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silveradeptThis is going to be big. And hopefully reasonably organized. But all politics and such. If you are a paid user, you can screen out such naked political work by excluding the tag "political links" from my journal. Manage your subscription filters at this link.
Holy Fuck, The Election. A primer on how we got there.
The end of the era of a black man as President. The final year in photographs. Selected letters to the President. How on-the-ball the Obama Administration is about archiving, preserving, and maintaining access to their data, websites, and social media presence.
How much of the Obama presidency is likely to survive. How much of it may be preserved by scientists acting on their own to save data before it is politically inconvenient to have it.
Getting prepared for the bad things to come. Some morning-after thoughts. And reasons why this is not good.
No mercy nor second chances should be given to the Current Administrator. Every failure to be something other than the very best person should be catalogued and broadcast. Including the massive conflicts of interest present from the first day in office. And everything after. The continuing conflicts of interest. And all the lies he's told under oath or against something said under oath. He desires flunkies, which can make very bad things happen without him having to cook them up. Like the immigration ban.
Serious issues for consideration in 02017.
Keeping track of their fascism score. And why one should not be willing to go along with even the small tests. Bargaining is not the way to go.
It is a time for grief. Because what was lost is the opportunity for a better world. Because there is now lots of worry about what will happen. Because a lot of heroes that would help keep the flame alive died, and some concepts went with them. Survival is important, and comes first.
Resources to help yourself in case things get too overwhelming. A guide for taking care of yourself in the short- and long-term. Self-care possibilities. Being productive in troubling times. Being creative in troubling times. Self-care in troubling times. More self-care in dificult times. Including others and fighting structural oppressions in your self-care. Because this is hard.
Write, despite. Find your creative self and make art.
Grab a passport if you can. Here are some resources.
Make some decsions about how you plan to both survive and fight back. Take into account the need to be angry, and also to not be angry all the time. Consider the degree of preparations you feel you need. Take some practical advice. Be ready to be ungovernable. Be ready for civil disobedience.
We must understand the task before us and approach it with clear eyes and determination.
Tools! Real or Satire will help you determine whether your news is humor or reality. If visiting a website is not your thing, here's a browser extenstion that will flag up fake news. (Because while fake news knows what it did, like everyone else, it didn't think what happened was possible. Or is in active public denial about the role that it played, while privately freaking out about alienating money by insisting on truth.) If it's not on the list, there are still some things you can do to evaluate a source for its truthfulness. These are the kinds of things your librarians have been trying to bash into your head since schooling. Pay attention. Alogrithmic attempts to verify will help, but machines aren't the same as humans. And those humans gave the Current Administrator a great bubble of fake news to live in. The problem will not fix itself. Here are ways to fight fiction with facts.
Also, put pressure on people like Google that let fake news rofit from advertising revenue.
What is clearly needed are inoculations against the effectiveness of fake news and spinned numbers. Here's a start - appropriate translations of words that may be unclear.
How about some real investigative journals to follow? And an aggregator of newswire articles. Independent journalism sites. Also, good fact-checking sites, with, perhaps, the exception of Politifact, unless they've gotten their act together. The media must do more than just record and chronicle what has happened. It cannot become a mere mouthpiece for the administration. It also can't allow itself to be snookered on press conferences. This requires preparations so as to avoid bieing dependent on someone who can influence you. This is what ProPublica is doing. Refuse to kiss the ring. Grow a spine and start reporting.
It's quite possible the Current Administrator is blackmailable by Russia. The person that wrote the whistleblowing did so in seriousness.
Colors are not value-neutral, reminds Dr. King.
The Indivisible Guide, written by those who have worked with Congresscritters, on how to get Congresscritters to do what you want them to. Additional tips, from a previous Congressional staffer. Scripts that can be adapted against any advisor or pick the Current Administrator wants. More phone information. Yet more scripts. A script for environmental committee members.
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thisfinecrew offers suggestions. spoonlessactivists offers suggestons when you're not feeling like you have a whole lot of anything to offer. Or energy to contibute. Bustle has suggestions if you're socially anxious. There's also at least one post about calling while anxious.
