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March just the beginning

On Saturday Jan. 21, I marched with the upbeat, and bigger than expected, crowd of diverse people standing up for rights and truths we all cherish.

On Saturday Jan. 21, I marched with the upbeat, and bigger than expected, crowd of diverse people standing up for rights and truths we all cherish.

The news over the weekend, however, diminished the excitement and euphoria of that event.

Trump took action to reverse progress on women’s reproductive rights in the U.S. and beyond.

His press secretary lambasted the press for telling the truth about the size of the inauguration day crowd rather than the inflated numbers the administration wanted to have reported.

References to climate change were deleted from the White House website, and Trump advocated a rebuilding of the coal industry. (Really? Who would want more cases of black lung and acid rain-killed forests?)

And ultra-right wing politicians around the world are flexing their muscles and thumping their chests.

So we will have to do more than a one-time march. We might have to do what the East Germans did to bring down the Wall — march every week. Or maybe we’ll march on the 21st of every month.

Some of us will stop using Twitter. Some of us will drop our subscriptions to newspapers and magazines that report false news. Some of us will use social media to share important information, like that other countries have NOT taken away American jobs, as Trump claims. Rather, American multi-millionaires and billionaires have shipped jobs overseas, where wages are pathetically low, in order to increase their own personal wealth. Some of us will boycott products made by those corporations.

Some of us will communicate directly with U.S. and Canadian politicians to demand moral action. Some of us will choose other travel destinations than the U.S. or those resorts owned by the wealthy class. Some of us will donate money and time to organizations doing important work for humanity and the environment, organizations which could lose government funding. Some of us will write, draw, dance, sculpt, and sing positive messages.

And all of us must stay informed via reliable honest sources. And all of us must take care to keep up our spirits, to keep the faith.

Dianne Homan,

Whitehorse