What Can We Do?

Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/what-can-we-do/5010246/

Dead power is everywhere among us - in the forest, chopping down the songs, at night in the industrial landscape, wasting and stiffening the new life; in the streets of the city, throwing away the day. We wanted something different for our people: not to find ourselves an old, reactionary republic, full of ghost fears, the fears of death and the fears of birth. We want something else. - Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry

Preparing for this Beginnings issue on violence has taken me on quite a journey. I spent several months reading research, relevant books and articles, conducting informal interviews, and pursuing the topic on nearly every occasion with friends and family. During the week I actually sat down to write several additional events captured by my attention:

_ A close friend disclosed her fear of domestic violence at home.

_ A 12 year old boy in my state was convicted of killing a migrant worker who had a makeshift camp by the Columbia River.

_ Two teens were shot by a classmate in the cafeteria of my neighborhood high school.

_ A right-to-bear arms group announced a Martin Luther King Day demonstration to protest that gun-control legislation ...