The startling outcome of the presidential election has thrown much of our world into confusion. We here at Persimmon Tree want to make the magazine part of the fight for sanity and safety in the country and in the world. There is too much at stake to stick with business as usual.
To that end, we plan to include our thoughts and responses in forthcoming issues and we invite all of you to do the same. We are creating a section for short pieces (about 500 words) similar to the ones below by the members of our team; we will also consider longer pieces for the other sections. Beginning with the Spring issue, we will include your contributions; we are also thinking about posting (with your permission) some suggestions on our Facebook page. Of course, the magazine’s mission has always been to encourage and support women writers and artists over sixty; that mission still stands. But we can also be a forum for resisting chaos.
I am an old hand at protesting. I lined up to march, with a million people, from the United Nations to Central Park for disarmament. I marched in Washington D.C. to keep abortion safe and legal and I brought my students. We sang “Bread and Roses” as did Judy Collins. I supported and then ran the Pledge of Resistance, hoping to prevent an American invasion of Nicaragua during the Sandinista years. I committed civil disobedience many times for many causes. But I have never felt the despair or anger I am feeling about the goals and members of the government taking power in January. So many groups are vulnerable because of their overt misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and contempt for science.
So far I have sent checks to organizations that are already moving into action. I have signed every petition that has come my way. And I have agonized about what else to do. The week after the election I did some research, looking up every website anyone suggested. I responded strongly to Planned Parenthood, but found, not surprisingly, that right now, they have many, many volunteers; I will return there if Roe v. Wade gets any shakier. Black Lives Matter also pulled at me. But the cause that resonated most strongly was the plight of immigrants; I was especially attracted to those groups that advocate for children on the verge of being deported; I plan to volunteer there.
I will say NO in any way I can. I will correct anyone who uses the term “alt-right” when they mean White Supremacists. Finally, if, indeed, the new administration registers Muslims, I will register, however one does that.
As the wonderful Grace Paley said, “the only recognizable feature of hope is action.”
And then, on Saturday, November 12, my depression turned to fury. And energy. I wrote the director of our wonderful independent arts organization in San Antonio, Gemini Ink, and suggested that we organize a gigantic protest gathering of regional writers around the time of the inauguration. She and her staff got right on it, and now we have over a hundred people committed to participating on January 15. Turns out that, thanks to PEN America, communities all over the U.S. are organizing such events on January 15, MLK’s birthday.
We will not be silent. I will give all the money I can possibly manage to causes I believe in. I will do everything I can to feel that the little bit I can do, the little I can give, will make a difference. If in my twenties I was too busy teaching, trying to keep fourteen-year-olds in West Berkeley from overdosing down by the train tracks, now, in my seventies, I can become an activist.
On my refrigerator, on my desk, and in my purse, I keep this statement from the Talmud (and I’m not even Jewish, though my husband is): “Do not be daunted by the world’s grief. … You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.”
I’ve been making trouble for about five decades: objecting to student government rules in high school, male and female dorm rules in college, the war in Vietnam through the ’60s and ’70s.
During my 30-year teaching career, I became a change agent for progressive education reform, which often involved being a troublemaker. I championed cooperative learning, child centered education, teaching as drawing out, not putting in.
When my son came out to me in the ’80s – he in his teens – I naturally became involved in groups for parents of LGBTQ children, and groups that worked with LGBTQ students.
At the school where I taught for most of my career, I agitated to see women, people of color, and gays included in the curriculum, from lower school classes about families to high school literature and history classes. For 12 years Sue Leonard and I organized monthly meetings of faculty/staff where we talked about the stuff that’s hard to talk about: race, class, gender identity.
We have a new president who likes to be unpredictable, so it isn’t possible to anticipate what a Trump administration will be. Is more going to be required of me if my neighbors are threatened by new laws, harsher conditions, random hate crimes? Which private institutions, religious or charitable groups are going to be most called on if some of our darker worries are realized? How can I then help them?
For now, I am holding my breath and paying close attention, to see where I might be most needed to continue to fight the good fight.
And then, a bit more than a year ago, Donald Trump began to win Republican primaries. I was overcome with a deep sense of dread that the man was a despot and he would be our next President. But I did not get out on the streets for Bernie Sanders, whom I supported, or Hillary Clinton whom I could support. I clicked to add my name to on-line petitions, donated on occasion the modest amounts I could afford, and followed the news ravenously. That was the extent of my activism. Truthfully, I did not recognize myself.
