Talk Louder

The transformational power of refusing to remain silent

If we treat the symptom of a problem but don’t address its cause, then in time the symptom can morph and reappear.

In medicine, we transitioned from a purely allopathic model of healing (seeking simply to eradicate or suppress the symptoms of disease) to a more integrative, holistic approach (the importance of preventative measures in avoiding disease, as well as nonmaterial elements such as psychology, emotion and spirituality in treating it).

We need to make the same transition in our efforts to heal society.

Thinking we can fix the world by merely addressing externalities is an increasingly obsolete way of looking at problem-solving. It applies to machines but it does not apply to people. The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments could abolish the institution of slavery, but they could not abolish racism. The 21st Amendment gave women the right to vote, but it could not abolish misogyny. In both cases we have seen how the root causes of the problems have continued to plague us. Healing society - just like healing the body - requires work on the level of the body, and the mind, and the spirit.

A purely transactional model of politics is particularly inept. You get a bill passed here or a law changed there, and the next administration or the next Congress can simply repeal it or overturn it. On one hand the change might be an important one, and we should certainly work to make good things happen. But there has to be a concomitant psychological and moral change within peoples’ hearts, if real progress is to be permanent. That’s a transformational politics.

Our political system as it now exists is strictly transactional, making it almost antithetical to democracy. It is mechanistic, whereas the will of the people is an organic life force. The machine is dense and material, while the best of who people are is light and spiritual. Our politics and our hearts exist in two separate universes.

When I ran for president I saw them both. There is contact with voters, which is inspiring and exhilarating; and contact with the political media industrial complex, which is underhanded and brutal. One is real contact, while the other is a violent contact sport.

A reporter asked me the other day what the main thing was that I learned from running for president. I said it was that the system is even more corrupt than I thought, but people are even more wonderful than I knew. There is a heartbreaking difference between the dignity and decency of the American people, and the political system now holding hostage not only their will but in many cases their future.

Juliet Jarmosco

I wholeheartedly agree with the Jeffersonian concept that the only safe repository for power is in the hands of the people. That is such a radical and audacious notion - vastly at odds with authoritarianism, money’s undue influence on our political system, or the lock on the system now exercised by two corporate political parties. All three spit in the face of democracy.

When a representative democracy is working, the will of the people is then reflected in legislation. But when democracy itself is corrupted, as ours is today, then no matter how evolved our consciousness might be on an issue, the improvement doesn’t make its way into law. And that’s a problem.

Democracy cannot simply be established then considered a done deal. It’s like a garden that must be constantly tended, not taken for granted as though it were a self-perpetuating system. It is not.

On issue after issue (including support for Medicare For All, interestingly enough) the majority of the people want things to go one way, while our leaders drive them in a different direction. Time and time again, our representatives do more to serve the will of giant corporations than to serve the will of the people. We know this, and now we must do something about it. The brokenness of our democratic system is total though not irreparable.

Given that money talks, we need to talk back.

First, we have to deal with voter suppression and voter nullification laws. Second, we have to deal with the chokehold the two major political parties have on our system; it’s ridiculous that we can have 14 brands of toothpaste but only 2 brands of political candidates. And third - more important than anything, if our dealing with the first two can even be possible - we have to get the money out of politics.

America has gone backwards in the last 60 years. In 1965 Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, which was then gutted by the John Roberts led Supreme Court. It was only 11 years ago that the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case, giving corporations unlimited power to financially influence our elections. They had already deemed that “money is free speech” and at this point, the voice of money is drowning out the voice of the people.

You know what that means, don’t you? It means we’re going have to talk louder.

We’re going to have to talk louder the way India Walton talks louder. We’re going to have to talk louder the way the Iraqi war vet interrupted Bush’s speech demanding that he apologize for the Iraq War talked louder. We’re going to have to talk louder the way indigenous water protectors are risking their lives to talk louder. We’re going to have to talk louder the way Bernie Sanders gets up every single day and takes on the bastards on our behalf talks louder. We’re going to have to talk louder the way the Abolitionists talked louder, and Woman Suffragettes talked louder, and the Freedom Riders talked louder.

When hate is shouting, it’s not enough for Love to whisper. When a corporate aristocracy is destroying your democracy - smashing in its ghoulish fingers your health, your opportunities for wealth, and the very survivability of your planet - you’re going to have to talk louder. When political figures are failing to represent your interests, making a mockery of their sacred duty to represent you, you’re going to have to talk louder.

I know it’s exhausting; the game is to exhaust us. I know you feel your voice has been nullified; in many ways it has been. But for the sake of everything that’s beautiful in life; in response to the vicious assaults on our democracy; in honor of our ancestors; and for the love of our descendants, let’s talk louder anyway.

In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” So many things matter now, and we must refuse to be silent. If you say something true - something that needs to be said - and someone tells you they’re offended, don’t shut up…

Say it again. And say it louder.