More suggestions. And even more. Where things can go from here. A Scarleteen guide to rebelling well. I Rebel, and you can, too. A resistance manual. Small acts of resistance. More small acts of resistance. Next steps, some Portland-specific. The Oh Crap Guide to Surviving. Weekly calls to action with the Sixty-Five. More possible suggestions on what to do. A single call a day might help. Small acts help big. Weekly resistance, with scripts. Believe that what you do will make a difference, even if it doesn't seem to be doing so. Call for someone if they can't. To-do lists, if you don't know what to do. Suggestions for right now advocacy. More material. Even more material. Still more materials. Ways to keep fighting. And more. And yet more tools and information to help you.
Feminist Frequency offers organizations and advice. The Southern Poverty Law Center offers advice and ways to make your community less hateful, and ways to defeat everyday bigotry expressed in your sphere. Reporting Hate Crimes in your state. Environmental organizations that can use help. Help Black Lives Matter - the change in administration hasn't changed their mission at all. Ways to become an ally or accomplice to Black people. Things White People can do to help. Suggestions on how to find a local Muslim center to offer your help. Entities you can boycott. Apps you can use to keep track and organize. Kits available for purchase and subscription. Anti-proliferation organizations to support. A cleanse for your complicity in actions. Ways to throw shade and keep your feminism intersectional. Why supporting John Lewis is the right idea, instead of Jeff Sessions. What you can do, based on your interests.
An updating list of organizations to donate or subscribe to.
Fight the Current Administrator. In ways that show your support of demos kratos. Utilize the power of your state and locality. Expose those who act in ways that perpetuate racism. Have some scripts on how to confront and try to leverage privilege as an ally to help change others' positions. Have some ways to aggressively defend your territory. Take lessons from those who have been fighting this battle for longer than you have. Leverage privilege for useful ends.
Stay angry. Be angry. And realize who else has been angry a lot longer than you and help them. Make a pledge to resist with women. Pledge to get shit done. With women. Understand that a large part of why Hillary Clinton lost had to do with her being a woman claiming competence at leadership and the impossible and contradictory expctations of her. As well as something timed to make people think ill of her right before the election.
Because women and QUILTBAG-identified people are under assault under the guise of "religious freedom". Doctors are likely to be pressured or attacked for providing services to women. The Second-in-Administration generally hates women. Keep an eye on seeing whether protections implemented in the Obama era are being eroded. Contraception has become a political statement. Further options to help women. Some hope, though, that things that are currently available will continue to remain so. Even though the rules regarding insurance might change.
QUILTBAG-identified people will not be pushed back into the closet. Help them take the hinges off the door. Keep kissing. Try and make it harder for someone to overturn the gains made. Support your children. Support those still fighting. Give resources to those that need them. Because help with mental distress is some of what they need.
The gutting of health care and policy toward disabilities makes this Administration dangerous for the disabled. There's a high probablility of the disabled dying under this Administration. And there are people who can be stopped before they do these things, or held fully accountable after.
Women are under attack from the alt-right and the pickup artist alike, since both believe in the subservience of women. Medics are uniting to oppose policies that hurt patients, especially women and the mentally ill. Women held a strike on the inaguration day, from unpaid and emotional labor as well as paid work.
White people are responsible for these things. Across just about every other demographic, too. White people with racist ideas put the Current Administrator in power. Angry white men with racist views put the Current Administrator in power. Make America Great Again suggests that the targeted era is not the mythic 1950s, but the actual 1930s.
The Republicans removed funding for the Affordable Care Act, without any sort of actual replacement plan in place for it.
Censors are emboldened all around the world, thinking they can ban certain sex acts on films. The Russian Parliament decriminalized domestic violence. Those with experience regarding dictators are worried.