And now, Donald Trump has won the election, and I believe that he is a dangerous man and what he purports to represent and the people he is putting in positions of power are a serious threat to our democracy, which, after all is said and done, depends on the consent of the governed. The governed have now given their consent to an erratic, canny individual used to wielding power autocratically irrespective of any ethic other than his bottom line, deeply obsessed with “winning,” and craving the adoration of crowds. And now, by the look of things at publication date, he is surrounding himself with racists, fascists, and incompetents. It is truly, from my perspective, a frightening time. It is the first time in my life that I have felt that political activism was not just a choice, though an impassioned one, but a moral imperative.
So what am I going to do? Surely clicking and donating my occasional $35 is woefully inadequate to what I see as at worst the first serious threat to the foundations of our democracy in history, and at least a four-year orgy of roll-backs of everything I have fought for all of my life. What is this old, neglected body, which cannot walk two blocks without stopping to rest, capable of? I am in awe of those old women who continue to put their bodies on the line, but I cannot imagine being one of them. So what do I imagine I am physically capable of and energetically able to do that has a chance of disrupting the racist, misogynist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic zeitgeist that has overtaken our body politic?
I don’t have the answer to that yet, but I do have one lesson I’ve carried forward throughout my activist life. Organize. Start with those close in and move out from there. Know one another’s stories. Get close. When the shit hits the fan, be ready to respond as a caring unit. In the meantime, in all the small and large ways of possible resistance, do it. Do not be lazy. Do not avoid confrontation. Resistance is a full-time job. This is what I have been telling myself these past few weeks, reminding myself of what I already know.
It is time to come out of retirement.
As a Juilliard graduate in the ’60s I thought the world my oyster. I didn’t know oysters were reserved for men. I was rudely awakened when my distinguished mentor explained that he had recommended my colleague to play with one of the top violinists in Carnegie Hall because the top fiddler wouldn’t go on stage with a woman. My colleague is now one of the top pianists playing regularly in our top concert halls.
Dedicated to the cause, my trio (of three women) played at international concerts of music by women, and went on tour. I aligned myself with UNIFEM (U.N. Development Fund for Women) and organized a concert tour of the Philippines for my New York students, representing the Fund and its call for women’s rights.
As a mature American and a New Yorker, painfully concerned about immigration, health care, and the environment, I protested Trump’s election at Trump Tower on November 10, 2016.
As a Jewish woman, I have been blessed to be part of the original Seder Sisters celebrating Passover in new and radical ways, started by E.M. Broner in 1975 and continuing to this day. In the early ’80s one Seder began “I’m Gloria Steinem and I’m a troublemaker.” As we went around the circle other women, such as Bella Abzug and her two daughters, Michelle Landsberg, and Letty Pogrebin, echoed the claim, raising our voices to the heavens, a circle of proud troublemakers.
As a pianist, I’ve brought to publication forgotten and unknown women composers and have performed and recorded their music.
None of this seems enough in the face of our new political reality. But it’s a good start. Join me!
When my eight-year-old son walked in the morning after the election and asked me who won, I couldn’t answer him. I just broke down and cried. He knew what that meant. There was fear in his eyes. My heart was broken. I wasn’t prepared to tell him that our country just voted an outspoken, misogynist, racist bigot to be our commander in chief.
I believe every one and every day can make a difference. I went vegetarian just before I turned 18. That was over 23 years ago. I’m raising my kids vegetarian too. You can’t eat a meal with me or go a day as my friend on Facebook without seeing or hearing my conviction in action.
The biggest and best thing I can do to resist is to raise my children to be better adults than the ones who voted for this next president. They need to learn to differentiate between fact and fiction. They need to understand that voting shouldn’t be just about what’s good for you. They need to speak, live, act, and vote with compassion and conviction.
Anyway, I named my son Lennon for a reason. Let’s just hope it works.
My daughter’s name is Jude. Like her namesake song says, now is the time for us to “take a sad song and make it better.”
