I dream solid chewy dreams, and sometimes they turn into stories or even novels (and once a trlogy) but often they are just things I remember clearly and almost verbatim when I wake from them. Such a one (the latter) was the one that surfaced this morning.
The setting: a government (congressional. parliamentary, you fill the blank) hearing of some sort, dealing with climate change issues, with a solitary female scientist as witness giving frightening facts to an audience that included a good number of smirks, frowns, and outright scowls from those for whom those facts were inconvenient or unpleasant to listen to. It was clear that there were some minds which were just welded shut and would not be opened by anything other than a lightning strike squarely on the forehead, and finally the testimony came to a stop and one of the smirky faces stood up on its hind legs and said, fine. Would the witness prove her commitment to her position by getting up from the witness table and taking a seat six seats to her left, to “show” that she stood behind what she said.
And I, the “I” in the dream, who wasn’t precisely myself, stood and asked for the floor. I was acknowledged, and I said, and this is the dialogue that remember verbatim, “I am standing to inform the honorable member making that last request that no witness has any responsibility whatsover to ‘prove’ her ‘position’ on the matter that they are testifying about – their testimony IS that proof. The honorable member’s request is merely a schoolyard bully’s attempt to find out how many people are on the bullied person’s ‘side’. In response to that request, I hereby relieve the witness of the embarrassing need to shift her seat in order to cement her position – I stand, in lieu of her having to gather up her papers and shlep them all the way over here in order to sit next to me where I would be pleased and delighted to have her take her place – but I stand, in order to avoid the necessity of her moving over here to sit. I invite any of my colleagues who feel the same way to stand right now, in order to show that they too would be honored to have this witness come and sit next to themselves. I also invite any consituents of my honorable colleague who share that position to call or email or write to that member’s office right now in order to do the same – it doesn’t have to be a screed. It needs to be just three words. I Am Standing.”
So, then. There are issues on which it is past time to take that simple action.
I am standing. Who’s with me?
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