Turn Your Outrage into Action: Teach-In about Immigrant & Human Rights, Sunday April 6, 2-4 pm PT

Join me, youth leaders, and SoCal movers and shakers from Buen Vecino, Freedom for Immigrants, MICOP, Indivisible Conejo, CSU, and local Democratic clubs to learn how to turn your outrage into action!

Welcome new subscribers! And hello to one and all! We had a wonderful kick-off to the Hope Knows No Borders Book Club and Webinar last Sunday, March 30, with Reverend John Fife, Dora Rodriguez, and others. More on that and a video to follow — apologies for the delay, but I’m still on the road, and news of the ICE Gestapo and Gulag expansion is real and coming at us from all sides now.

If you are in the LA area, please join me and my gracious hosts from the CA immigrant and human rights movement for a live community Teach-In this Sunday, April 6.

The event will focus on the threats to ALL our rights through the vilification and chipping away of due process protections for the undocumented. It will include an amazing panel of local advocates, attorneys, and impacted people. I will provide the keynote address. And we will end with myriad calls to action.

It will be recorded and disseminated to registrants. So be sure to proclaim your interest at this link, or by clicking the image below.

I’ll be back in your Inbox next week. Until then, I leave you with a poem written by yours truly in November 2016. Now, I am no poet. But it does go to show, la plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…

The Day Evil Was Given Permission

I had a vision. It was of the coming of evil.
He walked the earth. He was loud and ridiculous and mean.

What he said about the weak would send a bully to detention.
The things he did to women would land other men in prison.

Don’t worry, I said. The people will listen.
His mendacity is obvious, they will not let him journey far.
They will see evil for who he is, for we’ve met him before.
We know what he’s up to. We will stop him in his tracks.

But they applauded him. They gazed on him in mindless adoration.
They clambered to hold onto his tiny orange hands.
Even when he used them to grope or to mock them,
They reached out to hold onto his tiny orange hands.

His hatred of Jews and people of color
recalled the era of Goebbels, Mussolini, and Hitler.
His dismissal of the planet, human rights, and of science
A throwback to Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao.

Don’t worry, I said. He will not rise above.
We cannot have forgotten those dark days already.
They will see evil for who he is, for we’ve met him before.
We know what he’s up to. We will stop him in his tracks.

But they applauded him. His incoherence did not matter.
They clambered to hold onto his tiny orange hands.
Even when he used them to grope or to mock them,
still they reached out to hold onto his tiny orange hands.

He said, “I’m a great businessman.” But, in fact, he’d lost billions.
He said, “I’m a philanthropist.” But he’d defrauded many for millions.
He said, “I never raped anyone.” Then he threatened those he did.
He spun falsehoods about his opponent and fed them to misogynists just like him.

His lies were simple and snappy and cunning.
Easy to remember; equally untrue.
He repeated them again and again and so often,
the people forgot they should care about the news.

Issues went neglected; real matters discarded.
Questions unanswered; important problems disregarded.
Truths told by professionals were thrown under the bus.
Fox News and social media became the sources to trust.

It was all about the man, not the country, world, or planet.
Not the daughters, granddaughters, gay citizens, or poor;
Not the people of color, nor those in need of refuge.
These folks did not figure into his future whitewashed world.

Don’t worry! I said more loudly. The youth will come through,
as will those who he threatens: Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Jews.
All will unite to stop him, for we’ve met him before.
We know what he’s up to. We will stop him in his tracks.

But many young chose not to choose.
And some among the hated chose him too.
And those who acted with votes in protest
slipped into his hands the codes to our war chest.

His lies were so swallowed, even he came to believe them.
Empowered, he spewed bigotry, intolerance, and hate.
Now schoolboys use the “p” word and grab at girls’ sacred places.
They were given permission by evil, and those who accepted his “mandate.”

I believed in them, had faith in their reason,
was sure that like me they’d see evil as treason.
Which makes me to blame, though I did not vote with them.
For I did not try hard enough to work to convince them.

And thus we’ve ignited a new cycle of destruction.
One we might have avoided, it was so easy to see coming.
And just like the last one, and all others before that one,
in its falseness and odium there’s a single, unequivocal result:

Everyone loses.
It is not a vision.
Evil walks again amongst us,
having been given permission.