“Niemöller was right. I can’t sit this one out.”
We are three cousins from an extended Jewish family. Together as a family we are contributing a $3500 matching challenge for Refuse Fascism / #OutNOW! – to build the movement from below, getting and staying in the streets non-violently until this regime is driven from power. Trump/Pence OutNOW! We believe that we and our story are far from unique and so beyond this we want to make a second challenge to all those who are within the range of our voice. We’ll come back to that in a second. But first…
Like many Jews, we know about the Holocaust and we’re well aware of the fact that Trump is playing straight from Hitler’s playbook. And we’ve been doing a lot of talking. We’ve been talking about fascism coming to America. We’ve been talking about this Trump/Pence regime for 3 years. We’ve been talking about how horrible it all is, about what we should and could do beyond relying on the system and hoping. We’ve been talking about what others are doing, about is there really a way to stop this nightmare.
But what are we doing? How are we not going to become this generation’s version of the “good Germans”. One of us went to a Refuse Fascism protest and also recently attended one of our webinars – but had to leave early. Lots of questions – lots of doubts. “So small”. “Is this really possible?”
Recently we finally had “the talk” but in a different way. We were together at a Bar Mitzvah and had the chance to touch base. Prompted by one of us who is a Refuse Fascism activist, we started talking together – about what we might be able to do together as a family. To get to that, we talked about this current situation, about the launching of the #OutNOW! Movement. About the acute danger of a regime that is as we speak consolidating fascism, stomping on the Constitution and the rule of law. About how the Democratic party leadership in opposing it “their way” is pursuing a strategy that left to its own devices shows little to no chance of stopping this march to hell. Keeping the tens of millions of us locked into ineffectual channels of opposition. About how dire this situation is – and at the same time how, especially now with the launching of impeachment, that there is a real opportunity for the people right now to break through this and become that 3rd force that could change everything – a real chance to drive them out!
At one key point, one of us – in his usual terse style – put it this way summing up his feelings:
“Niemöller was right. I can’t sit this one out.”
Then the other cousins did more talking among themselves. “Has he called you yet”? “What do you think”?
And so we decided to come together to act in this way, to be part of and support this movement.
Now back to our second challenge. We have seen and been inspired by many of the things that Refuse Fascism has done. We want to acknowledge some of those who have influenced us along the way.
The 100 Handmaids in Philly and beyond. One of our daughters is reading the Handmaid’s Tale and discussing it in her class and is deeply disturbed by it.
The “Mamas” that came out in NYC, some with their kids, with their sign “All Kids Are Our Kids”. This is very moving for us as a family – it sets an example and a model – it opens up a channel for many more to come into this movement. And thanks to (I think it was) Bo from LA who used the evocative phrase “we’re trying to open up channels for people”.
Our second challenge:
We do believe we are far from unique. So could we and what we’ve done become a model for other families to come together and do as we’ve done – create larger matching challenge funds – $1000 – $5000 – $10,000? We know most families don’t have the financial resources we do – and we know that lots and lots of small donations are also vital – but some families do have these kinds of resources, right? Can other families like ours help raise the level of funds needed to propel #OutNOW! to be a movement of millions?
So are we right? We’re not unique, are we? Please help us find out.