The Shocks Are Drowning Out The Warning Sirens
A Facebook friend posted what her kid said yesterday: ”I don’t want to be a fourth grader next year. What if I get shot?”
Republicans are fixing to mobilize an "army" to volunteer as poll workers to block vote counts in heavy Democratic precincts in elections this fall.
That's illegal, but is anyone going to go after them legally for planning it?
Any minute now we could hear that 50 years of precedent have been overturned, and women are losing huge rights.
Seriously. Any minute.
As far as that goes, the Supreme Court could reveal some other god-awful, spectacular, breathtaking decision at any minute as well.
Cable news isn't even bothering to track or report all of the mass shootings anymore. They just refer to the number of mass shootings now, like how there were 11 of them around the country over the Memorial Day weekend. Wait - what? ELEVEN? Yesterday they did bother to note that a new one occurred at a hospital in Tulsa. Today we got a live press conference on the hospital one, but it’s unclear why we didn't get details like that on the 11 or more mass shootings that occurred over the weekend.
We’re going from shock to shock to shock to shock.
There's a deepening here.
Not the good kind.
In the middle of all this terrifying crap, I hope like hell that Americans are doing some soul-searching.
Is this for real the country we want?
Is this how we build an amazing, shiny, thriving, flourishing future?
I mean for me the answer is absolutely freaking not.
Not just no, but HELL no.
How seriously are we going to be willing to fight for it? For what we actually want?
I've done spiritual work for years. I remember a friend telling me that sometimes the universe gives you a bunch of chances to pick up on a message... and then if you don't take the hints it just shoves you out the door.
I don't think you need to be spiritual to get that metaphor.
I feel like we've had some hints.
Like metaphorical guys with flashlights at the airport directing giant airplanes. Only in this case like waving the flashlights all around trying to get our attention BECAUSE THERE IS DANGER.
Actually if we're talking warning signs it's more like we've had tornado sirens going for years. But it seems we've gotten numb to it... like Ukrainians listening to air raid sirens going for hours and hours over months now. Now you see people in Kyiv out getting coffee even as the sirens go.
That's what we're doing here, too.
We're going about our lives even though we've got the air raid sirens going for our democracy.
We're getting coffee, too. We're doing summer stuff. Partly to stay sane, but for lots of reasons. Persistent shocks keep people overwhelmed, frozen, cynical, disengaged, and even despondent. That’s part of why we’re planning work to help energize people.
We’ve been normalizing the crazy, though, too. The unacceptable. The hostility. The science denial. The flagrant intolerance. The proud hatred. The mass shootings. Oh by the way there were 11 of them over the weekend.
And that’s what we’re doing: normalizing the spectacularly abnormal. The news is matter-of-factly reporting completely unusual things happening all over the place as if we've always done things that way.
They cover the two political parties as equivalents like as if as if one isn't brazenly advocating for seditious acts right in front of our eyes.
Like right now. Republicans are doing that RIGHT NOW.
Why wouldn't they? There's been zero accountability for political leaders who fomented an actual insurrection and attempted to overturn an election.
So okay.
My question is... do we care?
Again... is this for real the country we want?
I don't need the answer today. Because we're going to get an answer this year. For sure.
I intend to ask the question over and over. I intend to push it big time.
I think we can do a whole lot better at raising hell.
I think we can get a whole lot better at using our voices.
I think Democrats get better at messaging by getting Democrats themselves better at messaging.
We have an unprecedented amount of social media all over the freaking place.
We can create movements and messages ourselves. We can get news coverage ourselves. We don't have to leave it all to Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Why is it they suck so much of the media oxygen?
Maybe because Democrats haven't learned how yet. How to get attention. How to drive the narrative.
So let's do that. Let's learn. Let's get going. And then let's get really good at it. Fast.
I'm convinced we can. We don't need big billionaire money to do it. That would be super lovely and helpful though so if you've got a hookup let us know.
We DO have the majority of voters in the country.
That's a hell of an asset.
And we've got some anger and rage. We've also got dreams about the future we DO want to see. And we've got a fierceness. That's an understatement.
I reckon if we talk about what's behind all of this wicked powerful emotion we can shift the narrative. Absolutely.
It sounds like a major understatement to say that. But I'm dead serious.
There's lots of ways we can do that. Like a shift-ton. And we’re doing some other things to energize the majority along with driving the narrative.
We're going to start getting into those. And getting a team of a bunch of us together to work on it. Like pretty fast actually. Monday, to start.
I will have a website done and ready Monday and we are finally going for it.
No more moving the date. It's on.
Before we do that, I'm taking some time for joy in my own life and going to see my nephew's band play this weekend. Because awesome. You've got to have the incredible joy stuff going on too. Helps us keep this shift going.
After Monday, we'll start getting this shift going with daily videos next week and also webinars and Zoom calls and who knows what else. And a Facebook group. And Discord, too, if someone wants to help start it. Then we get going on real-world events, too.
It's going to be a little bit wild and organic if we do it right. I'm a little OCD so it makes me just a little bit nervous but hey. We've got some good people. We're going to come up with mind-blowing an amazing stuff. We really are.
Keep the faith, even in this swirl of chaos and deepening.
And let's get this shift going.