Can’t tell you how tempted I am to post the Annie video of “Tomorrow” (which is now running through my brain and is by NO means one of my favorite songs) only because it’s upbeat and optimistic amid the pain of being an orphan and such.
But I shall refrain.
Tomorrow is a big deal for me. It hasn’t always been a big deal and may never be again, but this year it is.
After all these months of feeling the Bern, we will see how all this energy translates into electoral politics.
If I look at this as a horse race I’ll just get anxious and be no good to anyone.
So I’m looking at it as a big step, a leap of faith (literally) and something I’ve invested in, as a citizen, financially, emotionally and spiritually.
Think of all the different activists who have emerged since Dubya stole office in 2000. The millions who marched against the Iraq War; Code Pink; Cindy Sheehan (“for what noble cause?”), Dan Choi, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, progressive bloggers and especially in what I call the “diversosphere” (Kai at the no-longer-active Zuky, Nezua at the still active Apologetic Mexican, so many more) the progression of the progressives has been steady even as the Oligarchy-owned Media denied our existence.
I’m only numbering a tiny fraction out of the millions of people around the world, young and old, hundreds of different ethnicities, genders, races, who have emerged to warn us all about the troubles ahead and who have real answers for us to embrace.
All those activists and now we are taking a step to bring that ethos into the electoral process of the most powerful country in the world — and I don’t think it’s too hyperbolic to say the most recent Empire in the world.
How exciting. How real. How amazing. What an opportunity.
The first step is always the most interesting and also the most frightening. I am grateful to have Bernie as the standard bearer in this fight to wrest away our democracy from the few and expand it to the many.
My ego is the only thing left in me to get frightened over the horse race — when I think of being a “winner,” I become ridiculously arrogant; when I think of being a “loser” I become morbid and self-pitying.
So I am doing my best to ignore my ego, lol. There are exercises one can do, by the way, that can help in this area. (Hint: ommmmmmmmmmmmmm)
When I do manage to ignore my ego, I see a far different picture, the boundaries come down, the walls come down and I see there is only one solution to the problem of our democracy and that is democracy itself. We have countless brothers and sisters with infinite and diverse resources to contribute to making this country a place of joy rather than pain.
To bring more and more of us into the electoral process, as Bernie is working to do, to have that opportunity at this time in history is pretty fabulous, I believe.
This is only the beginning.