I’ve been sick the past 4 days, so I need to make this short. I wasn’t able to go to the March for Our Lives event in Boston, but many of my friends did. This picture is from the gathering at the Boston Commons, courtesy of Becky.
I hope I’ve been misunderstanding many of the adults’ comments about the young people leading this movement. Yes, we are proud and cheering them on. But every time I see a quote or post along the lines of “This generation will be great leaders” and “These kids will lead the way,” it sounds to me like the adults are breathing a sigh of relief that we are somehow off the hook. Or that we were/are helpless to change anything, and a new sheriff has arrived in town to save us. I hope I am wrong.
Instead, I hope their voices have inspired you to start engaging to help change things you think are wrong. If you have been doing that already, I hope they inspire you to do more. If you’ve become discouraged, I hope their voices lift you up and keep you going. The more of us who wake up, keep going, join in, the better chance we have to make real, lasting change.
Yes, let’s cheer them on, and let’s dig in.
sandradeden.com 
Dear San, 3-26-‘18
Yes those young people showed an apathetic, complacent, largely ignorant and brainwashed adult America what it takes to make a stand and create a better world. They minced no words about a corrupt American government that refuses to listen to the wishes of the people and has sold out to big corporate money like that of the NRA. They told the corrupt political swamp in Washington, if you keep ignoring our demands for safety in our schools and also in the poor, mostly black and Latino neighborhoods like in South Chicago, WEWILL VOTE YOU OUT!
That brought tears to my eyes!
As Martin Luther King so astutely observed: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Besides mass murders, we are dealing with devastating inequality and increasing poverty. They have become accepted as the norm in this calloused country today.
Here is a good example. We are the only major nation in the world which leaves 27 million of its citizens without healthcare insurance and millions more underinsured. A couple of years ago the Harvard Medical School, estimated that some 35,000 Americans die each year because they cannot afford the high premiums of our for-profit healthcare system.
And the adult world? Except for those 27 million plus people, it does not seem to give a damn.
A lonely politician with a social consciousness, Bernie Sanders introduced a Medicare for All bill in the Senate this past September. It has remained ignored and non-existing by dumb-downed America and the corporate media.
When Bernie Sanders introduced a Single Payer healthcare system during the 2016 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton called it a pipedream and Massachusetts Democrats voted accordingly.
Yes it was great to see those young Americans make a stand for common sense and justice.
They showed a determination to go for what is right and just, contrasting very sharply with the sullen decay of adult America today!
The old diatribe man.