Peel off as many of the coalition as you can, because the true believers will be using them as mass to attack you. They can be shamed, for their behavior was shameful. They should also refuse to work with the Administration. Insist that the opposition behave like one. Priase them when they do it. (And then join them and take a seat somewhere, because there's probably one for the taking.) Insist that your politics and theirs focus itself on protecting the most vulnerable. Not in a way that promotes tokenism, but instead insists that the identities of people are important. As it turns out, everything that's been horrible in the last few years turned out the politically astute for the Republicans.
There are cracks in the armor. And there will be lots of times where he lets his ego defeat the right course of action. There may even be people on the same side that will help you in calling him out. Hollywood could help galvanize people by making movies appropriate to the situation. Pressure can get people to reverse bad decisions. And the people who most voted for the Current Administrator are the ones most going to be hurt by him. It requires contemplating an entirely new mindset, however.
But appointments being made are bad for the places those appointments will head up. Important and truthful data could be scrubbed or reworked at any point.
Less tears, more action. Especially from white people. (Here's a suggested reading list to get started.) Sacrifices will be needed to help keep everyone safe. Even nice, decent, folks can be inveterate racists, so that's no excuse for not working against them. Even if you can't budge your family, you can budge others. Everything is not okay. There's a lot to be mad about. And The white working class is not where to focus. Nor is simply wearing symbols without the backing actions. Because the signs have been there from before this, and the people who know what's been going on know not to trust the symbols.
Some states have chosen to protect their people regardless of what the Current Administrator does. California intends to lead the charge.
Making comparisons between fascism and the movememnt that elected the Current Administrator are warranted. So much so as to deliberately invoke Godwin's Rule. Because the phantom of political correctness allowed the right to wage war against an imaginary enemy succesfully. So now liberals have to fight against a physical one. Resistance starts with one. And with fighting both the lies and the impressions the lies create.
Increased nuclear armament is a likely result of this Administration.
Corruption follows the Current Administrator wherever he goes - our institutions may not be able to defeat him. Aside from those institutions that were already on his side or go along with him, anyway. He might continue to participate in a petrobubble.
Recounts didn't change anything, but that was also because not many places actually want to count and make sure their counts are accurate. And Clinton failed to take the opportunity to insist on further investigation. (According to them, because they didn't see any reason why. They are wrong. Very, very wrong.)
All of that lack of action, despite clear signs of interference and hacking. And the need for transparency in investigating those signs and their conclusions. And the possibility that a conspiracy was at work and may have already admitted their involvement in it. Or that much of what is now coming to light has already been known, but wasn't able to be used. Ane even more so, the admission of involvement by foreign powers.
Demand accountability for tactics that disenfranchise minority and poor voters. Advocate for systems that take the power out of the hands of a select few, especially since the safeguard that the Elecetoral College was supposed to be failed out entirely.
The simplest thing to do is resist. And believe the Current Administrator when he says he's going to do a thing. Take him seriously and literally at whatever he says. Which includes a way of registering Muslims and tracking them as potential terrorists. Or an intent to detain Muslims into camps. He lacks the music to maintain the best parts of the United States. He lacks even basic empathy for others.
Those who have seen this before area calling for our help. Because signs point that they're going to be targeted again.
Insist on a lack of concilliation. Nonviolence may be taken as compliance. Which would be bad, because there are plenty of people who want to use violence against you. The protests are not going to go away.
Evangelicals abandoned their commitment to the Being Represented By The Tetragrammaton in voting for the Current Administrator, and in doing so, put someone very convinced of the rightness of his particular Christian flavor into the Vice Presidency. Work toward liberation, instead. Resist letting values contrary to your religion creep in through the pulpit.
Authors talk about books in relation to the ideas of resistance, systems, and characters working with both.
Making art and doing creative things in this time is important.
Reactions to reality of the current Administrator.
Schools have seen a sharp uptick in bullying and harassment as society has shown children that it's acceptable to do these things. There are lots of documented incidents already. And a bigger and growing list of incidents. And more (some duplicates) incidents.
The Current Administrator has sexual assault allegations that were dropped, possibly because nobody wants to believe the story of the victim.
