How we’re going to make it through this.
About 25 years ago I drove a beat-up old Datsun with a bumper sticker that said: “Practice organized resistance and conscious acts of solidarity.” I wish I still had that sticker.
Continue reading "Practice organized resistance and conscious acts of solidarity"
1. Stoke paranoia. Deprive, dehumanize, physically weaken, and isolate people.
2. Cause/provoke crisis. (Or at minimum, ensure government is not prepared to handle inevitable crisis.)
3. Justify consolidation of power and suspension of human rights, civil society, democracy.
The Washington Post writes today that a survey of battleground House districts shows Democrats with [a] narrow edge. Thanks to gerrymandering, the votes of people like me who are packed into safe Democratic districts won’t make much difference. But there are potentially-swing districts North Carolina. It’s a much more diverse state than the leaders of the N.C. General Assembly would have us believe, and there are still some districts where voters can chose their representatives instead of the other way around.
Look at all these places within driving distance of cities in NC where we can be supporting Democratic campaigns right now.
Continue reading "We have to do a lot more than voting, but vote we must"
My rules for survival, in this order:
1. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.
2. Practice solidarity, build community, and make art.
3. Throw rocks. Organize. Shut them down with your bodies and minds.
Continue reading "Ruby’s rules for survival"
There are more of us that are outraged than there are of the greedy haters, but we let them control the media and the government because it would be too risky or inconvenient for us to actually stop them. I’m speaking of myself here too! I have a lot to lose.
Fascists win by making us all think we’re alone, we’re sick because we have no healthcare, we’re exhausted from working 3 jobs, we’re scared because we’re gay/trans/immigrant/Jewish/female/outspoken, we can’t think straight because the news makes no sense, we’re paranoid because our neighbor might be a nazi/narc, we’re poor because the 1% is stealing everything. None of this is an accident.
Continue reading "Start throwing rocks"
I used to watch movies and documentaries and wonder how people could live seemingly-normal lives in repressive states like the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, China, etc.
Now I’m living it in the US. Now I know how we get there.
Continue reading "On the banality of life under authoritarianism"
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 …
Continue reading "This is not the bottom"If you made a screwball comedy (or a surreal farce) about an inept mafia don who accidentally starts a race war, nonaccidentally rapes women, and fails all the way up to the presidency, it would still not be as far-fetched as the country we are living in today.
Continue reading "Truth is much, much stranger than fiction"
Lots schools have been shot up. Lots of people have protested. 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.
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 …
Continue reading "I’m ready to follow these young people to a better future"