OF COURSE, I SHOULD BE THERE! 50,000 people are expected to attend including 20,000 students protesting an intolerable level of gun violence and the growing threat against our young people.

I am a politician and these events are the place where politicians publicize their support for change. But it would be more accurate to say, this is where politicians empathize with constituents about the profound lack of inactivity in our government around major social issues like gun control. Because the true positions of our politicians are reflected in the bills they sponsor, the way that they vote, and the issues that they fight for.

I am also a member of the League of Women Voters. Our volunteers will be there registering voters to ensure they raise their voice at the ballot box in November and I should be there.

But I will not be there. Like millions of Americans I have lost faith in a political establishment that polarizes the issues, tells us it’s complicated, and beseeches us to be realistic. The time has arrived for a new political paradigm: a political party that serves the interests of the people. I will be at Rondo Library in St Paul working with the Green Party to secure their endorsement and join with the national Movement for a People’s Party because we have two major parties that have embraced global imperialism, the manufacture and sale of guns, weapons exports, and the militarization of our society.

The mass shootings, the police gun violence against people of color, even the expanding assault on immigrates are just multiple faces of the same issue: a political system so grossly dependent on the wealth of corporate capitalism that they are incapable of representing their constituents.