The weather has changed, turning cool and windy, and that has infused a little life into this old carcass of mine.  I love October.  I love the sound of Canada geese flying overhead.  I love the way the sunlight deepens to sunflower yellow, and how the leaves fall in puffs, as if the trees have sneezed them away.  I love too when the year is coming to a close, and every month ends with a holiday. We need a holiday.  This year has been too burdensome, too excruciating for all of us—and for 208,000 of us in America (as of this writing) it has been our last year of life.

I can’t pretend, as much as October makes me happy, that I’m not cognizant of the real trauma people have experienced this year.  Of some friends getting cancer, and others seeing their depression worsen, and others catching Covid.  Of a country divided so intensely by fascist white supremacy and support for Black Lives Matter—and everything else that can divide us, especially this coming election.

I see more Trump signs than Biden around here where I live, and it makes me wonder about those people.  Has this country given them everything they wanted?  Are they content to watch their fellow citizens in less affluent zip codes struggle?  Or don’t the poorer among us even rate?  I think they must not—because if they did, we would all be doing a better job about caring for others—ending racism, ending the prison industrial complex, ending ICE, and uplifting the poor, ensuring equal civil rights for all, making health care free, relieving the shackles of student loan debt. (Not to beat a dead horse.)  There are so many things we could be doing—and expecting our “representatives” in Washington to be doing.  But many of us have become so afflicted with ennui and exhaustion that we feel helpless.

So the rallying cry is VOTE VOTE VOTE.  I see it everywhere on social media and in the news.  My phone is bombarded with texts asking me to send money to support Biden and other Democrats. And yet, I can’t say that voting has done much good so far. We have an Electoral College that exists to keep the oligarchs in power, even when they lose the popular vote.  And the people we’ve voted for bend over backwards to accommodate the Republicans, and move the Democrats to the right. 

I just don’t know what to think about Nancy Pelosi when she compliments the Republicans for doing so much for America or Joe Biden who refuses to consider Medicare for All.  These are the people who are supposed to have the best interests at heart for Americans who can’t obtain the American Dream (as well as those of us who have decent jobs that provide us with the means for housing, health care, and everyday comforts).  Yet these same Democrats who claim they champion the American worker support increases to the military and cut SNAP.  I don’t see how anyone can think they are on any side but their own.

Oh, but JC, you say, I thought you were going to be writing an homage to your favorite month?  Why are you being political?  I think it’s because my privilege weighs heavy on my heart sometimes.  As it should.  To those who have been given much, much is expected.  And maybe it’s just growing closer to the end of the year—especially such a contentious, traumatic year—that makes me feel a little thoughtful. 

I worry about the coming election. I fear it.  We have a month to go before America decides if it wants to be so “great” that it continues to screw over everyone in the 99% for another four years.  But if that’s “greatness,” I have to wonder how we moved so far right that the only people who matter anymore are the billionaires and corporations, when it was the workers and enslaved peoples who built the country the billionaires profit from.  That’s not greatness.  That’s theft, corruption, and exploitation.

I don’t know how to make America great for the majority of Americans. It was never great for a lot of people.  It works pretty well as is, for some of us—especially if you’re rich, white, able-bodied, educated, and male.  But I have some ideas about the changes we could make that would definitely improve life for everyone—here are 10:

1. Redistributing some of those billions might help.
2. Increasing the numbers of women, LGBTQ/nonbinary, and POC folks in positions of power would help.
3. Getting rid of the rich septuagenarians in all levels of government would help.
4. Dismantling the police and the prisons would help.
5. Establishing term limits for Congressional, Senate, and SCOTUS seats would help.
6. Medicare for all would help.
7. Zeroing out student loan debt and making college free would help. 
8. Increasing free lunch programs, SNAP benefits, and other unemployment benefits would help.
9. Offering a universal basic income would help, of if not that, then…
10. Giving $2,000 a month for the next 12 months to every resident of America to help offset the Covid disaster would help.

I think those ten ideas would help make America great for more people. We have a long way to go to even move the needle one point towards the left.  And no matter the outcome of the election next month, we all have to stay involved in making positive changes for all. This is especially true for Democrats, if Biden wins.  Liberals have a nasty habit of going to sleep about larger social justice issues when blue candidates are elected.  That’s not greatness either.

There’s a lot to do.  But hey, at least it’s October, my favorite month, beautiful and energizing and full of promise. A little gem on top of the turd of 2020.