’s work was much more
difficult than mine. He had to teach
himself how to code in today’s ever-changing world.
Then last year, we had a misunderstanding. I said things, he said things. I did not realize how much David’s thinking had changed. We can’t agree on what is more important. That misunderstanding has cut us apart.
What Just Happened
We are no longer doing this blog together, and I miss him. We are still a family: he is my grandson’s father. I did other things, to try to find peace.
I sent him cards and love notes, but nothing has helped. Even my daughter (who is NOT married to him) sides with him. She always sides against me, doesn’t she?
Families are so complicated.
We love, we leave, we cry and we argue.
We even reconcile, sometimes…
Now here I am, having my 10 year anniversary by myself. I would really rather that he would be here
with me, celebrating ten years. I love
you David and nothing will ever change that.
It seems that all over the world there is a problem with this thinking. First, we indulge ourselves in judgments. Judgments are useful for making oneself feel better than, but they are not useful for valuing the sanctity of human lives. Judging others fools us into thinking that that there is a “better” and a “worse” human. For those in America (and perhaps in other places) this becomes a valuation.
How do we bring recognition to how the world thinks about human life? How do we get world leaders to recognize that war that kills human life is a crime? How do we change this thinking so that all peoples, particularly those in power, understand the sanctity of human life? Human life must be held over all other values, whether it be gold or the valuation of the stock market. Nothing on this Earth equates to the value of the human life.
“In
religion and ethics, the inviolability or sanctity of life is a principle of
implied protection regarding aspects of sentient life that are said to be holy,
sacred, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated. Wikipedia”
Someone
told me once that “Ethics is not the powerful committee, if you want corporate
power, get on the process committee.”
There it is again, ethics, not so popular and not so powerful in today’s world. If we look at religion, we really lose authority, because of the state of religion today. The Catholic church must review the thousands of claims of sexual abuse and must admit to the thousands of children born from these crimes. So, it is for good reason that the Catholic church has lost moral authority in the world.
We
live in a world where millions are thought to be “underclasses”. In America, we must fight and fight hard for
the rights of women and people of color.
(Not to mention the hundreds of others who are not quite upper class.)
How do we help humans to prize human life above all else? How do we get from where we are to that place where each and all human life is sacred?
Get all known leaders to buy into a framework of prioritizing human life as first above everything.
Make war an impossible path for any nation to take.
Prioritize the punishment of those who commit war crimes.
Create a national conversation around the sanctity of human life.
Acknowledge our human tendency to judge, but don’t allow judgment to be used to harm others.
We cannot continue the world ways as they are now. We cannot continue to judge each other as “less-than” or “more-than”. We make these judgments only as a means of increasing our own egos. It then leads to a whole host of crimes perpetrated against the “less-thans”.
How can we stop using our judgments about others as justification for bad treatment of those others? How do we convince people to leave judgments out of decisions about humans?
Let’s take our judgments out of the way of our feelings for
others. Let’s not take our judgments
seriously as a means of evaluating the value of humans. Judgments serve no purpose other than to our
own minds.
How do we move forward with an undeniable respect for the sanctity of human life? We all, each and every one of us, must take a stand. We must stand for human life, our own, others and every one on this Earth.
So much of what our country does has a focus on war. War is a way of thinking, being, believing and speaking. Generals have unthinkable power and control over the resources of our nation. We don’t talk about it, our national conversation never addresses the largest of elephants-in-the room and that is the war machine that lives in the world’s wealthiest nation, America.
It is the easiest trap to fall into and that is:
groupthink. To be part of the group, you
must think the same and agree with the same beliefs. For the war machine those beliefs include a
“never enough” strategy. A willingness
to commit deep crimes to convince America that there is this need for evermore money to commit to the deep
hole that is the war machine.
There is no threat to the United States that could not be
eradicated by the United States, in less than two minutes. And yet, we continue to send good men and
women to their deaths in all corners of the world. Make no mistake about it, war is profitable,
and nothing stops change faster than the mighty dollar in the U.S.
We have enough nuclear weapons to annihilate the possibility
of living on planet earth. No country
comes even, a little bit close, to our power in weaponry and killing machines.
We don’t need to continue to live the dream of World War II. We don’t need human beings to be cannon fodder anymore. We are smarter and we are stronger than that.
The problem is, the Pentagon.
