Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Retake Our Democracy Despondancy


Paul Gibson posted a dire piece in his Retake Our Democracy newsletter last Saturday  He followed up with an e-mail to the members of the Transformation Study Group...

Hello,

I hope this note finds you doing as well is possible in this nuts world. 

Today, I am writing to about 20 folks. Every last one of you has devoted significant time to advancing justice in one form or another. But I've been having some conversations lately with people like you and they are beginning to panic. They are beginning to sense that any ever smaller chance we have to save our species is slipping away amidst a surprising lack of galvanizing climate action. They are also fearful that the GOP is setting up voter suppression and election theft legislation that could make it impossible to even maintain the tenuous Democratic majority in Washington, with the table being set to steal the 2024 election. 

Where is the sense of desperation?  Where is the national strike? The sit-ins? The roads blocked? 

This morning I wrote about this in today's blog (link below) and over the weekend, there has been a separate threaded email among some other activists, a conversation focused on voter suppression which I have offered below.

I am thinking that Retake is not the right organization to lead a massive movement of resistance, our focus has been and will remain on NM, but NM is an important player in relation to climate change (Permian) and I am sure not sensing any kind of action on a national level related to the climate, aside from in Minnesota and along the Line 3 pipeline's path. 

I am wondering if any of you are feeling a bit dislocated from this all. I am wondering if we might benefit from a town hall style Zoom with folks from Indivisible, WFP, Adelante, YUCCA, Renewable Taos, and others convening and developing a plan for some kind of sustained campaign to focus a flood light on the timidity in Washington (How much more compromise will Biden offer? When is it time for hardball?  And who is pressing for hardball anyway?).  Maybe we need to have one inclusive conversation next week or the week after to plot something dramatic for July 4...

What do you think?  I've included the link to today's post and then below that the thread of email conversation initiated by Les Lakind.

Please let me know your thoughts. And likely I have not included some folks who should be included....so please forward.


Paul Gibson
Director, Retake Our Democracy
Engage, Educate, Organize, Motivate, Activate
People and Planet Over Profits

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