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San Juan 2020, nice round numbers with a good solid sound. A new year. A new decade. We always hope for the best and settle for the rest.
Living in the United States, after three years of Trump-time, we’re just glad to have made it in one piece, though much the worse for wear. No wars really ended, but, thankfully, despite all of the bluffs, threats, and tweets, no new ones started, at least so far, except for the tariff wars, whatever that might have wrought.
For many in America, this is the year they have been waiting for, because it’s election year. On both sides, it’s a time of decision and for settling scores. Will the resistance prevail, and once again out poll Trump with the surging power of their forces? Or, will Trump and his band erase their embarrassment of illegitimacy, having lost the popular vote despite winning the election, and succeed in turning back the clock in this rerun and emerging victorious once again despite the odds? There is fear and loathing around the election on all sides, as gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson would term it.
The round numbers of 2020 also mark a time of anniversaries
ACORN in June will pass fifty years as an organization from its beginning as an idea of building a multi-issued, multi-racial, direct action community organization in Little Rock, Arkansas to its present formation as a multi-national federation of community and labor organizations in more than fifteen countries with several hundred thousand members around the world. I always said I wanted to make it with ACORN fifty years. What now? Sixty? More? Or, less? What have we learned? Where are we going? What new dreams will integrate with the old mission to shape the future?
The quarterly journal that we edit and publish, Social Policy, in each issue of 2020 will celebrate fifty years as well with more than fifteen under our stewardship. How will we mark these decades in each of the coming issues?
Local 100 will have forty years under its belt, twenty-five as a affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, and four on the front end and eleven on the backend, adding up to fifteen as an independent part of the United Labor Unions in a time that has been hard for working people. If it’s appropriate to celebrate survival, we will so with vigor.
On a personal note that seems both wonderful, and, frankly, miraculous, mi companera, the love of my life, and I will have lived together for forty years when the calendar hits March of this year. We just passed thirty years in the same house. We plan on many more!
We can make lots of resolutions each year and note how many of them are the same as last year, but the truth is that each year if we work as hard as we’re able, love each other as much as possible, and breathe in every minute as fully as it ticks off the time, then it will be another good year.