On any given day in every neighborhood across the country, there are millions of people who watch television, online videos, and social media streaming. Seems harmless, right? People in their own homes just sitting watching a screen. Maybe it’s a show about a fictional character trying to save (or take down) the world, or a reality-TV star looking like an idiot as he tries to behave normally while inebriated. Others might be glued incessantly to 24-hour news channels, waiting to see crimes reported or the degradation of our political system.
Then on a Saturday less than a few weeks ago, millions turned to watching live the horrific violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. As a nation, we were transfixed to our tubes or computers, hypnotized by the spewing hatred and violence. Some of us were in tears of empathy for the peaceful protestors against bigotry, others in anger about losing our rightful white heritage, and still others in shock and disbelief that this was happening at all in a sleepy town in America.
Immediately, people flocked to social media making commentary on the events as noble, brave, or hate-filled, and even a few conspiracy theorists claiming it was all fake news. From that, the violence continued online verbally for days, turning against each other — our own family and friends.
So, what does this have to do with me?
Well in 1999, in the area of our small Littleton community, we had our own tragedy of senseless violence at Columbine High School, where 15 people lost their lives and even more were injured. Our world was rocked, shaken to the core. We banded together in brainstorming sessions with our neighbors and experts trying to figure out how this could have happened here and what we could to do heal as a community and prevent this from happening again anywhere. We began to make progress unified together in spirit and that common goal.
At that time, a mantra was born, “We are ALL Columbine,” a morphing of the high school’s cheer, claiming we were ALL responsible for the Columbine violence AND the healing. Together, we realized that we as a collective had created a culture where this was possible. Whether we had intentional or unintentional actions or subconscious thoughts, we were sewn into each other’s lives morally and were now taking responsibility for consciously creating our future community culture.
Now is the time to recognize that again. That no matter what numbing show or video you watch to try to separate yourself from reality, you too are complicit in the prejudice, ignorance and yes, even violence. We are all connected as fellow human beings in our grocery stores, neighborhoods, workplaces, schools and places of worship. And we each have our own part in creating and sustaining a culture of increasing isolation, anger and violence.
It’s time to be conscious and aware that every thought and every action, no matter how small, has an effect on others locally and globally. It’s time to remember that we are all Columbine. And now, we are all Charlottesville. Let’s do something about that, not as members of particular ideological groups, but as fellow citizens of our village, collectively responsible for our humanity.
Linda Newell has termed out as the state senator of Senate District 26 and is now educating people on how to understand and influence their government. She may be reached at senlindanewell@gmail.com, www.lindanewell.org, www.senlindanewell.com, @sennewell on Twitter, Senator Linda Newell or @TheLastBill on Facebook.
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Read this article on The Littleton Independent here.

As we've seen over the past few months, (if paying attention to any headlines), the leadership in the U.S. Congress has been struggling to pass a variety of versions of bills to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in order to please the base voters in their home districts. Even adding in the vice president as a tie-breaker with some of those votes, still no bill has passed both chambers.
Why? And what can we do as seemingly insignificant individual citizens to help?
Why haven't any of these attempts worked? The party in leadership has the presidency and leadership in both chambers. Why can't they get anything through? Well, as Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
So let's look at how unhealthy the process has been.
Thus far, we've seen little to no protocol followed that we know works at the state level. Unlike Washington, in the state Legislature, we can often (not always) get things done because we do what we know works - we use civility, the chamber procedural rules and bipartisanship.
But what we've seen in D.C. recently is none of those.
There have been countless jabs, pokes and sneers right under the Capitol dome, modeling to the whole country how uncivil many of our congressional members have become. Breaking with decades of history, there have been political games abusing procedural rules to sidestep the usual voting procedures and avoid transparent public committee policy hearings. And, sadly, there has been no attempt to reach across the aisle and work with the other party to come up with win-win viable solutions to our healthcare coverage challenges.
Maybe naively, I used to believe that all of the people in Congress were fully acting in the true spirit of public service of the common good. Now I'm not so sure. But I can't believe they actually want to see people suffer or die, right? Have their egos or desire for getting re-elected taken over their respect for the process put in place by our forefathers? Or their common sense or civility? Is the congressional leadership really that "sick?" We'd never be able to get away with this in the private sector. We'd be fired by now, or at least reprimanded for this type of behavior.
So what can we do as lowly citizens?
We can (and should) demand that just as a doctor starts with her patient, they need to get to the root causes of the symptoms with a diagnosis and then come up with a treatment plan, conferring with their colleagues for second and third opinions thoughtfully. It's hard to see a good prognosis possible if the process you're using is ill itself.
It's time congressional leaders drop their egos and apparent need to do "something" and just do the "right thing" for the health of all Americans, not just a few.
If our communal goal is to have a healthy society and fiscal responsibility, then we need to operate with healthy processes, and that includes all voices at the table for transparent brainstorming and listening to each other respectfully. Only then will we be able to truly heal the sick and begin to restore our dignity as a nation.
Please call your senators today, and let's start the healing process together.
Linda Newell termed out as the state senator of Senate District 26 and is now educating people on how to understand and influence their government. She may be reached at senlindanewell@gmail.com, www.lindanewell.org, www.senlindanewell.com, @sennewell on Twitter, Senator Linda Newell or @TheLastBill on Facebook.

Read this article on The Highlands Ranch Herald here.