Surviving the new reality

Rain drums on the roof as I write. I am on enforced rest. Doctor's orders. I could cry for joy over the rest, except that the eye surgeon has forbidden me to express intense emotions. 

But you get the idea. I don't feel sick but I'm supposed to stay inside, keep warm, not work much and be at peace. I know, I wish I could spread it around a little too.

The only downside of this is a feeling of vulnerability that comes with the isolation.  I hesitate to venture out much, even on-line. I am a bit breakable and the world has suddenly become doubly harsh.

Creative Commons image by Sepp Schimmer

I saw a post from an old work colleague about attacks against people of color in the US. I wrote in a quick reply of support and bittersweet humor. And instead of solidarity, my old office-mate lashed out at me, labeling me an "sheltered white expat." 

I instantly had the urge to fight back. I'm not one who takes things lying down or turns the other cheek. Sure, I'm white and I know better than many white people what privileges and protections that entails. I am highly aware when I meet police officers that I am wearing the backpack of white privilege--then and many other times. I also know that when any country is in the grip of fear that there is an understandable anger toward emigres--those who left, no matter how good their reasons. 

On the other hand, I'm also a person with a significant physical disability. I'm up against the wall in this too. My children are not white and they are newly naturalized citizens. Will we ever be able to go back to visit my home and family again? That is not an idle question in these post-election days. We are also in a country (the Czech Republic) that Donald Trump has pledged to put a military base in. We are isolated for the moment, but far from off the hook. 

Still, I bit my lip and said none of that. I know well the furious emotions raging in my colleague's post. I replied only to express more simple and direct support for her. I told her I am an ally and I understand her words. She and another friend continued to express anger and rejection toward me. There was no reconciliation. 

I am worried.

I'm saddened to lose a connection to someone I enjoy simply due to these terrible times. But I am even more worried by what this negative interaction among allies means for our people--the people of our country, citizens and non-citizens, all cultures and all backgrounds. We're stuck in this together, after all. 

My home county in Oregon reportedly voted 67 percent for Trump. There are people I call friends who did and likely even a few only moderately distant relatives. And if I cannot meet a friend who agrees with me in support and solidarity, if we are so divided that I am the enemy even when I am not across the political divide, how... oh gods, how will we live with those who really do hate and choose a hateful leader? 

Let's take a moment to forget that Trump even exists. 

Sigh. Now doesn't that feel better? 

But wait a minute. There's a problem. We've made Trump disappear but we haven't made the many people who vehemently support him disappear. Sure, we can say they are a minority, as few as 20 percent of the nation and not even most of the voters. But they are enough and we have to live with them, Trump or no Trump.

I have always felt this because of where I grew up, far from the cosmopolitan and high-thinking coasts. I love visiting Portland, Seattle, New York or Francisco for precisely this reason. Our bubble of acceptance and freedom feels so good. 

But we forget that this is not all of the nation at our peril. We ignore rage at our peril. We belittle politically incorrect antagonism at our peril. We've seen that now.

I know it is hard to think about surviving the next four years. But we will... most of us at least. And here is how I propose to do it:

Creative Commons image by Peter Roome

• If there is a registry for Muslims, get on it. I'll be a Muslim on paper.  If we're all on the list, the list will have no teeth.
• Talk to Trump supporters. Really talk and listen. Listen to what motivates them, what they are upset about. Share your thoughts with respect and without contempt.  They are people and most people are susceptible to change, even if slow change.
• Promote facts, everywhere, over and over again. The media will not help, so we have to do it. Talk about facts, post them, remember them, make lists. Don't let up about climate change.
• Explain white privilege, primarily if you're white. Explain it again and again and again until you're sick of it and then explain it to more people. There is no way we're as sick of explaining it as Black, Hispanic and Native American people are.
• Talk to the person no one is talking to at a gathering. Invite the disabled colleague or classmate to whatever. Connect. 
• Make your circle bigger. Whatever it is you can give easily, put it in. Got a neighbor with younger kids who could use some of your nicer used clothes? Got extra veggies from the garden? Got wood or materials or whatever? Buy less, trade more, reuse more. Gain your security from community.
• Take care of your own basic needs with as little resources as possible. Reduce plastics and fossil fuels in whatever ways you can. And remember you'll do more and better if you're rested, healthy and fed. Don't wait to be taken care of. Stand strong, think ahead, link arms.

My hope is with you. 

Climate Change and Conspiracy: A Video Interview with Arie Farnam

Are you fed up yet? Ninety-seven percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers that touch on the subject are certain climate change (global warming and increases in extreme weather) is happening at a rapid rate and it's caused by human industry and specifically the burning of fossil fuels. 

Ninety-seven percent. This isn't much of a controversy among scientists, at least not among those who aren't directly backed by oil and coal companies. And yet, when Fox News reports on climate issues, seventy percent of the mentions of climate change deny its reality or the role of fossil fuels. Fox News doesn't have a lot of scientists to choose from with only three percent inflated to seventy percent, but they try. 

But why do they try? The producers and owners must have children too? Can they really be ignorant or are they willfully lying in a dangerous betting game with mass starvation as the stakes? Whatever their motives nearly half of the American public believes that climate change is a hoax and that we can go on burning fossil fuels with impunity. This is what Fox News and others have done.

In this next interview on the burning issues of today's dystopian world, I discuss the facts on climate change, the anonymous donor's association that provides the lion's share of the funding for pro-fossil-fuels media and lobbying, what we can do about it and who is the real-world equivalent of J. Company from the Kyrennei Series.

This is the second video interview in which I take a look at the factual real-world issues that lurk in the pages of the dystopian fantasy thrillers of the Kyrennei Series.

Kyrennei Series readers, please comment below and nominate individuals or organizations as your personal heroes. Who do you think is the real-world equivalent of J. Company? Who do you think has the courage and the audacity to go up against the worst injustices in our world?

A video interview with Arie Farnam on the US media, corporate power and dystopia today

This is the first in a series of video interviews by the hearth on issues of social and environmental justice and how I deal with them as a writer. Please share this far and wide and add your voice in the comments. 

While the vast power of corporations often feels indomitable and the manipulation of our culture and media is often depressing, it is worth remembering that we can use their tools to connect people. People have made progress in the past fifty years. Civil rights, the ADA and the beginnings of independent media were built by the quiet hands of many people like you and me. I'm not exactly a celebrity and my interviews reflect that. I'm a writer and mother by the hearth, speaking truth to power and being true to spirit. You are welcome here and we'll find common ground.

I write my stories because I can't help myself. Writers must write. But I also write them to reach out and wake up the world from the malaise of apathy and despair. Mine are stories of hard-won and authentic hope and these video interviews tell how and why.