I try to get to as many political rallies as I can to voice my resistance to the Trump administration’s criminal attempts to destroy the constitution; to register my opposition to a billionaire’s taking a chainsaw to the lives and livelihoods of hard-working families; and to stand with friends and neighbors to contest the obliteration of due process and wrongful imprisonment of people who are innocent of any crime.
And I always come away from those rallies feeling like there’s got to be something more I can do, something more we all can do, something practical that might make some small difference in how things are tending in this country. And I have to admit that I don’t know what that is. But I keep looking.
But my partner and I have discovered one thing that can seem small and ineffectual, but which really makes a world of difference. More than ever before, we’re trying to get friends over for dinner when we can, people we know and like, people we would like to get to know better, people who share our concerns — or not: people we respect but who have other points of view. Progressive or conservative, we are all thinking about politics right now, locally and nationally. I don’t know anyone who is not at this moment in our country’s history genuinely concerned for the public good.
Solidarity begins around a dinner table. It starts with friends talking, supporting each other, offering encouragement and reassurance and looking together for reasonable and effective actions that we might take together, right here in Juneau, to fight back.
One of my favorite rock musicians, Neil Young, has been quoted as remarking that music doesn’t change the world, and I disagree heartily. Big changes can come from small effects. One might argue too that having friends over for dinner doesn’t change a damn thing. But these small things — like art and music; like shopping locally; like having friends for dinner — these small things can change the world the only way the world ever changes: one person at a time.
There’s more to do, for sure, and I keep looking. I just reread Thoreau’s famous essay on civil disobedience, and if it’s been a while since you read it, it’s worth another look. Thoreau has one insight that rings frighteningly true: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
It’s a scary thought, but maybe he’s right; maybe we all have to start committing meaningful acts of civil disobedience and getting our asses thrown in Jail. In the meantime, before we all end up behind bars, have some friends over for dinner.
• Jane Hale lives in Juneau with her partner and their two poodles.
