Stop the Hate and Do Something

I’m currently watching news coverage about the President’s arrival in Tampa. On the day after his State of the Union Address, he is here to announce a new rail system between this city and Orlando. It will create jobs, it will expand the area, it will help traffic, it is entirely needed and very exciting.

Of course, I’m excited simply because he’s in town. I wish I had been able to call in sick from my stay at home mom duties to stand in line and possibly get a ticket into the town hall meeting hosted by the University of Tampa.

But TV coverage will do. It’s all good.

This morning, I took my three year old to open hours at a local indoor petri dish bounce play place. He was excited and I was excited for him to toss himself wildly about until he crumpled into a nap-ready pile that I could carry out of there.

But as I was wrangling shoes, signing in and dealing with my 3yo, I heard this conversation between two of the women working there – one in her 40s and one college aged.

Woman #1: I can’t believe he’s coming here. He’s just going to make traffic a living nightmare downtown.

College-aged Woman: I know. I can’t believe anyone wants to go and even see him. I am going no where near campus today.

Woman #1: I wouldn’t. Plus it could be dangerous. Someone could try and take a shot at him.

College-aged Woman: I know and Biden is with him too…

Woman #1: Well, that would be two for the price of one then wouldn’t it?

Laughing… or maybe it was cackling.

College-aged Woman: Yeah, I wish! …*snort*… I totally hate that man.

While this conversation was happening, my three year old had finally been de-shoed and, as his friend had ran by, I found myself on my feet and chasing him into the room filled with inflatables.

But I felt like I had been slapped in the face.

HATE.

Seething, angry, from the soul… hate.

It’s everywhere.

Before I even had the chance to sit down and write this post, I was watching news coverage of the presidential motorcade speeding through Tampa. And protesters, in all of their tea bagging glory, were booing and giving our President the finger.

HATE.

To say that I am discouraged by our country… to say that I am exhausted by our financial slump… to say that I am disillusioned by politics… to say that I haven’t felt very hopeful recently… well. Yeah. But I’m nothing unique. My frustrations are about par for our county’s course these days.

But I am so sick to death of the negativity. I am so tired of certain political pundits, organized groups and news sources gleefully green-lighting hateful discourse. I am so tired of destructive, spiteful words. I am fed up with a party whose sole purpose is to simply stop any and all bipartisan efforts to fix what we have ALL played a part in dismantling one way or another.

Enough.

I didn’t like Bush in office. Shocking, I know. And sure, I may have been a little seethy towards him. I may have disagreed with pretty much everything that came out of his mouth. And I may have said my piece about that too. But I sat myself down to listen every time he had something to say. I wanted there to be something for me to go on, to be hopeful about. I WANT to like our leadership and SEE positive steps forward, no matter whose party is at the helm. I knew we had to work with what we had.

I see so little listening. I see too many minds made up. I see very few attempts at kind of trying to work it out, you know, for the sake of our country.

And there is certainly no doubt in my mind that all of this frustration and loss we’ve experienced as a nation has fueled a very dangerous vein of anger. Its coursing along and gaining speed rapidly as one person whispers to another that its ok to hate a party you don’t agree with, its ok to hate a president you didn’t vote for, its ok to hate something you aren’t familiar with, its ok to hate something that doesn’t exactly fall in line with your super special beliefs.

All of this frustration, loss and anger should be directed into constructive channels, ones that force us all up off our asses and MAKE us take some responsibility for our neighborhoods, our communities, our towns, cities and ultimately our country.

We’ve only been with this administration for one year. And there are a lot of agenda items trying to go down – because they must go down – at once. It’s not going to be served up to us on a silver platter in a matter of 12 months. Especially while we sit on our couches, snap nasty retorts at our televisions and do nothing positive to fix any part of it.

Get over yourselves.

Don’t point fingers.

STOP HATING.

DO something. Anything.

Take care of one another.

Move forward. Up and out.

It’s on all of us.

Enough already.

Damn.