Do we vote on the basis of how the election will benefit ourselves? Or do we vote on the basis of how the election will benefit everyone that lives in this country? Are we hung up on one issue? Are we hung up on a handful of issues? Have we actually taken the time to consider what the struggles are for people that don’t live in our own skin and who’s blood is not pushed through their system with our very own heart?
Not one person’s reality is identical to that of another and yet we all have a couple of things in common. First, we are all human. Second, we all call this country home.
On January 20th, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy asked us to consider not what our country can do for us, but rather, what we can do for our country.
This is our moment. This is our time to stand up for our neighbors and for the people we pass in silence on our way to work. This is our time to put our personal interests aside. This is our time to set down our 401k’s and our retirement savings. This is our time to look past the two vehicles in our garage and the ones and zeros that make up the false security that is the stock market. This is our time to use the gross privilege that comes with our white skin. This is our time. This is our time to vote for the benefit of everyone. This is our time to vote for the benefit of black, brown and indigenous people in this country. This is our time to vote for the benefit of women and children in this country. This is our time to vote for the benefit of gays and lesbians and transgendered folks in this country. This is our time to vote for the benefit of immigrants coming to this country to pursue the freedom we have promoted so enthusiastically for more than 250 years. This is our time to vote for benefit of every single American that has been mistreated and/or marginalized. This is our time to vote for our climate and our justice system and the future of our way of life. This. Is. Our. Time.
So...I beg you to take a second and look in the mirror. Look in the mirror and have that hard conversation. Look in the mirror and ask yourself if the choices you make today are being made to benefit yourself or if they are being made to benefits others. I beg you to consider your vote, not for you, but for all of those that you may help live in a truly free nation filled with equal rights for all.
Our collective and independent American ego is a runaway train and we are the only ones that can slow it down and get it to come to a peaceful stop. We can do that or we can protect ourselves, in our castles built for one...again. We can stop this divisive madness or we can protect our self. It is our choice and there has never been a more important moment to decide which it will be.
Nothing in the news is real anymore and no one knows who to believe. Television talking heads just spit out endless opinions and the politicians, on both sides of the aisle, at the local level and in DC, just talk and talk and talk to protect their own livelihood. Anything and everything can be said to protect the self. It’s who we have become as the consuming public and, similarly, as public servants.
That said, this, too, is just words. More noise. More opinion. Do what you like. Protect your own interest or put down the words and change your actions to protect those that share your community. You have the power to shift. You have the power to shape. You have the power to act. You have the power to vote.
https://www.vote.org/