by Joe Courter
As we move through the normality of the days of our lives, we each have our own windows on the world we live in. There are the ones we have created for ourselves (house, job, family, car; if we are lucky), and the stuff going on in the remote world that has no direct impact on our lives except how much we choose to be aware of it. Many of us are the type of people who crave awareness of what’s going on, and this impacts us because we are bothered by what we are seeing. It affects us, our sense of responsibility; this is OUR government doing all these horrible things. What we are seeing now, in an avalanche of disturbing developments created in the span of one administration, really challenges us to cope, let alone focus on doing our part to find our way out of it.
We see wars with no end game. Social safety nets being shredded. Immigrants being rounded up. On and on and on. All just everyday news. These have become our new normal. And then there is the normalization of having a person like Trump as commander in chief with no guardrails being put on him from Congress, the courts, or the media (with few exceptions). That man-child even managed to taint World Cup with his improper meddling!
There is so much to be gloomy about if we are only looking out at all the negative things going on that the lived experience of our lives can become overshadowed by it. Resistance is both needed, and therapeutic. I truly love World Cup. It felt great that our World Cup crowd at Cypress & Grove did some strong booing at that clown’s picture every time it was on the screen at the Final Sunday. Some folks were for Argentina, some for Spain, but we all were together on that. The true experience of World Cup is sharing the joy of being a citizen of this planet, and seeing folks from the globe come together around that construct is a wondrous thing, even while being aware of the downward track things seem to be going in the world. So many great human stories and drama.
A couple weeks ago I was in Chicago for the semi-annual Labor Notes Conference; 4,500 labor activists from around the country and world come together every two years for four days. (Labor Notes writers did a good overview, which is in the Eds’ Picks on page 18). I had a good recharge of my positive vibes there as well. One speaker on Friday night really struck a chord with me. Paul Osadebe is with the Federal Unionist Network, and he spoke of how various federal workers came together at a workshop at Labor Notes in 2022 and that was the catalyst for their organization. In 2024 at Labor Notes they met again, and with Trump’s re-election on the horizon, they knew their organization faced real challenges ahead, and that meant they organized, strategized, and were ready to resist when Trump and DOGE started in on them in 2025. That spunky little magazine and their semi-annual conferences had a direct effect on thousands of lives as they resisted the firings, layoffs, and shutdowns!
So we all do what we can. Individually, we can vary our information sources, the windows we look out of; that can surely help. Celebrating and participating in what we have in our community and being more positive is a form of resistance, too. Preserving our right to vote, and electing better people is essential, but so is all the other organizing that we can do that lasts beyond the time of the election: environmental and human rights work, doing mutual aid for those impacted by the times we are in, etc.
This town is full of great people, who have made it the Blue Dot that it is. We all make it shine brighter.
Hang in there, and don’t sleep on this primary election on August 18 in Alachua County, where ALL voters will have a say in the Universal primaries (see the articles on page 1 and 24). And there’s a voter’s guide on page 32 if you want my suggestions. We will recap and look ahead in the September Iguana. Meanwhile, one more month of this 90’s and 70’s crap.