There’s no way round about it: this subject is a tangle. 

Especially in light of the current election, continued voter disenfranchisement, an archaic but prevailing Electoral College, the ongoing scrutiny and outcry of a flawed criminal justice system, deeply polarizing and often inhumane immigration policy, the vacancy of a Supreme Court Justice and the eradication of governmental environmental regulations that protect the health of citizens and ecosystems, there’s a lot to talk about. But since we welcome difficult conversations, diverse vantages and transforming narratives...let’s dive right in.

This month we look at Justice & Governance.

The laws we live by, the system that provides for us, represents us,
creates infrastructure and security...
  Or so it is supposed to be.

Trust in government is unmistakably low across political sectors and states, often feeling more like something done to us instead of a reliable structure of society. We can sometimes forget it’s also our roads, schools, hospitals, senior centers, playgrounds, parks, campgrounds, health programs...

Meanwhile, justice today is often defined by its failings, by the injustice of communities and individuals whose treatment is not in balance with what is fair.  Or the singular Justices who dictate the highest laws, yet arrive in life-long appointments without being voted in by the people. While the justice system is supposedly an arbiter of balance, making sure what’s right gets its due, any foray into history exposes that the justice system was never designed to be equal among everyone, especially along class, gender, race and age lines.

Governing a large country

is like frying a small fish.

You spoil it with too much poking.

Lao Tzu

Many throughout time, whether Lao Tzu or Libertarians, have argued for less government, less regulation, less oversight...but where does that leave us? 

We all like to complain about the failings of the system, and there is much to critique, and still, where would be without them? What could be better? Who is making that system and could it represent all of us? As always, Holes in the Wall Collective works to simultaneously support those who are changing the system while utilizing and transforming what exists as best as can be. And if we are looking to the future, best look to youth leadership.

The upcoming generation has inherited a future deeply compromised, both environmentally and economically. Yet the youth leaders of today are organized, savvy, diverse and lucid towards the needs of a more just and equitable society. 

And so, this month, two weeks before one of the most important elections in our history, our focus naturally goes towards the part of justice and governance most currently pressing: the Vote, and towards one of the organizations doing the most about it...

This month we are proud to follow their lead and highlight:

Of young people.  By young people.  For all people.

Alliance for Youth Organizing is a nationwide network of organizations building political power of young people, and is the premier youth vote vehicle in the United States. They bring progressive people power across America by empowering local young people’s organizations to strengthen our democracy, fix our economy, and correct injustices through on-the-ground organizing.

In light of COVID-19, the Alliance network has quickly adapted their work from being field-first to digital-first. To date, Alliance organizations across nearly 20 states have registered nearly 73,000 young voters, collected 50,000 pledges-to-vote, made over 2 million calls and sent over 2 million texts! We may be largely remote, but the work hasn’t stopped. To support local efforts to educate, engage, and mobilize young voters, the Alliance has moved over $10M (!) to organizations across the country this year.  

"We transform our voting systems so that they work for every American citizen. We drive innovative economic policies that put more money in the pockets of regular people. We fight for justice, democracy, and sustainability. And we win"

And If you haven't already, sign up for the Holes in the Wall Collective's CSA to support Alliance for Youth Organizing and 11 other organizations throughout the year, AND donate to them directly RIGHT NOW.

A government for the people and by the people?  

Another effect of public instability, is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the monied few, over the industrious and uninformed mass of the people...This is a state of things in which it may be said, with some truth, that laws are made for the few, not for the many.

James Madison

The ideal of this country may never have been the ideal at all, stated throughout the earliest Federalist papers by the Founding Fathers that protecting property should be enshrined as much or over the rights of the people, lest those that have, be out ruled by those that do not. In their words: to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. If congress truly represented the demographics of the country, it would look less white, less old, less male. There would be more than two parties. There would be coalitions based on projects and imperatives beyond partisan lines. There would be a wider diversity of faiths and intelligences– people who work with their hands, people who work on the ground and in the classroom. It would look like this country. But the founders feared the masses, and chose a government structure meant to keep progress slow and the minority (rich landowners) in power...  

Yet Congress is changing, albeit slowly. More legislation is being introduced across issues of health, housing, education the environment, social services– legislation that seems radical now, and will surely be deemed almost conservative in the span of our lifetime. 

How do we remain active with what is, while still working towards what ought to be? 

Check out a great podcast listen: Scene on Radio's The Land That Has Never Been Yet

Lastly,

VOTE.

We’re not here to convince you one way or another.  As a nonprofit, we’re not even allowed to. 

But we can urge you to vote. 

If you think it doesn’t matter, think again. 

If it doesn't matter for you, it will matter for someone you know.  

If you don’t like the candidates, vote for the policies. Learn about who else is on the ballot- the senators, the representatives who shape our legislation. While we do not get to vote on the life-time appointment of those that dictate the law of the land... we get to vote on the people that confirm those justices. 

Vote by mail, vote in person, vote early, vote on election day.   

But let's help make this the biggest voter turnout in a century.

Thanks to Bill Watterson's for his insightful Calvin and Hobbes and Barry Blitt's Welcome to Congress illustration from the New Yorker Margazine cover.