Volume II, Issue 2 (Whole Number 5)

We’re writing this edition in mid-May, 2025. It is half a year since the November election. So we’re not going to dwell on that mess. Our orientation, in any event, is on the future. We ask the question, what are the opportunities that this crisis opens up to us?

This is not sugar-coating the ruin that the Trump administration will bring. It’s already a disaster. But the question we’re asking is, what does it really mean to be “in resistance?”

There is an old debate on the liberal or left side of the political spectrum. It is about strategy–but really it is about morality. There are people who are used to lives of comfort and of power. These folks tell the rest of us that our urgent needs are divisive, that our words are frightening to potential supporters. At best, they tell us, “this is not your time. We are in an emergency and we just have to get back to normal. Be satisfied with the way things are.”

We hear these words in Berkeley as well as nationally. They are meant to quiet our urgency. We are told that racial disparities in policing are getting better, that fewer unhoused persons are unsheltered, that lots of housing is being built, that city government is really doing what we can to stop the climate catastrophe.

What these comforting voices do not understand is that it is exactly because of our national emergency that the old ways will not work any longer. National emergencies demand radical changes; it took the Great Depression to bring about Social Security and the right to unionize. Our times also demand a united front–but not a fake one, where we promise to sit down and stop rocking the boat.

No, for Berkeley to truly be in resistance to the MAGA agenda that favors only the billionaires, we must understand the huge gaps in opportunity that exist right here. Until we confront the fault lines that run through our society, we cannot stand united against the far-right menace.

This Spring 2025 edition of Berkeley Speaks examines a number of these issues. We are focused increasingly on actions people can take with urgency to help, or be part of important social movements, including the unhoused, immigrant rights, police accountability, and peace with justice.

Please see this edition’s Editorial, “Fear and Hope in Berkeley.”

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