I woke up this morning with Sunshine (Go Away Today) playing in my head, particularly the lines, “He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine!” My mind and heart still hurt, but it is time to stop hiding and do something about it.
The last few days I have been so depressed that I didn’t even feel like fighting any more. The bad guys won, and more than half the people were good with that, so what was the point in trying to save the human race? Every time someone saying we have to fight harder just made me turn away. What is the point?
While replying to a wonderful Facebook post by a friend of mine offering to come to the aid of anyone who needs it, I came up with an idea. Two, actually.
The first is a new kind of Neighborhood Watch or Safe Haven program. Create posters that can go in people’s windows that show that household is a Safe Haven. Fill the poster with symbols of diversity, like rainbow stripes, the mixed male/female symbol, and clasped hands of different colors. Make a slogan, like ‘Hate Free Space’ or ‘Diversity Safe House’, and make it known that anyone who is afraid can go there.
This is dangerous. It tells everyone who we are, and what we stand for. It opens our homes to violence, either by someone in danger bringing it to our home, or giving those who hate a visible target. Not everyone will want to be a Safe House. But maybe if enough of us have those posters the haters will start being the ones afraid.
For those who can’t or won’t be Safe Houses, we could have smaller signs that say, ‘I support the Safe House movement.’ Give those that are not yet ready to put themselves or their families in danger a way to show support to those who are.
Which brings me to my second idea. Part of how the GOP keeps winning is that they are better story tellers than we are. The Dems would like to believe that humans are a rational animal, while the GOP knows that we are governed by our emotions, especially fear. They painted a vivid picture of the apocalypse to people who were already afraid, then Trump came in and told them that he alone could save them, and they believed.
We as rational people laughed, because we knew that the things he promised to do would harm those same people even more. But his story won out, because it was the story of a savior instead of our acknowledgement of the hard work ahead. His story gave them someone to blame other than themselves. His story spoke to the fear in their hearts, so they followed him. Yes, many of them followed as jackals after the lion, knowing they would get their part of the kill. These were the deplorable. But some followed because they were told so many times that he was the only way that they believed.
We need to start telling our own stories in a way that makes people listen. Dems love to tell the truth, but for now the truth must be told in mythic form. We need heroes, we need songs, we need great myths to rally around. JFK, MLK, Bernie and Warren. Civil rights leaders, past and present. The churches that celebrate diversity, the Native Americans (and others) who protest the pipeline day and night, the people who stand up and fight. We need to tell the old legends and we need to make new ones to tell.
Like the legend of the Danish King Christian X wearing the Yellow Star (www.snopes.com/...), we can all wear the colors of diversity proudly. Trump is calling for neighbors to turn in neighbors. We need to take back our own neighborhoods. Make buttons and patches and armbands and T-shirts, make songs and stories both of wrongs and of triumphs. Make people believe in real hope again.
We need to look to the 50s and 60s again. The fight for civil rights was won with protests, but it was also won through stories and legends. It was won with symbolism, like sitting in the front of a bus, or at a lunch counter. Hearts and minds were won with songs. Music can be extremely powerful. Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Peter, Paul, and Mary. We need to break out the old songs, and make new ones of our own. (en.wikipedia.org/...)
Democrats have always tried to win people’s minds, while Republicans have won through fear and pain. Unfortunately fear wins over rationality almost every time. It is time to change tactics. People freaked out over a few cases of Ebola, yet millions die every year of flu, malaria, and TB and we hear little to nothing about any of them. It is all a matter of how it is presented. And we need to figure out how to present reality in a way that people not only can hear it, but in ways that they want to spread the news.
This is the song that I woke up singing this morning:
Sunshine go away today, I don't feel much like dancing
Some man's come he's trying to run my life, don't know what he's asking
When he tells me I better get in line, can't hear what he's saying
When I grow up, I'm gonna make him mine, these ain't dues I been paying
How much does it cost?
I'll buy it!
The time is all we've lost
I'll try it!
He can't even run his own life,
I'll be damned if he'll run mine--sunshine
Sunshine, go away today, I don't feel much like dancing
Some man's come he's trying to run my life, don't know what he's asking
Working starts to make me wonder where fruits of what I do are going
When he says in love and war all is fair, he's got cards he ain't showing
How much does it cost?
I'll buy it!
The time is all we've lost--I'll try it!
He can't even run his own life,
I'll be damned if he'll run mine—sunshine
-Johnathan Edwards