It’s OK to Change Your Mind

15,000 people sang (this) to ICE at the conclusion of the “Be Human” Brandi Carlile concert last week in Minneapolis. The concert was livestreamed and raised $600,000 for immigrant families. It was a powerful statement of loving resistance and the words keep echoing in my mind and heart. They sang, and I found myself singing too, “It’s OK to change your mind, and you can join us, join us anytime.”

Singing Resistance is growing across the country. As Minneapolis faced immense pain, rage, and grief, they found the courage to “fight back with love”. Calling upon the conscience of these mercenaries of hate, Minneapolis dared to invite ICE agents to walk away from the path of violence. and to “take accountability for harm they’ve caused”. There are now 95 chapters of Singing Resistance calling for Saturday, February 28 and Sunday, March 1 to be nationwide singing actions. They will be coordinated in locations such as Dilley Detention Center in Texas, or in corporate locations that have contracts with ICE.

The Minneapolis Singing Resistance Instagram, posted that they were inspired by Otpor the Serbian Civil Resistance movement who overthrew dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Regularly arrested and beaten by police, the protestors would then show up to police stations and officers’ houses chanting “You may not join us today, but you can join us tomorrow”. In the final hours of their revolution, hundreds of thousands of people marched on Belgrade. Milosevic ordered the police and military to fire on the massive crowds. They refused. They were done being on the wrong side of history.” 

There are singing resistance groups springing up throughout the Driftless region. And whether you are able to join a group sing or not, there is no doubt that song has always been used to help us overcome hardships and oppression. Find your voice, give it your love and resist inhumanity.

photo from Michael Tisserand, Facebook

We’ve Had Enough

The $tate of the Union is scheduled for Tuesday, February 24. Groundswells of people, including Congressional members, will be tuning it out. What better way to steal the thunder of one who feasts on false accolades than to ignore him? Media will be paid to record, regurgitate and correct or bolster every line, saving us our precious time. After the speech we will be force fed false stories of grandiose exceptionalism as they desperately try to have us not look behind the curtain of illusion. Bets could and should be made on how many times the Epstein files are mentioned. Odds are not at all. And there will unlikely be no mention of our “peace” president’s blockade on Cuba that is crippling that sovereign nation. Nor will we learn any more clarity on the possibility of going to war with Iran and what role Israel plays in our ongoing militarism. 

And this administration has refused to reel in the inhuman acts of the mercenaries called ICE, paid for by the “big beautiful bill” with Congressional approval. Our tax dollars are funding Department of Homeland Security detention centers that are essentially prisons, and one must wonder, if criminal deportation is the point, why are so many prisons necessary?

We live in an imperialist and racist nation. One that hid the truth of Native American genocide and the anguishes of slavery. We’ve allowed the myths of grandeur to cloud our vision and to promote this grotesque new normal we are living in. 

But as the realities of child rape and sex trafficking through the elite world cabal comes to light, surely, we are ready to say, “We’ve had enough”. 

It’s time for a revolution of kindness. Kindness to ourselves, to our children and to the children and people throughout the world harmed by imperialism, environmental extraction and debauchery. 

It’s time for a worldwide human revolution. Let’s stop letting ignorance lead. Do something meaningful during the $tate of the Union that will help bring power to its knees. Not listening to there $tate of the Union is a start. Create a new narrative of love, community, diversity and joy. Because we can.

Lead With Love. Not Compromise.

It’s almost done. We’ve normalized lying. We’ve normalized bullies. We’ve normalized child abuse. We’ve normalized genocide. We have done so cloaked in the United States flag and sanctioned by the Bible.  

The Israeli war criminal visits Washington to ensure the United States plays hardball with Iran. Another ship is blown up in the Pacific, killing two and leaving one survivor for the coast guard. No word on his condition or if he was indeed rescued. That’s 126 people killed. No mention of wrongful death lawsuits filed by families of fishermen. Murders continue unabated.

The Epstein files are wreaking havoc in Europe and Great Britain, but we’re quite willing to allow pedophiles and crypto maniacs run our show. And ICE is not even close to being abolished, let alone reigned in as Bondi’s DOJ hearings made mockery of truth, justice and humanity. 

