Seeds Sprout On A Bright Cold Day

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

One of the greatest opening lines. Are we there, 41 years later?

In real life, 1984 was a year during Reagan’s presidency, and a lot of us thought we might be headed into the book’s vision of dystopia at that time. Or at least that nuclear war was entirely possible. But the antinuke, peace and social justice movements were strong and hopeful. (Also, the White House at the time had a bit more respect for the balances of power.)

As my thoughts went to that era, I happened to run into a recent article by fellow activist and resister Andy Mager who also looked back to the 1980s to come up with hope and inspiration for today. “Lessons From Resisting Draft Registration That Can Help With the Fight Against Trump” on Common Dreams. Andy offers a good list of actions we can and must continue to take, including:

Don’t act out of fear and panic…

Learn from the development of fascism in other countries…

Lend support—emotional, practical, and material to people in your community.

Protect those most targeted

And lots more. I’m won’t go on too long so you can get to reading his piece.

As with many of you, I’ve been out in the streets a bit, along with doing some war tax resistance presentations — both of which give one hope and strength in community. The interest in WTR is strong. NWTRCC reports more than 300 had registered for today’s online 101, and the Instagram account has more than 24,000 followers! Wow. That’s hopeful right there.

Here’s a bit of illustrated community:

Monthly global vigils continue against the torture prison at Guantanamo, with new energy and interest as the current administration deports immigrants there.

A wheat-pasted sign shared from Radical Graffiti on Facebook with a link that goes to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center with lots of good info.	There was a point when this made us laugh. Now Vance is out scaring the world. Photo by Linda Novenski.	DON’T GIVE UP!
	Photo by Ruth Benn	Photo by Ruth Benn

— Post by Ruth Benn