Serena Anagbe / Photo Editor
Students’ Union.
When you stare down the barrel of the gun that is the climate crisis, it’s easy to fall into despair. Rampant wildfires. Devastating hurricanes. Air filled with so much smog that children and the elderly are urged to stay inside. Horrifying stuff, right?
When our elected leaders are comprised of corrupt cons and witless progressives, it’s easy to feel like the game is stacked against us. Greenbelt scandals worth more money than any of us will ever see; a party of the working class reduced to cringey TikTok dances and circular social politics; the list just goes on and on. All in all, things look pretty bad, right? Let’s do something about that.
It has been long overdue that we throw these relics of our nation’s neo-liberal past out with the trash. The time for simply being angry has passed. It’s time we start taking direct action to improve our society. The longer we wait to act, the longer the corporate-owned establishment has to dig in their heels. It’s time to start fighting for tomorrow, the tomorrow where no one has to be worried about being killed simply for existing, the tomorrow where empathy and compassion are championed as the true mark of what it means to be successful. It is time we stood up and did something about all this because one day, there may be no tomorrow.
But who will lead this charge against the powers that be? Believe it or not, you will. It’s time to get outside of our comfort zones. It is time to make our politicians bleed in one of the ways most important to them, by taking away their power from the stem with our votes. Let’s arm ourselves with the most powerful tool that we can — collective action. It’s time to go door to door and put your own name on the ballot to take the fight right to where it matters most, in the hearts and minds of the people. There is nothing our corporate lapdogs fear more than the people, no flags or parties attached, coming together to fight for a common good.
They have relied on our apathy, our distraction, our fear as the means to their success. There is nothing they fear more than the belief that at our core, we are good. That at our most vulnerable, we will come together despite all of our differences. That we will choose to be better, for no other reason than that we must be better. That we will choose love, hope and compassion to be the building blocks of our new world.
They will attempt to distract us with circular social politics that none of them really care about. They will attempt to break our resolve by squeezing every dollar we have out of our pockets. They will fail.
They have grown complacent and lazy with their power, thinking that the total domination of our peoples will come easy, without a fight. They think they will win because we aren’t all fighting under the same flag. What they fail to realize is that unity isn’t something to be achieved, it’s simply a matter of perspective.
My perspective is simple. It is the duty of all to fight with all of their resolve for a better tomorrow. For a world without violence, for a world without hate, for a world where we are truly free to live as we desire, to love who we want to love. A world not worth dying for, but one worth living for. The only question left is, are you ready to fight too?
This article was originally published in print Volume 23, Issue 2 on Thursday, Oct. 5.
