Written By:
weka - Date published:
9:14 am, January 31st, 2017 - 8 comments
Categories: activism, political alternatives, us politics -
Tags: resist, solidarity
Need some reprieve from the chaos? I’d like to offer this space to post about the resistance, where we choose the proactive and supportive over the reactive and discouraging. What are the best actions happening globally this week? Are there signs of a not-so-slow fuse having been lit?
Maybe it’s time we were kinder to ourselves and each other, and set to building something we can rely on.
Some signs of hope,
Thousands of people spontaneously occupied and protested at airports across the US in response to the Tr*mp administration’s ban on Muslims entering the country.
Thank you to all who stood up this weekend for those whom others seek to harm. With no planning, no organization, no funding and no meetings, tens of thousands of Americans, on their own, just showed up at their airports, their local portal to rest of planet earth, and said loud and clear, “NO. Not in our America. We are the majority. You will not diminish our values, you will not degradate our fellow human beings. We welcome all.” Let’s keep our voice alive and strong, every single day, every single one of us. – Michael Moore
The ACLU announced Sunday evening it had raised $19.4 million from 290,000 donations since Saturday. The average it takes in per year is $3 million to $4 million, according to Reuters reporter Dustin Volz.The donations and membership growth is “unprecedented,” Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director, told Yahoo News.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Romero said. “People are fired up and want to be engaged. What we’ve seen is an unprecedented public reaction to the challenges of the Trump administration.”
The ACLU gained more than 150,000 new members as of early Sunday, and received millions in donations.It filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Saturday on behalf of two men detained at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport and threatened with deportation.
"When the International Refugee Assistance Project put out a call for lawyers, they got 3000 volunteers in 4 hours" https://t.co/aWrlUKcSlU
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) January 29, 2017
Note: there will be Trump supporters aghast at his disasterous administration. Plz encourage solidarity moving forward & avoid angry blame.
— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) January 30, 2017
But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event. A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. – US Historian Heather Cox Richardson
I'm going to bed but first this. We are the storm. Don't give in to hopelessness bc that is what they want. We are going to fight this.
— stories from the city (@mizjwilliams) January 30, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeQD9QwYC5M
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Linda Tirado Retweeted
Van Jones @VanJones68 7m7 minutes ago
This is no longer “left v right.” The #Resistance is now a pro-democracy movement against a would-be authoritarian regime. Dems & GOP unite!
Plus, independents and non-voters. Dems/GOP is a big part of the problem.
Dead right – there’s one thing Yanks hate – someone trying to be King.
“Set to building something we can rely on”.
In this case, in the USA, it’s the law itself, built up over generations, that is simultaneously under attack and being relied on for defence, and counter-attack.
Statements from the authorities in New York, Washington, California etc. demonstrate quite clearly that this coalition includes large parts, if not the majority, of the establishment.
So yay, it looks like all those generations of building might turn out to be good for something. They still need our support too.
Edit: *snap* at Van Jones 🙂
There’s big departments that will put up big institutional resistance. As it becomes clearer that this something very different than a normal transition between administrations, the bureaucracies will find and dust off their hidden weapons.
http://time.com/4650144/trump-science-war/?xid=homepage
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/29/trump-america-parks-employees-enemies-of-state
Look the occupy movement did not go away. The state beat it down, but it did not go away. It is alive and well.
Also protest against this administration is wide spreed. Here is just one example of that, not very well covered by the MSM.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-teachers-demonstration-20170128-story.html
http://www.newyorkupstate.com/schools/2017/01/video_100s_of_ny_teachers_elected_officials_protest_devos_as_education_secretary.html
thanks, weka. I’m for the solidarity approach, but with some questions to ponder.
Pondering on the rest of Heather Cox Richardson’s quote:
This kindof worked for a while. But the end result is Trump. So, how do we built a democratic system that doesn’t allow a Trump team to run roughshod over the rule of law, the constitution, and democratic processes?
There seems to be too much power in the presidency. There needs to be proportional representation. There needs to be in-built checks to reign in a renegade presidency. Actually, this is the end result of rule by and for the gangster bankers.
It’s also the end result where celebrity culture dominates, and bleeds into politics.
So, sure we need solidarity. But there needs to be some clarity about what we the people are aiming for.
Conservative kingmakers the Koch brothers blasted President Trump’s strict immigration ban as the “wrong approach” that violates their dedication to “free and open societies” and put him on notice they will work to kill an import tax being floated to pay for a wall on the Mexican border.
“The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive,” Koch network co-chair Brian Hooks said Sunday, the Associated Press reported.
“Our country has benefited tremendously from a history of welcoming people from all cultures and backgrounds,” he said. “This is a hallmark of free and open societies.”
The billionaire Koch brothers did not support Trump’s candidacy, and in April Charles Koch called Trump’s support of a Muslim registry “reminiscent of Nazi Germany.”….
Charles Koch, without mentioning Trump by name, said the nation is at a point of “tremendous danger,” adding that America can “go the authoritarian route … or we can move toward a free and open society. So this is our opportunity.”
http://nypost.com/2017/01/30/koch-brothers-slam-trump-travel-ban-as-wrong-approach/
Even the grubby super rich brothers that have bank rolled republican presidential candidates over the years (except for this one) are pissed off.