In the time since my last article, I’ve had my hands full. I started a new job as a public servant that has me working 14 hour days. I did loads of reading. I washed loads of laundry. I called my parents; they say hi. I’m very close to beating Super Mario 64 – a feat I never achieved as a child. I had the xx’s new album on repeat.
And I watched the world as we know it implode.
From the back-and-forth, at times vicious, exchanges on social media to the non-confrontational dialogue had in person… I bore witness to the chaos of a country creeping up on corruption. I observed my friends and family discuss and argue with their relatives and friends outside of our circles about Donald’s Russian allegations and Donald’s nominations and Donald’s obsession with executive orders. I read the responses regarding the Women’s March on Washington and sat in awe at how far it reached around the globe. I watched the foundations of freedom and a full democracy fall under the weight of power-hungry narcissism and nepotism.
And I haven’t said a word.
On the 21st of January, I inadvertently lead hundreds of people in Boston Common to chant protests I had learned at previous Black Lives Matter marches: What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now. If we don’t get it? Shut it down. We were all too far from the stage to hear what speakers and organizers were saying, but I saw clearly we needed a voice to remind us why we were there. To people who had never had a reason, who have had the privilege until this new administration to just go on living their lives, they didn’t know the drill. They didn’t know morale had to be sparked and fueled in real life. Protests and marches don't start on high notes. But a few chants later, they got the hang of it, and I heard chant leaders in the distances for the rest of the day. Then I had people come up to me during the march to ask if I was the one standing on the monument earlier and starting up the crowd, and they would end up telling me how awesome that was or thanking me for it. I had one lady tell me that she had come alone and held doubts about what she could do being one person until she heard me pump everyone up for the march.
And that’s when I realized that I needed to say something. Anything.
Martin Luther King Jr. was one voice, and while I would never in a million years compare myself to what he did and the things he personally faced, sometimes all it does is take one voice. Because one voice, one dialogue, can be heard by a few who then keep passing the message along to another few and suddenly it’s several and then you have a people united behind you. It takes one voice to start. And it’s scary. It’s overwhelming. It’s intimidating to be the one person to climb a monument and start yelling about being our rights, our liberties, our safety being under attack. But when everyone around you begins to favorably respond, you have to ask if maybe you weren’t the only one thinking those things after all.
And if you’re not aware already, everyone’s safety is in jeopardy.
At this rate, I can’t worry whether or not you voted for Donald or why you did if you did. I can’t bother with the extent he thinks he can write finalized command after finalized command and not be labelled a fascist or dictator. I can’t even begin to talk about his personal insecurities concerning the way he’s perceived and his attempts to quantify that with laugh tracks or crowd-size photos. I don’t have that luxury. Because right now, in Congress, a bill is being pushed that will affect the very security of our nation. I’m not talking about the border wall logistical, as well as fiscal, mindfuck nor the executive order being prepared that cuts voluntary payments to the United Nations by 40% – at this rate, as long as its regular budgets and peacekeepers get paid, I don’t even care if the cut makes relationships more tense than they currently find themselves.
I’m talking about the g—damn H.R. 193 American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017.
Quick history lesson: the U.N. formed as a direct result of World War II to facilitate dialogue and establish ties that would prevent future military escalation amongst its members. In other words, our trade agreements and political treaties and social programs that globally overlap do so in order that interdependency forces the participating countries to keep peace. It’s hard to go bully or be bullied when, respectively, you need things from them and they need things from you.
And H.R. 193 will completely destroy that for us.
I read the bill five times and am still trying to wrap my head around it because, for the life of me, I cannot find any explanation for why the hell they would want to do this other than move that money elsewhere. The relationships the U.N. fosters literally make the socioeconomic political world go ‘round. Our well-being vanishes without them. It would expose our economic weak points; because being a capitalist and consumerist country means that, with no one willing to sell us imports and no one willing to buy our exports thinking we could do it on our own, we will collapse on the lack of supply and high demands of our own free market. I don’t have a degree in economics, but fuck if that’s not just common sense. (Being an isolated country is how history has brought us the breakdown of countries like Venezuela and Argentina, the latter of which was one of the world's most successful countries post-World War I until populist military coup-d'etats established "in-house only" economies that eventually lead to their 1974-1990 Great Depression and their 1998-2002 financial crisis, both of which drowned the country in riots and forced many of its nationals to emigrate to proverbial higher ground.)
And that’s just the money side possible repercussions of leaving the U.N. This bill also wants to cut all U.S.A. funding for the peacekeepers. There's not a whole bunch of them, but they're neutral and help all over the world, wherever they're needed.
Then to top it all off, aside from implying its lost potential (which is a lie because it's been doing its job of keeping us and as many people as possible internationally safe), Donald also called the U.N. “just a club for people to…have a good time." But if you ask me, if they’re having a good time, it means we’re not at war with anyone in it or its permanent inner circle including China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom.
Yeah. I’ll take a good time any day.
So please, for our safety, for the security of our finances and international standing, please spread the word about H.R. 193. Be a voice. It starts with one. It starts with you. Tell your neighbors, talk with your friends and coworkers, write your representatives. We are not a sovereign land. We are the United States of America. We have to be a United Nation. We are not alone in this world.
And we the people have to start acting like it.
