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New Year's Wish

2025 has had its joys and its horrors. My country has taken the lead in worsening the climate, has increased childhood measles, has ended the rule of law to the point where armed goons grab people off the street if they don't look white enough.

Cuts in USAID funding have doomed thousands to die of starvation for no particular reason. Billionaires like Musk decimate the folk in our federal government who actually help people and then just walk away.

And yet we resist.

I was born in the early 60's, raised fundamentalist, taught about martyrs facing violence and death to stand for what was right. My folks pointed me to Christian martyrs in history while I followed the Freedom Riders and other civil rights activists who were doing this in real time.

I heard Bernard Lafayette of the SNCC, a surviving Freedom Rider, speak once about how the only folk who made things better were in it for the long haul, and that every loss was an opportunity. I try to have that kind of hope, the kind that actually makes things better.

And so, every act of resistance, the No Kings Rallies, the artists refusing to perform in a memorial to JFK that Trump desecrated, the folks with whistles announcing ICE raids, every act of resistance gives me hope for 2026. This is my choice, because despair is defeat.

Happy New Year to all my readers. Find out how much good you can do with what you have.

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