Political Action

The Count on July 8, 2018: 3,000 Children

~ Ann Policelli Cronin ~ 2 Comments

According to the U.S. government, almost 3,000 children have been separated from their parents and are incarcerated by the U.S. government. Those actions deserve our attention because they are being done in our name by our government.

Separating children from their parents and incarcerating them tells a clear story. There is no ambiguity. The practice is cruel. It is producing trauma in children. It will prevent some of those children from ever seeing their parents again. Inhumanity is being visited upon children in our name.

Each day on this blog, I will report the number of children still separated from their parents and incarcerated by the U.S. government.

My hope is that one day we will each look at that number, even if the number is only one child, will rise up, and will say STOP: No more separated families in my name. No more cruelty to children in my name. I insist upon us being a better country.

The March: Six Days In

~ Ann Policelli Cronin ~ Leave a comment

The DC Women’s March and the Sister Marches are over.

Some critics, such as David Brooks, tell us that the marches were sweet but will be ineffective. Let’s prove him wrong.

First, let’s get fired up by listening here to Carole King’s “One Small Voice”. Carole King re-recorded the song and made it available to everyone after marching in a Sister March in Stanley, Idaho (population: 63) with 28 other people, half the town. She said she re-recorded the song because she “never stopped believing that one small voice plus millions of other small voices is exactly how we change the world”.

Second, let’s each decide how we will use our voice for political action.

Here’s what I will do:

I will give my voice, my time, and my energy to two projects, one local and one national:

  • I will oppose the Trump intention to destroy public schools by working to save Connecticut’s public schools. The forthcoming Connecticut state budget threatens public education. I will write to inform the 10,000 people who marched in Hartford on January 21st, the thousands of Connecticut residents who marched in Washington that day, and all Connecticut citizens about how funding for education in Connecticut lines up with Donald Trump’s intentions. I will advocate for a state budget that does not embody the Trump agenda.
  •  I will call Democratic Senators and Representatives on a weekly basis to urge them to oppose Donald Trump’s inadequately reasoned, self-aggrandizing, harmful-to-the-republic proposals and his attempts to undermine the democratic process, such as by controlling the press. There is no reasoning with a demagogue. There is no trust to be had in Democrats compromising on what they know is best, such as when Senator Warren and Senator Brown voted to confirm Ben Carson about whom they expressed deep reservations. It is not the time for establishment politics. The threat of fascism is real. I will push all elected Democrats to be radical in opposing that danger.

What will you do?

Demagogue Alert

~ Ann Policelli Cronin ~ 1 Comment

This is the sign I carried at the Sister March in Hartford, Connecticut on January 21, 2017.

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The events of the first days of the Trump administration reinforced for me that, indeed, we do need to be on alert.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and current professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley in this 2 minute 41 second video explains how Donald Trump’s treatment of the media gives us reason to fear for the loss of our democracy.

Everything we deeply care about- equity, civil rights, the environment, health care, education, the economy, national security, and, most of all, our children- depends on us maintaining a democracy.

End the oligarchy we have had. Don’t let a demagogue take hold.

Let’s get busy. Let’s get political.