Face the week
Embrace the challenges and opportunities
Agitate for a better world
Fight for someone you don’t know.
American Robin. November 3, 2020.
Confession: I’m still in my pajamas and am working from bed today.
Gathering my strength for Ready, Set, Go!
I’ll be there soon, I promise.
Mourning dove. August 29, 2019
We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Arizona, July 1972 (National Archives)
From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.
~ Cesar Chavez
Unbelievable (except, not really) how the political and media establishment are working SO hard to squash the working people’s movement. Ugly stuff on display right now. I was happier earlier in the day when I was unplugged from it all.
Tomorrow I’m going out for more of the same. Highly recommend doing the same!
Today I’m grateful for dogs. So many humans are a massive disappointment (I’m looking at you, DNC Resolution Committee members who voted against a #ClimateDebate) and I’m thankful canines agree to hang out with us.
Roscoe, this one’s for you.
I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever, but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.
~ Angela Davis
Angela Davis at a political rally in Raleigh, North Carolina on July 4, 1974. Photo courtesy of Bettmann/CORBIS.
There is so much work to be done.
PLEASE, call Congress now: 202-759-7766
If you’re not sure what’s at stake, please watch this 2:45 video:
Thank you, Fight for the Future, for leading the charge!
Marched this morning with a couple hundred thousand other people. The day started out cold and overcast (really appreciated the ride downtown on the packed-to-the-gills light rail because all that body heat warmed me up again) before turning sunny and warmer. It was a good morning, and I’m glad my neighbor friend, Kim, invited me to march with her. I brought my camera and captured some of the wit and wisdom of the very large gathering. (Click to enlarge)
In case you missed it the first time.
“They tried to bury us. They did not know that we were seeds.” (h/t and thanks to Jenn Hubbard for translation)
Construction workers above the march.
And here’s me with my sign:
Finally, here’s an overhead shot of Civic Center Park in Denver:
DENVER, CO – January 21: Tens of thousands in Civic Center Park for the Women’s March on Denver January 21, 2017. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Kim and I left the march before it reached the park so you won’t be able to find us in this crowd. Turning around was a good call, though, because as we “swam” downstream, we got a good look at THE MANY MANY PEOPLE. It was life-affirming to read the signs screaming with anger, hope, and humor.
We’re gonna need all three to make it out alive.
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All pretense is gone
White House is billionaire’s club
They’ve ripped off the masks.
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I just removed this sign (h/t Bob Herbert) from the back window of my Prius. It’s faded from approximately six years of sun exposure. I put it in my car after attending the Democratic county assembly in March of 2010 that was nothing more than a lovefest for Obama. It wasn’t cool with me that the Democratic party was overlooking the horrible policies it’d (rightfully so) shrieked about during the Bush/Cheney years once it was a Democrat enacting those policies. I was disgusted by the lack of spine. I taped the sign in my car and revoked my membership in the Democratic party. I became an Unaffiliated voter.
Here it is, nearly six years later, and we’re facing a loathsome soon-to-be president whose election was largely enabled by that same spinelessness. The corporate Democratic establishment opened the door to this nightmare and, because Obama doubled down on many Bush/Cheney policies, shit’s about to get real in a way many people didn’t see coming.
Right now it feels as if I could cover my Prius windows with signs and it still wouldn’t be enough to address the realities of Agent Orange. But whatever signage I adopt, it can’t be all about him. That madman exploited the situation put in place by people who were/are supposed to be the opposition party, and right now I’m not seeing a whole lot of spine.
I just hope I’m not the only one calling them out on it.
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Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
~ Salvador Dali
Cooper’s Hawk. Photo by Zippy.
For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent.
What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice,
necessity and importance of political and social rights.
~ B. R. Ambedkar
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Tracy Abell 