Help Where You Can Part 1

There are a lot of cultural minority groups in serious threat from the upcoming administration. Just... so many. I do not have a very wide circle, but I found some advice LGBTQ+ that I'm going to post. Erin in the Morning has an excellent list of ways for Trans folk (but this could be extended to any threatened group) to "prepare" for what may come. There's a link within it to a map of "safe" places, or at least places with legislative protection in place.

With the cheeto's plan to erode the federal government in general, we have an advantage over the historical parallel we're all thinking about (*cough*1930sgermany*cough*), and that's the power of state legislation.

I am trying my absolute best not to fearmonger, and not to go overboard with my "prepare for the worst" mentality, but the best way I can think of to stave off fear is to keep busy. So today my plan is to go through that list above and see if there's anything on it I can help my friends with, and if not, donate to a few orgs that are trying to help out, including some national ones, and some local ones I also found on the local Reddit for my area (another great resource if you're lookin).

All of this aside, my mental state is in the garbage right now, and trying to maintain my thin veneer of sociability for work and other duties is difficult at best.

Love to whoever finds this. Be kind to your neighbors, always.

Rest, But Be Emotional

There's a lot of emphasis of self care and making sure your emotional well-being is as strong as it can be. But my hot take here is that sometimes it's important to sit with the negative emotions in order to understand what you have to solve. Related: I learned the other day about the "sleep industry" that pushes apps and tech to help humans sleep better. But the takeaway from all of it was that what we actually need in order to have better sleep is just... time. The pace of business and what the culture is pushing us to do is antithetical to our health and adding more capitalism to it won't solve our collective exhaustion in the same way that we can't buy our way out of mental distress. 

That said, my response to stress has been escaping into videogames or TV, and I know I am not alone in this. So, today's post is simple. Today I'm going to make a cup of tea and sit by a window for 30 minutes before work without any media. I can spend 30 minutes with uncomfortable thoughts. I will allow myself something for my restless hands like knitting or doodling. But no voices or words or devices to distract me from my thoughts. I need to hear my own voice sometimes, even if it's sad or tired. 

Don't swim in your sorrow or sadness right now, of course, but do let yourself feel it. For me, I'm hoping it will help me sift up something worth learning or researching. Short and sweet today. 

Be kind to yourself and your neighbors, always.

Local Connections

I cannot speak for local connections outside of my area, obviously, but one thing that seems to be a common thread amongst the commentators is that we're more divided than ever. I've seen lots of explanations as to WHY, but the common theme is that we are. So, what can we do to return to a commonality? We need to tell each other stories, and make our neighbors human to us.

I'm going to start simple. In my area, I discovered a "silent reading party" where people go to just sit and read together. It looks like they do 3 or 4 per month so you can come and go as you like. But, if you're not a big reader, maybe you can look on Meetup.com (though it is apparently not what it once was) or even Facebook for local groups. I am loathe to suggest it, but FB is honestly still pretty great for organizing groups, especially with niche interests.There's also always the local coffee shop physical message board, too.

When I moved away from where I grew up, I did not know anyone, and had no connection with local culture. I was heavily into online games at the time, and didn't leave the house much at first, but my spouse was gone for work most of the days and I only worked part time so it was making me somewhat miserable. So, I got a chance spam email from Meetup and decided to check it out. Found a local knitting group, and through that met some board gamers and beer drinkers and just generally wonderful locals, some who'd been locals their whole life and some who were fairly new.

So when I moved across the country again, the very first thing I did was start a knitting group in my neighborhood. I also lived in an apartment complex that had social events, so I forced my introverted self to do those things as well, and eventually I did meet some very good folks. I'm still friends with several, and consider several to be solid acquaintances that I could reconnect with if desired. I attribute my fierce loyalty to my chosen region of the country not just to the beauty of the place, but also to the people I've met along the way.

Once you find a group doing a thing you like, you can build trust with them. You can talk offline and do all your activities. For knitters, go to local shops together. Put together a little yarn crawl and visit shops that might be a little further outside your comfort zone. If you're not a big planner, someone in your group will be.

Glom on to the conversations that interest you. Be uncomfortable for a bit until you rebuild the social muscles that the internet has atrophied. I need to do that too, because the Pandemic ruined me for in-person interactions. I haven't been to a group activity in years.

So that's my action item today. Find a group thing to sign up for on either FB or meetup.

Where to Start

In the spirit of continuing the absorption of information, it's important to have a wide variety of ideas to absorb in order to build a larger picture. Some of the takes I've seen include a lamentation about a large portion of the country not looking at a bigger picture, and I struggle to disagree with that. "The Economy" is good actually, they say, but prices for consumers have not gone down and people blame the current leadership for that rather than the first cheeto administration, which did a lot of damage to the good economy it inherited from Obama. We won't see the true damage from the new administration until after it is over, in other words. I digress, and risk treading on territory in which I am not an expert.

