PoliticsDonald Trump2016 election

Dear America, We've Been Played

STOP being led by these systems that want to divide us.
Open Image Modal
By 

Women's Power Circle Network

Women's Power Circle Network
|
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
Open Image Modal

Dear America,

Well, we did it didn’t we? We played right into their hands. Today we wake up in an America that is more divided than ever. Brothers and sisters are hating on each other. Relatives are refusing to be in the presence of other relatives. Friends are de-friending friends faster than you can click a frowny-face emoji. But, wake up! There are 318 million of us in this country. Imagine if we united! We would be the most amazing, most powerful force in the world. If we ever banded together, imagine what we could do!

We could create a country that works for everyone. One that provides a true living wage, free education and free healthcare for every single person who lives here. If we joined together and demanded these things and worked to create them, we would be unstoppable. But it will require ALL of us to wake up! We ALL need to stop buying into the narrative that the people-who-are-profiting-off-of-our-suffering are feeding us.

We’ve been blindly following and mindlessly using their tools of division. Their biggest and most effective tool is name calling and labeling. Each of us is so guilty of this. I am guilty of this. But we need to know this only fuels misunderstanding, distrust, and on the darker side — hate. You know the words. You’ve used them; these system-created tools of division: uneducated, liberal elite, poor blacks, minorities, immigrants, working class poor, Hispanics, LGBTQ communities, disenfranchised voters, arrogant left, smug liberals, environmentalists, radical left, radical right. Labels, labels and more labels. We even put ourselves into these camps so that we are perpetually dividing and subdividing. But by doing this we become “other” instead of brother, “suspect” instead of sister. We are ONE group — we are humans. We each have a heart that wants to love. Underneath the fear and blame and anxiety is a heart that is breaking — in each of us. Let’s begin truly speaking to that tender heart in everyone. Let’s understand that each of us are only human, each of us are broken. It’s a scary and uncertain time, but above all else let’s not forget our humanity.

Let’s take a hard look at what needs changing — right now; not tomorrow, not the next day. It’s not the time for wait-and-see. We need to start waking up to the systems we’ve erected that keep us stuck in this illusion of separateness. These systems are deeply rooted and erected with marble and stately pillars and etchings on stone. They seem impenetrable — but it only requires our recognition and our collective rejection of their hold over us for them to start crumbling. These systems include: the antiquated political system, the impoverished educational system, the greedy corporate media, the heartless financial markets, the in-justice systems, the unfair corporate systems. Inside each of these systems we’ve institutionalized all of the isms: racism, sexism, classism, ageism. Each day we’re enslaved by these systems — we’re stuck, because we have collectively agreed that we will abide by their rules.

But …. what if we refused? What if we stood up and DEMANDED justice for ALL?! What if, instead of fighting AGAINST a system, we started fighting FOR our dream? Not just for change, not just for little improvements — we want the whole-dang-burrito! The beautiful dream of a country where everyone-is-taken-care-of. There are 318-freaking million of us! We are more powerful than any corporate-political-financial-media-machine that could ever be erected. We can stop this awful spread of hate and emotional-and-real-poverty that they feed us and use to control us.

Let’s ALL agree to STOP being led by these systems that want to divide us. It’s time for ALL of us to wake up, DAMMIT!

Wake up, sweethearts, the bad dream will be over soon.

Our 2024 Coverage Needs You

As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.

Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.

to keep our news free for all.

Support HuffPost

Before You Go

Donald Trump's Environment Guy Doesn't Believe In Climate Change
He does not believe in climate change.(01 of11)
Open Image Modal
“There has been a little bit of warming ... but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about,” Ebell told Vanity Fair in 2007.

More than 97 percent of scientists agree that the world's climate is warming and it’s caused by human activities. Yet Ebell believes this consensus of climate experts is “phony” and “not based on science.”

In 2015, Ebell called Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change “scientifically ill informed, economically illiterate, intellectually incoherent and morally obtuse.”

“It is also theologically suspect, and large parts of it are leftist drivel,” he added. (credit:Getty Images)
Even if climate change is real, he believes there’ll be 'benefits.'(02 of11)
Open Image Modal
In a 2006 opinion piece, titled “Love Global Warming,” Ebell waxed lyrical about the potential “benefits” of climate change.

“Yes, rising sea levels, if they happen, would be bad for a lot of people. But a warming trend would be good for other people,” he wrote.

