Feeling Frustrated, Disappointed, Disgusted, Sad and Hopeful

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Feeling frustrated and disappointed in my fellow Americans. Either nobody sees my tweets thanks to Twitter’s algorithms or most of my followers are apathetic. I don’t understand. Can someone please explain to me why they think it is better to rant on social media all day every day about the president, this administration and all the horrific things happening in this country than it is to take less than 5 minutes to call or text your representatives? At the time of writing this post the tweet below had ZERO retweets.

I’m frustrated. My few Republican friends that have attempted to speak up on the comments of my page and share their thoughts on an issue have been shut down and judged immediately by a few of my Liberal friends. How the heck are we supposed to fix the horrendous problems of the world if we can’t even have civilized conversations with the ones we love?

I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed I have so many smart, caring friends that have turned into armchair Facebook activists. Sharing news stories and rants on Facebook is not activism. It’s sharing information. Thank you, sometimes that information is useful but if you really cared you would take more action. Can you at least take the basic action of texting, faxing, calling or writing handwritten letters to your Representatives and vote?

I’m disgusted. I passed through a small town in California the other day. A town I love! While walking around the town, I passed a young, white, shirtless, tattooed man holding a baby. My first thought was, how sweet a man and a baby. Then I saw his tattoos, he had ‘WHITE POWER’ in giant letters tattooed on his back among other white supremacist symbols. I’m sad that this man feels empowered to walk around shirtless with those racist tattoos. And, I’m sad most of my friends don’t even take action to do anything about the current political situation we are in. They’d rather vent on social media.

I know I do not do enough. There is so much more I can do. I will try to do more. I hope you will too.

I am hopeful because I have a few friends who have admitted to taking action whether it be contacting their Representatives, going to marches, or donating to organizations like the ACLU or RAICES.

If you do not know the names of your members of Congress or want the direct line to their office, you can find your senators here https://www.senate.gov/…/contact_informati…/senators_cfm.cfm and your representative here https://www.house.gov/representatives.

 

 

7 thoughts on “Feeling Frustrated, Disappointed, Disgusted, Sad and Hopeful

  1. Nancy

    Good thoughts (and I did write) but bear in mind that not everyone uses Twitter (at least I don’t!) But the point of your message is VERY valid – let your government representative know where you stand – and HOW you will or won’t vote for them depending on their actions.

    1. Sally_K Post author

      Thank you! The tweet was just an example of my awareness of non-action and maybe not the best example because who am I to tell people to retweet something and prove their action. The tweet definitely wasn’t an ego thing on my part to get more engagement on Twitter or toot my own horn as some have implied. My ranting may not be the best way to get my point across but I seem to have a muse that types and publishes regardless of my wishes. 🙂

  2. Suzanna Stinnett

    Okay, dear friend. #1. Twitter. You’ve gotta know it is not a call-and-response kinda place. Your tweet (which I can’t find at all in my feed) is only going to show momentarily, so unless someone has their feeds set up very specifically, no one sees it. Repeat after me: My followers do not see my tweets. However, if you had put a hot hashtag in there, like #VoteThemOut, it’s a completely different mechanism. You’d be speaking to people who are actively thinking and working on this as you are. Then you’d get at least some response. I want you to try that. #2. Liberal. It’s a very strange term. The judging and correcting being done by some is indeed discouraging. Profoundly. If a person thinks of his or herself as “liberal,” they might check the Oxford definition. “Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.” Maybe those of us who are working on more unity can push this definition and strongly request this from our communities. No matter their political affiliation. We have to re-learn this. #3. I’ve started saying to my “primary conversationalist” that unless he has taken some true action today, he does not get to say one more word. (I’m not fun to live with. But.) #4 – #10. History has shown us that a tiny percentage of persistently active people change the course, and nothing else will. History shows us that the most powerful action is peaceful marching and protesting with zero violence. Here’s my suggestion on that count: How about a few of us, you, me, maybe others, start a new kind of social activity. Just off the cuff, we could commit to some kind of program, say, unifying conversations or something we call it so it becomes recognizable. Once a week we can post about this, and begin furthering the kind of interactions we desire. We can’t change tattoos or entitlement to racist behavior, not right away. But we can use our energy in very positive ways, which is the only way to generate more positive energy. As far as I know. What do you think? Do you want to explore unifying conversations? xoxoxox — Suzanna

  3. Sally_K Post author

    See my comment above. Love the idea of unifying conversations! Maybe we can do a Twitter or Facebook chat or both with some guidelines for people to be friendly and respectful and listen. <3 Thank you for always reading my rambles and being a positive light during some dark times!

    1. Suzanna Stinnett

      You know how glad I am to engage you on any topic! I do the exact same thing, type-type-type and maybe consider my words later, (or not!) and on Twitter, we can engage people but the only ways I know to have a Tweet seen is to either reply to someone, mention someone, or use powerful hashtags. A Tweet without those things probably won’t be seen, since the stream moves so fast. So — yes!! Let’s start with something simple in the unifying front and see if we can act like the true definition of liberal. (As opposed to “Liberals.”)

  4. Jennydecki

    People are becoming experts at shifting the point in order to make their reply double plus good.

    You tend to make simple points so it’s more difficult to twist, thus less fun to respond.

    Stating something in a simple way is a gift. My great-grandmother used to tell me it is easier to be good than to be simple. It’s probably a famous quote but I’m not looking up the source because I have a sinus infection and am so tired.

    I love that you keep sharing. It reminds me to do something as well as reminding me that I have been doing things. Thank you.

    1. Sally_K Post author

      I so appreciate you reading my rambles and understanding my points or logically and gracefully disagreeing if I am talking BS. And, you just made me laugh with the experts at shifting the point to make their reply double plus good. My goal in life is to make simple points. Learned that working in techie stuff years ago, if you can’t explain it to a fourth grader you really don’t understand what you are working on. I think that is a famous quote too but I’m not looking up the source because I don’t want to. I am so sorry you still have that infection! I hope you heal fast!

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