The powerful will not relinquish an inch of power. Neither will the wealthy war contractors,
those who manufacture tanks and rifles and rations, they will not give up the
gravy train. Without the sale of war as a good cause to the American people,
war would not be possible. Currently we
idolize warriors and this is a very good thing.
We are taking care of soldiers who have been damaged by the war machine. It would be more than painful to tell these
brave humans that the sacrifice was to profit rather than to country. That doesn’t mean that we should continue to
validate a need for war. We do not need
a war, we do not have a need for our sons and daughters to die.
Truly, can anyone name a reason why we have soldiers in the middle east? Are we saving American lives? Are we saving any lives? The product of war is death, there is no way around that fact. There is nothing that changes or rearranges that fact. War equates to death of the warriors and the innocent alike.
Think of those that manage the huge war machine in the
U.S. It is the job of these to find
threats to the United States. It is the
job to construct an argument that justifies the expense of dollars and lives. It is the job of these to keep this war
machine rolling forward and to keep increasing the expense, both in dollars and
in lives.
What if we said no? No
more war? What if the American people said,
we do not want to continue our nation in this manner. What if we said not more war machine? We would require a scientific, meaning, a
data- driven formulation of meaningful information. We would allow American mothers to have a
vote, we would allow those who pay the
price of war, not those who gain from war… to decide when and how to
engage. We could engage without risk to
humans and engage without risk to civilians.
What if we took the possibility
of profit out of war? What if
contractors had to complete the complex accounting that Medicaid contractors
must complete? With the idea that
auditors could come at any time and disallow expenses and therefor reduce the
price of the product? What if you went
to jail for profiting from war? What if
you went to jail for being a war monger?
Let’s not associate war with the
warrior. Let’s get out of group think
and address war for what it really is: a living
breathing threat to humanity and perverted profiteering for the few.
They take advantage of anyone and everyone to serve their own
needs. They do damage to people in order
to be sexually satisfied. In their own
minds they are doing something that is quite right. How?
How do they justify raping people, taking advantage of vulnerabilities
in others, in order to have their own pleasure?
What do these people say to themselves?
Do these people say to themselves “I am better than her, I
have so much more money and she is just a peasant, why shouldn’t I take her
body for myself?” or “I am better than him, he is a busboy, I am a wealthy
actor, why shouldn’t I satisfy my own needs with his body?”
And for the rapists who buy children, what do they say to
themselves? “I have bought and paid for
this body, it is only an object for my pleasure.” Or, “I had sex when I was ten
years old, there is no reason why I can’t have sex with this ten year old
girl.”
Or perhaps there is no awareness, nor conversation, maybe it
is just animalistic instinct with no intellect to intervene. Do people turn off their consciousness in
order to perform these heinous acts on others?
Each of the accused profess innocence loudly and
voraciously. The victim can have a video
recording of the rape and still the perpetrator claims innocence. How is this the norm for humans? Depraved sexuality without consequence?
Why aren’t good people more capable of stopping these
activities? Recent investigation into
the Catholic church revealed staggering numbers of priests who have been
accused by the faithful. How, why and
who?
Every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted.
On average, there are 321,500 victims (age 12 or older) of rape
and sexual assault each year in the United States.1
Ages 12-34 are the highest risk years for rape and sexual
assault.3
1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a
victim of child sexual abuse;
Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey,
2012-2016 (2017).
i. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders (1997); ii.
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Crimes Against the Elderly, 2003-2013 (2014).
Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders (1997).
Who is perpetrating these crimes? How do they believe that it is okay to sexually
assault others? Do I know any of these
perpetrators? Do they work at the 7-11,
or perhaps at the dry-cleaners? Was my
doctor a rapist? Have I met these
perpetrators? The chances are that yes,
I have met many of these perpetrators.
Most certainly, I have met the victims…
Who are these people?
Who are the people who believe that it is ok to have sex with an
unwilling participant, or worse yet, someone incapable of giving consent? Who do you have to be, to purchase child
pornography? Who do you have to be, to
have sex with a woman who is unconscious?
Who do you have to be, to take advantage of a drunk bus boy?
What will it take to stop these criminals from acting? As a society, what do we need to do to stop
sexual assaults from occurring every 98 seconds?
