Dear Humans
I want to encourage all of us, myself included, to always be the highest version of ourselves. And, to start over without shame if we have to begin again. I don’t always do so well being my highest self, but if you knew me a decade ago, you know I’m an entirely different person. I’m my higher self far more often than I once was. Progress, not perfection, is the goal.
The journey has been long, but while I lost some people along the way it was the right people. That’s the thing about real growth. But no matter how much I grow peace within, the state of the world cannot be avoided. We have to confront things within ourselves that limit our beliefs and values.
If we can’t confront ourselves and our own personal fears it’s hard to confront the reality of the time in which we live. Denial doesn’t serve us, but that doesn’t mean I’m not envious of those who can live in ignorance. I’ve never been able to do it. As scary as the facts are, the hope is larger.
Yes, the “powerful” are in “charge”. However, they are much smaller in number. Our military members are paid shit wages, too, and they die to fight wars that have nothing to do with freedom. Read the Pentagon papers. Google crimes the CIA has acknowledged. Learn our real history.
It’s not just one party that is corrupt. They both are. The republicans are just more honest about it, and play bad cop. They both just passed the Patriot Act again. They both raise your taxes, so Elon Musk can waste $1.7 million on a vehicle and lose it all to a flop, and still be richer than you and everyone you know combined will ever be.
We have to be willing to let ourselves and each other grow, learn from our mistakes, and accept apologies understanding nothing is as personal as it can feel; especially in areas that are sensitive and emotional. There are many people who may have fought against us in 2016, really believing a centrist would save us. It’s been pushed from corporate media exclusively for a very long time. Our bubbles pop at different times, and that’s okay.
Their intentions were good, even if their methods left a lot to be desired. It takes a shit ton of courage to come out to the world, people you know you hurt, and apologize. To ask to be accepted into the very fight you rallied against the last time you had a choice. “I told you so” prevents people from even opening their mouths. We have to be a welcoming space to land.
If they do publicly apologize, especially when it’s not “popular” to do so, they will lose access and friends. They will allow that just like I did because that’s all part of growth and evolution as a person. Give them a chance. The problems we face are mountains already, and your pride weighs us down. It wastes precious time and opportunity for solidarity.
Mistakes do not erase intentions and sincerity. To everyone else you could look like a hot mess, but within you it’s the same thing you’ve been searching for in a million different ways. The world is on fire, and I know that’s scary for us all, for the same and different reasons depending on a host of factors.
Maybe in someone’s mind who criticized us in 2016 they really did think that a centrist is all that could beat Trump. The goal was the same as ours; beat Trump. They hadn’t yet recognized what we had. If they are now let them in.
Over the course of history the greats we know as great today stood up to greed and division, tried to create a rainbow mosaic of working class and poor people, all colors, sexuality, and backgrounds. They understood that the elite teach us our differences matter as a way to keep us divided. They were all shot and killed, and some conformed to the rotting system.
They understood what only Bernie Sanders articulates. Change will never come from inside the system. Unilateral disarmament is necessary. The Democrats are not your friends, and I’ve seen people claim they trust them completely. They want them to take the corporate money because due to their values they won’t become corrupt. They already are. It’s why we have Trump.
Nancy Pelosi joined politics supporting Medicare For All, but is now holding meetings with health insurance companies, denying your claims, telling them their profits are protected at your expense. She keeps giving Trump unrestricted money for the concentration camps and murder at the border because they both take the same private prison money.
Change is only going to come from us choosing we’ve had enough, putting our lives on the line for each other, knowing whoever makes it out alive will be better off, and our children and grandchildren will experience the next evolution of planet earth.
It’s time for some “good trouble”. The kind of trouble that changes the future of so many people, and makes our struggle mean something. The only candidate that gives you this feeling and this hope is Bernie Sanders. A lot of people who went for Hillary last time did so out of fear. Allow them this time to have hope. Don’t hold the past against them.
In the days of our great heroes the elite did not think they were so great. Our FBI wrote Martin Luther King Jr. a letter telling him to kill himself. Epstein was murdered, we all know it, and most of us know it could be a host of people who did it. Think about why bribery works at all.
If we stopped treating everything as shameful, allowed ourselves and each other space to grow without judgement, didn’t find temporary solace in one another’s suffering, then maybe we wouldn’t be so easily bribed into silence or complicity. The rulers of the world all commit crimes for the most part, no matter what they call themselves from President to Queen. It’s a big club, Carlin said, and we ain’t in it.
Only, it’s not that big. The only reason they have any number of the working class at all is because they use our differences to keep us divided. If we are fighting for them, on their behalf, they can enjoy the riches they’re stealing from our labor, and we will blame one another. Markets aren’t the driver of any economy. You want an economy to do well?
Give money to the people who need it most, so they have it to spend. The working class of this country, or any country, is what makes it thrive. For so long the rich have been paying themselves more and more, buying tax breaks and de-regulation from our elected officials, while polluting mother earth and all of us. Our food makes us sick. The air makes us sick. The water makes us sick. And working class people are against healthcare. It makes me sad.
Your family members have died and are fighting cancers that are likely thanks to the fossil fuel companies that we, the tax payer, still spend billions a year subsidizing; as our planet dies. There will be nothing left for your children and their children if we don’t all stand together and demand it; wherever we are in the world. This isn’t just about America.
What America has chosen to do is fight wars for resources in other people’s countries. Whenever a real, left leader gets into office, and tries to make corporations play fair, the US does a coup and installs a dictator. Those are just the facts. They don’t respect our troops, and that’s why even with the military Bernie is getting more donations than any other candidate.
