Too often we merely watch. Oh, we comment a lot, criticize like mad, but we don't really do anything except watch most of the time. Apparently many of us love to look at other people's lives, mistakes, bad behavior. In the safety of our sanctuaries we feel free to watch, criticize, and just do nothing except live in our own skin.
We wait for the hero to rescue us.
Why didn't he get us the public option? Why didn't he get us single payer? Why doesn't he...?
We forgot that we are the change.
Wisconsin is the most recent evidence that political action is physical. We have to put our bodies on the line. We should have learned that by seeing the history of the civil rights movement. Remember being in the streets then? Most of us were motivated by outrage at the horrendous inequality and oppression, especially in the South.
Back then we acted in our own communities. Some went south on freedom rides, but for the most part we marched and were visible to those in power, but also to other neighbors and friends. The world is not fixed yet, but we did do some good, I think.
Change is not achieved solely on the internet. In fact, the internet is only an information and communication tool. If we only sit in front of our computers and communicate with each other and sign petitions we won't see a lot of change. The current example is Wisconsin with our brothers and sisters placing their bodies in front of the power structure, demanding change.
During the healthcare debate last year I tried to organize a bus ride to Washington - and I failed. And because I failed to get more than three or four people to commit to it here, I just quit. I know better than that. I should have tried harder.
In my mind's eye I can see the countless women and men who walked miles back and forth to their jobs during the bus boycott, for more than a whole year. These were women who worked hard for their living, housekeepers, cooks, nannies, laborers, working from early in the morning to late in the day. They walked miles to work and they walked miles home after work.
They did not think it was too hard. It was hard, but they did it anyway. For over a year. They did not think the cost too high.
Some of the reasons I got here when I proposed renting buses and going to D.C. to support health care were: 'people have jobs', 'it will cost money to rent the buses', 'it wouldn't work anyway'. People said it was impossible, that it was too hard to do. So the only people Congress saw in D.C. were the Teabaggers. Sure, their buses were paid for by the Koch conspirators. Granted.
But we could have done it anyway. I could have done it anyway. But I became discouraged by the feedback here.
I'm not blaming anyone besides myself. I know it's difficult sometimes to do big things. I've done them. Both parents were dead by the time I started college. I lived with my oldest sister for a time, until she got married and moved away. I drove away from her old house as her moving van pulled away, with two cardboard boxes in the trunk of my clunker, filled mostly with books.
I didn't know where I'd sleep that night, but nothing was going to stop me from going to school. I was the first, and only in my birth family to get a degree. I went back to school 6 or 7 years after I got married - I was 6 months pregnant with my second child. I had my second daughter during Christmas break and was back in school the first week in January.
I had forgotten for a time that I should be able to do pretty much anything I set my mind to - I should have gotten a bus here in Chicago and taken folks to D.C. It's a good lesson for me.
If I want things done or things to change, I must put my body on the line. Like the folks in WI who decided to simply deny Walker et al to have their own way. Our brothers and sisters are winning. They may change the makeup of their state Senate and House and may force the governor into a recall.
We should all learn from past and current examples - change requires physical participation.
We might have gotten the public option if we had only showed up and demanded it, in force. We must be the change. No excuses.Updated by Liberal Granny at Wed May 11, 2011 at 02:18 PM CDT
Update with poll.