Hang your head low

March For Our Lives 2018.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author: Tristan Loper.

by Kathie MM

Hang your head low in sorrow as you read about the latest set of child victims of a school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, and hear their stories .

Hang your head low in embarrassment that the whole international community is getting yet another damning look at the moral sickness embedded in the heart of the power structure ruling the United States and contaminating our whole society.

Hang your head low in shame if you have done nothing since the last school shooting to support the student gun reform activists, and nothing to remind your Congresspeople that they are responsible for the well-being and safety of the citizens they represent, not the NRA, which will grease the palms of anyone who supports their deadly agenda.

Or

Lift your head high and set your eyes on the prize: a successful campaign for sane gun laws. There are countless efforts underway.  Join them.

Raise your head up and square your shoulders back and commit yourself to doing everything in your power to break the death grip that the NRA and the arms industry it represents has on the hearts and souls and wallets of the people elected to represent you.

Use your head to ask yourself if you really, truly have examined every opportunity available to you to resist fear-mongers, violence justifiers, promoters of hate, and exploiters of us all.

Invoke your conscience to propel you to take action in support of what may be the best chance in many decades to resist the power of the gun lobby and the violence-profiteers, and move instead to promote and protect the lives and well-being of our children and all of us.

You have real choices.

 

If you really, truly, honestly want democracy…

A teacher at the March for Our Lives in Portland, Oregon, protests the idea of arming teachers with guns. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Sarahmirk

by Kathie MM

What you really need to do is promote quality education—including supporting, appreciating, rewarding, and protecting the teacher and student activists who embody democratic principles.  As neo-fascism  and anti-intellectualism  and  the distrust of education and educated people they promote engulf our shaky democracy, give thanks for the students and teachers who have the courage to speak out on behalf of nonviolence  and quality public education . We need good role models right now.

Enemies of freedom and justice have always worked to prevent and curtail education for any perceived threats–click here  and here  for examples– to their  desire to dominate and control.  “Keep them in their place,” is the eternal message, “or they will threaten our way of life”—a way of life that keeps all too many people downtrodden and feeling powerless.

Right now there is a huge conflict going on in this country—between the tiny but powerful and very greedy plutocracy  exercising increasing control over the lives of the non-elite and the forces of resistance, the promoters of democracy, the broadest category of dreamers .

If you really, truly, honestly want a functioning democracy, support the students marching for our lives and support the teachers speaking out on behalf of public education and nonviolence. Find the causes and undertake the actions that make you feel you are doing your share to make the country better for all.  And please tell us about them.

Tens of thousands marched. I was there.

March for Our Lives, Boston MA, March 24, 2018. Photo by Deborah Belle.

By guest author Deborah Belle

Such a mixture of pain and joy to see so many marching today. Joy in the incredible strength, wisdom, and commitment of the young people leading this social movement along with their equally passionate elders. Pain is the very reason for and topic of the march. Children with signs wondering if they will be next, or pleading, “Don’t shoot!” Teachers who did not sign up to be soldiers and carry guns. Reminders of the young people lost recently in Florida and also the young father killed only days ago in Sacramento, shot 20 times by police officers in his own backyard.

What a crazy dystopia we are forced to inhabit. When will we awaken from this nightmare? Along with the emotion today there was a focus on the future and on the next steps to take. Activists were out registering marchers to vote and reminding us that voting will be our best hope of purging our national political life of the deadly influence of the NRA.

Note from KMM: Please help with the voter registration process.