There’s so much to protest with the current administration’s eagerness to ruin the country with catastrophic decisions for business, education, health, law and the arts. Not to mention everyone’s pocketbook. But I’ll just focus on the arts today, as arts organizations across the country just had their National Endowment for the Arts funding withdrawn or canceled. Who rescinds promised funding? A convicted felon, I guess. Not a smart money manager.

For the affected organizations — many of them literary, which matters to my own personal bottom line, as I am a writer — it’s like being told our promised salary is not forthcoming. We’ve got bills to pay and a mortgage? Well, tough luck for us. Go get a new job, only, uh-oh, everyone in our line of work has been similarly affected and is looking for work, too.

How is this even legal and why isn’t Congress up in arms? How is it that President Trump’s personal priorities are allowed to destroy America? Everyone hurts with these ludicrous decisions, which are really racism and censorship in a not-so-subtle disguise.

And yet what to do? Protests? Calls to congresspeople? Lawsuits? All tried. Or still trying. A local writer suggested “letters to the editor,” and I cynically thought, “Sure, write legacy media, which is also under attack, and not being read by the masses — and that is part of the problem,” but, OK, I’ll do it. Because even if things aren’t yet working, we can’t let this stand.

Debra Spark
North Yarmouth