I have students who claim to get all their news from Facebook. I’m old enough to still be wedded to paper; newspapers and glossy weeklies and monthlies accumulate in all corners of my one-bedroom flat, but it’s clear that that the current activist strategy of choice is the Facebook post. The online site functions as a vast cooperative, a town square or watering hole where everyone with a spare moment drops in to find out what’s happening and how they can be part of the action.
This online community has several advantages over the “meat” universe. It’s always available, as against the gated environments of those who turn off their phones when they’re sleeping, or who simply send all their calls to voicemail. It generally provides a photo of the people you’re sharing thoughts with, and types out their names; as a result, next time you actually encounter these folks in the flesh, you might be able to greet them civilly. Because you’re not in the room with them, it doesn’t matter if they smoke. (Well, it does matter, and it’s still stupid, but at least you don’t have to breathe their exhaust.)
While my email overflows with commercial announcements, Facebook is still primarily personal, and political. We tell each other where the next play, poetry reading, or mass demonstration is forming; we form carpools to get to marches; we celebrate and sympathize and support. Especially as we age, and if we live alone, it provides a crucial lifeline that can be accessed economically. As the horrors of the impending administration become increasingly visible, it provides a place to organize, to fact-check, to find solidarity and companionship as we sort out strategies for keeping the United States a democratic haven for people of all persuasions. I may not be out marching anymore, but I’m certainly paying attention. I read Persimmon Tree for pleasure, but I interact with Facebook as though it were the bulletin board in my college student union, all those many decades ago.
Even before that, there’d been the civil rights marches and demonstrations and sit-ins in Oakland and San Francisco. And the Free Speech Movement – thousands of us in Sproul Hall Plaza, being sung into an administration building sit-in by Joan Baez. We couldn’t afford to go east for Mississippi Summer in 1964, so instead we worked for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in the migrant camps of California’s Central Valley.
After that, there was the anti-war movement and labor organizing in Madison, and Papua New Guinea’s peaceful fight for independence and control over its own resources. And then a lifetime of public service as lawyers and teachers.
We weren’t heroic; we were just a few among many. We are, still, a few among many who, like us, thought all we had to do was speak the truth and the country would wake up to its mistakes and correct them.
For a while, we thought the changes that had been made – the Voting Rights Act; Titles VII and IX; Roe v. Wade; the discrediting of adventures like Vietnam – were permanent, that no one could go back to the bad old ways. But then there were the Nixon ’70s. Surely, we thought, nothing can be as bad as this. And then we discovered the Reagan ’80s could be even worse. And, then, those rollback, rightwing eras were followed – no longer to our surprise – by even worse: the Baby Bush years. Pushbacks in Roe v. Wade, hollowing-out of the Voting Rights Act, nasty little wars destroying the Middle East, bigotry extending to yet more groups.
So here we are, just a few weeks short of a Donald Trump inauguration. Is it worse? Or does it just feel worse because he was ungovernable enough to say the racist, misogynist things that other people just think? Or because 62 million people heard what he said and voted for him anyway? Or because his immediate predecessor was so much his opposite – not just in race, but in grace and intelligence and thoughtfulness and caring. Or perhaps because the Democratic candidate was a woman, giving us so much hope that we were truly in a new era? Or is it because we are so much older now, and, as my friend Bill Rowen, who was also young when we were, wrote on Facebook this week:
I can’t begin to describe my feelings when I consider that I could live out the rest of my life under a Trump presidency. That is such a disastrous thought that I can barely contemplate it. … Although I do believe that the US and the world will recover from him, I don’t know if [we] will be around to see that happen.
So, yes, it is worse. And, it’s up to us to make sure Bill’s prophecy does not come true. So I am going to do what Bill is asking us to do; I’m going to join as many other people as I can to do something about Trump as fast as we can.
Nan Gefen, Publisher: Like most people I know, I am angry about the far-right takeover of the U.S. and afraid of what lies ahead. We’re witnessing the cooption of our country, and it is affecting me and those around me on every level. A friend recently told me she witnessed people arguing loudly at two separate tables in Chez Panisse, Berkeley’s upscale restaurant. A glass of water was thrown at one table, and someone stomped away angrily from the other. Such behavior is a sign of the times.
