Figure Out Where You Stand, Because the Middle Ground is Gone

I encourage everyone to consider where you stand on the following issues. But before you go through the list, remember that we can’t be neutral on any of these issues. We can be analytical, rational — and we can attempt to be objective (emphasis on attempt), but we can’t be neutral.

In a moment where facts have lost their impact on decision-making, we have to decide where we sit/stand/lie down on these issues. Silence is consent. Apathy is consent.

*religious freedom

*immigration

*shaming poor and working classes

*affordable healthcare

*drug treatment

*military spending

*access to guns

*education spending

*gender equality

*reproductive rights

*militarization of the police

*climate change

*materialistic consumption

*blaming any segment of society in a general sense

and the list could go on…

We have no common social fabric as a society if we don’t take a stand on these issues. We are simply left with a collection of isolated individuals, or isolated groups, who are concerned with the well being of themselves and their families.

Reading List:

Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope

Kiese Laymon, Long Division

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

Brady Udall, Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

Other authors:

Jelani Cobb, New Yorker

Alana Semuels, The Atlantic

James Fallows, The Atlantic

Dominique Matti, Medium

Kevin Drum, Mother Jones

Charles Blow, New York Times

Amanda Hess, New York Times

David Roth, SB Nation