Our Shot: August 13, 2025
Welcome to the 18th edition of Our Shot, a weekly newsletter of actions that anyone (especially kids) can take to resist the Trump administration.
Smaller action: Watch and share this video from Heather Cox Richardson, shared to us by our friend Robert, who says:
HRC is an inspiration for her historical knowledge and ability to relate it to the daily flood of news. I like her emphasis on the WE. Her quote had to be pushed out widely. I especially appreciate her call for the "we" to think about what we want on the other side of our resistance. It will NOT be enough to just elect independents/dems in 2026.
Larger action: We are taking this idea from one of the comments on the video above: make Resistance Rocks! Paint rocks with pro-democracy messages, and place them around public areas. We love this idea of combining art and creativity with messages of love and solidarity for people to find. Share the messages that have meaning for you and your community (and of course be thoughtful about where you are placing and what materials you are using to paint.)
Share-out:
We only scratched the surface of last week's larger action related to Brazil - we'd love to hear from all of you with what you might have found as well! We particularly enjoyed finding Brazilian art and music related to resistance, and had fun making some delicious Pão de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread).
Music by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, who were exiled in the late 1960s and shared this insight into why they were targeted:
"I guess they don't like what we do. They just don't seem to be able to stand anything open-ended...Anything they cannot force and control."
Poetry from Amazonian poet Thiago de Mello (1926-2022), who wrote "Madrugada camponesa" (Peasant Dawn), whose line "It is dark, but I sing because the morning will come" has taken on a new charge in the resistance.
The land is still dark
in the peasant dawn,
but it is necessary to plant.
Night was deeper,
now morning is coming.
There is no place for a song
made of fear and mimicry
to fool solitude.
Now it is time for the truth,
sung simply and always.
Now it is time for joy,
which is built day by day
with bread and song.
Soon it will be (I feel it in the air)
the time of ripe wheat.
It will be time to harvest.
Miracles are rising up like
blue rain on the cornfields,
beanstalks bursting into flower,
fresh sap flowing
from my distant rubber trees.
Dawn of hope,
the time of love is almost here.
I harvest a fiery sun that burns on the ground
and plough the light from within the sugarcane,
my soul on its pennant.
Peasant dawn.
The land is dark (but not quite as much),
it is time to work.
It is dark but I sing
because the morning will come
(It is dark, but I sing).
Do you have any ideas for actions people can take? Have you taken an action of resistance that you would like to share? Please email ctsvirsky@gmail.com to let us know - we would love to hear from you!
We are not throwing away our shot!
Leo & Charlotte