VNV Tuesday – 147 Days Until Midterms; Time to Set Our Hope On Fire (A Call to Action) 6/12/18

June 12, 2018 DoReMI Democratic Party Values, Editors' Choice, It Takes a Village 1
Father Time Overcome by Love, Hope, and Beauty (1627, oil on canvas) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Father Time Overcome by Love, Hope, and Beauty (1627, oil on canvas)
Today’s inspiration came from this song by Vienna Teng about a nascent activist, as well as Rebecca Solnit’s book Hope in the Darkness: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.

So what is this “hope” of which I speak? Solnit says it best:

It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse narrative. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings. “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivete,” the Bulgarian writer Maria Popova recently remarked. And Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, early on described the movement’s mission as to “Provide hope and inspiration for collective action to build collective power to achieve collective transformation, rooted in grief and rage but pointed towards vision and dreams.” It’s a statement that acknowledges that grief and hope can coexist. Source: Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, pp. xiii-xiv

Grief and rage when I see this:

Visions and dreams lead me to support this:

Set your hope on fire/action item
Call your senators, particularly if you have D senators, and encourage them to vote against cloture on all of 45*s judges; Senate comity has been abused (blue slips, anyone?) by the Republicans, and it’s long past time to fight back with all the tools we have.

Grief and rage when I see this:

Visions and dreams lead me to support this:

Set your hope on fire/action item
Call your House member and senators, and let them know that this is a deal breaker; demand that they make a public statement, so that voters will know their position. Supporting a D candidate for the House or Senate? Contact them, and demand that they address this issue loudly and proudly.

Grief and rage when I see this:

Visions and dreams lead me to support this:

Set your hope on fire/action item
See that tweet above? Those are your beginning talking points. Now get on the phone, and let your righteous anger loose.

Grief and rage when I see this:

Visions and dreams lead me to support this:

Set your hope on fire/action item
“I’m also pressing for a simple one-sentence law that says it is the policy of the United States not to separate children from their parents,” Merkley said. (Southwest Key Programs regrets denying Sen. Merkley entry ) Your action item in one sentence.

Grief and rage when I see this:

Visions and dreams lead me to support this:

Set your hope on fire/action item
Need some help in crafting your talking points? Read this: Evidence That New Tariffs, Not Immigrants, Are Costing Jobs Or maybe this will help: Car bosses round on Trump over threat of tariffs

Grief and rage when I see this:

Visions and dreams lead me to support this:

Set your hope on fire/action item
Given the botched and frankly, inhumane, response to the crisis in Puerto Rico, a foreclosure moratorium should be the minimal response. #CanceltheDebt is another ask, as is a repeal of the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the “Jones Act”) which place such a burden on Puerto Rico.

With the rampaging destruction being carried on by the Republicans, this diary could be never-ending. But while we’re all helping in some form or another to make the Blue Wave happen in November, I wanted to illustrate that hope isn’t a state of being; it’s a series of actions that we take today. Preparing for November is, sadly, not enough. We must be working the phones, educating our friends and neighbors, and committing to act now. While no one person can do all of the work, together we create the ripples which will lead to the wave.

About DoReMI 165 Articles
Now a Michigander, by way of Ohio, Illinois, Scotland, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. Gardener. Sewer. Democrat. Resister.

1 Comment

  1. {{{DoReMI}}} – sorry to be a day late reading this. It’s a very good summation of what is going on and what we can do about it right now as well as in November. I wish I had even one Dem at the federal level here in AR. sigh. I live in a blue dot in a bloody state – even the legislature has a bloody supermajority. So my Dem state rep and state senator do the best they can but… Hope is hanging on and keep on keepin’ on – hope is knowing there is an end to the tunnel but we have to keep moving to get there. And so we do. moar {{{HUGS}}}

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