We must keep talking about sexual assault, when someone
reports, listen and believe. Support
assault survivors with kindness and appropriate resources. When survivors must testify, make it safe for
the survivor.
We must punish sexual assaulters to the fullest extent of the
law.
What we must do, if we really want to address this issue is to
work hard for economic equality. People
who can afford attorneys, people who can afford life, are less likely to suffer
abuse, because no one will abuse someone who can strike back. No one will
abuse someone equal to them. Currently,
those who are abused are the vulnerable and the weak. Those who cannot strike back, those who
cannot speak for themselves, they are the sexually abused.
It is because of this, that we must make victims equal in
power to their perpetrators. We must
give victims, equal say and the power to fight back.
We must also take away raw authority. There is no reason to teach children that
they must obey authority. By teaching
children in this way, we open them to the worst of vulnerabilities and that is
to teach them to agree with any who may have authority. We don’t want a society based on these
concepts. We want a society where
reasoned discussion can take place and children are taught to think for
themselves. We don’t want our children
following the instructions of the Catholic priest, the teacher, the police man,
unless those instructions make sense. We
must ensure that our children respect their own bodies and respect their own
thinking.
And what about the adult vulnerable, those who have less
strength, or less money and power? How
do we rid ourselves of those who would assault them? How do we get men to stop drugging and raping
women? What are these men saying to
themselves? “She deserves this, for not
talking to me.” What are these men
saying to each other after they have assaulted a woman? “Way to go, I can rape girls too.”
I am encouraged that brave people are finally talking about
the assaults and taking perpetrators to court for their actions. I am encouraged that we are finally talking
about sexual assault in the open. I am
relieved that we have such a powerful tool as DNA to stop attackers from
repeating rapes over and over again. DNA
gives us the power to stop the serial rapist from being successful.
Lastly and finally, we must change the conversation. Whatever it is that the rapist or the
pedophile is telling him or herself has to be changed. We must have a human conversation that says
it is never okay to sexually assault
another human being. And for those that
are incapable of joining the conversation, those who cannot intellectually
reason, we must enforce the means necessary to protect the innocent from
them. We must ensure that people are not
damaged by the deranged or mentally ill.
Our human conversation must be clear and must be universal and
it must state unequivocally that all humans have the right to protect their own
body. This right is unquestionable,
whether a person has the strength, the power or the money, does not matter, each
person has the right to their own body and the safety of same.
Love centers every interaction with calmness. When you love everyone, it changes how you think of them.
Say yes to Abundance.
The world is full of abundance and anything you
can wish for is available. Believing in
abundance gives you abundance.
Commit to challenging and changing beliefs that
limit you.
Say yes to Honesty.
Lies are obvious, you have to be in denial to
believe them. It is hectic and stressful
to sustain lies, even if you are the receiving party. Honesty is easier and healthier.
Say yes to Responsibility.
Responsibility will bring you security. When you decide on responsibility, you give
yourself a home and something to build upon.
Say yes to Action.
Procrastination stops you from accomplishment, why
indulge in procrastination?
Say yes to Boundaries.
When you work, work.
When you play, play.
Circumscribe your activities with purpose.
Consciously choose what you absorb.
Focus on the moment, in the moment.
Say yes to Relaxation
with a purpose.
Find your relaxation response, explore meditation,
or yoga, or massage and acupuncture.
Whatever your relaxation response is, find it and use it.
Say yes to getting rid of your mad.
One event deserves only one mad: spend it
wisely. Don’t regurgitate your mad over
and over and over again. Once you have
completed your mad, find a way to solve your feelings and be committed to your
resolution.
Where your attention goes, energy flows.
Say yes to Self
Love.
Be loving to yourself in thoughts, words and
deeds.
Do whatever it takes to remind yourself, that you
matter and deserve love just for being you.
Don’t deny your true worth.
Do what you know is best for you.
Say yes to Respect for yourself and others.
All interactions become positive with the addition of respect.
Say yes to Oneness.
Allow yourself to see that your spirit is a part of the whole, when you see this, your place in the universe becomes infinite.
Say yes to Non-Violence.
Violence can be verbal, physical, mental or emotional. Leave violence behind to live longer and to keep your loved ones close. Violence separates humans from each other.
Say yes to Imperfection.
Perfection will cost you your peace of mind. Allowing yourself to embrace the ups and downs of life will give you freedom.
Accept that you are perfectly imperfect.
