The first two weeks of tRump 2.0 have been more horrific than most of us imagined they could be, with gross violations of our Constitution being committed almost hourly by this authoritarian regime. If you think that the color of your skin, your financial situation, your U.S. citizenship makes you immune to harm and abuse, think again.

If our national and world-wide health system can be upended into chaos by an executive order; if an ignorant conspiracy theorist who has been denounced repeatedly by his own Kennedy family can still be in the running for the cabinet position of Health and Human Services, you are not safe and should hope no virulent virus takes hold of the world as it did in 2020.

I have been a “political animal” since college, and I won’t stop now. What I will do, however, is make sure I don’t let my well-being be compromised. A friend who lives in a conservative county of Colorado has chosen to preserve her sanity by eschewing activities like door to door canvassing, which she did during the last election cycle.

“I endured so much abuse; people screaming at me, endlessly harassing me, and in spite of all that effort, my candidates lost.” She has decided to put her energy into organizing and creating community in her Democratic precinct, focusing on voting rights, lobbying for the SAVE Act (Save American Voter Eligibility), and non-stop barraging of Colorado’s 3^rd district Rep. Jeff Hurd with the demands of his constituents. Her West Mesa County Democratic Precinct community members are also working on consistently submitting Letters to the Editor. At the same time, they are talking with and supporting each other.

ABLE TO ACT

Here, at the end of the first month of 2025, self-care and awareness as well as a considerable expenditure of money and access to appropriate medical treatment have put me in a healthy place. I have no intention of succumbing to stress disease again….yet, I am determined to RESIST the lawlessness of the rapist-racist-felon whom only about 1/3 of eligible U.S. voters actually chose as President.

I have decided to put my annual donations into public media, the last bulwark of truth and information, specifically but not exclusively—Democracy Now, KPFA Radio, PBS (locally KQED and North Bay Public Media.) I am a writer and journalist. My 2024 income tax receipts show me that the $678 I contributed to nonprofits went to combatting right-wing propaganda with real world facts and intelligent analysis.

In addition to donating a modest amount of money, I intend to engage in activism of the heart. Since I was a college student in 1965, I have cared about the liberation of the Palestinian people and promoted Peace Not Apartheid (the title of President Jimmy Carter’s 2006 book). My letters to the editor, written after October 7, 2023, have been focused on the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza (as well as in the West Bank, and anywhere else in the region Palestinian refugees are served by UNRWA). I have chosen this as MY project 2025.

I intend my posts and poetry to be personal stories of the Palestinian journalists, teachers, pregnant mothers, children, doctors, bakers, farmers, shepherds, etc. killed in their homes, in every hospital and school, in squalid tent and refugee camps by Israeli Defense Force (IDF) air strikes, drones, tanks, snipers, and the deliberate denial of food, water and medical care. This textbook genocide has been recognized by the International Court of Justice, Amnesty International, The US Center for Constitutional Rights, International Criminal Court and others. The death count of nearly 48,000 Palestinians to date is a vast undercount.

So what is YOUR Project 2025? What does your heart, your conscience, your self-interest, your fear compel you toward doing in the next eleven months? Let’s talk with each other about it.

***
Following is a poem by my long-time friend, Fran Carbonaro. For more than a year she has been in contact with several Palestinian families in Gaza. Her project is raising money to keep them from starving, and to communicate love, hope, and caring from her friends here in California. Fran has a list to whom she shares photos and information about Eman, Ahmad, Walaa, and the others… and ways for you to contribute. Contact me if interested.

PRELUDE                                                     

here is something
you don’t want to know:
a number of bodies have
disappeared, have melted

due to the massive amount
of explosives dropped by the IDF
on areas of Gaza, there innocent
human lives melt, bone like blood

seeps into the earth, beneath the last
root of the last olive tree. there’s really
no such thing as a Palestinian says our new
ambassador to Israel, smiling and confidant,

the Christian Zionist, who as a child, may have
laughed with glee, as the wicked witch of the west
wailed i’m melting, i’m melting! what a world, what
a world! the munchkins hold their breath, silent

as death, as steam rises from what’s left
Gaza is a prelude to the end of humanity
says an American doctor after only two weeks there
we will have to reckon with this says another

we will have to reckon with this.