Hello neighbors. In case you haven't heard, protests are happening in all 50 states tomorrow. Ours is Tuesday at noon at the state house in Montpelier. Please do everything you can to be there. (Email me if you need a ride.)

I never thought I'd say this, but it appears that a coup is underway in Washington. Not a bloody coup, though I wouldn't put it past them -- an administrative coup, where Trump (and Elon Musk, who appears to have been given an inordinate amount of power) are firing civil servants en masse and seizing control of the nation's finances via an illegal takeover of the US Treasury.

It's tempting, given how bad everything has gotten and how small each of us is, to say there's no point in protesting. That may be true. But it's still worth showing up, and speaking up. Why? Wendell Berry said it best:

"Much protest is naive; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone's individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence."

Wendell Berry, "A Poem of Difficult Hope", in the book *What Are People For?*

Event Info

Feb 5, 2025, 5 to 7 PM

Feb 7, 2025, 10 AM to 2 PM

Feb 10, 2025