Writing for me has taken a back seat, but every time I walk away from this blog I never forget it’s here. I do miss the therapy this blog gives me. Although unlike when I was in Afghanistan, many times the topics I want to write about are too often too close to the people closest to me. When I was publishing while in Afghanistan I wasn’t writing about people who I cherish and love and it was highly unlikely they would ever read what I was writing. Now I know the people I’m writing about will read and I don’t usually want to go there in such a public forum.
My 2020 goal was to be more open minded and expand my ability to have empathy. I did this by reading many, many books well outside my comfort zone to help me see things from a different perspective. It has helped me humanize people I otherwise would have had no sympathy for. I have grown a lot this year during that and want to write all about it.
Right now I’m feeling the need to wage a protest. When you are not in an organization, if you are infiltrated into an establishment you can not affect or influence change from within. My protest is against party politics. I am OVER being told you have to choose. I don’t want to choose. I don’t want to be told I have to choose and I’m starting a protest. Like organizations of the past and present who wage protest for change, they did it because they had to. Like women’s right to vote, right for gay marriage. When women wanted to vote they couldn’t vote for or create a law that would allow them to vote because they were not in the organization they wanted to influence. The only way to have their voices heard was through protest. I want my voice heard, so her I am protesting.
I friend of mine who I truly respect and who has been able to affect and influence change recently stated on a podcast she was interviewed for that she loves her country but she doesn’t like or agree with everything. She can still have pride in her country despite the state of the nation. Over the summer, I started to feel true sadness and have been carrying a heavy heart regarding humanity in general. Terrible things have been happening and in my mind, in regards to the police shootings and the violence against blacks, no side can be “right”. No one has all the answers. The police brutality, is wrong. The rioting and looting, is wrong. The civilians shooting and taking the law into their hands, are wrong. So until we can stop dividing and stop blaming and pointing fingers and start uniting no change can occur. Solutions don’t come from finger pointing. This has been weighing on me heavy. Yet, despite it all I do truly love my country.
The divisiveness is what is weighing on me the most strongly. I struggle intensely with party politics. I believe our elected officials have a duty and obligation to inform their constituents regarding the true impact of what they vote into law. This is not happening. One reason this doesn’t happen is because then they would have to speak out against their party lines. Once someone speaks out against their party they lose their funding to run for office and lose their job. This boils my blood. The party politics we are forced into are meant to divide us and not unit us. Without unity we are not going to see the change we need.
My protest is on my ballet in November. I am tired of being told there are only two choices for President and you have to choose one or the other. I am tired of saying I’m not voting for one and then people assuming I’m voting for the other. It’s so engrained in to our culture that you are either one or the other. There is no middle and I’m tired of this.
I want to encourage people to vote! I want people to vote for the candidates on the ballet who they truly believe will do the job required and represent you! But my challenge is for you to stop voting for a candidate when you are choosing the better of two evils. Stop voting for one side because you don’t like the other. Stop voting for your party because that is just what you always do. Why do we have to accept this? We don’t have to. What I am proposing is vote and leave the parts of your ballot blank where there is no qualified candidate. If you were hiring someone for a job you would not just hire the best of the worst in the candidate pool. You would broaden the candidate pool and find the right person for the job. It’s time for us to do the same for our country. The country we love but don’t like right now.
My challenge to you, is if you feel like it’s time for change. If you feel you’ve had enough of party politics and subpar candidates who divide the country rather than unite it. Then join me in my voting protest! VOTE!
Darchelle's Vacation with Uncle Sam 