Since the elections, I’ve been besieged by email calls to action: Fight Trump on climate change! Protect abortion rights! Speak out against racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and injustice! I send money to more than the usual number of organizations, sign and circulate petitions, support demonstrations, and send news of protests to my list. This level of activism is my bottom line, what I’ve been doing regularly for decades, but it seems completely inadequate at this time when so much is at stake.
I won’t feel satisfied with my response to this crisis until I select one issue to fight and give myself over to it. Otherwise I am pulled in every direction, feeling guilty that I’m not doing more against police brutality or the power of Wall Street when I sign a petition for voting rights. I need to find my place, gather my resources, and commit myself to working hard. This does not mean ignoring all the other issues, but I am more effective if I concentrate my energy.
I’ve been here before. When I was concerned about the plight of Palestinians in the late 1980s, I cofounded Tikkun magazine and worked hard to make it succeed as a voice for Palestinian rights, and when I became aware in 2006 of the lack of publishing opportunities for women over 60, I created Persimmon Tree. I did these things because I believed it was my responsibility to do what I could about these issues.
As I think about my place now and in the years ahead, I am aware that my spirit is as strong as it ever has been but my body is less able. I’m not going to start another national magazine or go on the Million Women March in Washington D.C., as much as I wish I could. I will have to find my place at a different level, not as the head of a new project but as a member or supporter, contributing my skills as best I can. But I’ll be there in my own way, part of a community of people fighting to fend off the fascism that threatens to destroy our democracy. And for me, that’s what is important.
91 now, with legs that can’t walk more than a few yards but with a persisting, yes, persisting conviction that women can and must speak up in the face of irresponsible oppression, I will contribute money and I will talk to everyone around. We can’t let this continue.
Tonight is the first time I have ever heard of Persimmon Tree, having been drawn in by the word, “troublemaker.” I have now read every word here, and am heartened anew. I am, as are many of you, a senior citizen (age 71) living on Social Security and dependent for my health care on Medicare and Medicaid. I am the oldest of five sisters; I helped to raise one of my nieces; and I am now helping to raise that niece’s three children. I am a retired journalist and teacher and schoolchild nutrition program monitor — and I became a troublemaker in the 1960s when I came to the conclusion that we have a government that lies to us. In those days I could march, and did. I could write, and I did. I could teach, and I did. For civil rights, against the war in Vietnam. And I got a job with a newspaper where I was trained in computer-assisted research.
Like many of you, I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we have in our White House an evil, amoral, ignorant individual who seems hell-bent on razing our “shining city on a hill.” He is the diametric opposite of everything I was ever taught to demand in our country’s leader. We cannot depend on him and his administration to protect us from the barbarians at the gates: they ARE the barbarians at the gates, rapidly transforming our democratic republic into a kleptocratic kakistocracy — a form of government by the worst elements in society, whose intent is to enrich themselves at public expense.
On June 16, 2015, the day after that individual rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy, I began to research him — every tiny shred of a story I could find, every tangled Internet thread — and it was all there, all the scoops, all the scandals, and shock piled upon shock. I won’t bore you with it all, but I can tell you that what you know is the tip of a “yuuuge” iceberg. I went all the way back to his grandfather, in Playboy and Esquire; in defunct New York gossip magazines like Spy; in countless tidbits from New York gossip columnists, old Howard Stern broadcasts, Mad Magazine; in poems like Woody Guthrie’s “Old Man Trump;” in books and on the Internet; on YouTube. Anyone who looks below the surface can find it. All the things his disciples obviously didn’t — and still don’t — give a damn about.
I’ve looked into his ties to Russia, those of his three oldest children, and those of 10 men involved in his campaign. I’ve looked into the collusion involving Betsy DeVos’ brother and the rogue New York FBI agents allied with Rudy Giuliani to intimidate James Comey and throw the election. I’ve looked into the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, and its 25th Amendment, Section IV, with an eye toward having him either impeached or declared mentally unfit to serve.
Unable to participate in the Women’s March (the spirit was willing, but the flesh is weak), I suggested a slogan to a friend who could and did march, carrying a sign with that slogan: “All men of quality respect women’s equality.” She and I are members of an “indivisibles” group, doing what we can to work in conjunction with our elected officials to resist the dangerous, morally reprehensible, and mean-spirited agenda of the present administration. I am limited in funds, but pledged to do what I can when I can to continue to resist.
Thank you for being here and issuing your call to action!
