Children leaving the Lodz ghetto for the death camp at Chelmno

This is not the bottom

Friends, please stop assuming things can’t get any worse. We got to this nightmare through complacency. Let it stop now. Things can and WILL get worse than this. We need to be prepared and act accordingly as soon as possible to stop this crazy train.

I’m glad to see some resistance starting to form now, in spite of the dearth of anyone seriously organizing it. Wouldn’t it have been great if people had listened when we said resist and don’t normalize19 months ago? How much suffering could have been avoided?

I have the sense that millions of people would be willing to participate in strategic direct action to stop migrant family separation right now, and as far as I can tell no-one is organizing them! Last year I was hopeful that Rev. Barber’s new Poor People’s Campaign would be able to channel people’s frustration into direct action. I appreciate what they are doing, but their actions are inconveniencing no-one, they are aren’t spreading the message beyond existing supporters, they are stopping business as usual.

This year I my hopes were raised by the students who survived the massacre in Parkland, FL. But it doesn’t seem that they’ve been able to hold the national attention, and while they have been expanding their vision and starting to see how many issues intersect with gun violence, they are not in a position to lead a national movement against Republicans as a whole, which is what I think is needed right now.

Note: There will be actions across the country on Saturday June 30. Visit familiesbelongtogether.org to find one near you. If there isn’t one on the map, organize it!

totalitarism

Trump didn’t create this empire

We have got to stop acting like Republican greed, deceit, and cultivated ignorance started with Trump! Here’s a Bush advisor in 2002:

We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out.”

They tell us this over and over and we still don’t listen. It’s been going on for many decades. Dems don’t even fight back.

Democrats and the media still want to fuck around with “civility” while Republicans are literally creating an empire (a death cult) based on greed and hate. People are fucking dying.

Trump is most certainly an imperial president with no clothes, but he didn’t create this empire. He’s just the perfect fruition of decades of Republican greed and nihilism. I hope he’ll be the empire’s downfall, but I’m not sure we have enough democracy left to fight back, especially as long as the only opposition party is so consumed with incrementalism and protecting the sanctity of the same institutions that got us here.

"The greatest most beautiful clothes the world has ever seen."

Two men in fatigues, one standing in the garbage bin

Stand up against the jerks, no-one else will do it for us

I was disgusted to learn today that progressive tech leader Clay Johnson has been harassing women he worked with with almost no repercussions for years. I’m appalled that I never knew about any of this in spite of being in his professional orbit the entire time. I even know some of the people quoted in the story, although not very well. We have to learn to tell the truth, shout it if we have to, and stop covering for people.

The fact that this stuff started so long ago and that even Clay seems to agree he should have been fired from the Dean campaign, but instead he was able to build an entire successful career on it while continuing to abuse people is such a great illustration of how tolerance of chauvinism systematically holds women back and keeps us out of leadership positions while simultaneously reinforcing itself by promoting these men ever higher.

Reading about his behavior at the Sunlight Foundation you can see that it wasn’t a secret. In fact the staff had to band together to alienate him since the organization wasn’t protecting them from him.

Every man that gets ahead while abusing people is keeping at least one other person from succeeding, and is taking up space that should go to people with better judgement than his. Then people look around and wonder why they don’t see as many women “qualified” for top leadership positions! Women are missing the opportunity to build our careers because we are trying to protect our dignity and bodily integrity from creeps who some other men think are geniuses.

I’m not mad at people for not exposing this sooner, because I know how hard it is (was?) to go public. I’m disgusted at Clay himself, but even more sick of the systems that just continue this culture and people who refuse to think beyond their own tiny bubbles. (ie: Well he’s not harassing me or anyone I care about, so I’m OK.) Of course I’m disappointed with Joe Trippi, but I wouldn’t expect any better from him. People like him are the reason I avoid certain lines of work.

Of course we should be able to expect our leaders to do better, but given that most of them are men that got there by succeeding in the current culture (if not actual harassers themselves) or women who got there by not rocking the boat too much, I’m not counting on them. The rest of us need to take care of each other by speaking out as publicly as we can when we find out about this stuff.

Hopefully people speaking out will eventually put more and more pressure upward on leaders to do the right thing in the first place before their new hire becomes the latest scandalous headline. Unfortunately I don’t expect any of this to change significantly before my son comes of age in about 10 years. I’m thinking of how us non-leaders can develop a strategic defense against the tsunami of bullshit.

Leaders like Zephyr Teachout are calling for better (or any) processes to address harrassment in political campaigns, but this problem is much bigger than the culture of political campaigns and nonprofits that take advantage of people’s dedication to the cause to keep them quiet. I’m not going to assume any of these institutions have my back until they have shown me that.

People need solidarity with each other, we can’t wait around for some brave leaders to save us. They’re not coming to help unless we force them to. I loved the way the Sunlight staff responded. I’d like to see much more of that.

 

Much of this post was initially written in conversation on Facebook with my friend Zephyr Teachout, hence some disjointedness.

