By Eric Leitzen
Hokah, MN
So, li’l Jemmy is Majority Leader. Congratulations to Mr. Status Quo, Mr. Establishment. I’m sure all of his rich friends are very happy that their project has worked out so well. I mean, this is like seeing your prize hog make it to the State Fair, isn’t it? And congratulations to the DFL as well, for running weak candidate after weak candidate promising to do next to nothing to help the actual day-to-day conditions of people struggling down in Bluff Country, making it possible for even this living piece of white bread to succeed to the level he’s at now. High fives and back slaps for the rich and already comfortable all around; everything’s just great for them, so clearly the system works.
I saw Jemmy on TV with usual meaningless political garbage about coming together and overcoming divisiveness and whatever else makes him completely indistinguishable from milquetoast “centrists” like Kamala or Biden, and all I could think about was… why?
Why should we stop being divisive?
Why should we come together?
Especially, why should we come together the way YOU want us to, Jeremy?
You’re already set for life, and speaking down from on high that we little people need to sort ourselves out sounds an awful lot like the Lord complaining that the peasants aren’t happy with their situation. You’re darn right we’re not happy, and no amount of finger-wagging from the castle is going to change that. Our food’s not healthy, our water’s not clean, we can’t afford to see a doctor, we’re renting ramshackle houses owned either by some other local lord who owns seven others in town or by some heartless, mindless, soulless corporation who also doesn’t care if our toilets don’t work… and we’re just supposed to deal with this?
No.
I refuse.
I choose to defy you, Jeremy, and all of these politicians who do the bidding of the rich while telling us that WE’RE the ones who have to play nice while the oligarchy robs us blind. I’m done playing nice. I choose, instead, to rebel.
This is what rebellion looks like: not flying the stars & bars like you’re in the John Bell Hood fan club. Rebellion means stepping up, it means putting yourself out there and inviting people to take their shots. Goodness knows if I wasn’t on some kind of list before writing this, I sure am now, and I don’t care. For the record I’m talking about political rebellion, here, of a purely political nature, because politics is supposed to be about serving the people, and I’m sure not feeling well served. Are you?
What else are people supposed to do when everything seems so broken? We’re still staring down a pandemic, we’re also looking at climate disaster within our lifetime, and meanwhile the billionaires gained, not already had, but just MADE 5.5 Trillion dollars (trillion!) during the pandemic! Meanwhile, we have to beg for a one time $2,000 check from Ice Cream Grandpa when that 5.5 Trillion could give every man, woman, and everything else in between a $1,000 check every month for a an entire year with cash to spare. No, I’m not going to try to “work together” or whatever we’re supposed to do to keep this busted engine running. It’s time to scrap it out and get a new one.
We can’t afford to be nice and polite anymore. There’s no more time to try to reach across the aisle to people who are either pointing a gun at us or counting their pennies to see if they can get a ride to Bezos’ moon colony when the planet starts to fry. It’s time instead start demanding our leaders be good to US, not the other way around. It’s time we put people in charge who are going to do everything possible to help the people that keep this place running, not the people who throw enough money into their pockets. I choose to rebel, in the great Minnesota tradition of the original Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, because there’s no more reason not to. Do I know I might lose? Absolutely. But at this point, it’s better than nothing.
Leave a Reply