Say yes to Integrity.
The definition of integrity is the state of being whole and undivided. How wonderful it is to be clear and purposeful about your decisions in life?
I studied inherent
value as an undergrad, so it is a concept that has been around for eons, I’m
sure.
It is this idea
that living things have value unto themselves. There is no need for
performance, no need for earning money, no need for work, just a belief that
there is value because you are alive.
It’s a difficult
concept for me to wrap my arms around for myself. Since I can remember,
my parents drilled into my head that hard work is rewarding and
self-sustaining. Those who do not work are “lazy” and
“irresponsible”. I lived in a time and place that did not have
the luxury of financially supporting anyone. All had to work.
Finance became the measure of value, those who made $5.00 an hour were less
important than those who made $10.00 an hour.
Those who are
educated are more valuable still and society rewards them for their
education. The more education, the better a person could be. The
other option for people included, beauty and wealth. The beautiful could find usefulness
by attaching to wealth, either through matrimony or work.
Adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, puts her shoe back on after passing through a security screening, as she arrives at federal court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, April 16.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
On the non-financial side is parenting. There is very little that is more gratifying than a young one who needs you desperately. Small children look to their parents for everything. Mothers and fathers often measure themselves by the satisfaction of their children. They feel their worth increases with happy children.
When faced with the
concept of inherent value, as an undergrad, I failed. It was hard for me
to understand and to believe that the value is in being alive. I kept
wanting to assign value based on work and performance. I was chided by my
professor, but he realized the concept was obscure for most. The exam
question was about the intelligence of dolphins and the ethical obligations of
humans to protect them from extinction. I kept coming back to the
dolphins’ value to humans. “No”, my professor iterated, they are valuable
unto themselves without humans.
A belief that I am sorry for…Each person has their own possibilities, not to be judged by others.
And so, it goes
that such beliefs touch every single part of any life. Believing in work
as the redemptive human quality means that those who do not work have little
value as humans. It creates exactly the kind of staircase of values that
I am stringently opposed to. I vehemently believe that all are equal.
So how do I maintain two opposing beliefs? I probably do it the way that
most people do, and that is to ignore one of the beliefs when the other belief
is dominantly active in my life. In other words, we all change our values
and beliefs in our lifetimes depending on circumstance.
Now, I am not
working. I was forced to take a retirement based on my illness. I
don’t have the money to retire so I depend on my husband for my
livelihood. This is exactly the kind of life that I sneered at when I was
in the throes of a successful career based on my own hard work. I
believed everyone was capable and should be working and working h.a.r.d.
Full circle.
All people are equal and have a right to life and living. Our way of
living is our own private decision and not to be interpreted by the beliefs of
others. As a human, I have the right to be. I may not perform, I
may not work, I may not earn money, these facts do not change my fundamental
right to live.
Men sometimes do not understand the
consequences of the economic inequities of power. They sometimes believe that
being dominating is just part of their own personality and therefore cannot
realize the effect on others. While women, not only recognize the power of
economic inequity, they become hyper-vigilant because the chance of surviving
the inherent difficulties of economic deprivation are better with vigilance.
Here is my story that illustrates
the blindness that can occur on both sides. This story takes place in the
1970s, I had no phone, but I worked long hours and people often called me at
work.
I lived in southern California with
my brother and my sons. I was a waitress in an American restaurant, the kind
that served breakfast 24 hours per day. I was 19 years old. My brother and I
moved to California because, at the time, junior college was free of charge for
California residents. My brother played football and attended college, and
though I wanted more than anything to go to college, I had not found a way to
do it while working and taking care of my sons. For a long time I worked two
jobs just to get by.
If you’ve never been to California,
you’ve missed some of the most beautiful scenery there is in America. I would
often drive into the mountains on the odd day off just to look at the streams
that bubbled throughout the rugged rock formations of the hills and mountains.
The water was perfectly clear and clean, cold and crisp. When you looked into
the streams you could see the rocks and pebbles at the bottom of the flowing
surge as the water rushed over them in a hurry to the floor of the valley.