So, here's some stuff to check out/follow/remember/subscribe to today. I'm also making an "activism" folder or filter for my inbox, so I do not go absolutely mad with newsletter-style content. This is a small and not comprehensive list just for online voices. This is not necessarily going to help with local community building, but it might help me find some more like-minded online folks, or at least give you talking points whenever I do find in-person groups. I'll talk a little about that tomorrow.

I am already subscribed to the following:

John/Hank Green and Nerdfighteria: https://nerdfighteria.com/ or https://werehere.beehiiv.com/ or https://www.youtube.com/@vlogbrothers/

W. Kamau Bell: Comedian and activist. https://wkamaubell.substack.com/

Popular Info/Judd Legum: investigative journalist. https://popular.info/

ProPublica: Investigative journalism, not purchased by billionaires. https://www.propublica.org/ 

Robert Reich: Former Labor Secretary. Very, very smart. Sam Reich's dad. https://robertreich.org/

I will be investigating the following (will update this as I find more):

F.D. Signifire: Learned about him through W. Kamau Bell: https://www.youtube.com/@FDSignifire

Endevorance: Followed him on IG for awhile, but will subscribe to the newsletter. https://www.skh.news

Everytown.org: Anti-gun-violence organization

ACLU's podcast At Liberty: https://www.aclu.org/podcast

Heather Cox Richardson: Professor and historian. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

Angry Gay Grandpa: LGBTQ+ advocate. https://www.youtube.com/@AngryGayGrandpa 

Still to find: 

More trans rights advocates

Reproductive rights advocates

Immigrant rights advocates

Procrastinated Re-posts

Global Digital Citizen Foundation

Yesterday, I said I was going to find some people that are doing real valuable work...and I did start that post, but in the process of searching, I realized I needed to slow down and evaluate what I was looking at, because I was going too fast and risked following folks who were peddling misinformation that fed into my existing beliefs and biases. 

One thing that I'm guilty of, and that I know others are too, is seeing an inflammatory or scary or interesting post on X-itter (formerly Twitter, pronounced "shitter," by the way), Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, Instagram, etc., and re-posting it without thinking. I'm going to start doing a simple checklist. I've had a printed copy of this graphic tucked in one of my backpacks for so long that it's started to fall apart along the fold lines, but I've gotten out of the habit of using it on the regular. 

Media literacy is maybe the most important thing that we need to be teaching in schools, but it won't amount to much if we let public education erode any more than it already has. A lot of that can be controlled in local elections with school boards. So, local matters and that's important to cling to when most of our news is about big national drama. 

Anyway, Crash Course has a pair of YouTube series about navigating digital information and media literacy that are worth watching in their entirety. The videos are about 15 minutes long so it's pretty easy to get through. I'm going to watch them both again, because there's going to be a lot of misinformation coming at us in the next few years and we need to be prepared to evaluate everything, including things we agree with or think are probably true. 

All of this said, I'm going to be quiet over the weekend, and absorb some books and continue to gather people to follow. I'll do my best to follow my own guidelines about it. 

Take care of your family, found or otherwise, and be kind to your neighbor, always.

Shock Doctrine and Other Books

Today I'm going re-learn something, which is the one thing I'm good at. Shock Doctrine is a book written by Naomi Klein about what she calls "disaster capitalism." It plays up our fears and uncertainty after big news items drop to allow dangerous policy to go through. She wrote this in 2007, and a documentary of the same premise was released in 2009. I read the book a decade ago, but it is still highly relevant and I have forgotten most of it. The media plays into it fully with its always on, 24/7 requirements. We are now forced to stay in a heightened state of shock for longer periods, because every single day there's a new travesty that needs our immediate attention. We're entrenched in it. Absolutely everything is a disaster now, from homelessness to trans rights to immigration to inflation. There is no nuance or subtlety. This book addresses that, and I'm hoping to find further action items at the end of it.

Image credit: https://naomiklein.org/

Intersectionality is vastly important to get things done, but we've placed ourselves in echo chambers of outrage. So, step one is to slow down. I gotta breathe, and the best way I know is to immerse myself in a depressing but important book. Get these at your library where possible.

Book link: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-shock-doctrine-the-rise-of-disaster-capitalism-naomi-klein/12304745

Film links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3B5qt6gsxY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL3XGZ5rreE  

If you don't have a ton of time to spend on a book or documentary that's ok. There's a Wikipedia page that does a pretty good job explaining it.

Another book on my re-read list is The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic by Benjamin Carter Hett. I listened to this one back in February but I need to grab a copy of the actual book. Seems important.

Other options I already have on my shelf include Poverty, By America (https://bookshop.org/p/books/poverty-by-america-matthew-desmond/21003293) by Matthew Desmond, and another, newer Naomi Klein book called No is Not Enough about the cheeto's first presidency (https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-is-not-enough-resisting-trump-s-shock-politics-and-winning-the-world-we-need-naomi-klein/7213773).