Judy, my friend, thank you so much for sharing this discovery (Persimmon Tree) with me. I’d never heard of it and it’s perfect for us and many others in our time of life. I, too, am living on a very fixed income and I also have pretty severe arthritis, both of which prevent me from either contributing money or attending marches. I definitely want to be a “troublemaker” in whatever ways I can though. Our political situation is dire and must be fought as often and by as many opposers as possible in whatever ways they are able.
I am pleased with your words on this matter and I feel much as you do. I have never been one to actively get involved in politics thinking I vote and that is all I need to do. But now I vow I will write to congress and make my views known. So many things the new president is already doing makes me ill as I think of all the women who have worked, struggled, to make changes that helped create equality of women in many ways. I grew up as many of you did in the age when women were almost like live in slaves for some husbands. I have seen women abused physically and mentally who could not afford to leave because they had several children to care for and had no education or means to provide for these children. When I see a man like Mr. Trump with his attitude toward women and his reputation with women, I cringe and fear for young women today who don’t realize they must continue to fight for the rights that were gained in the past decade. Although some of our young men today have a better education about gender, they could easily slip back into the old ways. I will urge the young women I know not to sit back as I have, but to speak out and make their voices heard. Thank you all.
Having enjoyed reading PERSIMMON TREE for a number of years, and enthusiastically endorse the concept of a literary/art journal for women over 60, I’ve thought several days before commenting on your new Troublemaker feature. As in the classroom or in any discussion, I strive for an open balance discussion of issues, which I feel you are inviting; but to introduce the concept as a protest, reinforced by a series of comments expressing the same view made me feel I’d wandered into a political rallly, a closed forum. Our whole society has become so divided I wonder if anyone really listens or wants to hear another viewpoint.
I admire yours and others dedication and enthusiasm for a cause and have compassion for those so upset by the election, but having followed politics for most of the 83 years of my life, and not being a part of the Washington/celebrity/intellectual/Wall Street/mainstream media elite, I do not share the outrage. I understand that new voices from folks who are hurting were heard in this election. Many votes for Trump were votes against the concentrated, centralized political power and, in some corners, corruption. I do not like President Trump’s style, I found many of his outbursts outrageous. I also thinks some of the accusaions against him are outrageous. I believe we have to give him a chance. I sincerely believe he wants the best for all Americans. I grew up during WWII and to me patriotism is a noble word. To me it means adherence to our basic American democratic values and freedoms and I believe our new President when he says, “patriotism can harbor no prejudice.”
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” Toni Morrison
And if we are able, we march.
I, too, am horrified at what will happen on January 20. But I have to say I am also saddened and disheartened by the tears and protestations of others, not because I am empathetic to their expressions, but because I am frightened by them. And that’s because so many of the expressions of regret exhibit a truly frightening lack of history and/or reality. We were not, for instance a “democracy” that we have lost to Trump. The fact that we are not a democracy — that, in fact, we are a country of egregious hypocrisy, class prejudice, enormous economic disparity, deep-running racism, sexism and homophobia, and all-too-compliant victims of corporate hegemony — is ignored in those sighs of regret. Please, can we be honest for a while? Please can we admit to the slaughter of the indigenous peoples when white people came here? Please can we be open about the fact that people stolen from Africa built this country and still suffer from being second-class (at best) citizens? Please can we speak of the hunger of our children, the sickness which goes untreated? Can we acknowledge the new slavery of our bloated prison system, overfilled with people of color? And can we who write things for publications like this please own up to the fact that millions of people who do not share our privileges are despised by us (and that includes me, too — I am guilty of that which I charge others) for being coarse, poor, ignorant and unrefined, who lead lives that most of us know absolutely nothing about and do not care to learn?
Until we are able to see ourselves in all our ugliness (instead of boasting of our merits and fictitious democracy), we can make no intelligent move as a people. With the possible exception of those who have the courage to be out in the streets, we are like Munch’s “The Scream”: visibly terrified but silent and intransitory.
“Nice” never got anyone anywhere. It won’t help us now, either.
