How we’re going to make it through this.
The camps that are leading the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline need your support. There are numerous different camps that exist at Standing Rock. Each serving a different role and responsibility. We know that it can be confusing as to who to support. So please take a moment to read about each camp we have listed and donate or send supplies!
George Lakoff is a linguistics professor and my favorite explainer of political values and communication strategy. Last week he wrote a great summary of where we are now.
Read: A Minority President: Why the Polls Failed, And What the Majority Can Do
My friend and mentor Micah Sifry wrote Annals of Normalization: The Trump-Times Meeting about the very real danger of normalizing Trump’s presidency, highlighting how The New York Times is literally incapable of reporting on him accurately.
So, in the first 15 minutes of Trump’s meeting with the Times’ top brass, he offers a completely unrehearsed word salad, reminiscing about things that didn’t happen. And then the meeting continues without anyone blinking and saying, excuse me sir, nothing you just said makes any sense.
This is Trump’s reality distortion field. And even on their home turf, surrounded by colleagues, no one at the Times had the gumption to really puncture it.
Trump: The Choice We Face, another insightful and important essay from Masha Gessen.
We cannot know what political strategy, if any, can be effective in containing, rather than abetting, the threat that a Trump administration now poses to some of our most fundamental democratic principles. But we can know what is right. What separates Americans in 2016 from Europeans in the 1940s and 1950s is a little bit of historical time but a whole lot of historical knowledge. We know what my great-grandfather did not know: that the people who wanted to keep the people fed ended up compiling lists of their neighbors to be killed. That they had a rationale for doing so. And also, that one of the greatest thinkers of their age judged their actions as harshly as they could be judged.
Armed with that knowledge, or burdened with that legacy, we have a slight chance of making better choices. As Trump torpedoes into the presidency, we need to shift from realist to moral reasoning. That would mean, at minimum, thinking about the right thing to do, now and in the imaginable future. It is also a good idea to have a trusted friend capable of reminding you when you are about to lose your sense of right and wrong.
Trump: The Choice We Face | by Masha Gessen | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
I’m incredibly proud to be a Durhamite. Most recently because of this powerful Letter to the People of the City of Durham from the Durham City Council.
The Durham City Council (1) condemns all hateful speech and violent action directed at Muslims, those perceived to be Muslims, immigrants and people of color; (2) categorically rejects any politician’s anti-Muslim rhetoric used as a tactic to influence voters or inflame hostilities; (3) commits to pursuing a policy agenda that affirms civil and human rights, and ensures that those targeted on the basis of race, religion or immigration status can turn to government without fear of recrimination; (4) reaffirms the value of a pluralistic society, the beauty of a culture composed of multiple cultures, and the inalienable right of every person to live and practice their faith without fear; and (5) pledges to work to make Durham a city that reflects those values in word and deed.
These are the values of the city of Durham. They are as true today as they were before the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, and they will be just as true on the day he vacates that high office. Regardless of the policy agenda that our new president-elect decides to pursue, the city of Durham will remain as committed as ever to combatting hatred and bigotry in all forms, and to protecting and advancing the civil and human rights of all of the people of this city.
Here is some good stuff I posted on social media recently:
This weekend I attended a wonderful gathering of people who are not OK with letting ignorance and hate infect our community and our state. Before Durham in Defiance, some people complained that we should be demonstrating in the streets rather than standing around talking. We have been in the streets for many years, and we will turn out again (and again, and again). But what made this event really important was that it was organized for the long haul.
Let me get this straight: As recently as a week ago, Trump supporters threatened armed revolution if their candidate lost the election. Now that he has in fact won the election (without the majority of votes) they are complaining that people are nonviolently protesting his politics of hate?
I’ve never seen such sore winners. It must be rough when you run everything and still think the entire world is out to get you.
First they came for the Anarchists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an anarchist.
Then they came for Muslims, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not muslim.
Then they came for Black Lives Matter, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not Black.
Then they came for the journalists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a journalist.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
After Pastor Martin Niemöller.