Hannah Metzger
Audio By Carbonatix
“Speak out. You’ve got to speak out against the madness. You’ve got to speak your mind, if you dare.” – Crosby, Stills and Nash, “Long Time Gone”
Dare we? I am often that person, the person who brings up topics that no one wants to think about, much less talk about. Especially lately. And here I go again.
Do you remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance? It ends “with liberty and justice for all.” As a young child, I didn’t always understand the words, but they eventually got through. As with a song you can’t get out of your head, one day you realize what the words mean.
Democracy, like freedom, does not just happen. It takes work. When I hear someone say, “There’s nothing you can do about it,” I begin to boil inside. In a democracy, its citizens are an integral part of making it work. How will our elected officials know how to govern us if we don’t speak up about what we want and need? Voting is good, but it is not enough.
Regardless of how you recently voted or if you didn’t vote at all, if you think the actions of our government do not affect you personally, read on. There is a domino effect that can trickle down from the executive branch in both good and bad ways.
Here are a few ways that trickle could affect Coloradans during the next four years:
You head to your favorite hiking trail in the mountains to find that it has now been taken over by fossil fuel extraction.
Your wife or daughter wants to make an appointment with their gynecologist but they have no appointments for the foreseeable future because they are caring for women from Wyoming and other surrounding states that have banned access to certain reproductive care.
You look for Palisade peaches next spring but growers weren’t able to harvest their crop because essential migrant workers couldn’t get back into the country.
You are self-employed and your health insurance has become unaffordable.
Colorado has worked hard the last decade and beyond to put into place progressive initiatives for our future:
We voted to curb the effects of climate change and our growing population by creating sustainable initiatives to upgrade our infrastructure and clean up our air through renewable energy incentives.
We recently voted to pass Amendment 79 to protect the reproductive rights of women.
We protect non-criminal immigrants as a sanctuary state.
Years ago, our legislators aligned our health-care policies with the Affordable Care Act, protecting us from being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions and making health care accessible to more people.
But some of these initiatives are linked to federal funding, which makes them vulnerable to the proposed goals of the next presidential administration.
So rather than be caught off-guard by some of these possibilities, I urge you to take things into your own hands. We can do something, even when it seems hopeless. I would rather try than not. Pick your passion, read about it, learn about it. Then speak out. Tell your local representative. Speak out against the madness. Have a good, old-fashioned conversation with friends about your concerns. Engage in civil discourse. Learn from each other. Act locally. Some of the most meaningful change happens at the local level.
It can work. It does work. Try it.
And here’s what some of us are doing soon:
We are collecting information and gathering together to write letters to local and state officials to ask that they assure us that they will strive to protect the amendments and initiatives that we as citizens of our state have put in place, and that they will vote with their conscience. They need to know that we care and that we are paying attention.
And you know what? They need our votes. You have the right to ask for the government you want.
Please join us at Writing to Save Democracy!
Writing to Save Democracy: A Letter-Writing Event Aimed at Preserving the Initiatives Coloradans Have Passed, Sunday, December 1, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Lot 46 at the Edgewater Inn, 5302 West 25th Avenue, Edgewater. For more information, contact Jill Carstens at jillcarstens2605@gmail.com.
Jill Carstens writes a regular column in the Denver North Star newspaper. Her Colorado-based memoir, Getting Over Vivian, was published last year.
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