This is a section of the book:

US

Everything is Done By US

We Can Make it For US

by Tom Cantlon

The list of links to chapters can be found at:

http://tomcantlon.com/us_on_rsn

This time: The final installment. How to get the necessary changes.

How

The how is in three parts. One is grassroots, bottom-up action. Action that we all participate in to drive policies and laws, to organize as employees and as citizens, and to drive change at all levels.

A second part is top-down. We need that pincer movement of pressure from both the bottom and top. From the bottom to give bold leaders the support to make changes and from the top to actually take those steps and enact the laws and policies. There have been times when good leaders led change, but their actions were almost always made possible by people pushing from below. In fact, sometimes it is the pressure from below that is the real story. President Richard Nixon, from his record before being president and his political stances, would probably not have been expected to drive important changes focused on people and their priorities. But there was pressure from the bottom up, and he, probably with the intention of winning votes, enacted the EPA that tries to protect the environment, the Equal Employment Act that tries to ban discrimination in hiring, the OSHA agency that tries to make workplaces safe, and other similar policies.

The third part is a matter of our understanding. If we act collectively and insistently, we can make all of these changes. We're just constantly in the mode of thinking we can't. The only reason a small minority of powerful interests can warp things to their advantage is because we let them. Because we think we can't get our interests to be first.

It's also, understandably, because we're busy earning a living and trying to keep our lives together. But it's not even as if this is a contest that we can try and it might or might not succeed. If we all put in our part of being involved in the change, if we act together and are unrelentingly insistent, there is no change we cannot compel. The power of 330 million people cannot be resisted. And not just any 330 million, but the very ones they count on to be their consumers and customers. The very ones who are their employees and do all the work that makes their investments go. The very ones they need votes from.

Of course, there will be plenty of US who don't get involved, and we will have things we disagree on. But if enough of us are active and if we have enough overlapping interests to at least agree on a general thrust of a country focused on being for US, then, yes, we would be an undeniable force for the change we want.

And success will bring more people in. When some, who don't get involved early on, see progress that surprises them, which looks like real change that helps them, they'll want to get on board too, and it would tend to snowball.

To give you some idea of the boldness and confidence we should act with, if we can't find leaders who will do the top-down part as we need, then we should make our own. We don't need to just count on luck to bring us another Franklin Roosevelt, who led the New Deal era that's been referred to in this book. Instead, there are plenty among US who are capable of high office, and they wouldn't be alone. It would be some of US who would be their competent staff supporting them. We can raise leaders from among US.

And, yes, powerful interests have money, but so do we, if we just put it to collective use. Note Bernie Sanders, who came close to becoming the presidential nominee, twice, while refusing to take anything but small donations of those who supported him. Regardless of your politics, he proved it could be done.

If you doubt either the idea that popular insistence works or the idea of leaders coming from among US, just look at recent history. In the 1970s it rather quickly became a popular position among many, that is, among the US of the time, that we needed to take care of our environment, which we had been doing almost none of. Of course, others had been trying to get that message across long before that, but the point is that once it became a popular opinion among so many people, it wasn't long before there were laws on the books and programs in place taking big steps on that issue. The same thing on the 1960s push for full legal civil rights, even if that still left a long way to go on prejudice. The same with ending the Vietnam War. The same with the acceptance of gay marriage. The same with the recent greater awareness of the constant prejudice in policing and other ways, which black people deal with constantly.

Various factors play a part in any issue finally coming to a point of change. But regardless of how you felt about any of those issues at the time, the point is, when enough people changed their minds and when enough people insisted some issue had to change, then change happened. When, for whatever the reason at the moment may be, we finally realize some change is needed or finally won't accept waiting anymore, very quickly big changes happen. Why? Because that's the power we have. We just rarely flex that muscle and get what we need in order for the country to be for US.

Look at some of the leaders who have either stepped up from the ranks or been pulled to the top by US. Just recently we have had young women of color with no political background decide the heck with waiting for change, they'd do it themselves, and ran for Congress and won. Whether you like their positions or not, there's no denying they did it. People are very split about the election in 2016 but there's no denying there was a big grassroots expression of, "we don't want the same old, we want change" that was a part of it. The same happened with Senator Bernie Sanders, who was the kind of candidate you would expect to be an also-ran, merely trying to get a little attention to his causes, because he didn't come across like a typical candidate or take the typical stances. But there were so many of US who wanted what he was saying to be heard that we pulled him up from the minor league to almost winning his party, twice. Like his ideas or not, the rise of his campaign is a story of the power of US.

Look a little deeper at just how much those recent changes say about our power. Look at the way a greater awareness of how black people endure prejudice created a sudden flurry of changes. Changes in business policies, in laws, in policing policies, in long-ingrained offensive pieces of anti-black culture, like the Mississippi flag, which after more than one hundred years was suddenly seen as a problem and changed, by the state leadership themselves, in a matter of weeks. Why? Because suddenly enough people made it clear these things had to change, and they did. There's a lot more to do on the issue of prejudice, but it was an impressive flurry of changes.