Either way, we have a few months to stock up on knowledge. So today I'm gonna read, and watch, and learn again.

Be kind. Tomorrow we find others doing the work and we reach out to them.

Darker Days

It has been a long time since I updated this blog publicly. We lived (are living) through a global pandemic, and there are 3 simultaneous genocides happening in other places to other human beings. The United States has just re-elected the person whose original presidency spurred the creation of this blog. This post is a record of my thoughts and will hopefully be read by someone else who needs it. It has not been edited.

To leftists: The swirl of conflicting emotions feels unhealthy, but these emotions need to be honored. Give yourself a day to stir them, let them settle, and scoop out which of the anger, fear, despair, or others will drive you to action and resistance. Take that emotion and grind it into a fine flour. Bake it into each meal, mix it into your drinks, sprinkle it like glitter or mist it like perfume as you get ready for each day. And each time you do, let it galvanize you.

To others: The election in 2024 has upended what a lot of people thought was a common good that would prevent a doddering, narcissistic, felonious madman from usurping the title of President for a second time. But even there, in the language I used to describe him we cannot find agreement. Where I see cruelty in policy and politics, and economic policy that will bankrupt us for decades, you see decades of decline in your home areas, factories, farms, and infrastructure. You see the result of corporate greed and consolidation as the failure of Democrats. You blame the scapegoat of immigrants for home-grown problems borne of our own complacence. Democrats are not liberal despite what you thought, and continue to think, but neither are they a great evil. They are humans trying to do something helpful in a climate of vitriol and contention from the only other party we’re allowed to vote for.

Democrats are trying to keep afloat a system that has been broken from the start. They want slow change in a positive direction. But slow change does not help and to you who voted in 2024 it seems like empty words after decades of neglect. So you see a demagogue, a strong personality, a charismatic demeanor backed by a cadre of Christian Nationalists who promise you that they will upend things as they are. And they will. But keep a journal, please. Mark down your day to day thoughts and read them back on each year’s end. Take note of how your lives have or have not improved. Write down each emotion you have and ask yourself if they are healthy, and if you are happier now than you were before. This goes for congressional races too, by the way. Congress is supposed to set policy, yet so divided have we become that each session of legislation feels less and less helpful. Changes now have to come from places like the EPA, the FTC, the Fed, and the FDA using what little power they have to get real work done.

The problem is that we’ve never allowed real choice into an election. All of the elections I have participated in for the entirety of my voting life have been a “lesser of two evils” choice. I don’t prefer Democrats OR Republicans on a vast array of policies. Most of the people in my circles feel the same, but none of us have any power to change that.

Telling us to vote our conscience is cruel, too. Yes, vote for the person who you know will lose and pull votes from a marginally better option. What needs to change is not the parties themselves. Let Democrats be war-happy centrists. Let Republicans be whatever they sift out to be. But let’s put proportional representation into play so the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and whatever else pops up have a real seat at the table. Use third parties for what they’re good at: people voting for things they actually care about that will actually impact policy going forward..

While we’re making big changes, let’s do Ranked Choice Voting. In places where it’s been implemented before, the entire tone of elections has changed. Ranked Choice Voting encourages real, lasting coalition-building centered on policy over popularity, and eliminates a lot of the contention in campaigning. Candidates don’t want to risk being negative because it turns off a lot of voters who might otherwise be persuaded to put their name in a higher rank on the ballot.

How it works: Candidate A and B agree on two big talking points that are in the zeitgeist at the moment. Vote for both so that there’s a better chance those two big talking points have a shot to become policy. Don’t like the rest of Candidate A’s policies? Well, put Candidate B in your top slot, and A in the second. Both votes will be counted, and if Candidate B doesn’t make it through to the next round Candidate A just might. And as long as you get your two big talking points changed you know you can live with the rest. You feel more powerful as a voter because you ARE more powerful as a voter. This is especially true for people living in a solid color state. There’s no guarantee the new systems would work, of course, but as it is now we are headed for either physical conflict, or a quiet death of democracy.

Our republic is broken, and has always been broken. It would be easier to change if we were smaller. Abolish the electoral college and winner-take-all elections in favor of Ranked Choice Voting. Implement proportional representation in the legislative branch, and add term limits to all 3 branches. I don’t precisely know how to do this, but I am certain it will not be done without a massive organizational effort. You can reach out to FairVote.org to start or boost efforts in your region, as the process to organize this is already underway by folks much smarter than me.

In the short term, connect in person with your neighbors and local mutual aid groups. Reach out to RAICES and other immigrant service organizations to find out what you can do. Do it offline and don’t use social media to organize. Get a VPN and find a local printer who won’t ask questions about the content of your flyers. Donate time and funds to mutual aid, local Fairvote orgs, and any issue you’re panicking about with any amount you can spare. Consume less from the oligarchs and do the hard, extra work to buy local. If you can’t, ask if you really need the thing before you buy it. Prepare your couch or spare room. Above all else, be kind to your neighbors no matter what.