Photo
Credit to NOAA
On one such trip I planned on
staying over night with friends who lived north of Los Angeles. My brother was
keeping my boys over night and so I took off after work for those beautiful
mountains. As I traveled the Pacific Coast Highway, I hummed and sang to the
radio, elated to have a moment of free time that was just for me. It is a
thrilling journey, the mountains soared to my right and in places, the beach
dropped down off of the mountain as if placed there by a giant hand. The
beaches lay flat against the soaring vistas of the mountain. It was amazing to
see both the beach and the forested mountain at the same time. I am Gulf coast
born and bred and had never seen land that reached higher than an ant hill, in
Florida.
And then…my tire blew out. I was an
intrepid explorer, think “seventies” when people were still hitchhiking to get
from one place to another. I felt safe, secure and happy. A young man pulled
over to help me with changing my tire. We found that I had no spare, my brother
had already used it to replace a rear tire that had gone flat. (Had donut tires
been invented yet?)
The young man was very generous and
offered to help me. I only had enough money for dinner, I had no money for a
flat tire. He paid for my tire, and by the time we were able to get it
arranged, it was late and I was forced to spend the night where we were. With
the tire being incomplete until morning, I welcomed the young man’s offer of
shelter for the night. He was an attractive man and we had sex that night. I got
my tire repaired the next day and drove home.
No one could have been more
surprised than me, when a week later, the young man called me at work.
Apparently, I had told him where I worked. I answered the phone somewhat
confused. He said that he wanted to see me. I didn’t know why? He heard some of
my surprise and said “I thought we shared something special.” In my mind, he
was a man who had taken advantage of a situation that I had no control over. He
wanted to help me, but for a price. He was not altruistic, kind or even
generous (as mentioned earlier) he was just someone who would take advantage of
a lone woman in a bad situation on the side of the road. I had zero interest in
seeing him again, why would I? He saw himself as a rescuer and someone who had
done something well and good. He saw himself as someone who liked this girl who
was economically disadvantaged.
No, I don’t think so. He wasn’t
happy when we hung up.
Wow, what a misunderstanding…my
picture of him was of someone who had taken advantage of me in a bad situation.
His picture of himself was someone who was generous and good and had met this
nice woman on the side of the road.
I’ve seen this kind of
misunderstanding one million and one times since then. I saw it within my
leadership group when we were given instructions to sell a product to a
stranger, and told NOT to engage in selling to waiters, waitresses or anyone in
a serving position. Several men in that leadership group ignored those
instructions and directed their efforts at selling, only towards those that had
no choice but to listen to them: waitresses. When they were called out by the
leadership group, those men got angry that the group didn’t understand their
efforts.
Are you kidding me?
Lecturing someone who is forced to
listen to you is not the same as selling something to a stranger, how do you not
know that?
Economic inequity creates power
inequity. Strength of body creates power inequity. Women know this, why don’t
men?
Please be aware that you are standing at the threshold of
being viciously attacked. No one likes a
beautiful woman who is smart and powerful.
It’s just not done.
You may think that our society has progressed past the point of keeping women in powerless positions, not so. While our society boasts of breakthroughs inequality, you must understand that they are Madison Avenue constructs and contrived,but not real. This country is expert at marketing. We look good, but we are incredibly shallow. We haven’t done the,real job of creating equality, so instead, we are at Door #3: let’s make a reality that LOOKS like equality.
Millennials are clearly aware of this. They know that equality is an elusive concept that has not been actualized in America. Alexandria you are a millennial, and so you know how shallow America’s promise of equality has been.
by Kurt Meske Thank you
What I am concerned about, is the amount of hatred and vitriol
you will be faced with as you speak your truth in the hallowed halls of the
United States Capitol.
I wish you the best and so do millions of other
Americans. We love you and we see hope
and brightness in your presence. Remember
this when others are attempting to hurt you and when the oligarchy attempts to
damage you in a way that will have you questioning humanity.
Alexandria, you are the chosen one, you are the speaker for those
who do not or can not speak for themselves.
You are right! They need your
voice. This country needs life, not the
death that the war machine
manufactures. I love your rationale for
your program ideas: “why doesn’t anyone question the cost of war, but only
questions the cost of healthcare-for-all?”. America does actually have plenty of money to
take care of people. We don’t use it in
the right places. We must begin to question
the status quo in order to take care of the people of America. Alexandria, you state that beautifully.
Your statements are so simple and so elegant and YOU make Americans
think about how humans should treat each other.
Thank you.