The truths of what the Affordable Care Act does, both for the insured and the uninsured. Which makes the repeal efforts that much more intended to be hostile, rather than attempting to fix or replace it with something better. As in lots of people dying from lack of healthcare hostile. And the part where so many people are ignorant that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act are the same thing doesn't help.
It is, of course, not limited to the shores of the United States. Immigration is being blamed for the problems of the United Kingdom's National Health System. Immigration is getting blamed for a lot of things, even as it continues to be a deliberately difficult process. And the sorts of forces that created and elected the Current Administrator are working all around the world to put their people in charge.
Homelessness kills, especially in places where you can freeze outside.
Net neutrality is likely a casualty of the election, because the person appointed to such hates net neutrality. The Current Administrator is likely going to try and use all the surveillance tools at their disposal.
For protecting yourself, as much as you can, an opting out sheet, at least one other site to opt out of, digital security measures from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reasons why using Signal (or at least something with its protocol) is a good idea, another good action plan for digital security, reasons why not to use WhatsApp, tech tips on how to stay safe, why to use Tor services, other quick tips for privacy and security, apps to record and upload police conduct, ways of reducing harm by practicing good security, a primer on privacy,
and The EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense.
Because tech companies are already lining up to play nice with the Current Administrator, since it's in their best interest to do so.
Tips on how to gear up for physically being at a rally or protest, clothes for staying warm while at a protest, along with clothing that attempts to disrupt facial recognition software.
Advice to the Current Administrator about how to deal with Russia by preventing the fracturing and creation of a world where everyone looks out for themselves.
The warning of the incompetence we can look forward to. Because right along with it comes the malice that was there right from the beginning. And there's no refuge in the supposed business acumen, either.
Because, as it turns out, there are allies everywhere, and they are refusing to be silent. Marches were planned. At least three million women marched against the Current Administrator. (Here are the pictures.) Supergirl got in on the protest. One hundred thousand in Portland. One hundred seventy-five thousand in Boston. And they brought excellent signs with them. Lots of excellent signs.
Much accomplished, including making mainstream feminism much more intersectional. Imagine what could have been done if the marchers were prepared from the beginning. And now there's much more to be done.
There could have been plenty of women who were born before women were enfranchised who would have seen a woman become President. There are plenty of women who have correctly taken the election as a referendum on sexism and pointed out how much the election focused on white men. The women's march notes that white women are the other piece that elected the Current Administrator.
Canada is welcoming, but they're not going to hold your hand if going there is on your radar.
Defeat, yes, that happened. But not permanently. Time to go to work. Give the choir a chance to join their voices in song. See the community around you for the wonderful and diverse place that it is. (And if it isn't, work toward making it that way.)
Follow the way of the water, the way that goes where it must, that finds the way around all things that impede it, that may be used for many, many other things in the process, but still gets to where it will go. Join with people and help them achieve their focus, instead of trying to redirect it to yours. The sky remains. So shall we. Time to be the sun.
Because collaboration is no guarantee of a better outcome. Because powerful candidates that proclaim themselves the victims all the time should not be rewarded. Because someone's ego is continually being hurt by how much they lost by, even though they won the Presidency. Because they like to cloak themselves in specific words. Because they express the distress of the privileged, and we need to focus on the distress of the marginalized. Because anything short of complete capitulation means that someone thinks they're wrong, and they can't have that.
It's up to us. We're going to have to save ourselves. Because it doesn't look like anyone else is going to step up. Time to punch your own Nazis. (Have a handy FAQ.) It's time to fight. Do it your way, because that's the way you can do it. Do it in a way that keeps you hopeful. Protect everyone you can, because their protection is your protection. Don't sneer at other people's methods as best you can. Try not to get caught in despair. Dig in to the local things.
But even so, vow not to burn out. Take care of yourself. Make More Joy. Keep hope alive, because we are writing the future. And remember who you were before this all started, and use them as a guide on whether to descend further into the void. There are stories to tell, and recall, and write. Things can be made better. Broken things can be repaired to make them even better.
Midterms are not that far off, and legislative seats are where power can be changed.
There's plenty to be done outside the United States, too.
