ismnotwasm
ismnotwasm's Journal#ResistTrump today by reading Rebecca Solnits new essay on hope in dark times
In an essay published yesterday in the Guardian, Solnit acknowledges that, yes, here “n the United States we are probably headed for a very grim phase of uncertain duration.” And she reminds us that it is in grim times like these that we have the greatest need for hope.
“Hope is for when you don’t have what you need and for when things are not OK,” she writes. “It is the belief that liberation might be possible that motivates you to make it more possible … .”
It’s in the darkest times that resistance — and the hope that drives it — can make the biggest difference.
“We would do well to study the countries that have sunk into tyranny or despotism and survived,” Solnit notes.
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2016/12/30/resisttrump-today-by-reading-rebecca-solnits-new-essay-on-hope-in-dark-times/
#ResistTrump today by learning from the Tea Party how to put politicians on the defensive
But as reactionary, often-embarrassing political spectacles go, it was a pretty effective one. Tea Partiers may have had trouble spelling their slogans correctly, but they managed to block a lot of Obama’s progressive agenda.
Now a group of former congressional staffers with years of experience fighting against the Tea Party are urging fellow progressives to adopt some of that group’s most effective tactics to thwart the incoming Trump regime. In an already much-discussed document called Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda, these activists urge Trump opponents to
Stall the Trump agenda by forcing [MoCs] to redirect energy away from their priorities. Congressional offices have limited time and limited people. A day that they spend worrying about you is a day that they’re not ending Medicare, privatizing public schools, or preparing a Muslim registry.
Sap Representatives’ will to support or drive reactionary change. If you do this right, you will have an outsized impact. Every time your MoC signs on to a bill, takes a position, or makes a statement, a little part of his or her mind will be thinking: “How am I going to explain this to the angry constituents who keep showing up at my events and demanding answers?”
Reaffirm the illegitimacy of the Trump agenda. The hard truth is that Trump, McConnell, and Ryan will have the votes to cause some damage. But by objecting as loudly and powerfully as possible, and by centering the voices of those who are most affected by their agenda, you can ensure that people understand exactly how bad these laws are from the very start – priming the ground for the 2018 midterms and their repeal when Democrats retake power.
Stand indivisibly opposed to Trump and the members of Congress (MoCs) who would do his bidding. Together, we have the power to resist — and we have the power to win.
We know this because we’ve seen it before. The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own MoCs to reject President Obama’s agenda. Their ideas
were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism— and they won.
We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda — but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party can stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2016/12/29/resisttrump-today-by-learning-from-the-tea-party-how-to-put-politicians-on-the-defensive/
How the alt-rights sexism lures men into white supremacy
Though many consider the alt-right to be primarily a fringe movement encompassing multiple ideologies (including white nationalism and white supremacy), its supporters’ unorthodox tactics for promoting those ideologies were fundamental to Trump’s campaign, and thus fundamental to his victory. Said tactics include engaging in extremist discourse, using deceptive irony and racially tinged internet memes to confuse people into dismissing the “alt-right” label as a synonym for internet trolls, and spreading false and misleading information. Thus, it’s no surprise that the movement has become a focal point of the subsequent culture war and narrative surrounding the president-elect’s transition to the White House — particularly outrage that Trump arguably won through racist rhetoric and that his chief strategist is directly associated with the alt-right movement.
But one foundational aspect of the alt-right’s various belief systems has been significantly downplayed following the election — even though it may be the key to understanding the movement’s racist, white nationalist agenda. While it’s true that the movement is most frequently described in terms of the self-stated, explicit white supremacy that defines many of its corners, for many of its members, the gateway drug that led them to join the alt-right in the first place wasn’t racist rhetoric but rather sexism: extreme misogyny evolving from male bonding gone haywire.
The “alt-right” label is tricky to define, but the movement’s top priority is elevating the status of white men
Don’t let the term “alt-right” fool you; despite the fact that it’s the self-chosen descriptor adopted by many white supremacists, the ideology under the hood is still the same. Not only do members of the alt-right support the most extreme version of Trump’s campaign promises to deport millions of immigrants and create a national registry for Muslims, but their ultimate goal is to ethnically cleanse nonwhite individuals from America and establish a completely white ethno-state.
http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism-recruitment
The alarming response to Russian meddling in American democracy
All that has changed materially in recent days is that—thanks to reporting by the Washington Post and New York Times—we now know that the CIA briefed senior members of Congress before and after the election that, in the consensus view of intelligence analysts, the Russians’ motive was not just to undermine confidence in American democracy generally, but actively to seek Mrs Clinton’s defeat. These latest revelations have probably not changed any minds at all. Republicans who hate Mrs Clinton are still delighted that she was defeated. Democrats who loathe and fear Mr Trump have one more reason to dislike him. Outside Washington, red-blooded Americans who mostly rather dislike President Vladimir Putin (pictured), according to polls, seem to be shrugging off the latest allegations: President-elect Trump was loudly cheered by spectators when he turned up in Baltimore on December 10th to watch the Army-Navy football game, an annual pageant of patriotism.
