How will we survive this? Only one way....

Happy Monday, everyone.  Had a hectic weekend of hockey, yard work and a choral performance by our middle granddaughter last night. 

I've been thinking a lot, as many others have, about the state of things in this country and where we can and should and must go from here.  The question is "how?"

I say that because we're right at a year from the Congressional midterm elections, which will most likely shift the balance of power away from Republicans.  But that's a long time to keep stacking one misery onto another for that period.

And remember, the end of the federal government shutdown is only temporary, we get to endure this same process in January!

So I think the "how" has to be one thing:

We the People!

My granddaughter's chorale performance was with a youth orchestra and their finale was a premiere performance of a lengthy piece with that title.  Stirring and patriotic.

But the answer was in that title.  We all keep saying that Congress needs to do something, but if we needed reminding, we saw how Republicans in both the House and Senate dealt with the longest government shutdown in the country's history.  So they aren't the answer, although the investigational activity by Senate and House Democrats have been useful and have put selective pressure on some of the more corrupt aspects of our current set of governmental agency heads.

No question that the No Kings protests of a couple of weeks ago got the attention of the current occupant of the White House.  Always easy tell when something or someone gets under his skin, and that certainly did.  We need more of that, in as many places as possible.

Just last week, ICE and Border Patrol agents were sent into Charlotte and New Orleans, with the apparent intent of reminding minorities and immigrants (legal or not) that they are not in control of their futures.  The core of this is to intimidate these people into believing that it's not safe to vote or to express themselves publicly.

We have to have as many Democratic mayors and governors and members of Congress out there stating the facts and debunking that reasons that the Administration gives for this kind of activity.  And to push back on ridiculous narratives like saying that beef prices are up because illegal immigrants brought their cattle with them when they entered this country.

Yes, a high ranking official actually said that.

Call them out.  Dispute their version of the truth.  Civil disobedience drives despots insane, you know.

We the people can do this!