What to Do?

Dear all,

Are blogs epistles? I am not so sure, but this is a letter to my loved ones who are suffering depression and feeling disconsolate after Tuesday. Many of you heard me talking brashly about moving to Canada if the elections didn’t go as I hoped (there was additionally a plan for gluten-free muffin-making in Ireland (not entirely ruled out!), and a more recent idea about organic sheep’s milk cheese and New Zealand, less well-formed), but listening to Kerry’s eloquent concession speech on Wednesday made me realize that, in the end, I don’t think I believe in opting out. How long can we run? And how far? This national disappointment is of course global, too, making it all the more tragic and all the more imperative that we stay and fight.

So my idea for this site is that it is not my blog, but our blog, a blog for anyone among us who is wondering what is going on, or what they can do. In talking to you over the last few days, I’ve heard lots of varied concerns: our distance, as intellectuals, from an understanding of the thinking which motivated more than half of the population to vote the way they did; our concerns about the fairness of the voting process; the dangers of a Supreme Court stacked with justices chosen by this administration; the possibility of regressing on key issues like a woman’s right to choose; the way the world will now perceive and interact with the U.S.; a general atmosphere of hate and intolerance which seems to have predominated in certain areas and on certain issues.

I thought this could be a space, our own special, online Canada, in which we can organize our thoughts, the information we hear, the issues that concern us most, and our ideas for action, however small or strange. Perhaps some of you would like to lead discussions or the organization of resources. I know that I would like to know where to donate my time and limited funds responsibly; I’d like ideas about how to buy socially responsible Christmas gifts; I’d like to know where to volunteer or work or write letters. If we can find this information collectively and share it, that brings us a little closer to hope, and a little farther from despair.

I am still learning how this thing works, but perhaps we can have subsections for various discussions: Quebec for activism, Manitoba for meditation, Vancouver for rumors? If nothing else, maybe it can be a place where we learn our Canadian geography, in case the optimistic activist approach doesn’t work out…

Maybe in this first thread, we can discuss how to make this work, and how to make it useful. I feel so sure that together, we can come up with something!