I Admire Hillary, but I'm Voting for Bernie

Bernie has not given up on his dreams. He believes that young people should be given a college education to reach their full potential without the burden of excessive debt. He believes that peace is the way, and not won by violent means. He believes that all people should be treated with dignity, compassion and fairness, whether they are immigrants, the incarcerated, or Palestinians.

Hillary is strong and capable, but she has forgotten what is possible even in her own wild imagination.  She has forgotten the promise of America.  Hillary has survived, even thrived, in a world where dreams are sacrificed for what is achievable within a corrupt system - one run by and for the oil and gas men, big ag, big pharm, big arms, big banks.  The rest of us are handed just enough to keep us complacent.  

But no longer.  A growing number of we the people are no longer accepting the destruction of our democracy and the shattering of our collective dreams for equality and justice, and freedom from oppression by the most powerful. Today, we citizens are called upon to continue the struggle to bring these dreams into being – to live out our destiny as the country America is meant to be.

Bernie has launched a revolution to free our country from corporate rule and keep our dreams alive.  They are not fantasies, as some suggest. They are the same hopes and dreams that have built this country.

The revolution begins with Bernie’s refusal to take corporate money in a campaign funded on an unprecedented scale by ordinary people. It is a political revolution that plans not only to take the White House, but the Senate, too, and eventually the House, in order to overthrow the oligarchy and restore democratic rule.

Bernie is leading a clean energy revolution that will bring green power to the people and outlaw fracking, not just some fracking as Hillary advocates, but all fracking.  Bernie understands that climate change is an urgent issue - no time for half measures.

Bernie is leading an economic revolution that stops job-exporting trade deals and builds an economy that protects our environment, while providing living wage green jobs – an economy with local manufacturing and regional food systems comprised of family farms, not corporate factory farms.

Bernie is leading a peace revolution that does not support coups or the invasion of other countries to topple their leaders as Hillary and her advisor Henry Kissinger have done.

Ultimately, Bernie is leading what Dr. King called a “Revolution of Values,” attacking the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism” that he warned are incapable of being conquered as long as “profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people.”

Like millions of others, I’ve joined Bernie’s revolution. I am sad not to vote for Hillary. As a woman of her generation, I have been waiting for this moment most of my life.  But she is not the leader that is called for now. If Hillary wins the primary, surely I will work hard for her. The alternative is unthinkable. But my dream is not just to have a woman in the White House, but to elect a president with strong feminine energy in balance with the masculine - one who leads with love.  Just as Bernie does.