Grab and Keel

There are quite a few lists out there, and most of them are useful.

What I want to say here is that the decision to act, to be present, is important. The decision to remain active is just as important.

To stand up and be accountable is a daily activity, but it does not mean that the level of activity will always be the same.  Self worthy persons, and, we all have worth, choose every day, even in all their small actions, how to live, in the groceries they buy,  or not, the fripperies of societal needs, the media they absorb and allow to remain unchallenged, whether they can make it to the town halls, support their libraries, write to and support their local paper.

This might mean that the economic and convenience cost of our actions are greater than it would otherwise be, as in the decision to buy or not from a big box store, or to cut the cable cord if it does not provide balanced news. Daily decisions, such as those of noted above, are best served with notice of accountability to that establishment. Tell them why you have chosen to disassociate with them.

We have been at a bipartisan war, that we could have declared officially, with other countries since 2011. We pretended that the war was a military action and never acknowledged the blood and treasure it took from our country. We never acknowledged that more than half the oil we are perpetually fighting over goes to our military. We never saw the caskets, and just barely heard the low moaning of the families of the dead.  When Michelle Obama started the White House garden, we saw the value of feeding our children fresh veggies, but not that we actually all needed victory gardens, or that we were killing our planet with excess brought to us on petroleum wheels.

This election signaled what will be a long war for the future of our country. We are already past the rhetoric and into the actions of a militant dictator. We have witnessed a five year old child handcuffed behind his back because the cuffs were too big for his wrists in the airport. We know that children are being followed by strangers in order to ascertain the homes of their mothers. We have witnessed harassment, killing and bomb threats to minorities and institutions for women. This week brought both the shut down of the NoDAPL site with most of the neutral cameras off,  and the revelation of Immigration tearing a woman out her hospital while she was waiting for a brain tumor operation and being sent to the Alvarado Detention Center, where she was handcuffed and strapped down.

Do not assume these are abarrations.

Bannon, in his address to CPAC, this week, made it quite clear that these are not, but rather the beginning of his new world order. This will not stop unless we stop it.

Which leads me to my point. I was gratified to here that there are elite geometry mathematicians working on the problem of “compactness” in gerrymandered districts, which cause us to perpetuate Republican, mostly, representatives. We desperately need a better districting formula. Folks are being trained as expert witnesses to discuss, in court, the ramifications of these findings. However, redistricting is also performed on the basis of our ten year census. The next one won’t occur until 2021. So, unless the courts find a way to invalidate the current districts now, its very probable that the same political landscape will be present in 2020; the same one that elected Trump this time. It’s more than likely that it will still be in place in 2018.

Trunp is known for rewarding the loyalists. He is also very good at knowing how to “chum” the waters. He will spend infrastructure money on those states he needs. He has already promised road money to Florida. Unless things change dramatically before 2018, expect the same states to be in play.

So, if you don’t do another thing, stand up and be accountable by voting. Around  fifty percent of you didn’t last time. Start planning how you will do it now. I know it’s very hard for some of us in our disctricts get there, or to even stay on the rolls. Some of us are harassed and suffer indignities that we we shouldn’t have to suffer. Indigenous peoples shouldn’t have to drive hundreds of miles in winter, because a Nevadan official decides she doesn’t want to provide a polling place. I don’t know what it will take, volunteer lawyers standing beside you, a new group of Red Berets, or Acorn, or  better taxi service. Maybe that includes volunteering and doing the work for your home to be a polling place.

Whatever it is that will get your vote counted; do it.