Life is not a fairy tale. Having good politics does not mean that life will be easy. It just means that you will be able to look back on your life and know that you tried to make the whole world better and not worse.
Poet Christine Holland struggles against the disasters reported daily in the news, finding hope in the world's resilience and her own.
We must lay up our supplies – of love, care, trust, community and resolve – so we may resist the storm. No one can deal with every issue at once, and choosing which part of the problem to commit to is part of the work of resistance.
"We need a song that transcends the moment instead of leaving us to have to live in that feeling of despair and horror and hunger and human suffering,” Collins said.” We have to be given something to lift us over that and through that.”
The writer and activist shares her thoughts on the climate movement’s wins, the key difference between optimism and hope, and the “clarifying” violence climate activists face.
We have the means and resources to reeducate our minds, to see our Problem, but we need the determination and courage – personal and collective – to do it. We cannot resign ourselves to not thinking and feeling at the same time.
Hope belongs to the left. Social hope entails searching collectively for public solutions to our public problems rather than pretending that everything is up to the solitary individual. Hope creates action, but it is equally true that action creates hope. It is the action of movements, rooted in people's needs and longings, attempting to change the world in small ways and large.
Millions of Americans are starting to grasp that we can't politely stand by watching lives and liberties get slashed beyond repair. What are you going to do?
'Luckily, not everyone has been glued to the screen, eternally watching The Donald. From Black Lives Matter to the climate change movement, activists have, as TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon points out, never stopped working to make this a better world and, as she indicates, if we can take our eyes off the media spectacle-cum-circus for a few moments, they offer us a kind of hope for our future that shouldn't be ignored.' - Tom Engelhardt
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