"Kids Before Guns"

A national turning point

So many school shootings. So many protests. But it really is different this time. 
This moment reminds me of when the Greensboro Four sat down at a lunch counter in 1960 and captured the nation’s attention, largely because it was covered on national TV and the timing was right. It wasn’t nearly the first sit-in of it’s kind, but it had a bigger impact than most before it.
 
These young people have a national platform and they’re using it SO WELL. They’re increasingly intersectional, and they’re building a movement. I think this will evolve beyond guns and really help to energize the actual majority of the country that is sick of Republican greed and corruption.
 
I hope we can all continue to support their leadership.

 

Emma Gonzalez, January 2018

I’m ready to follow these young people to a better future

Parkland students like Emma Gonzales remind me so much of myself at their age. I was ready to change the world, and I knew exactly how to do it. I also rocked the same kind of natty friendship bracelets, and even shaved my head (well, part of it). I helped mobilize thousands of students to stand up for a free-standing Black Cultural Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. I was ready to take on the world. But then life kept beating me down and telling me I was not so important, and eventually I started to believe it.

People my age (and especially older) lack the fire and vision to make the changes we desperately need. These students are right, they are mobilized, and they have a platform to speak to the nation. I am totally ready to follow those young people’s leadership and energy. It’s their turn, and us olds have fucked it up enough already.

Here is some information (via MomsRising) about how we can support their upcoming actions:

Wednesday, March 14: #Enough – A National School Walk Out! The Women’s March Youth EMPOWER Team is calling for a seventeen-minute (1 minute for every life lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School) national school walk out on Wednesday, March 14th at 10am in all timezones.
https://twitter.com/WomensMarchY/

Saturday, March 24th: #March4OurLives – Student survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL are calling for a march on Washington, D.C. and also in cities across our nation on Saturday, March 24th Go to https://www.marchforourlives.com/ for more information.
https://twitter.com/AMarch4OurLives

Friday, April 20th: #NationalSchoolWalkout – Other student and education groups are calling for a longer-term student walk out on the anniversary of Columbine.
https://twitter.com/schoolwalkoutUS/

Photo credit: Humans of MSD 

Break the Internet

Stop the FCC and save Net Neutrality!

The FCC is about to vote to end net neutrality—breaking the fundamental principle of the open Internet. I’m supporting an effort to create an avalanche of calls to Congress to stop it.

Net neutrality affects everyone who uses the Internet. This is for all of us.

Please visit https://www.battleforthenet.com/breaktheinternet/ TODAY (December 12, 2017) to see the many ways you can support this effort on social media and by contacting Congress.

Break the Internet

Less faith, more action

I will say it again: please stop thinking everything will work out in the end. The only way that happens is if massive numbers of Americans rise up and do not allow business as usual to continue. It’s on US. The institutions that got us to this moment are not going to suddenly fix it.

No one is going to save us, not Mueller, not the Democratic Party, and certainly not Congressional Republicans. Nothing will make them voluntarily let go of power.

"#WeLoveNN because it ensures everyone has a voice online"

Net neutrality is not optional

In addition to the many reasons that people need unfettered access to the Internet without megacorporations deciding which content to privilege, I can’t imagine the United States having anything resembling free and fair elections without net neutrality. The New York Times today:

“The Federal Communications Commission announced on Tuesday that it planned to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to the internet, clearing the way for companies to charge more and block access to some websites.”

It will be hard to stop this, but here is a list of 6 things we can still do (via a friend of mine who works at Free Press):

  1. Attend a protest at a Verizon store near you on Dec 7. http://verizonprotests.com/
  2. Don’t see a protest near you? Sign up to host. It’s easy and we’ll support you! http://verizonprotests.com/
  3. Sign up to volunteer with Team Internet, a grassroots group of connected Net Neutrality supporters. It takes 5 minutes to sign up for a special volunteer Text Team shift to message other NN supporters about the news and invite them to take action. Sign up bit.ly/joinTItext
  4. If you’re on the east coast, save the date for a big Net Neutrality rally in Washington, DC on Dec 14.
  5. Tell your friends! Send them to organizations like Free Press, Center for Media Justice, Demand Progress, Fight For The Future, and Color Of Change and they’ll get set up with everything they need to take action right now.
  6. Don’t have time for any of that but still want to help? Donate! Every dollar helps fight back, and every dollar you give to the Free Press Action Fund between now and Dec 31 will be matched. https://act.freepress.net/donate/internet_nn_wake_up/

 

Photo credit: FreePress

Did I do that?

A funny thing happened yesterday. I decided to block the president on Twitter because I’m sick of his toxic idiocy and narcissism. When you block someone, they ask you the reason. Are they harassing you or someone else, are they spamming, is the account hacked, etc. Since All of the above was not an option, I chose to report him as hacked since I’ve been reading a lot about Russia’s hacking of our democracy and what an effective tool he is for Putin.

About 30 minutes later, his account was actually deactivated!

Maybe someone over at TwitterCorp was listening (since it was apparently his or her last day).

Trump’s use of Twitter in particular is a cancer on our nation and is literally bringing harm, financial ruin, and even death to many Americans. We all deserve a much longer break.