There would be “fewer and less severe big winter storms,” he claimed. And “life in many places would become more pleasant. Instead of 20 below zero in January in Saskatoon, it might be only 10 below. And I don’t think too many people would complain if winters in Minneapolis became more like winters in Kansas City.”

Ebell’s op-ed was full of fallacies.

For one, according to the EPA (which, again, is the agency that Ebell has been tapped to lead the transition of), climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, including winter storms. (credit:Carlos Barria/Reuters)
No surprise, he's not a scientist.(03 of11)
Open Image Modal
A self-described “policy wonk,” Ebell has no scientific experience. He graduated from Colorado College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and later studied political theory in the London School of Economics. (credit:YouTube)
He wants to throw out the Clean Power Plan.(04 of11)
Open Image Modal
When President Barack Obama unveiled the Clean Power Plan in August last year, it was hailed as the strongest action ever taken by a U.S. commander in chief to combat climate change. The plan, which gives the EPA the authority to regulate carbon pollution from power plants, aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 32 percent by 2030.

Ebell has called the plan “illegal.” He said last year that he hoped the next president would “undo the EPA power plant regs and some of the other regs that are very harmful to our economy.”

Ebell, as the head of the EPA transition, is now “in a position to begin to do just that," The New York Times notes. (credit:Associated Press)
The fossil fuel industry helps finance his advocacy group.(05 of11)
Open Image Modal
Ebell directs environmental and energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian advocacy group that “questions global warming alarmism and opposes energy-rationing policies, including the Kyoto Protocol, cap-and-trade legislation, and EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions,” according to its website.

The CEI has a long track record of taking money from the fossil fuel industry. It received $2 million from ExxonMobil from 1998 to 2005, according to Vanity Fair.

The Washington Post reported in 2013 that Marathon Petroleum, Koch Industries, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers were among the donors for CEI’s annual dinner.

Murray Energy Corporation, America’s largest underground coal mining company (and a critic and litigant of the EPA), was the biggest energy donor of the night.

When asked about this on C-Span in 2015, Ebell — who had at first insisted that he doesn’t “represent” companies — admitted that he wasn’t getting as much money from energy firms as he’d like.

“I’d like to see a lot more funding from all of those companies, but unfortunately many of the coal companies are now going bankrupt,” he said. “I would like to have more funding so that I can combat the nonsense put out by the environmental movement.” (credit:Lee Celano/Reuters)
He helped kill cap-and-trade.(06 of11)
Open Image Modal
Ebell previously “helped propel a shift in the political debate around climate change, contributing to the collapse of cap-and-trade legislation in Congress in 2009,” according to Frontline.

The bill, which Ebell called a “disaster,” would have seen limits set on the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted nationally. (credit:Associated Press)
He chairs a group focused on 'dispelling the myths of global warming.'(07 of11)
Open Image Modal
The Cooler Heads Coalition, an ad-hoc group that Ebell leads, says its mission is “dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis.” (credit:Jorge Adorno/Reuters)
He opposes the Paris Agreement on climate change.(08 of11)
Open Image Modal
The Paris Agreement, which came into force on Nov. 4, is the most significant climate accord ever signed.

Ebell has been a vocal critic of the deal, calling Obama’s joining of the treaty “unconstitutional.” (credit:How Hwee Young/Getty Images)
He’s worked to reduce protections for endangered species.(09 of11)
Open Image Modal
Earlier in his career, Ebell worked for then-Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) in an effort to rework the Endangered Species Act so it would involve “as little regulation as possible” and be “more respectful of property rights.” (credit:Tom Brakefield/Fuse)
He’s lobbied for the tobacco industry.(10 of11)
Open Image Modal
Jeremy Symons, senior advisor of the Environmental Defense Fund, says Ebell was involved in a "broad campaign" in the 1990s to help tobacco company Philip Morris make "regulating the tobacco industry ‘politically unpalatable.'"

Philip Morris also funded Ebell's group CEI in the 1990s. At the time, CEI was pushing the idea of “safer cigarettes.” (credit:Associated Press)
He’s proud to be loathed(11 of11)
Open Image Modal
In a biography Ebell himself submitted when he testified before Congress, he boasted that he'd been listed by Greenpeace as a "climate criminal" and global warming "misleader" by Rolling Stone magazine.

"The Clean Air Trust in March 2001 named Mr. Ebell its 'Villain of the Month' for his role in convincing the Bush Administration not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions," the bio continued. (credit:Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Suggest a correction
|
Submit a tip