The organizers at Women’s March are organizing a Walkout for our Freedoms next Tuesday, January 20, 2026 from 2-5 pm, local time. Find your local event here, and sign up for updates. We may be approaching a General Strike, folks. There is no business as usual at this point.
W. Kamau Bell has it right:
“Nobody’s coming for us. It’s still on us.”
The Trump administration continues to violate civil rights, human rights, the Constitution, international laws and norms, and even rules of war, while gaslighting us to believe their central delusion: “only I/we matter. Other people exist only to be manipulated or exploited for financial gain and political power.” They use every crisis as an opportunity to expand their portfolio - of scapegoating migrants, immigrants, and dissenters, for example. The man can’t grieve Rob Reiner for a moment after he was murdered. And he attacked Renee Nicole good when she was killed. Poorly trained, thin-skinned, and cruelly motivated ICE agents are acting with impunity in Minneapolis. ICE shot and blinded a protester in LA. And the list goes on.
None of them are being held accountable. Instead, they blame their victims and demand the news cycle move on.
Hard stop. Hell no. We shall not be moved.
The country doesn’t need to be CONTROLLED. It needs to be CARED FOR.
As human beings, we all live in the gap of being disappointed by other people. Maturity requires finding constructive ways to cope with that dissatisfaction. There are reasonable and responsible questions about how much any of us should rely on government or others. But - reality check - we are all to some extent dependent on others, and dependent on government. When that government exists in the delusion that all the systems built to care for Americans, however imperfectly, need to be burned to the ground - well, this is bonkers.
RFK and Trump effed around and found out, but only after causing much distress:
Hoffman J. H.H.S. Reverses Decision to Cut $2 Billion for Mental Health and Addiction Services. The New York Times, January 15, 2025 (Gift Article)
”A day after funding termination notices went out to more than 2,000 programs nationwide, the administration reversed itself and reinstated the money.”
These folks should not be in charge. My view is that the whole lot deserves impeachment and removal, and potentially criminal charges.
Instead, the GOP acts like a spineless invertebrate. I called him President Shrimp a while back.
But really he is an octopus, changing his stance like a chameleon as it benefits him and him alone, and grabbing everything in sight.
Finally: Please consider upgrading to paid or founding, or donate to my compassion nonprofit with the links below my signature. It would be really great to be able to carve out more time to research, write, and collaborate with others.
Warmly,
Ravi
Becoming a paid or founding subscriber allows me dedicated writing and research time. You can also now tip me at Ko-Fi.com/sunmoonlight, or donate to my compassion non-profit SF Love Dojo via PayPal. Thanks, though, to all my readers, free and paid! I very much appreciate the Substack Nation we are forming!
Ravi Chandra is a psychiatrist, writer, compassion educator, and civilizational health shaman in San Francisco, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is the recipient of the 2025 Kun-Po Soo Award for Achievement in Asian American Psychiatry from the APA and APA Foundation. Here’s his linktree. Please sign up for East Wind and Psychology Today updates via Substack where you can also support his educational and creative mission by becoming a free, paid or founding subscriber. For fourteen years, he was lucky to have his MOSF posts published by the Center for Asian American Media, and is now at work broadening and building a diverse creative community and coalition through reflecting on culture and psychology for East Wind eZine. Sign up for updates here, and see all the posts here. He writes from the metaphorical intersection of The Fillmore and Japantown in San Francisco, where Black and Asian communities have mingled since the end of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. He literally works there, between two Indian restaurants, go figure. His debut documentary was named Best Film (Festival Director’s Award) at the 2021 Cannes Independent Film Festival. The Bandaged Place: From AIDS to COVID and Racial Justice is available on-demand, and with the discount code “Awake” you can get a 20% discount. His nonfiction debut, Facebuddha: Transcendence in the Age of Social Networks, won the 2017 Nautilus Silver Award for Religion/Spirituality of Eastern Thought. You can find him on Psychology Today, Medium, Twitter, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, SoundCloud, or better yet, in the IRL.
