Those of us who live in beautiful blue bubbles have a challenge: our elected officials mostly vote as we want them to. So we call their offices and leave messages asking them to do what they plan to do anyway. … Continue reading
Author Archives: Grace
Tracking the Resistance, Finding Events
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So far, I’ve attended the Womxn’s March Seattle that wonderful day after the inauguration; I’ve gone (with my husband – a rare event) to Westlake Park the weekend the Muslim Ban disrupted the world of travel; and I’ve made several, … Continue reading
OFA Gets a Local Voice
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A member of my retirement community held a meeting today to organize a local group for Organizing for Action. I’ve been on an OFA email list for years, but this is the first time I’ve been to a meeting to talk about Doing Something.
After the meeting, I went to the OFA website (http://www.ofa.us, not .org – the .org will take you to an animal welfare group). There I found elements of an action network, so I will check it more often. I learned that someone nearby is organizing for an event on April 1 to support Obamacare. That’s definitely a march that I would attend, pussyhat and all.
If you want to browse their website, I’ve put ilnks to it above and in the right hand column. Consider signing up and choosing issues that you care most about. Ideally we’ll get email notices to prompt us to write letters or attend a march in support of that issue.
I’d love to know how you connect to the Resistance. Twitter? Facebook? Blogs? Email? Good old-fashioned phone tree?
Quick! Vote for One…
Oh, Canada! Oh, Sigh!
Take a few minutes and compare Trump and Trudeau.
While I know that Canadians actually criticize Trudeau over a variety of policies, I can’t believe there’s a single voter north of our border who’d swap leaders. They’re both building pipelines, so no advantage there. Maybe there’s some other issue where there’s no advantage. And it was encouraging to see Trump reading from a paper – maybe he can read after all. But really, truly, there’s just no comparison.
Meanwhile, I’ve added a few links to the resistance. Check them out.
Go it Alone? or Join Up?
By sharing information via email, we’ve learned that online petitions are nearly useless, but phone calls (and faxes when phone lines are shut down) to Congress can have an impact. We can do those calls from home with relatively little inconvenience, but is that enough? Do we need to meet up with others to have a greater impact?
Over the course of my 70+ years, I’ve linked up with like-minded individuals at different times, and I do think that groups with a strong focus and some minimal organization can have a real impact. Still, I’m often frustrated with groups and find the process of sifting through options and agreeing on a course of action tedious. I’m hesitant to join anything. I’ve occasionally been active in the Democratic Party, but never for long. Instead, I’ve worked with groups with a more narrow focus for a few years at a time in order to work on an issue that’s important to me.
This year is such a challenge. I don’t have the energy to really do a lot of work. Yet, I feel like we’re in the midst of an earthquake that won’t quit. The good news is that there are many younger people who are revved up and more able to respond to today’s challenges.
For those of you who have some time and energy and are not moving, yet again, please click through the links here to see which ones offer options that you can use to #RESIST. I’d love some feedback on what you find.
If you have a Twitter account, you can follow me at @anncantweet
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