On This Easter Sunday I Choose Hope
So grateful to be in this community of proud patriots fighting so hard for this great country
Good morning all. Sundays are rest days here at Hopium, a day to enjoy the spring weather, reboot and recharge, spend time with friends and family. To those celebrating Easter I send blessings. In the spirit of the day, today I look around at all that is in front of us and I - enthusiastically and defiantly - choose hope.
Hopium community member Susan Troy shared these words late yesterday:
My friends and I went to a Tesla Takedown in Berkeley this morning. It was well-organized, well-attended, and FUN. No long political speeches. Just one articulate teacher explaining how teachers in Berkeley are fighting back against Doge. Equally important was the atmosphere, which was joyous. There was a terrific band and dancing in the streets. I cannot stress enough the importance of not just words, but dancing and music and those wonderful things that get people moving and coming together in happy ways. Never underestimate the importance of joy in protesting against evil people. I don't think folks like Trump or Musk experience joy. If they had they wouldn't need to trample beautiful institutions and the people they serve just to get more stuff for themselves.
So many great images from the protests and rallies yesterday. Thank you to all of you who marched and stood for your country. Here is my favorite:
If you are needing a bit more Hopium today head back to yesterday’s post which has links to recent posts and a series of timely discussions. The bottom line on this Easter Sunday - we are stronger today, and he is weaker; but we need to keep acting with great urgency as Trump continues to break things, important things, that will be hard if not impossible to repair.
In the coming days try to find time to read Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s remarks at the 250th anniversary of the lighting of the lanterns at Old North Church in Boston on Friday night. It is a brilliant and inspiring reminder of why we get up every day and do the work we do. A passage:
Paul Revere didn’t wake up on the morning of April 18, 1775, and decide to change the world. That morning began like many of the other tense days of the past year, and there was little reason to think the next two days would end as they did. Like his neighbors, Revere simply offered what he could to the cause: engraving skills, information, knowledge of a church steeple, longstanding friendships that helped to create a network. And on April 18, he and his friends set out to protect the men who were leading the fight to establish a representative government.
The work of Newman and Pulling to light the lanterns exactly 250 years ago tonight sounds even less heroic. They agreed to cross through town to light two lanterns in a church steeple. It sounds like such a very little thing to do, and yet by doing it, they risked imprisonment or even death. It was such a little thing…but it was everything. And what they did, as with so many of the little steps that lead to profound change, was largely forgotten until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used their story to inspire a later generation to work to stop tyranny in his own time.
What Newman and Pulling did was simply to honor their friendships and their principles and to do the next right thing, even if it risked their lives, even if no one ever knew. And that is all anyone can do as we work to preserve the concept of human self-determination. In that heroic struggle, most of us will be lost to history, but we will, nonetheless, move the story forward, even if just a little bit.
And once in a great while, someone will light a lantern—or even two—that will shine forth for democratic principles that are under siege, and set the world ablaze.
Remember, my friends, Hopium is hope with a plan. We just don’t hope tomorrow will better than today. We do the work - together - to make it so.
So rest up today everyone. We have a lot of work to do, and I am proud each and every day to be doing this vital work with all of you - Simon
It's also, of course, the last day of Passover. Lamest Pharaoh ever. But we'll defeat him.
My uncle Melvin went ashore at Normandy the day after D-Day. His contribution might not sound too heroic either: He was a meteorologist. But an accurate weather forecast was crucial to the planning of the invasion. Any act can be heroic under the right circumstances. I think of Melvin a lot these days because that's what I want to be: the heroic weatherman, the guy who lights the lamp. In the words of André Trocmé, Righteous Among the Nations, "Look hard for ways to make little moves against destructiveness."
I was wondering how many of these protest groups have a voter registration booth working on site. It seems like it would be a good opportunity.