Yet there was Bad Bunny, reminding us we are all America. Reminding that Love is greater. Demonstrating truth to power in the most celebratory ways. Viva the Puerto Rican independent spirit – may we all learn from it.  There was Brandy Carlile with a powerful and almost mournful America the Beautiful. 

It’s Black History Month. I am grateful that my social media connections are filled with remembrances championing the strength and clarity of those who walked before us. The ones who faced hatred but did not flinch. They held to their humanity – as we must now, too. James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Frederick Douglas and countless more. Read them. Drink in their wisdom and stop cowering in White fear.  

Look to those supporting our mutual hope for humanity, that we may still win.

Lead with love and fight like hell.

“Not the Country That I Knew”

“Not the country I knew” is a common phrase these days as we slowly awaken to the reality of federal masked agents roaming our streets with a license to kill. And while the phrase may be true for White people of means, it most certainly is not for People of Color, the Poor or Queer Folk.

It’s ten years since I stood with Indigenous People in frigid weather to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. I was there as militarized police shot rubber bullets that maimed, as water cannons blasted humans in sub-zero temps and as LRADs were deployed against the peaceful water protectors. I wrote of what I witnessed to chronicle the account and as a warning: if it could be done here to peaceful citizens, it could happen anywhere. It was under Obama’s watch and my awakening to the corporate militaristic ties to our government began in earnest.

The public executions of Philando Castile and George Floyd shocked the public but were all but forgotten. The majority chose to go on without accountability. Back the Blue signs went up and Black Lives Matter became the problem. Again.

In 2023, the Georgia State Patrol shot and killed a twenty-six-year-old environmental Queer activist, Tortuguita, at Atlanta’s Cop City. They had been shot 14 times “by different firearms” while sitting in a tent.

And in my lifetime, the police battering of Civil Rights activists, Stonewall leaders and the Delano Grape boycotters demonstrated the collusion between police and corporate – to name just a few of state violence against marginalized people. 

Our history is loaded with militarized and vigilante violence. This is the country I know.

The latest denial of US complicity to militarism is the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. The media and Biden and Trump governments fed falsehoods and cover-ups – and most of us swallowed it. Some still do.

Malcolm X was chastised for saying “The chickens coming home to roost” following the assassination of President Kennedy. In a country that has promoted systemic violence and refused to live up to the promises of its creation, pointing out the climate of hate was indeed radical.

Now, perhaps, this authoritarian regime may force us to recognize when one of us is not safe, none of us are safe. It’s not a question of right or left. It’s an understanding of human dignity.

And let’s not ignore the violence towards children and women as the cabal of pedophiles and torturers are exposed. The chickens have definitely come home.

The Unraveling

The twisted threads of violence and hate are not new to us. They’ve been woven into the fabric of this nation from its beginning. To continue to deny the presence of white supremacy or to whitewash it in any way only prolongs the agony of its existence. To ignore misogyny or the usury of capitalism as destructive forces in our society keeps us from stepping into our rightful place as human beings, capable of choice and of peaceful coexistence.

Learn from the modern abolition movement and the wisdom of uplifting communities to abolish the need for policing. It makes total sense. There is hope there. There is courage there. There is vision.

It’s weary making listening to politicians argue the necessity for militarized police or insist that change must come slowly. They invite us into their complicity with a system that has fed class struggle. A system that has divided us through artificial stereotypes of race. A system that rebukes those who challenge it by imprisonment and worse. And now they are debating the reform of ICE and too many are refusing to demand it be abolished. Kicking the can down the road to surface once more. There is no way to reform a policing system that has roots in slave capture or of Indigenous genocide. The roots of ignorance run deep and we must not be tricked again.

The police state is a profit-making machine and we, through our government, are footing the bill, both financially and in the damage to our souls. To continue to allow the very loud but very few voices to dominate this transition is foolish at best, self-destructive at worst. Both political parties have benefited from allowing militarized policing to thrive. Our collective willingness to supply and and fund the genocide of Palestinian people was a precursor to what we are witnessing on our streets today.

Ask yourself why you believe and have faith in militarization? Do you recognize that fear has been induced into our psyche and shaped our decisions for generations? Can you see how it keeps us from our humanity and fuels this moment of violence?

The money poured into militarization and ICE could go a long way towards the healing that we desperately need.

