I’d planned on marching with students today, March 24, 2018 #marchforourlives
because the students have a point. Many points. And they are letting the politicians know them.
In my county, though, another important part of democracy happened: the democratic caucus.
Our county is the second largest in the state, and is extremely rural. So to get to the meeting that started at 10 am, we left from the northeast corner of the county at 7:30 am and drove to the southwest corner of the county to get there by 10 am. Today, the fourth day of spring, a steady snowfall blanketed the grasslands and piled snow onto the highway. We drove on unplowed roads on a slippery, snowy highway for our civic responsibility. The snowplows were probably already put away for next year, so they didn’t start plowing until 9:00 am. But still, we drove to our duty as citizens to the caucus to choose our delegates and to adopt our county platform as Democrats.
Our caucus, scheduled from 10 am to 2:45 pm, seemed to mean we could meet up at the March for Our Lives gathering, which started at 3:00 pm. But true to democracy, schedules don’t always flow exactly because voices needed to be heard, language needed to be tweaked, and intentions and inferences needed to be clarified through careful, considered, respectful discussion and compromise, and all with a focus on human rights based on the words of our Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Voices: Be heard. Our democratic republic demands that we speak up, whether in the streets in protest or in small meetings like the caucus to document voices that represent the concerns of the local people.
Conversations. Voices. Assembly. Protest. Compromise.
That’s democracy.
This post is written for11th Annual Slice of Life Story challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers . During whole month of March, we will share a slice of our lives. Please join too.
Sheri,
The tweet shows that a picture is worth million words.
Thanks for sharing the knowledge. Yes, our democracy requires that we strive to do our civic duty and raise voice respectfully.
Best wishes.
Purviben
@TrivediZiemba
http://trivediziemba.edublogs.org
I was going to take the El and go to the march in Chicago, but decided instead to watch the march and speeches in Washington, DC. I’m glad I did. If I’d gone to the march I likely would not have gotten close enough to hear any of the speakers. By sitting in front of my TV and watching CSpan I could see and here the words and emotions of every one of those on stage. I sat t here for almost 3 hours! And, even though it was cold in DC, it looked like they kept much of their crowd for the entire time.
I tweeted out photos yesterday and reTweeted more today. I was hugely impressed with all the speakers, especially the 9 year old grand daughter of Dr. ML King, Jr and an 11 year old Black girl speaking up for other Black women and girls whose voices are not heard.
I can only imagine what was being said by youth speakers in the 80+ other cities where marches were held.
They all said “register” and “vote”. The true test will be if more than a small percent of the age 18-34 population follow through and actually do vote, in Nov. 2018, spring and fall 2019, 2020 and beyond. I think it will take many elections to really drain the swamp and create the type of public accountability and participation that Democracy needs to truly work.
Yesterday was just a start, just as the other marches over the past year have also been starting points.
When we returned home by 8 pm, we turned on the news to watch the speeches and see the marchers. I was so impressed and inspired. I sensed hope.
I also sense that more of us want an end to the chaos of this swamp.
My one fear is that the ill-advised, uninformed, and sadly opinion-driven non-president will start a war, force a gun into these kids hands, and march them off to war. They deserve the peace and nonviolent strategies they promote, as do we. We are civilized; we don’t need war to solve world problems.
We need to do more than vote — we need to be involved in the process of nominating relevant and reliable candidates, take money out of the election process, and stand up for the foundation of our democratic republic — we the people — all of us– no matter which party or other divisiveness that that man spews— with liberty and justice for all.
And you are right: this is just a start.