Chop Wood, Carry Water 11/11
For Mildred
Hi, all,
Happy Veterans Day. In honor of all who have served, I’m going to keep this short. But a couple of things must be said today, of all days:
I finished All the Frequent Trouble of Our Days last night—I was up quite late at it. The end is both gutting and deeply stirring. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that Mildred Harnack (pictured above) was executed by Hitler shortly before the end of the war, along with many, many of her fellow fighters. It’s almost impossible to fathom the risks they knowingly took, and the consequences of those risks in the end. Pure horror.
As much as any soldier, they—regular people who never signed up for such a thing—gave their lives to fight fascism.
It is in honor of them, too, that we must fight. We are—so far—not being asked to take serious physical risk. So far we live in a country where there are guardrails on our military, and where we can criticize our government without fear.
So far.
All I am being asked to do is make a few calls, attend a few meetings, participate in elections, maybe knock on a few doors…all to ensure that it stays that way.
It’s the very least I can do.
So I offer this small set of actions for you today:
First, consider posting something like this on your social media.
Feel free to copy my text or use your own. And be sure to choose from the many beautiful GIFs the Into Action Team have made for Veterans Day here.
And then, of course, make the calls to your two Senators. You can literally say:
“On this Veterans Day I’m honoring all of those who have served by asking you, my Senator, to fight to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Acts as soon as possible. There is no better way to show respect for our servicemembers than to keep fighting for the same cause they’ve ALL fought for—our democracy. Thanks.”
Think this is pointless? It’s very much not. I was on a briefing yesterday with a few Democratic Senators and Congressmembers who assured us that these bills are NOT dead. Quite the contrary. They insist they can be passed, but they need us to keep a steady pressure on every Senator now.
You can do this in your sleep. So please do.
If you are a current or former service member, thank you. My actions today are for you.
And for Mildred, of course.
Talk tomorrow,
Jess
Thank you for recognizing the brave who are not in uniform. It takes a village.