Tag: resistance

How we’re going to make it through this.

Police officer putting zip ties on a middle-aged white woman

Victory in Graham

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In 2019, I joined hundreds of Jews, immigrants, and our friends in Graham, North Carolina to say “no more” to the the cruel, racist, and unnecessary practices of ICE and to call out Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson’s enthusiastic enforcement of their white supremacist agenda. I was arrested at that demonstration, along with nine other lovely human beings.

After a number of tedious trials, the charges against us were eventually dropped since we were breaking no laws. But in 2022 five of the original nine arrestees sued the police for violating our rights by arresting us. Well last month we finally settled that case, and the law enforcement officers that kettled us, assaulted us with sound cannons, shoved us out of the street, and eventually arrested nine of us will be paying out a settlement of $120,000!

As reported in the News & Observer, “Protesters arrested in Alamance County, NC win cash settlement in lawsuit — again” this is part of a clear pattern of racism and violation of the civil rights by the Alamance County Sheriff and Graham Police Department. How much more do they have to pay to make it worth their while to respect the constitution?

In recent years, the city’s downtown has repeatedly been swarmed by protesters opposed to Sheriff Terry Johnson housing federal immigration detainees; the Confederate statue outside the historic courthouse; and the city’s policies restricting protests, which have been accused of violating demonstrators’ constitutional rights. In some cases, those protesters drew counter-protesters. 

City and county officials have faced repeated lawsuits as protesters have objected to now-revoked permit policies and other steps that local officials have used to hinder demonstrations near Alamance County’s detention center and courthouse in downtown Graham. 

The $120,000 settlement agreement stems from a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court after a 2019 demonstration. The 2022 lawsuit contended that local officials, Graham police and county deputies violated the constitutional rights of several people attempting to hold a traditional Jewish mourning service in front of the Alamance County Detention Center. 

Das Andere Deutschland's final issue, announcing its own prohibition on the basis of the Reichstag fire decree.

How to get away with fascism

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  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. Hurricane, anyone?)
  3. Justify consolidation of power and suspension of human rights, civil society, and democracy.

Do you know about the politics of Weimar Germany when Hitler rose to power because the establishment thought they could use the Nazis and bend them to their own will? Do you know about the Reichstag Fire which Hitler leveraged just a month after becoming Chancellor to effectively end democracy and civil liberties in Germany? Can you tell me any reason that it couldn’t happen here? All the groundwork is already in place. 

Flippable districts according to Swing Left

We have to do a lot more than voting, but vote we must

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The Washington Post writes today that a survey of battleground House districts shows Democrats with [a] narrow edge. But you know those elections aren’t going to win themselves. 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 in 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.

Flippable districts according to Swing Left

Flippable districts according to Swing Left

Look at all these places within driving distance of cities in NC where we can be supporting Democratic campaigns right now. 👉🏽

Indivisible/Flip NC is organizing canvasses in districts right here in the Triangle and I will be joining them to knock on doors next weekend (thanks in part to a nudge from a civic-minded friend). It’s not the most fun way to spend my free time, but I won’t be able to live with myself if we miss this opportunity to reduce the power of of the most greedy, craven, imperialist, chauvinist, white supremacist political party I’ve seen in my lifetime.

As I have been saying over and over: if one more person tells me we can vote our way our of this mess I am going to scream. Given extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, Russian manipulation, billionaire megadonors, media complicity, nihilist Republicans, and feckless Democrats there is only so much that voting can do, and we have to vote circles around the Republicans just to win something slightly closer to representative. We have to do a lot more than voting, but vote we must.

Start throwing rocks

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I’ve been saying for almost 2 years that the only way to stop Republicans is to have a mass movement literally out in the streets (and in factories, and other strategic positions) shutting down business as usual. Unfortunately, there is currently no organization or leader that can mobilize people on a mass scale, and most people are comfortable enough with what they have that they aren’t willing to take confrontational direct action.

I was hopeful about the Parkland kids or Rev. Barber to be that catalyst, but they are too invested in the current system. They seem to think we can vote and sing our way out of this. If democracy was functioning, half the Republican leadership would be prison. But Democrats are still counting on laws and facts to influence greedy nihilists.

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.

We can’t wait for the movement anymore. Just start throwing rocks whenever you can. But ALWAYS take care of yourself and your people first. We need to practice as much solidarity as possible just so that we can hope to survive this.

On the banality of life under authoritarianism

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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.

Although the urge to scream and lie down in the middle of the highway to stop everything rises in me daily, the inertia of daily life is stronger. I have a child I have to keep functioning for.

I have a good job, a good family, and a good house, which I don’t take for granted.

I know it’s only an accident of fate that I can keep going about my business and enjoying my relatively-easy life because I’m white and middle class, because my family came here a century ago instead of a week ago.

I have a lot of privilege, compared to some.

But I also know that it would only take some small slip of fate to put me under the boot of Republican authoritarianism. I live in constant fear that the shoe will drop.

I finally understand the human need to keep on keeping on, even when all around us is dehumanizing.

So I continue to enjoy my privileged, middle class comfort while feeling increasingly guilty about it and wondering when my bubble will pop.

Most of the time I feel powerless to stop fascism, but I keep a flame of resistance burning for the future.

Happy birthday, America.

Children leaving the Lodz ghetto for the death camp at Chelmno

This is not the bottom

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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!

"Kids Before Guns"

A national turning point

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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.