Judy — you are my new BFF …
Just discovered your on-line magazine and read the Troublemakers essays. At 80 with only Social Security and a small (thanks Pence for no raise for years) retirement from Indiana, I have a narrow ability to contribute monetarily to any cause. I do sign on-line petitions, I do post and share for causes I believe in. I continue to hope we can not only survive the Orange Adverb King and his cohorts, but become stronger in pursuit of the overall good. I have self-published on Amazon, and have written about all kinds of things since childhood. But I have been totally depressed since the election about the end of Obama’s time in office and the awful unpredictables coming into office. I want the Democrats to come out of the cave where they have been sitting staring at the bonfire since the election. I hope you will find more loud voices, more physically able protesters, and writers who can express universal concerns in positive ways. I plan to post the Bill Rowen comment on my Facebook page, where I frequently write what I hope are prodding comments to those younger and more able to influence others than I. Sometimes I feel I have wasted too much time this life, but three sons, 8 grandchildren, 4 greats reflect my choices. Guilt is the most useless emotion. If I am inspired and feel courageous I will write something of quality and submit it. Keep on keeping on ladies.
MaryLu: “I want the Democrats to come out of the cave where they have been sitting staring at the bonfire since the election.” Exactly! Maybe the country-wide (worldwide?) marches will prod them to move.
Greetings from the Resistance.
George Takei’s fantastic piece: Welcome to the Resistance: http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/12/21/george-takeiwelcome-resistance
Very similar to our own troublemakers concert!
Here in the U.S. we are learning what Europeans have known for some centuries — that when fear, political despair and anger reach a certain level, they find their way into the literary arts and merge powerfully with song and the written word. At this unusual time of crisis for our country, I was proud to see Persimmon Tree take on the realities developing since Nov. 9. For me, it has felt like a ‘takeover’ from the start and grows steadily worse with Trump’s appointees, fiscal complexities and blatant disregard of the traditions and moralities of our country. An old friend, Mary H., now in her 90’s, remarked to me during the early W years, “what has become of sustained outrage in this country?” After feeling both outraged and impotent for weeks after the election, I realized that although in my 80’s, I am a writer, and write I must in order to “do something.” I now send emails to the major players in Congress and anyone else who wields power and influence. I applaud PT for publishing all the above comments and feel proud of my wise women friends fpr their contributions. Thank you.
All of these essays and comments share the despair I am feeling. After so many years of progress on social issues, we face a future of sliding backward, even into a despotic regime. Thank you for your comments and encouragement.
When I woke up that morning to hear the final results of the election I felt as if a very close friend had died. I guess I would describe that feeling as deeply felt grief. Then there was the desperate hope that he wasn’t as outrageous as he seemed. But as he picks his cabinet it becomes obvious that he is and I have become even more depressed. I am 80 years old and have never been a troublemaker. On Facebook, I have not shared anti republican views so as not to offend relatives and a few friends who lean toward the right. That will change. I think of my children and grandchildren and cannot lift myself from this despairing mood. In such a mood it is hard to act even though I know to act is the only solution. I will start with Facebook.
speak to your children and grandchildren — in a loud voice — years from now they will remember you and your powerful words
“Despair and anger” just about describes what I and most of my friends my age (70s) are feeling. Democracy in the United States is threatened; the corporate control described in Marge Piercy’s novel He, She and It (1984) is already here. Neo-fascism is rising here and in the European countries, taking nerve from the apparent election of a media-created monster who should never have got this far. Everything my parents and grandparents worked for throughout the 20th century–public education, collective bargaining, economic security, social mobility, religious freedom, gender equality, the peaceful coexistence of people from many different countries–seems to be unraveling. Like the editors, I’m not physically fit enough for mass demonstrations. But, my voice still carries to the back row. I know a thing or two about resistance and organizing for change. And, I can coach others. These guys ignore us at their peril.
Thank you SO MUCH for this uplifting and wonderful call to action!! I’ve shared it with fellow writers and also over at Daily KOS, where I’m part of a poetry sub-group, and often post poets of protest. I will look at your guidelines and send something soon. I hope you will be accepting protest poetry, as well.
I too am outraged, fearful, worried about the future of our country come January 20, 2017. Living on a fixed income I am financially unable to contribute to causes that are at risk. However, I sign petitions and let my voice be heard when ever possible. Having always been silent about politics and hesitant to reveal my views, this travesty has awakened the dragon in me. I will do what ever I can to help organizations keep our country a democracy.