Take care of yourselves. Fulfill a prayer. And make sure you've had enough time to cry.
Holy Fuck, The Election. A primer on how we got there.
The end of the era of a black man as President. The final year in photographs. Selected letters to the President. How on-the-ball the Obama Administration is about archiving, preserving, and maintaining access to their data, websites, and social media presence.
How much of the Obama presidency is likely to survive. How much of it may be preserved by scientists acting on their own to save data before it is politically inconvenient to have it.
Getting prepared for the bad things to come. Some morning-after thoughts. And reasons why this is not good.
No mercy nor second chances should be given to the Current Administrator. Every failure to be something other than the very best person should be catalogued and broadcast. Including the massive conflicts of interest present from the first day in office. And everything after. The continuing conflicts of interest. And all the lies he's told under oath or against something said under oath. He desires flunkies, which can make very bad things happen without him having to cook them up. Like the immigration ban.
Serious issues for consideration in 02017.
Keeping track of their fascism score. And why one should not be willing to go along with even the small tests. Bargaining is not the way to go.
It is a time for grief. Because what was lost is the opportunity for a better world. Because there is now lots of worry about what will happen. Because a lot of heroes that would help keep the flame alive died, and some concepts went with them. Survival is important, and comes first.
Resources to help yourself in case things get too overwhelming. A guide for taking care of yourself in the short- and long-term. Self-care possibilities. Being productive in troubling times. Being creative in troubling times. Self-care in troubling times. More self-care in dificult times. Including others and fighting structural oppressions in your self-care. Because this is hard.
Write, despite. Find your creative self and make art.
Grab a passport if you can. Here are some resources.
Make some decsions about how you plan to both survive and fight back. Take into account the need to be angry, and also to not be angry all the time. Consider the degree of preparations you feel you need. Take some practical advice. Be ready to be ungovernable. Be ready for civil disobedience.
We must understand the task before us and approach it with clear eyes and determination.
Tools! Real or Satire will help you determine whether your news is humor or reality. If visiting a website is not your thing, here's a browser extenstion that will flag up fake news. (Because while fake news knows what it did, like everyone else, it didn't think what happened was possible. Or is in active public denial about the role that it played, while privately freaking out about alienating money by insisting on truth.) If it's not on the list, there are still some things you can do to evaluate a source for its truthfulness. These are the kinds of things your librarians have been trying to bash into your head since schooling. Pay attention. Alogrithmic attempts to verify will help, but machines aren't the same as humans. And those humans gave the Current Administrator a great bubble of fake news to live in. The problem will not fix itself. Here are ways to fight fiction with facts.
Also, put pressure on people like Google that let fake news rofit from advertising revenue.
What is clearly needed are inoculations against the effectiveness of fake news and spinned numbers. Here's a start - appropriate translations of words that may be unclear.
How about some real investigative journals to follow? And an aggregator of newswire articles. Independent journalism sites. Also, good fact-checking sites, with, perhaps, the exception of Politifact, unless they've gotten their act together. The media must do more than just record and chronicle what has happened. It cannot become a mere mouthpiece for the administration. It also can't allow itself to be snookered on press conferences. This requires preparations so as to avoid bieing dependent on someone who can influence you. This is what ProPublica is doing. Refuse to kiss the ring. Grow a spine and start reporting.
It's quite possible the Current Administrator is blackmailable by Russia. The person that wrote the whistleblowing did so in seriousness.
Colors are not value-neutral, reminds Dr. King.
