#240: “It’s Tough to Speak Out”

To live in America is to suffer. To survive in America is to find some meaning in the suffering. To vote in America is to convince yourself that change is possible, that democracy can win out over capitalism in the end. To cast a ballot for Donald Trump is to cry for help, like a depressed horse running its neck along its barbed wire enclosure. Maybe this will let the pain out. Maybe someone will notice and do something. Maybe I’ll hit an artery, bleed out and at least this shit will be over.

America has reached a tipping point. The Republican Party no longer represents its base and has been hijacked by a tumescent slumlord who, if nothing else, understands the economics and politics of a hostile takeover. On the other side of the aisle, the Democratic Party is divided and shifting left, flirting with Bernie’s ‘Revolution’ and destined to be wooed and ultimately won over by Warren.

For too long now, the people have not spoken out against the system, a perpetual motion machine that has been working while they slept, relentlessly driving America towards oligarchy. Corporations are people. Money is speech. Americans fiddled while America burned, their values and infrastructure consigned to the scrap-heap while they watched The Kardashians and shared cat videos.

It’s tough to speak out. When a system wrongs you, you feel powerless. In America, there’s a social stigma to being poor, like its equates to a person’s virtue. The working poor have been embarrassed into silence and inaction, made to feel like they should work two jobs or they are being unpatriotic. Worse still, those on welfare are made to feel parasitic.

It’s tough to speak out. When someone wrongs you, it’s embarrassing and it’s often easier to let it slide or pretend it didn’t happen – ‘If a girl wants to get along in the boys club, she should act like a boy’ sort of thing. We are all too familiar with this in the poker world. And it is especially true when wrong-doing is the norm, when the wrongdoer is in a position of authority and when there is a culture of victim-shaming.

It’s tough to speak out so when you do, people should listen. They should not rush to judgement. They should also forgive you for not speaking out sooner, nor should they imply that your past silence undermines the veracity of your present declaration.

Systemic and cultural change only occur when brave individuals put their heads above the parapet, tell their stories, inspire others to tell theirs and gradually influence change in those around them. Their motivation should be a greater good that extends beyond them but it can also be selfish. Wronged parties deserve compensation and there is nothing wrong with them feeling entitled to it. That principle is a bedrock of our society so it is strange when that sentiment is used to discredit those speaking out.

Enough is enough. There is too much suffering, too much silence, too many people for whom abuse is the status quo, a generation for whom Stockholm Syndrome has become a cultural identifier. It’s time to shut up and listen. It’s time to let the horse out of its enclosure.