Berning of America: When the Impossible Becomes Inevitable

What’s happening in America right now doesn’t come as a surprise to those who have been trying to shed light on so many social injustices our country is facing. The Berning of America can come as a surprise only to those who live in their pretty little boxes, so isolated from the reality of we, the people. Those who will say anything and deny the truth right to our faces in order to keep the status quo. The language of the masses that is now becoming a roar is still, and probably will remain, foreign to them.

Back in September of 2011, I knew that this country was ready for the biggest change of our generation. I knew it when I was sitting in Zuccotti Park on September 17 with my two kids and only a small group of protesters with signs, who also came there to Occupy Wall Street. I knew it when I eventually saw thousands of people streaming to Zuccotti Park that morning, people of all ages, people who were tired of waiting for change. I remember how a few people came from the corporate building across the street during their lunch break, with smirks on their faces, making fun of us. They represented those whose return message to Occupy Wall Street protesters was, “Go find a job! Be smart like we are, and you’ll be successful.”

Well, I had a job, I had health insurance, but I still saw inequality all around me, and I felt that the time had come to stop remaining silent. The time had come for those with jobs to unite with those without. Only then could we push forward and achieve a better future for the next generations.

The establishment also knew it. That’s why it did everything to stop, tarnish and dismantle OWS. The establishment thought it had succeeded when the encampments were cleared and the protesting stopped. But we all know that no one can defeat an idea whose time has come, as Victor Hugo noted so long ago. Those who are in charge are now finally seeing the results of their ignorance, corruption, greed and efforts to maintain an unjust status quo: to keep the too big to fail in charge, and to help them get bigger even after they brought us all to the brink of ruin.

Senator Bernie Sanders has been working all his life trying to change the system. It is extremely hard to stand up against money, the biggest power in the history of the world. He, like those of us who share his anger with the situation in our country – namely, that those with the most money have the biggest influence on our government – knew that patience is golden when we know when and how to wait.

We knew that this country was ready for change when Senator Barack Obama took the stage in 2008 asking us to be a part of Change We Can Believe In. We believed back then, and even after his administration was staffed by Wall Street executives, we continued believing – but now more in ourselves than in only one person. Sen. Sanders as a presidential candidate is now saying aloud what is wrong with our system and the powers that have been allotted over us, and how we together can change it. He is saying all those things that OWS protesters were talking about, were protesting about, were trying to engage with the masses to show them the real picture of their lives – not only what the mainstream media serves them.

It is up to us to hear and understand this message and call to action.

History is now giving us an opportunity to act, to step forward, and to believe that we can make a difference. It is an opportunity to get engaged: not only to vote for Bernie, but to get involved in politics overall, to do everything to educate our kids and give them hope that a better world is achievable, but only if they join the process. Only if they open up their eyes and realize that their futures should be in their hands, not in the hands of those in corporate boardrooms who look down on us as if we were just pieces on a chessboard.

America is waking up, and it has taken four years since the Occupy movement to get to this point. No one anymore can accuse the young people of this country of ignorance. They, as their parents and grandparents before them, are taking their future into their own hands. They are sending a message to the system that it is no longer working for them: a clear message of understanding how lobbying, white collar crime, the military industrial complex and piles of student loan debt are not the life they want to continue living.

There is a chance in front of us, and life doesn’t give us these chances often. Will the majority recognize it, use it, and be a part of history in the making? I hope this country will rise to the challenge and accept it. Only when we are fully awake, and fully believe that we can make a change: only then will that change happen. In order to get a political revolution in this country going, we must start our inner revolutions first. We must believe that we are in charge of our destinies and that we have the power to realize them. We must believe that every status quo throughout history has been changed. And we must believe that the time has come to make that progress again and go forward.