You aren’t going to hear the truth on MSNBC. They have fired Phil Donahue, Cenk Uyger, and others for covering the truth. They specifically fired Ed Schultz because he wanted to cover Bernie fairly in 2016. He went to Russia Today to anchor there, and they told us he was now a Russian puppet.
Our media is an illusion of choice. Bloomberg, who owns a newspaper and media company was asked by another billionaire, who also owns a newspaper, Jeff Bezos, to run for president. He is so rich that he’s buying up millions of dollars in ads. He’s trying to buy the presidency, and there is only one man you can trust who won’t sell us out.
His name is Bernie Sanders, but he can’t do it alone. This means you have to swallow your pride. Meditate, journal, do whatever you have to in order to be balanced within, and figure out how to best use your time and energy in this fight. We need you and we need others whose bubbles are just now bursting.
When we create the coups, like the one going on in Bolivia, we are allowing dictators to freely commit genocide and atrocities on working people who step out of line, and dare ask for a greater profit of what wouldn’t exist without their blood, sweat, and tears. We do not have time for pride.
We go to these countries and kill their people. We make it impossible to live there, so people risk their lives coming here for safety, and we lock them in cages and treat them like shit. That’s the America we’ve always been, no matter who has been leading our country. It’s not the troops fault. Many of them have great intentions, but have been sold the same lie of freedom.
We are not free until we are ALL free; all across the planet. In Bolivia we want their lithium, and we would rather steal than pay. If you think this bribery, quid pro quo with Trump is new, I have a bridge to sell you. It’s the world’s largest, open secret.
We don’t have any idea how dark and deep it goes, but we know that this exists. It has throughout history, and we’ve always won the battle. Movements are what has changed this country over time, and can now change the world.
There is a reason they teach you to hate the left, and confuse you with the illusion that establishment Democrats resemble the left. Corporate media has one perspective allowed, and that’s corporate. They have a woman who lost her re-election running too center on as a panelist to tell others to run the same type of center campaigns if they want to win. I can’t even.
Recently we learned that several networks hid the Epstein story because they knew Prince Andrew was involved and wanted to ensure their interview with Will and Kate, or some other access. They are supposed to hold the powerful accountable, but they are the powerful. They own everything; even our data.
Yeah, it’s scary, but even scarier is you choosing to avoid it, and not joining the fight loud and proud for your future, for your children and grandchildren’s future, or even as Bernie says…a stranger’s future. You can fight for someone you don’t even know. We have to fight.
It’s the history of the Black movement that freed the slaves, the women’s movement fighting for the right to own property and vote, the labor movement getting us unions and child labor laws, weekends and holiday pay. The history of the LGBTQ movement for equal rights under the law. The environmental movement and so forth.
This movement is no different. We’re just combining all our issues under one umbrella, and saying we’re going to correct it all. It’s long overdue.
Bernie has more money on hand than any other candidate. In fact, Joe Biden sent an email out saying “help, Bernie has $74 million”. One billionaire’s wife donated a small amount to Bernie and several other candidates. When he found out he refunded the donation. His highest donors are military members, teachers, Walmart workers, and people like me. We’re his only special interest, and it’s proven. Even Warren has dark money groups.
He broke a record for the history books and has surpassed four million individual contributions. He has more individual supporters than Trump, and three times more than the next three candidates combined. His rallies are record-breaking, but you won’t see that on MSNBC or CNN.
Comcast and other affiliates own all of that. They don’t want to pay their taxes or be de-regulated. Pretty powerful thing for our richest, shadiest corporations to own the media, and the information we’re allowed to take in. Stop and really think about that. Fox may be the worst, but they are all in it for ratings and profit. For access to rich people they have so much in common with they will never hold them accountable.
Immigrants are NOT taking your jobs. We are going into their country and killing them. Creating gangs and violence that threaten their survival. We create the crisis that makes them want to leave their country, and then when they come here we send them back or lock them in cage. Under Trump many are disappearing or dying altogether, and no one is stopping it.
Acknowledging that immigrants, Black people , people of color, the LGBTQ community, and all minorities have it worse doesn’t erase your suffering. What it does is allow you to face the truth. The rich have created a privilege for you that you didn’t ask for, and it has come at another person’s expense.
Just because you have never suffered greatly due to the color of your skin doesn’t mean you haven’t suffered. It’s okay to acknowledge that suffering for the color of your skin is a disparity within the disparity, and use what small privilege you have to stand with the many suffering with you. We have the same enemy, and it’s not one another.
It’s not as bad as we fear. It’s even worse than that. I am not here to lie to you. I want you to realize, as bad as it is, we outnumber them, and it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have time to chase an imaginary center. We are the center, and together we have a once in our lifetime opportunity to join together and change our country and the world.
Bernie has been bringing up Nelson Mandela a lot lately using his quote, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” The fight is large, but it’s winnable. Please join our movement, and if you do, embrace late comers. We don’t need anymore “I told you so” moments. We don’t need shame.
Yes, there are dishonest actors, but you can’t live your life thinking everyone is. Even when they’re coming from a different perspective they could be doing so honestly. Allow them to grow. I’m grateful for those who allowed and still allow space for me to do so.
Namaste.
P.S.
As I was editing I hopped over to refresh Twitter and this is what I saw:
So, whether it’s Amy, or…
Peter Daou…embrace them and encourage them to use their platforms for the highest good of all. We don’t have time to waste on being petty. Rise above it.
#NotMeUs