A similar cascade happened not long before when women's complaints of harassment and assault, which they had been trying to get taken more seriously as long as anyone can remember, suddenly were taken more seriously and steps were taken. Why? Because enough people made it clear it had to change.

And consider, as noted, the recent crop of new leaders popping up out of the grassroots. There's plenty of reason to think that many people are getting some idea of their power to bring change. Plus, we did something similar almost a century ago with our demanding a New Deal and our installing a president who would make it happen. It might seem like it would be surprising to have the awareness of our power take another big step up, and have that bring about big changes on our behalf, but if you look at what we've done recently and what we've done in the past, then, far from being unrealistic or surprising, it is clear. That kind of big step is neither an unreachable stretch nor unheard of. It's just a matter of whether we chose to do so.

So if you're wondering what magical solution this book could offer, there is no magic, because it's not up to anything in this book. To look someplace where you can see the solution, look in the mirror. Anytime you and the rest of US want change and realize we can have change, it's ours to be had by insisting on it.

That and the follow-up work to carry it through. But we're good at that. At work.

How to start? With whatever steps you can find close at hand and then get better at it as you go. Join local grassroots groups working on any kind of improvement for US. Support good candidates. Run for office. Help start new grassroots groups where new ones are needed. We're clever. We're capable. Most importantly, we've done it before.

And exactly what change should it be? Again, look in the mirror. What change do we want? As noted, we have had change in the past. After the Great Depression and the hard times of the 1930s there was a lot of pressure from the bottom up for the country to be run more for US. And it was those same people who pulled into power a leader, Franklin Roosevelt, who would work that way from the top down, and they gave him the support he needed to make a lot of change. It wasn't so much a dramatic change in the system as it was a dramatic change in how much the system ran for the benefit of US. It wasn't a perfect era, but it shows what we can do.

The choice is ours because, really, the country already is of US, by US, and even for US. It is for whatever we have chosen. We have chosen to allow powerful interests to have much of their way. It's a choice we've made by mistake, from not understanding that it didn't have to be that way; but, in any case, the country is the way it is today because that's what we have chosen and allowed. The question is, is it the way we want? If we chose to be unified enough and insistent enough, it will become whatever we choose. It's not even a matter of it might. If there's enough of US and we have some common general goals we are unified enough on, then it's not that it might change according to what we choose. It will change. It can't help but change.

There are three things that generally stop people from having their choice. One is being unaware that they have the power, which has been our problem and which we could change. Another is being in a country where violent authoritarians mow down their opposition, as did Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, and China in Tiananmen Square. Fortunately, we have much more freedom. The third is powerful interests using propaganda and lies to divide US. That's also something that's our choice, whether we allow that to succeed.

Every elected official is chosen by US. Every office of an elected official is run by US, and their policies carried out by US. Every aspect of how the country runs is either chosen by US or allowed by US. If the country favors powerful interests, that's on US. On the other hand, if it favors our interests, that's US running the country for US. And that is the ultimate statement about US. Yes, the country needs to change to favor US, but don't read that as "Someone has allowed the country to be warped in ways that put US second" or "Someone needs to be made to change the priorities back to US".

Someone has let things slip and could set things right, but who should we get mad at about it? Who should we focus on who needs to be pushed to make the change? Who's going to raise the heat to drive change? Who's going to carry out the change?

Well, who has made everything that's good in this country? Who did the work that, at times, brought about some of the most secure middle-income people in history? Who also did all the work that enabled the powerful to become powerful? Who is capable of creating the great change we need? And who is it who has to be the ones to do it? The only ones in the picture who can really determine how things go? Who is the country of, who is it by, who is it for, who is responsible for having let it wander off track, who has to fix what's broken in it, and who are the only ones with the power and the ability to do that? US.

Of, by, for, responsible for fixes, and with the power to shape it. US. Always was US. Always is US. Only US.

There's no need for analyzing and agonizing over how impossible it is to get big change moving, or how we could ever possibly counter the power of the powerful. That's all distraction and foggy thinking. It's all a paper-thin illusion we've gradually allowed ourselves to think we are walled in by. The moment we flip that mental switch and declare that, when it comes to change, when it comes to how things run, it's all on US, and now we're going to make the change happen, it will. Once we make that decision, to then wonder whether the change will really happen makes no more sense than to wonder, once you start walking, will you be walking? It's happening. The nation is whatever our choices and our work make it to be.

We're good at working, building wealth, building other things of value like families and local cultures and wonderful mixes of varied cultures and communities, building national highways systems and every other such thing we need, and finding ever better ways to be good stewards. We've let ourselves be conned into getting a little off track, but we're able to get a handle on that too. We've made the nation favor our interests before. It can be done now. After all, we're not just talking about any group to do it. We're talking about a group who has the power, the proven ability, and the work results to show. A group who is perfect for the job. US.

Tom Cantlon is a business owner and writer in a small western town. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it