Liberal? Conservative? Focus on your issues!

January 24, 2017 Not too long ago, somebody from town said to me, “Margot...you are pretty liberal for someone from a rural neighborhood.” Quite frankly, I had never thought of it that way. I am surrounded by rural neighbors. We all have opinions. They watch TV. I watch TV. We watch different stations. But I don’t see our opinions falling into neat categories like liberal and conservative. When we talk about who we vote for, I guess we could label each other that way, but when we talk about issues, the Trump voters and the Hillary voters are mostly on common ground. Nobody satisfies us. We’re all politically active, but not with certain parties. Sometimes I think that’s a mistake, and I should go to the party meetings. Or maybe become a Green. And I have gone, but I’m always disappointed. They’re all so intent on divisions. Personally, I’m more about sticking together. At the women’s march, I saw a lot of my friends and neighbors. In fact, I wrote a letter-to-the-editor at our newspaper, which some people think is waaaayyy too conservative and other people think is waaaayyyy too liberal. Here’s my letter, but I’ll replace the names with XXX and YYY since I didn’t ask if I could put them in my blog: Dear Editor: Callaway and Cole Counties were well-represented at the January 21 Women’s March in Columbia. I went to the march to express my support, and I ended up seeing friends and neighbors everywhere I looked! According to the “Guiding Vision and Definition of Principles” of the march, the event was planned for Washington, D.C. and spread worldwide. It was created by women’s groups committed to working together for women’s rights, indigenous rights, minority rights, LGBTQ rights and the rights of all to clean air and water. Many of the marchers, including some from Cole and Callaway, wore “Pussy Hats,” which are the pink hats with cat ears that caught on to express solidarity with women’s issues. The hats were inspired by a remark from President Trump. Estimates of the number that marched in Columbia varied from 2,000 to more than 3,600. The signs carried by marchers varied from passing the Equal Rights Amendment to addressing climate change to saving the Affordable Care Act. Jefferson City’s xxx attended as a member of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the world’s oldest organization for peace. WILPF founders, including Jane Addams, began the organization before women had the vote. xxx told me, “I don’t think anyone had the insight to see that all across the globe there would be the turnout that there was. We had hoped to get our WILPF group together, but with the immense crowd that assembled that became impossible.” My friend, retired Westminster professor yyy, added, “It was a day of renewal and new beginnings, and it was encouraging and inspiring to be surrounded by so many people committed to finding ways to move forward positively and productively.” Westminster professor zzz (political science) told me about the need to reform the electoral college, saying that because some states have more electoral votes in comparison to their population, a person voting in Wyoming gets 3.6 times the weight of a vote in California. Another Fultonian, aaa, said, “The solidarity shown at the rally and march renewed my sense of purpose.” And, from the Guthrie area, bbb said, “Anytime there is an opportunity to promote justice, equality and inclusion, I want to take it.  I walked for my wife, daughter, and granddaughter – they should live in a world where gender makes no difference in their ability to be treated as equals, to be respected,  to live in a protected ecosystem, and to have their voices heard.” At an open-mike session after the march, twenty groups took the stage to talk about what they were doing. The audio was handled by KOPN 89.5 fm—a community radio station in Columbia. So, here in mid-MO, it was all about community. In Washington, D.C., more than half a million people flooded the National Mall for the Women’s March. So many people turned out that by midday the entire planned march route was filled with people. Sincerely yours, Margot McMillen And, here’s a note from my internet feed today: “Crowd estimates from Women’s Marches on Saturday are still trickling in, but political scientists say they think we may have just witnessed the largest day of demonstrations in American history. . . According to data collected by Erica Chenoweth at the University of Denver and Jeremy Pressman at the University of Connecticut, marches held in more than 500 US cities were attended by at least 3.3 million people.”