Words. Ideas. Actions.

30 March 2023

Fair warning: Tonight’s post is all reaction, no research. And the essence of it, yes, is about a former president on the verge of being indicted. But I’m not sure that this is the best option right now. It feels, however, like we’re desperate for any sort of accountability, so we’ll take this win, even if it’s not the high point of honoring the democracy we all thought we learned about in school.

For a lot of people, actions have very few consequences. Privilege and access and money all lead to avoiding almost all repercussions for the people who have it and the choices they make. Even as we travel around this part of Florida, you can almost see the disdain for some rules, and a strict adherence to others. Want to fly a Pride flag? Absolutely not because the H.O.A limits which flags can be flown. Need to double park “just for a second” to run in and grab a few items at Publix? Nobody will mind because they all know me. And the enforcement of which rules apply to which people is constantly compounded by the darkness of  people’s pigment (despite the fact that most of the homeowners around here haven’t met the right amount of sunscreen in decades).

So, I’m not sold on the fact that our former Commander-in-Chief is going to see any real ramifications for what he decided to do years and years ago. And, honestly, I’d much rather him face much more severe punishment for the crimes against our Republic. I don’t want these hush money payments to get swept under the rug, but at the same time, these aren’t the charges I really want to stick. He tried to subvert the peaceful transition of power. If we can’t hold him accountable for that, then all those platitudes we learned in school mean about as much as those yearbook promises we made to “K.I.T. over the summer”. 

We are finding out, more and more, the pledges we always relied on to hold our society together are only as good as the people who are willing to keep them. If those people turn out to be untrustworthy, scurrilous, self-interested, profiteers, then the rest of us are left shaking our heads and wondering how we get our democracy back. I know it’s easy to say voting is important, but it’s become much more than that. The extremists aren’t coming, they’re here. And they are actively taking freedoms away from our most marginalized. It’s time to start getting a lot more vocal about holding people to the promises we were tested on in school. Otherwise, we’ll be spending the next few decades hoping one of these narcissists gets caught with their pants down, because — apparently — that’s the only kind of treachery we’re unwilling to tolerate.

See you tomorrow?

22 March 2023

There’s no way around it tonight; I’m pissed. As we prepare to head to Florida to see family for Spring Break, I read that the governor there is planning to do even more to add to the stress and anxiety of some of the most marginalized people in his state. And it’s part of a growing, troubling trend around the nation.

People much more knowledgeable than I have been tracking the restrictions on people’s bodies which are moving through state houses across the country. Whether it’s limiting access to reproductive medicine or dictating who gets to have what kind of health care, we are quickly moving toward a reality where we don’t get to decide who is a human and who is a subject of the state. 

And, as I told some online friends earlier tonight, I feel helpless. Sure, I donated to causes and bought some t-shirts to wear while we’re in the Sunshine State, but what more can a person like me, who lives in a place which respects and protects an individual’s right to make the choices for themselves they deem appropriate, do to make the changes necessary to let a person live as they want to live? I don’t really know. So, I’m asking here. Because it’s the platform I have. 

But I feel like I need to do more. We all need to do more. When bathroom bans were proposed in Indiana in 2015, CEOs like Salesforce’s Marc Benioff pressured other corporate giants to band together to prevent the laws from staying in place. It happened in Georgia and North Carolina, too. But where are they now? How come our corporate titans haven’t spoken out now? When Disney tried to stand up for its employees, nobody stood with them. Why? What has changed in the years since? Except for everything. 

Like I mentioned briefly in last night’s post, we have fundamentally failed to protect the least of us when we had the opportunity. And the assaults on them are getting more pronounced. I ask, again, what are we to do? I honestly don’t know where to start. Pressure politicians? Sure. Push corporations to speak out? Hell yes. Support candidates who will repeal these backwards laws. Obviously. But without a unified coalition, speaking as one, we are going to be a bunch of tiny little voices shouting at a jet engine. 

Whether you know it or not, someone in your life is scared about what’s happening. It might even be you. I know I’m afraid, and none of these laws put any direct restrictions on my body. Yet. I cannot emphasize this enough: Those of us with privilege need to be using it. Now. Tonight. Do something right this second to make this better. It could be sharing your own rant-y blog post like this. Posting a note about protecting people to your professional network on LinkedIn. Tweeting (gawdforbid) your opposition to laws like this out to your followers, if you still have an audience there. But enough is enough. Our silence is complicity to the current and future marginalization of an already at-risk population. If you care about people — all people — now’s the time to show it. 

See you tomorrow?

21 March 2023

Earlier tonight, I was watching an episode of American Masters about Dr. Anthony Fauci. It was a retrospective of his career, looking back not just at his role in recent years fighting the spread of COVID-19, but his earlier work during the start of the AIDS epidemic as well. It was a lucky coincidence for a couple of reasons. The first, and easy reason to explain is the fact that the title of today’s post was one of the Soundgarden song titles I had no idea how I was going to work into these. But the other reason is because I’ve been thinking about how and why we make the choices we make in the face of pandemics. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that, like a lot of our other choices here in the United States, it comes down to power and influence. 

If we look at the start of both the AIDS and COVID-19 outbreaks, it seems like we didn’t take them seriously until they started entering our personal lives. And if you didn’t have someone close to you who was sick, from either of these, you had the luxury to almost ignore them. Or worse, blame people who were sick. We do this a lot, I feel like, and not just with epidemics. 

Look at what’s happening to our banking system. In the last few weeks, a certain demographic of people in the U.S. basically caused institutions to fail based on nothing more than their emotions. But where was all this manic energy to save people’s money in 2008? Back then, it would have been just as prudent — and probably less expensive — to pay off the home mortgage loans for people who were being steamrolled by banks deemed “too big to fail” which were packaging and repackaging their homes and hopes for generational wealth in insipid schemes to pad the billions they were already making. 

Over and over, we elect and reelect leaders who make decisions for the median demographic of their constituent population. We repeatedly ignore the marginalized in our communities, despite the overwhelming evidence that when we invest in those who are most in need, everyone ends up doing better. Just look at the work of Judy Heumann. But there’s no immediate profit in helping people. No financial gain in investing in teachers and school staff and students. No dividend in weening people off drugs. No cash in rehabilitating criminals. But when we don’t, these underserved students aren’t prepared for the work ahead of them. Those who are addicted pull services and resources away from other city needs. And our incarcerated population is left with few choices outside of shackles, if we ever even let them out. 

Watching the Fauci story was just a reminder of what a missed opportunity these last few years have been. We could have made better choices. Selected more compassionate leaders. Rethought what and who is important. But instead, we’re back where we started. And heading in the wrong direction. If we’re not going to learn our lessons after 2020, then will we ever?

See you tomorrow?