The Indivisible Guide, written by those who have worked with Congresscritters, on how to get Congresscritters to do what you want them to. Additional tips, from a previous Congressional staffer. Scripts that can be adapted against any advisor or pick the Current Administrator wants. More phone information. Yet more scripts. A script for environmental committee members.
thisfinecrew offers suggestions. spoonlessactivists offers suggestons when you're not feeling like you have a whole lot of anything to offer. Or energy to contibute. Bustle has suggestions if you're socially anxious. There's also at least one post about calling while anxious.More suggestions. And even more. Where things can go from here. A Scarleteen guide to rebelling well. I Rebel, and you can, too. A resistance manual. Small acts of resistance. More small acts of resistance. Next steps, some Portland-specific. The Oh Crap Guide to Surviving. Weekly calls to action with the Sixty-Five. More possible suggestions on what to do. A single call a day might help. Small acts help big. Weekly resistance, with scripts. Believe that what you do will make a difference, even if it doesn't seem to be doing so. Call for someone if they can't. To-do lists, if you don't know what to do. Suggestions for right now advocacy. More material. Even more material. Still more materials. Ways to keep fighting. And more. And yet more tools and information to help you.
Feminist Frequency offers organizations and advice. The Southern Poverty Law Center offers advice and ways to make your community less hateful, and ways to defeat everyday bigotry expressed in your sphere. Reporting Hate Crimes in your state. Environmental organizations that can use help. Help Black Lives Matter - the change in administration hasn't changed their mission at all. Ways to become an ally or accomplice to Black people. Things White People can do to help. Suggestions on how to find a local Muslim center to offer your help. Entities you can boycott. Apps you can use to keep track and organize. Kits available for purchase and subscription. Anti-proliferation organizations to support. A cleanse for your complicity in actions. Ways to throw shade and keep your feminism intersectional. Why supporting John Lewis is the right idea, instead of Jeff Sessions. What you can do, based on your interests.
An updating list of organizations to donate or subscribe to.
Fight the Current Administrator. In ways that show your support of demos kratos. Utilize the power of your state and locality. Expose those who act in ways that perpetuate racism. Have some scripts on how to confront and try to leverage privilege as an ally to help change others' positions. Have some ways to aggressively defend your territory. Take lessons from those who have been fighting this battle for longer than you have. Leverage privilege for useful ends.
Stay angry. Be angry. And realize who else has been angry a lot longer than you and help them. Make a pledge to resist with women. Pledge to get shit done. With women. Understand that a large part of why Hillary Clinton lost had to do with her being a woman claiming competence at leadership and the impossible and contradictory expctations of her. As well as something timed to make people think ill of her right before the election.
Because women and QUILTBAG-identified people are under assault under the guise of "religious freedom". Doctors are likely to be pressured or attacked for providing services to women. The Second-in-Administration generally hates women. Keep an eye on seeing whether protections implemented in the Obama era are being eroded. Contraception has become a political statement. Further options to help women. Some hope, though, that things that are currently available will continue to remain so. Even though the rules regarding insurance might change.
QUILTBAG-identified people will not be pushed back into the closet. Help them take the hinges off the door. Keep kissing. Try and make it harder for someone to overturn the gains made. Support your children. Support those still fighting. Give resources to those that need them. Because help with mental distress is some of what they need.
The gutting of health care and policy toward disabilities makes this Administration dangerous for the disabled. There's a high probablility of the disabled dying under this Administration. And there are people who can be stopped before they do these things, or held fully accountable after.
Women are under attack from the alt-right and the pickup artist alike, since both believe in the subservience of women. Medics are uniting to oppose policies that hurt patients, especially women and the mentally ill. Women held a strike on the inaguration day, from unpaid and emotional labor as well as paid work.
White people are responsible for these things. Across just about every other demographic, too. White people with racist ideas put the Current Administrator in power. Angry white men with racist views put the Current Administrator in power. Make America Great Again suggests that the targeted era is not the mythic 1950s, but the actual 1930s.
The Republicans removed funding for the Affordable Care Act, without any sort of actual replacement plan in place for it.
Censors are emboldened all around the world, thinking they can ban certain sex acts on films. The Russian Parliament decriminalized domestic violence. Those with experience regarding dictators are worried.
Peel off as many of the coalition as you can, because the true believers will be using them as mass to attack you. They can be shamed, for their behavior was shameful. They should also refuse to work with the Administration. Insist that the opposition behave like one. Priase them when they do it. (And then join them and take a seat somewhere, because there's probably one for the taking.) Insist that your politics and theirs focus itself on protecting the most vulnerable. Not in a way that promotes tokenism, but instead insists that the identities of people are important. As it turns out, everything that's been horrible in the last few years turned out the politically astute for the Republicans.
