It's been said that our most emotional antipathies, often, are not aimed at those diametrically opposed to our views but rather at those who are “almost like us - but not quite.”
In the Brattleboro area, a significant majority of individuals and families share a worldview that is remarkably consistent when it comes to human rights, and oppression and discrimination against any individual or group based on nationality, race, religion, ethnicity, or gender.
Untold scores of individuals in our area have over the past decades put these ideals into action, participating in protests and civil disobedience against causes like racial discrimination, nuclear proliferation, South African apartheid, and anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence.
We have shared a common abhorrence of the policies of such national leaders as Trump, Netanyahu, Modi, and others who have had so little regard for human rights and human dignity and whose governments have trampled on population groups opposed to their positions.