12/3/16
Dear Assailant-in-Chief,
As promised, I dropped off a bunch of Kellogg's cereal at a Muslim food pantry this morning. ("We're already grrrrrreat!") The people there were very nice, and we had a long conversation about the state of things. As so often happens, those whom your fan base think should be pushed to the margins of American life because of their birth, circumstances, or beliefs...or out the door altogether...have a lively and passionate love of this country and their community. One I find much more real than your rants about an "America" that is unrecognizable to me, so full is it of despair papered over with meanness.
For some reason I keep thinking of The Jungle Book. Not the Disney movie, because I never liked it much, but the Rudyard Kipling original. You may remember that in the very first story, "Mowgli's Brothers," when Mowgli is first adopted by the wolf pack who call themselves the Free People, Shere Khan the tiger demands that Mowgli be turned over...for his dinner. He is thwarted by Bagheera who buys Mowgli's life with a bull, but naturally Shere Khan does not give up. He flatters the younger wolves...feeds them his scraps...and slowly stokes their resentment and hatred of the adopted "man cub" in their midst. He leads them in a plot to unseat the pack leader, Akela, then demands that Mowgli be turned over to him once more:
“A man! A man! What has a man to do with us? Let him go to his own place.”
“And turn all the people of the villages against us?” clamored Shere Khan. “No, give him to me. He is a man, and none of us can look him between the eyes.”
Akela lifted his head again and said, “He has eaten our food. He has slept with us. He has driven game for us. He has broken no word of the Law of the Jungle.”
“Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera’s honor is something that he will perhaps fight for,” said Bagheera in his gentlest voice.
“A bull paid ten years ago!” the Pack snarled. “What do we care for bones ten years old?”
“Or for a pledge?” said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip. “Well are ye called the Free People!”That is how all this flag-waving talk of "freedom" sounds to me in the mouth of certain people. What do they care for a debt of blood paid two hundred and forty years ago, or a Constitution two hundred and twenty-six years old? Why should they allow our democratic institutions, traditional rights, or for that matter common decency, constrain their actions? Well are they called the Free People.
I can't say that I know who the tiger in this scenario actually is. But he came to a bad end.
Yours sincerely,
Sara Amis
Citizen of these United States of America
From Dorine Jennette:
PLEASE JOIN ME IN WRITING THE ASSAILANT-IN-CHIEF
Please join me in bombarding the Assailant-in-Chief with letters: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact. I will write to him every day through his first 100 days in office, maybe longer if momentum holds. I am asking others to write just ONE letter. Let's not just vent our grief to each other--let's speak truth to power together. Please WRITE and please SHARE this plan with your friends. Pass it on!
You do not need to be a woman or an assault survivor to address the Assailant-in-Chief as such. If you are a man who has a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman colleague or friend you respect, or a mother (hint: that last one is all of you!), then you have something to say to the Assailant-in-Chief. Your letter might be a brief one-liner. That's great! Please send it! Women need our allies now. Here's the link to DJT's contact page--this might take you one minute or less! https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact
Or, maybe you will start a related project addressing any one of the many groups Trump has already harmed . . .
As we talk with each other, let's break the bubble and also send our complaints straight to the source. He won't read them and won't care if he does, so probably this is a placeholder action while we figure out what we're really going to do . . . but it's something.
Dorine's posts can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/dorine.jennette
PS from Sara: I've taken to just tweeting these at him. He's not going to read them anyway, but I might as well use the platform that he actually responds to. *snort*
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