There are cracks in the armor. And there will be lots of times where he lets his ego defeat the right course of action. There may even be people on the same side that will help you in calling him out. Hollywood could help galvanize people by making movies appropriate to the situation. Pressure can get people to reverse bad decisions. And the people who most voted for the Current Administrator are the ones most going to be hurt by him. It requires contemplating an entirely new mindset, however.
But appointments being made are bad for the places those appointments will head up. Important and truthful data could be scrubbed or reworked at any point.
Less tears, more action. Especially from white people. (Here's a suggested reading list to get started.) Sacrifices will be needed to help keep everyone safe. Even nice, decent, folks can be inveterate racists, so that's no excuse for not working against them. Even if you can't budge your family, you can budge others. Everything is not okay. There's a lot to be mad about. And The white working class is not where to focus. Nor is simply wearing symbols without the backing actions. Because the signs have been there from before this, and the people who know what's been going on know not to trust the symbols.
Some states have chosen to protect their people regardless of what the Current Administrator does. California intends to lead the charge.
Making comparisons between fascism and the movememnt that elected the Current Administrator are warranted. So much so as to deliberately invoke Godwin's Rule. Because the phantom of political correctness allowed the right to wage war against an imaginary enemy succesfully. So now liberals have to fight against a physical one. Resistance starts with one. And with fighting both the lies and the impressions the lies create.
Increased nuclear armament is a likely result of this Administration.
Corruption follows the Current Administrator wherever he goes - our institutions may not be able to defeat him. Aside from those institutions that were already on his side or go along with him, anyway. He might continue to participate in a petrobubble.
Recounts didn't change anything, but that was also because not many places actually want to count and make sure their counts are accurate. And Clinton failed to take the opportunity to insist on further investigation. (According to them, because they didn't see any reason why. They are wrong. Very, very wrong.)
All of that lack of action, despite clear signs of interference and hacking. And the need for transparency in investigating those signs and their conclusions. And the possibility that a conspiracy was at work and may have already admitted their involvement in it. Or that much of what is now coming to light has already been known, but wasn't able to be used. Ane even more so, the admission of involvement by foreign powers.
Demand accountability for tactics that disenfranchise minority and poor voters. Advocate for systems that take the power out of the hands of a select few, especially since the safeguard that the Elecetoral College was supposed to be failed out entirely.
The simplest thing to do is resist. And believe the Current Administrator when he says he's going to do a thing. Take him seriously and literally at whatever he says. Which includes a way of registering Muslims and tracking them as potential terrorists. Or an intent to detain Muslims into camps. He lacks the music to maintain the best parts of the United States. He lacks even basic empathy for others.
Those who have seen this before area calling for our help. Because signs point that they're going to be targeted again.
Insist on a lack of concilliation. Nonviolence may be taken as compliance. Which would be bad, because there are plenty of people who want to use violence against you. The protests are not going to go away.
Evangelicals abandoned their commitment to the Being Represented By The Tetragrammaton in voting for the Current Administrator, and in doing so, put someone very convinced of the rightness of his particular Christian flavor into the Vice Presidency. Work toward liberation, instead. Resist letting values contrary to your religion creep in through the pulpit.
Authors talk about books in relation to the ideas of resistance, systems, and characters working with both.
Making art and doing creative things in this time is important.
Reactions to reality of the current Administrator.
Schools have seen a sharp uptick in bullying and harassment as society has shown children that it's acceptable to do these things. There are lots of documented incidents already. And a bigger and growing list of incidents. And more (some duplicates) incidents.
The Current Administrator has sexual assault allegations that were dropped, possibly because nobody wants to believe the story of the victim.
The truths of what the Affordable Care Act does, both for the insured and the uninsured. Which makes the repeal efforts that much more intended to be hostile, rather than attempting to fix or replace it with something better. As in lots of people dying from lack of healthcare hostile. And the part where so many people are ignorant that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act are the same thing doesn't help.
