If you’re a fan of I’m Not Complaining, there are three simple ways to support this publication:
Share this post with your friends, relatives, colleagues, and social media contacts
Click the little heart button at the bottom of the post (validation is a beautiful thing)
Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Notcomplaining
On with I’m Not Complaining!
I think it was 1969 when I was taught that, if I was engaged in the business of making a living, it would be best for me to keep my mouth shut regarding my political beliefs. I was fourteen. I had opened a political discussion with one of my mother’s beauty salon customers. The customer never came back, and Mom was pissed.
I’ve always been an opinionated man, but for most of my career, I took my mother’s advice and avoided bringing politics to work. Writing is my business, so I’ve remained (mostly) politically silent in print.
But things have changed. This is no ordinary time. We now live in a time when, if one has a voice, it needs to be raised while it’s still possible. It’s no longer about my opinion; ‘If you see something, say something.’
I recently read a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech at the 1940 Democratic National Convention that resonates today. She said, “This is the time when it is the United States that we fight for, the domestic policies that we have established as a party that we must believe in, that we must carry forward, and in the world, we have a position of great responsibility. We cannot tell from day to day what may come. This is no ordinary time (emphasis mine). No time for weighing anything except what we can do best for the country as a whole, and that responsibility rests on each and every one of us as individuals.”
I believe that left and right need to find common ground. The battle is not between ideologies. The culture wars and even the cruelty of the current government are distractions. This is about Americans on both sides being distracted while those with wealth and power take whatever they can from the rest of us. This is about a crisis of both the Constitution and our individual consciences.
I grew up with, and still believe in, four qualifiers for any politician of any party, especially a President:
Has to be intelligent
Has to have demonstrable moral guidelines, not just talk
Has to obey the law and place country before party or self
Must not exhibit overt racism or intolerance
Hmm.
There are several others, but those four served us well for a long time.
I am an American. I’ve always been one. There are still examples of Americans who believe in America. I love Carl Schurz’s quote from 1872: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
We need to be better and louder than the distractions. So, if I were to try to reduce my current political stance to a single meme, it might well be this one, better and louder:
“A majority of our elected representatives have utterly failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American” - Bruce Springsteen
Next week, we’ll get back to ‘no politics.’ I promise.
Did you enjoy this post? Then Buy Me A Coffee!