Kudos to the people who are coming to these understandings and putting their bodies on the line. Kudos to the ones who are standing up to family and friends who have bullied with fear and untruths. Kudos to all who are taking a stand, in whatever way, for our mutual humanity.

There is no easy path towards our healing. There is no more waiting for those who refuse to live in a good way. We must, with everything in our beings, forge on. We must participate in this great unraveling, this untangling of the threads of injustice, and reject the leadership of hate and deceit.

We must acknowledge our history and make a conscious choice to live differently. It is not only possible. It is essential.

Resistance Bird compliments of The Aunties Dandelion. Permission given to share.

Stand for one another.

Demand accountability. We are still being played. Removing one henchman for another as the head of ICE in Minneapolis yet the grotesque acts of violence continue. Main stream media remains complicit, as do the leadership of both parties.

Listen to Senator Klobachar make her milk toast case for ICE reform on PBS. Not abolishing ICE, reforming ICE. Why?

Listen to marginalized voices. For once. Step into your humanity.

I gain strength listening to the voices of those unafraid to speak truth. However hard. I gain strength acknowledging what I have known all along. It will take more of us to bring about the change we know must surely come. Pay attention. Participate in this transformation. Wherever you are.

Trajectory

I’ve been thinking a lot about trajectory. So, I took a moment to look up the word. “The path of a flying object moving under the action of given forces”. In Latin, it roughly translates to “throw across”. I found this over simplification rather boring and so I read on about the trajectory of life. It referred to the overall path one’s life is taking, with an emphasis on cumulative choices and experiences that can be intentionally guided or altered.

Now that’s more like it. Intentionally guided choices, not the throw of the dice take-what-comes theory of life. But the reminder that our relationship to life’s experiences, however harmful, however elated, can be altered by our choice. That I am not a victim to circumstance; I have the free will to perceive and the gift of conscious choice to steer my trajectory. And while I may not be able to alter the external, I most definitely can choose the path of my soul.  

How I think and what I choose to give my attention to is my hidden power. And once I arrive at my knowing about any given subject, it’s my duty to preserve my compass and maintain the chosen trajectory of my life. It is my duty and my responsibility to hold the course of the Good within me. And that need not have words, nor does it need to be seen. 

Today confusion challenges us. We’re easily motivated by consumptive greed and fall prey to power and the seemingly powerful. And in doing so we forgo the discernment that is gifted to us at birth. 

Be clear about your goal. And do everything you can to keep it in line with your highest possibility. It is available to you.

The good news is while it’s easy to get lost; it is as easy to right ourselves. Seek wisdom within. Choose your trajectory wisely.

As I looked for images of trajectories, arrows and such, I came across this little image and the author was “youth hostel” and they gave it freely “to the world”. Whoever you are, thank you. We share a similar trajectory. It captures my piece precisely. Even the smile.

Abolish ICE

Created as part of the Homeland Security Act; ICE began in 2003. Currently, if separated from the federal government, it’s estimated that ICE would rank 13th in the world as a militarized army. And now as people are beginning to challenge the legitimacy of militarized and masked police in neighborhoods, smashing car windows, brutally accosting men, women and children one has to wonder who still supports this and why?

Have we not had enough violence? Why have we allowed, without conscience or dignified care, families severed and human beings detained in deplorable conditions? Is our hatred of people who are different so great that we’re willing to see an escalation in inhumanity? Three shots to the head of an unarmed woman and no one is in custody. A Black father and citizen killed by an off-duty agent because he celebrated New Year’s Eve. Are the screams of the children not reaching our ears? Who are you: the ones who cheer these obscene acts? Who are you: the silent ones? 

We have another opportunity to reel in this rogue organization. An appropriations package to further inflate ICE’s budget is being considered by Congress. It must pass with 60 votes. If Republicans hold to their capitulation to this administration, there would still be a need for seven Democrats to support the increase to ICE. Democrats must not support this increased funding. We can and must make that clear. The January 30th deadline to stop this vote is looming. We have time to bring it to an end.

This is when ordinary citizens must become extraordinary. This is when the silent must speak.

Frederick Douglas famously reflected, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”. 

Demand legislators vote against increasing ICE funding. And while you’re at it call for ICE to be abolished. 

