https://brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/ep-38-anger-and-hope
"
Hello Friends!
Welcome to Bright Green Futures, Episode Thirty-Eight: Anger and Hope
I created Bright Green Futures to lift up stories about a more sustainable
and just world and talk about the struggle to get there.
A friend reminded me of a post I wrote, on my personal blog, almost a year ago
in March 2025. She shared it with a friend who had just gotten back from a
vigil in Minnesota and was struggling. She wanted her friend to have anger
and hope, and this piece, titled “Anger is Not the Opposite of Hope” spoke to
both.
I want to share it with you, but first, I have a hard time articulating how
deeply this touched me: my friend reaching out to support her friend, her using
my words to help, that she thought to tell me about it. These webs of support
and community we are building through the Trump regime’s acts of brutality are
not just key to surviving and fighting, they are literally the world we’re
fighting for. The world I want to live in is one built upon support and care as
foundational values, where we understand freedom applies to everyone, where
neighbors step up to protect neighbors and yes, even strangers.
The fascists do not understand that most of us do this automatically. That
compassion and a sense of justice are intrinsic to who we are. They call
themselves “heritage Americans” while trying to erase the history of us
fighting for exactly this better world, from the beginning, back when we were a
stubborn and audacious people who declared independence from a king. The
original No Kings protests were 250 years ago this year, and these monsters
running our country right now want you to forget that while waving the flag
they fought to destroy in the Civil War. While they scream at us to comply with
their brutality.
They can’t understand why we refuse because they’ve never had to fight for
basic human rights. Unlike the women of this country, the Black and brown
people, the queer and Indigenous ones. Unlike immigrants who came here, drawn
by the promise of our ideals only to experience the ugliness of our bigotry. We
understand that those who fancy themselves “heritage Americans” have never
embodied the ideals that can actually make America great. Ideals of equality
and freedom, that none of us are free unless all of us are free. That there
cannot be some people above the law, that impunity for some destroys everything
for all. They do not understand compassion and empathy, at all, much less that
welcoming immigrants literally built the nation.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”
Fascists only understand the “logic” of brutality. It is their greatest
weakness."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
