“History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes” – Mark Twain
What would you do if you knew that officers were coming to take Olivier and Gabri away from Three Pines because they’re gay? Would you try to stop the officers? Would you stand back and watch from behind your windows? Would you point out the B&B to help the officers find the pair more easily?
The National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam outlines Dutch reactions to German occupiers, dividing the population into three groups: people who resisted, people who did nothing and people who cooperated with the Nazis.
What would Gamache do? What would the Clara, Ruth, Myrna and the rest of the Three Pines villagers do?
What will you do?
We are at a moment in time when you must make your decision. This fight is unlike any other we’ve had before. Never before have women been equally important and capable of fighting. Never before could we fight from the comfort of our own homes, using the power of a few taps on our phones to show our strength.
Many resistors who have been calling since the start of the appointments are expressing discouragement as they feel that their calls haven’t made a difference. Some may have taken a break from calling. That is why this is exactly when we must find the strength and courage fight harder and persevere.
At this stage, it is a psychological battle – they are trying to show force to make you feel powerless and compliant. You must show an even greater strength in your volume of calls to show them that they have not succeeded. This is a critical moment in time. Presidential approval ratings, often bolstered by disinformation and propaganda, are essential for regimes to carry out their agendas. The entire world will feel the effects of this regime.
Your silence will be taken as a sign of approval of what is happening and what will happen. If you do not approve, please make your voice heard.
We will fight with you. Let’s show them how loudly we can roar.
We admins have already taken action to resist with you, just as Canadians have fought beside our American friends in past battles. We’ve created a special space for our community of resistors to share information and resources. This is our safe space for communicating, for helping and for supporting one another.
We now have two initiatives to #FightBack.
- #PhoneTax Fridays (see below)
- Pop-up Book Club Discussions
Every #PhoneTax Friday, we’ll publish a post on Facebook to create the opportunity to show appreciation, support and encouragement for our friends who are making the effort to #FightBack.
#PhoneTax will be our call to action to encourage resistors to call, email or visit US representatives and senators and make our voices heard.
What we need to do to support this campaign:
A tap after a tap after a tap is power.
Members have already started sharing valuable tools to our #FightBack knowledge base that can be used to facilitate the calls, including useful apps that have scripts and contacts. The ideas to call both Democrats and Republicans, as well as reps in all states, has also been offered, with an insight that “It might be most important to contact Republicans as they are the party that has no spine and hold the majority of the votes”. Thank you Libby and Susan!
If you have more ideas or calls to action, please add them to our #FightBack knowledge base. This will be our central space for resources. Please make a point to check this space daily for updates. We are only just getting started.
#PhoneTax is our first step in citizen activism, for everyone who is willing and capable of fighting back. For those interested and capable of doing more, we will be outlining additional steps we can take to help improve societal health. There is much we can do, and we will need to work together to do it.
Do not give up hope. That is their goal and it’s up to you to determine if you will let them break you. Keep busy with our work, with your personal joys, with our shared space here to offer comfort and support for all who need it.
When everything is hopeless, you are the hope.
Do the calls even matter? Yes. Here’s a comment from today, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025, “I attended two town halls in Oregon this week. What I learned: The calls matter. Our senators and representatives want them and use them. Keep the energy up, stay involved.” ~ Dolores Niebergall
“One of the Town Halls was with one of our senators and the other with one of our representatives. Someone in the audience asked why the representatives can’t arrest Musk and why our reps aren’t making law suits. Representatives in the House are limited from pursuing litigation. At least the minority is. I don’t understand exactly how that works. Judges can’t make rulings unless there are lawsuits. The lawsuits and actions need to come from the people and the organizations who want to see the judicial branch make judgement on the unlawful actions. Much us up to We the People. The representatives cannot arrest Musk. Courts need all the documentation they can when charges are pressed, and these need to come from people and organizations they support.” ~ Dolores Niebergall
As a nod to our lighthearted call to action for #CatTax on BCF, here is my cat tax to pay for this post.
Note: We’ve discussed social media and Facebook to some extent here on BCF (#TechnologyIssues) and although there are growing calls to move away from FB, it’s clear that the platform is wildly popular. It seems reasonable to take advantage of its popularity to advocate for human rights. We still encourage decreased use for purely social interactions and note that Bluesky and Signal are becoming more popular ways to connect with friends, family, public figures and communities. We have no affiliation with either of these two platforms.
“To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted. But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside? Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out.”
― Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead
Thank you for this post, Jane. My way of speaking out right now is to not buy any American products. I am also committed to not travel to the US for the next four years. I don’t think real change will happen until their economic bottom line is being noticeably affected. I just feel deeply sorry for my American friends who are so appalled, shocked and hurting right now. They didn’t vote for this beast or want any of this. We must respond in ways which defend our autonomy, protect our democracy, and uphold our humanitarian values. Gamache would do the same.
Perhaps it’s impossible to fully comprehend evil unless our own way of living has become exposed and vulnerable. I think what Louise Penny is particularly gifted at is conveying this in her writing. When we open our minds, it yields in us a broader acceptance of our shared humanity. To choose to remain silent, is I believe, to diminish our personal responsibility to creating a better, kinder, more compassionate world for all people, and that should be the goal of any government.
I appreciate the update with the comment from the post! It’s heartening to see that efforts are achieving results. I can imagine how frustrating and demoralizing it is to constantly get canned responses or busy signals or endless ringing without any positive feedback at all. But that is their strategy, isn’t it? Demotivate to induce submission so they can rule over the population with ease. Happy to see the good news post in the forums with the videos showing some examples of pushback. I am so certain that there are many more examples, but they aren’t being circulated as much. They control the media now, so it’s more difficult, but not impossible.