I don’t typically get political on this blog and that’s mostly because there are numerous people that I surround myself with who are better at this thing, more eloquent, than I am. But sometimes I feel the need to say something.

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen some amazing events transpire across the world, one of which being the people in Egypt succeeding in ousting the dictator, Mubarak, and calling for what I think we all hope will be democratic elections in the region. And there are now people in Bahrain, in Yemen, in Tehran, and other cities calling for similar democratic process. And I sit here and watch them risk their lives, their blood, for a better life and wait for what seems like the inevitable response, that we stand in solidarity with them. And yet it doesn’t come. The US government “condemns” but does little else. There are no peacekeeping forces. There are no sanctions. Even the UN is mute in the face of this massive wave of democracy. And I see, and mourn in the face of the inherent hypocrisy in what this country claims to stand for, and what it actually does. We, as a country, are being schooled in what the fight for democracy actually is, and the lie of what this country stands for is made plain for everyone.

And yet it’s not just fighting in other countries. Recently, in addition to seeing the rights of LGBT people being trampled across this country, we have recently seen an attack on education in this country, on unions, and on the right for women to choose what happens with their bodies. There has even been an initiative that would make it easier for people to legally kill abortion doctors.

This is unacceptable.

We must protect the right for all of our people to healthcare, including the right for women to have counseling and aid and, if they choose to, abortions. We must protect the right for people to unionize in the face of a government that is all too quick to cut the programs that help support workers and their families. And we must protect and defend the rights of all of us to have equal protection and liberty under the law.

This is not negotiable.

I am heartened by the Democrats in Wisconsin who chose to remove themselves rather than participate in an action that was blatantly in defiance of the very ideas this country was founded upon. I am heartened by the protests that are being planned in response to the cutting of funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization that seeks to do good by reaching out to women across our country.

It’s not enough.

A few years ago I watched and wept as Obama was elected as the President of the United States and I thought it heralded a change in this country, a wave of tolerance and progressive action that I could be proud of. I know I was proud of my country that night. Since then, there have been few moments where I’ve had anything near that level of pride. Don’t ask, don’t tell has become a battleground. Guantanamo Bay, they now say, can never be closed. The promise that I thought we could count on has not come to pass.

So it’s up to us. We have to fight all this bullshit wherever it rears its head. We have to fight for the rights of women, for minorities, for LGBT individuals, for anyone who doesn’t have a voice that’s protected by politicians or lobbyists or corporate interests or the rich or the strong. We have to support the efforts of other people around the world to protect their own rights and their lives and families.

This can take the shape of donations,  protests, or simply tweeting information about what’s really happening. But we need to do something. They depend on us to be quiescent, to be distracted by our daily lives, by our consumerism, by television, by the Internet, by the Grammys, by all the little things that occupy our time. But these things are important. Not because CNN tells us so, or because Fox News is covering them, but because they ultimately affect our lives and the lives of the people around us. Because, without hyperbole, they mean the difference between life and death.

That is too important to let slide.

I know I’m probably preaching to the choir when it comes to people reading this. But at the very least, I stand with you, unless you stand against us. And if so, we will not let you pass.

It’s too fucking important.