(((Cindy Weinstein)))
Wanting to mourn/needing to resist:
"Political grief . . . reflects the feeling that your worldview or political beliefs — what we think is right vs. wrong, or morally valid — is under attack." An individual "may be mourning potential losses of [their] own rights and economic stability, as well as worried about the impact it might have on reproductive rights and public health."
CynBlogger™️Dissents
@CindyWeinstein @Remittancegirl
I support Indivisible & get their frequent emails & newsletters. The one today had a distinctive tone of frustration with elected Dems. Indivisible is getting HUGE local turnouts from new supporters but not much is happening in our blue Congress to thwart MAGA. All I see are renewed fundraising efforts, but 46 Dems joined Republicans on the Laken Riley act. It feels like we’re all standing in Tiananmen Square waiting for the tanks to flatten us. I don’t think ANYONE is prepared to fight back effectively. 47 has Congress and SCOTUS and the entire gov’t in his tiny, cruel hands. Who can stop him for realsies? 😱
(((Cindy Weinstein)))
I understand the fear but, for me, I'm too enraged to be afraid. And, like you, I don't know what to do w/the rage. Withholding taxes (a la Thoreau) is one idea; another is to start a protest in my town. I may just make a sign & stand at a busy intersection & see if anyone joins (or shoots; kidding/not kidding) me. I've canceled WaPo, NYT & Instagram but ready to do more. I coordinate support groups for caregivers and though that's not political, it helps to help.
Madeleine Morris
I know this might come across badly, but I know you know I am coming from a place of respect and good faith.
Try to convert that fear to something else. Anger? Determination? Stubborn refusal?
Because fear is not going to keep you or those you care about safe from these things. It just stops people from thinking clearly and acting decisively.
Perhaps the fact that you don't know what to do with it is the first clue... that it's not serving a purpose.
CynBlogger™️Dissents
@CindyWeinstein
As an older Dem woman, for me it’s the fear.
I’ve never been afraid of my gov’t before (although close to it around Vietnam/Kent State/civil rights clashes). Now I’m fearful that my core ethics & moral values will be violated by inhumane actions taken by 47 against vulnerable immigrants, people on necessary social aid, swaths of civil servants suddenly unemployed, negative mandates violating wildlife & our environment, and halted progress against the existential threat of #ClimateCrisis.
I’m afraid our constitutional republic will very soon be only an oligarchical fascist state.
I fear my reliance on Social Security, Medicare, & a federally-guaranteed reverse mortgage will be so altered as to become negligible, & that all I worked for in 61 years will be gone.
I fear our entire information system is so befouled by lies that truth itself is vanishing, particularly from official sources. Without truth there can be no common reality.
I don’t know what to do with this fear.
Madeleine Morris
@cynblogger @CindyWeinstein
I have no right to tell you how to feel, Cyn. No one does. All the things you've listed are absolutely real and frustrating, anger generating, perplexing.
Nor would I dare suggest that any way out of where we find ourselves now is easy or simple or quick.
All I know is that fear is a kind of capture that leaves people paralyzed and ineffective as opponents. It gives something to them. And that's not right.
That isn't a way out of this. For sure.
Madeleine Morris
There is nothing in the world more political than caring and helping. It is lived courage in action.
It's living in a mode that they cannot understand - that of being a compassionate, caring human. That is the very essence of resisting.
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.