Don’t forget, you are aligned against the powerful and you
stand on behalf of the downtrodden. It
will appear that the oligarchy is winning many times over, you may despair, you
will be angry. Please, don’t give up and
don’t give in. You have the right of it
and there will be few who see the truth and can help you. Those who see the truth, can’t or won’t help
you and support you. Be careful!
You are in the biggest game with the biggest players. They are serious and deadly. You’ll need every bit of smarts that you have. Continue what you have been doing and keep staff
that are smart and loyal. Be aware that
loyalty can’t be valued enough! You will
need it so much in the coming months and years.
Please don’t forget, we love you. You inspire us and we really, really want you
to help change America. We want equality and you are part of that
future. You are part of the movement
that will move this country forward.
Finally.
You can get discouraged, angry and sad. Don’t ever, ever give up. You are doing the work of the weak and, and
disenfranchised, you are doing the work of equality, the work of Americans.
bitter indignation at
having been treated unfairly.
“his resentment
at being demoted”
synonyms:
bitterness, indignation, irritation, pique, dissatisfaction, disgruntlement, discontentment, discontent, resentfulness, bad
feelings, hard feelings, ill will, acrimony, rancor, animosity, jaundice
In the matter of two people having a discussion and a third
person observes, judgment arises – of course – by all three.
In the matter of two people who are working through differences,
if the third person judges person A negatively – in other words, giving advice
about improving one’s speech or character, you know immediately that such person
sides with person B in the discussion.
Observer finds fault with the one that they do not agree with.
Life follows this path of finding fault with those we do not
agree with and even to a further extent, we find fault with those we do not
like. In this sense, if I do not like
you, there is nothing that you can do to be correct. You are wrong, you are a wrong person and
that is all there is to it.
On the other hand, if I like you, then you are right (and
never to be corrected) and that is all there is to it.
This kind of thinking only serves us in the case of new true
love. Otherwise, this thinking is
dangerous for everyone. It makes us
blind to the truth of each other’s behavior and thus escalates bad behavior.
Bad behavior lives in the dark and thrives when not
confronted. Any kind of acceptance of
bad behavior helps that behavior to grow.
Winter
Back to the beginning of this article, be aware what your
comments and your judgments reveal about you and your opinion. Be aware when you are allowing bad behavior
and encouraging the behavior to continue.
Rose colored glasses are not for an enduring and real relationship.
As agonizing
as the fear was on election day (yesterday) I am feeling energized today. I’ve spent more than my usual time online
recently. When I saw who was winning
elections all over the country, I became hopeful. Yes, yes, I am a Democrat, and Gosh forbid, I
am also a “liberal”. I don’t know where
those labels come from, but I do believe in equality for everyone. I ardently believe in economic equality. I believe in truth, honesty and respect. I believe everyone in the world has a right
to health care. So, there you are, “liberal”.
I believe that legislators should have the decency to be objective about the fairness of laws, rather than making laws based on payments from whomever can afford them. I believe it should be illegal for corporations to use their massive economic power to change laws and bend them to fit their own profitability goals. An example of this is our embarrassingly low minimum wage here in the USA. This low minimum wage is a direct result of legislators bending to the will of mega corporations such as MacDonald’s and Walmart. These mega-corporations often finance campaigns and use other such bribery weapons in order to gain a legalized economic advantage.
With rain comes growth
Ah,
but! Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez won, she won! How
fantastic is that? From what I am seeing
and who I am meeting, I am very impressed with millennials. I am impressed with all of the younger
generations, no matter the label. Young
people seem smart and even better, caring.
The young people I meet and spend time with, the ones I read about, seem
to care very much about our world. They
seem to care very much for others. That seems to be the key to human salvation:
do we care about each other? If we care
about each other, we will find a way to ensure that all Americans are cared
for. The best place to start this is
through our system of government.
I am
hopeful. The women who won these races
are diverse and will bring a new conversation to the legislative table. This new conversation cannot be ignored
because it has become too loud. Thank
God for these brave women. Thank God for
democracy.
And lest we think the job
is done, here are the words of Barack Obama:
“Our work goes on. The change we need won’t come from one
election alone – but it is a start. Last night, voters across the country
started it. And I’m hopeful that going forward, we’ll begin a return to the
values we expect in our public life – honesty, decency, compromise, and standing
up for one another as Americans, not separated by our differences, but bound
together by one common creed.”
