Undeniably, there is pain in this country. America is being hobbled by it. As this suffering continues to manifest into vile partisanship, hatred of the other, conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, and senseless violence, it’s clear to me there is nothing we can do to really progress until we address this pain on a massive scale. To hell with infrastructure week/year, we need to rebuild over the next few decades to get to where we need to be. And to do that, we need to take on the suffering, fully. We need to be people-focused, not capital-focused, which is what we've always been. To hell with money, without a healthy citizenry, in both mind and body, there is no future. We must, must, must, take on this pain.
You can call it a “nanny state” all you want, whatever, we need a government who truly cares about the people it governs. It’s a fundamental change for America which will require a large majority of the people who call this nation home to go through that change together. That’s the work that needs to happen. Everything we do must be an answer to the question “does this help reduce some of the pain?” Because if not, there’s no point. Does this reduce some of the pain, even just a little? That’s what needs to happen. Right fucking now.