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

In Wisconsin? Support Voces de la Frontera

PEOPLE OVER PAPERS

Graphic by Just Seeds

America First is America Alone

We are desensitized to killing. Leadership no longer recognizes nor respects international law or the norms of human decency. The United States / Israeli partnership continues the genocide of Palestinians. Turning our backs on this slaughter has empowered it. We have forsaken the independence of Ukraine and the slaughter in Sudan. The United States Christmas bombing in Nigeria was useless propaganda that harmed innocent civilians. We’re still unclear about the nearly one hundred sailors and fishermen blown up in the Caribbean. And as we learn of eighty civilians and soldiers and thirty-two Cubans killed by our bombs in Venezuela, we are distracted by the desire to take over Greenland. No time to mourn. Threats of militarization and regime change have been made regarding Mexico, Iran, Columbia, Cuba and continue in Venezuela. 

America first is now America alone. Might is right has replaced our humanity. And who will stop the United States military, led by ruthless capitalists stealing land and oil and protecting their ultra rich crony pedophiles? 

A senseless murder in Minneapolis at the hands of ICE brings the ruthlessness back home. The lies and propaganda still work on a handful, but the streets are and will continue to be lined with human beings saying “No More”. No more disappearing our neighbors and friends. No more theft of our souls.

Project 2025, the authoritarian playbook disguised as a manual for the creation of a Christian nation, is afoot, and the ignorant are all for it.

If you’re still supporting this madness, it’s doubtful these words will touch you. I write for those who see the calamity before us and to encourage the silent fringe to wake up, that we may remove the bullies we have empowered and allow the possibility of peace to reign.

Reclaiming our humanity with courage and dignity will stop this death march.  

In our human belonging, we are never alone.

Vigil for Renee Good, brutally murdered by ICE in Minneapolis, 1/7/26

Warriors of Love

Take time for the stillness in your heart. As we emerge from a year of brutal cruelty, we must take stock of our strengths. This battle is not over. Our humanity is not lost. We have been silent for too long, complicit with a status quo that never cherished our individuality, never championed our gifts. This is a time to draw upon the wisdom born of compassion and empathy. It’s not a time to cower in fear. This is our moment to rediscover the gratitude for the life we have been given; and to hone the courage needed to repel the ignorance devouring us. 

Doubt is not our friend. As we engage in a world corrupted by greed and poisoned with artificial truths, we must shake off indifference. We must become Warriors of Love. 

In honor of those who came before us, with all of their hopes and dreams for our better world and for those who will come after us, we must fight. 

Fight using the weapons we already hold: clarity, discernment, choice. History has repeated itself, because we have allowed it. But in that history, there has been a singular vision that has triumphed again and again. That vision is the possibility of peace. Not a ‘pie in the sky’ peace. It is a fundamental part of who we are and have always been. More of us are needed to cherish and cultivate it.

The ignorant laugh, but in truth the external power used to curtail us is nothing compared to what we carry – when we choose to deploy. 

Deploy love and kindness. Help one another. We’ve got this. 

WELCOME 2026!

Watch You Are In Charge – with the encouraging words of Prem Rawat

Be Amazed

I’m not a fan of amusement parks. I was a child with my father by my side on what I think was the only roller coaster ride of my life. I didn’t mind the bumper cars, I suspect it had something to do with maintaining some semblance of control. The tilt a whirl did me in. And I hunch this early loathing of what others seemingly enjoyed was a precursor of what would drive my life’s choices. I am willing to try things once, but if that once tells me it is not for me, so be it. 

And that, my friends, is the basis of discernment. From what I can tell the ability to choose is absent for too many of us today. Some people love to be dazzled by facts. And, if we are not clear about what is essential, as the facts spin, we spin with them. Some people are addicted to winning; it doesn’t matter in what form. But the gamble that comes from not knowing what is ultimately precious has given rise to greed. 

Some of us have danced with the devil and have learned how devastating that can be. Knowing your potential for doing harm is a powerful gift. It can help us remember there is another dance waiting for us. Choosing to not harm is a good starting point. 

This time of winter, of drawing inward, of contemplating new beginnings can open us to a whole new way of being, a whole new dance. We have learned the ways of external power. We are witness to its cruelty. It will be a decisive victory when we choose to walk away from this vacancy of humanity and embrace our full and powerful potential.

Hone the skills of being human. Open the gifts that have been with us since birth.

Be amazed.