I have been reading heartfelt and sincere pleas to Al Gore to run for President. Some of these of these articles that try to tap into Al Gore’s “conscience” seem more like prayers than reasons why he should enter the race. I have read “open letters” to Gore and articles that predict the future with Al Gore at the helm would bring America back from a spiritual and moral abyss. Sometimes, when I read these things I get a knot in my stomach and I shake my head in wonder. Have the people in America fallen to a point where they are looking for a new “messiah” to lead them out of the desert and into the “promised land”?
While I might be mixing up Jesus with Moses, the basic message of these letters and articles remains the same. It seems as if Americans have lost their moral compass and feel that the sainted Al Gore will lead us back from certain doom, and the tone of these pleadings remains the same; “Please reconsider and save America”.
The facts are that no one person can save America. No “savior” is going to be sent by the creator to lead us out of the valley of death. The savior that everyone expects to appear, whether it’s Al Gore, or Dennis Kucinich or God forbid, Hillary Clinton, is not going to “save” this country from the reckless and militaristic path to destruction. The facts are that the “savior” that everyone in this country seems to be waiting for is in the mirror looking back at you.. You heard that right. The person that will bring this nation back from moral bankruptcy is you. Don’t expect that someone is going to descend from heaven (in this case Hollywood) and put things “right” again. That can only happen when you decide that something must be done, and knowing that, you pull yourself out of your comfortable cocoon and you go ahead and do the things that are necessary to change the course of history.
When I write the word “you”, I mean you and you and you. I’m talking about every American that realizes that we can no longer proceed with our lives pretending that “somebody” will magically appear and do all the hard work that is required to change the way things are. That my friend is a kind of wishful thinking that won’t change a thing. The only way that change can be brought about in a system that has the deck stacked against the average American citizen is through hard work and perseverance. When everyone tells you that you can’t change the way things are, you must understand that change starts with one person at a time. Bobby Kennedy once said;
“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
These aren’t just the words of a great man; those words are the formula for change. Change will only come if people want it bad enough. The truth is that if you can’t change the way things are, maybe you didn’t want it bad enough.
Think of what may come to be and imagine that your worst fears have materialized. Think of our country doing the unthinkable. Think of America using nuclear devices on Iran, and then on Syria. Think of the consequences. Go one step further and think of the White House declaring martial law and imagine the Army in the streets or worse yet, paid mercenaries doing their bidding. Think of the sanctions that other nations would direct towards the United States and international travel forbidden. Think of being forced to have a national ID in order to purchase anything and the things that they would be teaching your children in school. Maybe these things will never happen, but then again, what if they did? Then imagine yourself asking the question over and over in your head; “What could I have done to stop this?”
God forbid that you should ever have to ask yourself that question, but if you did, what would you answer that question with? Would you have an answer? If you had a do-over, what would you have done differently? Take a moment and put yourself in that hellish nightmare of a scenario and ask yourself that question. Once you have figured out what you could have done differently, go out and do it as if you had been given that second chance. Act as if God in all his wisdom, or anything that you regard as a power greater than yourself, had given you a do-over, than do it as if your life depended on it. Want to know something? Your life or what you perceive and have grown accustomed to as your life, just may depend on it.
Like the old Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times.” We are indeed living in interesting times. What we do today determines what our future will be tomorrow. Don’t count on anyone to save you from what may come. You are the only one that can decide to change things from what they are. You can’t make anyone else decide to change things. The only one you can convince to change things from what they are now is you. Do the things that you can do to make a difference, whether it may be talking to others, or to collect money for a candidate that you believe in, or attending a demonstration or organizing a grassroots group, you can do something. Bobby Kennedy also said this:
“It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task”.
He wasn’t wrong, and if you believe you can make a difference or at least try, neither are you.
Labels: Activism, Grassroots, Politics