And that is what is, or should be, so unsettling. Russian interference in elections across the Western world is like a nasty virus, attacking the body politic. Normally, America is protected by powerful, bipartisan immune responses against such a menace. It also boasts some of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence and cyber-defences, and when spooks tell the Republicans and Democrats who lead Congress and sit on the House and Senate intelligence committees of hostile acts by a foreign power, love of country generates a unified response. That immune response is not kicking in this time.
The problem is not that all Republicans in Congress dismiss the claim that Russia tried to meddle in the election. Committee chairman have promised urgent hearings. “We cannot allow foreign governments to interfere in our democracy,” said Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and no friend of Russia, told reporters: “Everybody that I know, unclassified, has said that the Russians interfered in this election. They hacked into my campaign in 2008; is it a surprise to anyone?” The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes of California, has said that he believes Russia is guilty, but then turned his fire on the Obama administration, saying that President Barack Obama’s desire for a “reset” of relations with Moscow had led him and his spy chiefs to fail “to anticipate Putin’s hostile actions.” He grumbled that Team Obama had “ignored pleas by numerous Intelligence Committee members to take more forceful action against the Kremlin’s aggression.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/12/house-divided?fsrc=gnews
I understand them--Well, kinda
I didn't vote Democrat in National elections until 2000. It took George W. Bush even getting the nomination--to make me realize that voting socialist or writing in some ridiculous name was bullshit. Local elections--I usually voted Dem or Socialist. So I've been down that road, of "look at me, how revolutionary, how cynical I am"
I never ever, ever, at my most cynical, OR my most radical (from a feminist point of view, I thought the patriarchal systems millennials long human failure and needed to be torn down and built up) would have cast a vote for Trump. Or Bernie Sanders for that matter--he would have gotten the side eye from me.
Even when very young, I was politically aware enough to recognize the danger Trump represents. I was not, at that time, exposed to news much more than the TV and newspapers and books. I was on-line in the early 90's, I already was starting to see what we now call "fake news". It was dangerous now, and as it has proliferated, its gotten more dangerous, as mildly curious people form opinions from it without further research, zealots manipulate information to further their belief systems and people like Trump manipulate it to win presidencies.
I don't understand anyone who votes for a bigot, who uses bigotry in campaigning unless of course they are bigots themselves, or buy into on some level a bigots narrative. There is, in my mind no other answer. No other explanation. They own their vote.
I think, or I would like to think it's a guilty conscience--
Because you are right--there is a constant rehashing of primary arguments. A ton of "Dems always lose, we must look in the mirror posts" 'Hillary was flawed had too much baggage" "Emails" etc.
She was hammered on constantly by all sides-but it was her own side, or rather, those that should have been on her side, that did her in. Some of those doing the constant criticism --especially those to the point of voting third party--correctly estimated how bad this hurt her in the GE, but that doesn't make them any less responsible for Trump.
You know the Facebook group Pantsuit nation? It's a phenomenon I never seen before on social media, rich diversity in all it's forms, telling story after story after story--thousands of them- of trying to live in a world of hatred and bigotry, how to fight it. It's not big on finger pointing---I look at all the backgrounds of Hillary supporters and I realize That in supporting Hillary, I had found my tribe, and my tribe is not just white, male, straight. and working class. Oh no. My tribe is diverse as fuck, from inter-racial marriages, inter-cultural marriages to undocumented and documented immigrants to Trans men and women to Christian's and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Sikhs and atheists. To moms with disabled children, to some in the disabled committee themselves. To Gay men and women, married for the first time and sharing their wedding pictures to Dads encouraging their daughters to be strong in the school yard when boys hurt them "because they like you" These stories, Never. Stop.
I lose myself in stories of a very diverse America, an America where many of these people have just begun to have an actual voice---and America begins to take shape and shade and nuance, and is restored to me.
I also realize just what level of bullshit I'm being fed by the bitter people who lost themselves in a hatred of a women never admitting a man would have sailed through the criticism. Who are self-rightous because they voted for "the lesser of two evils". The "I told you so" ones who were simply a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those many bitter souls are implicit in Trumps election as are those who voted for him or voted third party.
Was Hillary "perfect"? Beyond criticism? Hell no. But her perceived flaws contributed to her loss far more than her actual ones. And the ones who fanned those hyperbolic flames just got burned, and burned bad.
You know who is NOT in my tribe? Racists and bigots. I don't have an answer to them, I don't know how to reach out to them. People who would deny a woman's right to choose-there are many single issue abortion voters--Not my tribe, no clue how to reach them. They are wrapped in false righteousness. Misogynists--oh now that is an insidious one, our entire culture denies its inner misogyny as it denies its inner racism.
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: Mon Aug 23, 2004, 10:18 PM
Number of posts: 41,976