More or Less

27%

Dear friends,

Lots of the smart people I follow and listen to and read have been dropping this magic number lately. "Only 27% of Americans approve of Trump's war on Iran" (or something to that effect). On the one hand, twenty-seven percent doesn't seem like an awful lot, but then you realize that's like four and a bit people actually think it's cool that 12-year-old man-boys are spending billions of dollars to drop bombs on girls' schools (and multiple other unspeakable atrocities) half way across the planet. In my opinion, that's four and bit too many and that is seriously messed up.

Naturally, we expect the Republican politicians to be pro-war and a number of them even felt the need to defend this indefensible crime to me after I shouted at them via email. As is my wont, in hopes of inspiring others to speak out, I posted this dumbass response on FB, along with my response to Senator Budd's reply:

Dear Senator Budd,

Thank you for your response to my outrage about Trump unilaterally, recklessly, and ILLEGALLY attacking Iran. Pardon my bluntness but either you are absolutely lying through your teeth, or you are woefully ignorant of US and international law, or both.

You say that Trump launched ‘Operation Epic Fury’ (my god! Is the Pentagon being run by 12 year olds?) “to pre-empt a clear, imminent threat posed by Iran on U.S. personnel.” No, Sir, not a single piece of intelligence corroborates this falsehood. You should not be spreading such blatant and dangerous lies to your constituents.

You also claimed, “Through Operation Epic Fury, President Trump acted well within his Article II authorities to defend U.S. interests.” Nope! There was NO imminent threat to the US, and Trump had absolutely no legal authority to start bombing Iranian schools, murdering hundreds of little girls.

I strongly suggest that you and your Republican colleagues read up on The Constitution. For the past 13+ months you have supported the most corrupt, lawless, self-serving pedophile ever to sit in the Oval Office. It’s time to learn the laws of this country and uphold them.

Jessica

p.s. Who’s gonna pay for this bloody war???

Naturally, I expected some thumbs up, some comments about how dumb the senator's email is, etc. What I did not expect was the comments from strangers telling me I don't know nothin' and I should be supporting the Trump-Netanyahu war against "Iranian terrorists" (cuz what's more terrifying than 165 little girls sitting in school?). At first I was aghast that anyone who holds these thoughts would be showing up on my FB page, but then I remembered that magic number - 27%. And voila! Here they were! It seemed that for every three comments agreeing with me, there was some yahoo poo-pooing my conviction that Operation Epstein Fury is really fucked up. Naturally, I deleted their comments. I'm all for disagreeing over whether chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla (it is), or the Great Canadian Question about whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza (it doesn't), but I am not going to get into a social media debate with someone on whether or not Trump and Netanyahu, these (literal) partners in crime, are okay to bomb the bejeezus out of innocent people and illegally start WWlll.

While it was jarring to see those pro-war comments show up in my feed, I was able to calm myself by remembering that there was a substantially higher percentage of anti-war reactions. There are so many more of us, and we can and must be noisier.

43% say NO

Of course the numbers vary day to day, but if we go with the numbers from the poll at the top of this page, 43% of Americans polled oppose Operation Epstein Fury. I'm seeing higher numbers here and there. And, while, in my opinion, everyone with an ounce of intelligence and a modicum of decency should be outraged at this horror, I will say that 43% is notably higher than 27%. In fact, by my calculations (never trust my math) that is 16% more people in favour of peace than the gullible 27% who have bought the regime's stupid lies hook, line, and sinker. By my calculations, we should be at least 16% louder in our demands to end this fucking war and hold the entire bozo regime accountable for war crimes and corruption. While we're at it, we should be demanding the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu for committing genocide. Think we can do this?

Bread

In a recent conversation with my kiddo we were talking about people's expectations from relationships. Kiddo likened it to bread. We talked about how various people we know expect an entire loaf from each individual relationship, whereas we tend to view our connections with friends, family and acquaintances as crumbs (delicious crumbs, I hasten to add), which, when put together, equate to a full, nourishing loaf. Of course, each crumb is a vital part of the loaf. I think the same analogy could be used with activism. Not a single one of us has the capacity to step forward and produce an entire loaf of social and political change (well, maybe Zohran Mamdani does), but we can offer up our small crumbs of resistance and add them to the growing pile of crumbs from other people. How many of us show up with our tiny offerings will determine whether we end up with a big, gorgeous, delicious loaf, a small bun, or just a pile of scattered crumbs. No crumb is too small to make a difference to the outcome.

Show up however you can, just show up.

Friends - we are so very tired. So heartbroken at the mess unleashed by the psychopaths. I had a full-on panic attack (first one in years) this past week. They are trying to break us, but, even as many of us feel we are cracking, we still have something to bring to the table of resistance. I think about Heather Cox Richardson, Jess Craven, Charlie Angus, and Jay Kuo who are just a few of the brilliant leaders in this struggle who show up every single day to fill us in and cheer us on. We continue to show up so that these leaders can see that they are not shouting into the void. We show up because we care about human rights. We show up because, allowed to continue unchallenged, these motherfuckers will burn everything down. We show up because we absolutely know that a better world is possible but to bring it into existence will take all of us.

Maybe you're making your signs to carry at the next NO KINGS DAY on March 28th. Maybe you're sharing food with your neighbours. Maybe you're donating to good causes. Maybe you're spreading kindness to strangers as you walk down the street. Maybe you're calling or writing your politicians. Maybe you're working on a candidate's campaign. Maybe you're volunteering in your community. The list of how we can show up is infinite. The reasons to show up are indisputable. Our collective power when we all show up in whatever capacity is completely irrepressible. There are so many more of us. Let's make our voices heard together.

May your week ahead be nourishing,

Jessica (she/her)