Colin Smalley
Tonight we’ve got an event at Busboys and Poets in DC, where we’re inviting as many federal union workers as we can to join us. We’re going to have some political representatives speaking, including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.
We’re going to bolster each other’s spirits. You asked how the mood was, and I said that people were scared and people were worried. And that’s true. But the other thing is that we’re finding power in solidarity, and we’re finding hope in our righteous indignation at the class war that they’re stoking here.
We are coming together to talk about these things and validate each other’s experiences and then figure out how to fight. There are going to be many fronts. There are going to be many ways that we have to approach this. After tonight’s meeting we’re going to focus our attention on a national day of action on February 19. We’re asking people to sign up to commit to wearing red, white, or blue, or a combination of the three to support federal workers and saving our services.
This is the time for an SOS. People need to understand that federal workers who are under attack right now represent something that has happened throughout history. Throughout all of human history, communities have formed to take care of each other, to provide mutual aid, to be supportive of the marginalized and those who need something from their fellow humans — which is all of us at some time or another.
A government is just a formalization of things that have been a thread throughout all of history. We, as government workers, are that service. We are the people who are out there putting into action the priorities of our communities to take care of each other, to love each other as humans, and respect each other and afford everyone basic human dignity. That’s something we can’t allow to disappear.
On this day…
Auteur: Colin Smalley