It is, of course, not limited to the shores of the United States. Immigration is being blamed for the problems of the United Kingdom's National Health System. Immigration is getting blamed for a lot of things, even as it continues to be a deliberately difficult process. And the sorts of forces that created and elected the Current Administrator are working all around the world to put their people in charge.
Homelessness kills, especially in places where you can freeze outside.
Net neutrality is likely a casualty of the election, because the person appointed to such hates net neutrality. The Current Administrator is likely going to try and use all the surveillance tools at their disposal.
For protecting yourself, as much as you can, an opting out sheet, at least one other site to opt out of, digital security measures from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reasons why using Signal (or at least something with its protocol) is a good idea, another good action plan for digital security, reasons why not to use WhatsApp, tech tips on how to stay safe, why to use Tor services, other quick tips for privacy and security, apps to record and upload police conduct, ways of reducing harm by practicing good security, a primer on privacy,
and The EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense.
Because tech companies are already lining up to play nice with the Current Administrator, since it's in their best interest to do so.
Tips on how to gear up for physically being at a rally or protest, clothes for staying warm while at a protest, along with clothing that attempts to disrupt facial recognition software.
Advice to the Current Administrator about how to deal with Russia by preventing the fracturing and creation of a world where everyone looks out for themselves.
The warning of the incompetence we can look forward to. Because right along with it comes the malice that was there right from the beginning. And there's no refuge in the supposed business acumen, either.
Because, as it turns out, there are allies everywhere, and they are refusing to be silent. Marches were planned. At least three million women marched against the Current Administrator. (Here are the pictures.) Supergirl got in on the protest. One hundred thousand in Portland. One hundred seventy-five thousand in Boston. And they brought excellent signs with them. Lots of excellent signs.
Much accomplished, including making mainstream feminism much more intersectional. Imagine what could have been done if the marchers were prepared from the beginning. And now there's much more to be done.
There could have been plenty of women who were born before women were enfranchised who would have seen a woman become President. There are plenty of women who have correctly taken the election as a referendum on sexism and pointed out how much the election focused on white men. The women's march notes that white women are the other piece that elected the Current Administrator.
Canada is welcoming, but they're not going to hold your hand if going there is on your radar.
Defeat, yes, that happened. But not permanently. Time to go to work. Give the choir a chance to join their voices in song. See the community around you for the wonderful and diverse place that it is. (And if it isn't, work toward making it that way.)
Follow the way of the water, the way that goes where it must, that finds the way around all things that impede it, that may be used for many, many other things in the process, but still gets to where it will go. Join with people and help them achieve their focus, instead of trying to redirect it to yours. The sky remains. So shall we. Time to be the sun.
Because collaboration is no guarantee of a better outcome. Because powerful candidates that proclaim themselves the victims all the time should not be rewarded. Because someone's ego is continually being hurt by how much they lost by, even though they won the Presidency. Because they like to cloak themselves in specific words. Because they express the distress of the privileged, and we need to focus on the distress of the marginalized. Because anything short of complete capitulation means that someone thinks they're wrong, and they can't have that.
It's up to us. We're going to have to save ourselves. Because it doesn't look like anyone else is going to step up. Time to punch your own Nazis. (Have a handy FAQ.) It's time to fight. Do it your way, because that's the way you can do it. Do it in a way that keeps you hopeful. Protect everyone you can, because their protection is your protection. Don't sneer at other people's methods as best you can. Try not to get caught in despair. Dig in to the local things.
But even so, vow not to burn out. Take care of yourself. Make More Joy. Keep hope alive, because we are writing the future. And remember who you were before this all started, and use them as a guide on whether to descend further into the void. There are stories to tell, and recall, and write. Things can be made better. Broken things can be repaired to make them even better.
Midterms are not that far off, and legislative seats are where power can be changed.
There's plenty to be done outside the United States, too.
Take care of yourselves. Fulfill a prayer. And make sure you've had enough time to cry.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-12 04:18 am (UTC)Indeed.