What If?

My grandmother wasn’t disparaging my desires but letting me know that it was up to me to pursue my own goals. 

Analogously, the aphorism “When pigs fly” originated in 16th century England, but as “pigs fly in the ayre with their tayles forward,” to express sarcasm about anything overly optimistic. 

However, if enough people hadn’t said “what if” over time, mankind would still be living in caves using fire to scare away wild animals. 

Columbus would never have sailed the ocean blue, the Wright brothers would never have left the ground at Kitty Hawk, and there would have been no walk on the moon. 

America’s successes have been built by people who would not take “no” for an answer: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk… 

Well, some may have issues with a few of those but, in their own way, they changed our world. 

As a child growing up reading science fiction about flying to the stars, getting to the moon was not nearly the impossibility that my grandparents’ generation assumed. 

How many blacks growing up even in the 1950s and 1960s could imagine an Obama in the White House within their lifetime? 

The opposite of “What if…” is despair. 

If we want a future without hunger, with healthcare and excellent education for all, with no more war, we have to imagine it first, write about it, talk about it so the next generation will accept it as possible and find the way to make it actual. 

So Americans can lean on their elected officials to stop toeing the party line and make the people’s priorities, their priorities. 

So how about sharing some “What ifs” in the hope that we and others can imagine a better future and that some of us or those with whom we laugh over these will initiate the action necessary to achieve change. 

Here are some to start with. Laugh at them, cry or come up with your own to share with family, friends and co-workers. 

What if… 

• People used the power generated by Stairmasters and Peloton bicycles and Elliptical Machines to power their air conditioning units? 

• Instead of the City cutting services every time there was an economic turndown, how putting a pay-it-forward clause in the budget, especially since historically layoffs and services cuts cost the City more in the long term? 

• Companies stopped using profit-driven metrics to cut costs and embraced an approach that strengthened their supply chain by sourcing locally? 

• Los Angeles paid teachers, those shaping our next generation, our future, the same salaries as our City Councilmembers receive? 

• Concepts like budgeting, investing, and saving that are foundational to financial success were mandatory subjects that all students must pass to graduate? 

• Los Angeles stopped subsidizing expensive housing development and reimagined existing hotels and office buildings into low-cost units following the AIDS Healthcare Foundation template? 

• Government at all levels prioritized the growth of the Main Street income and savings over the profits of Wall Street? 

• Our Mayor could figure out a way to stop people shooting off guns to welcome the New Year? 

• Parents could find a safer way to announce a newborn’s sex than shooting off fireworks in drought conditions? 

• And we could find a quieter, kinder way to celebrate fireworks season which seems to run year round in some parts of the City? 

• The United States refused to sell weapons to foreign countries and required that they use their military budgets to feed and educate and provide medical care to their people instead? 

• The US government applied the same requirement to itself? 

• Someone could figure out a way to dispose of disposable diapers without filling our landfills and increasing the danger of their spreading disease 

• All animal poop – pets and wildlife and maybe even human – could be desiccated to remove bacteria and pathogens and recycled into natural fertilizer? 

• We danced the time-warp back to 1922 when the US Post Office provided savings accounts for Americans; anyone could set up a basic account, and the payday lenders and Wall Street banks could no longer profit off the poor? 

• Parole from prison was based only on good behavior and self-improvement while incarcerated, and not on an apology which would imply admitting to a crime one may not have committed? 

• The United Nations required all the world’s military leaders to be women (it’s harder to do the testosterone dance with ovaries)? 

• We married the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam “world repair” with the Arabic insha’Allah “hopefully” to make for a brighter, healthier, happier future for all?  

What If? 

(Liz Amsden is an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)