Weekly Check In March 12

[tassosss]

Housekeeping
Huge thank you and shout out to redbird  who will be helping with tagging.

Reminder that we have a suggestion post if there’s a topic that you’d like to see discussed but would like to ask the mods to look into. This can be anything from general information, or a how-to-do-a-thing, or something you may want to discuss as a community. Folks are welcome to post directly to the comm as always, but if you’re not comfortable/don’t have spoons, we can help too.

Get Involved
Did anyone participate in the ACLU's training on Saturday? Let us know how it went
Call Congress about the Republican Healthcare plan

Upcoming Protests
April 1: March for Health
April 15: Tax Day March
April 22: March for Science

News to know
Confirmation Hearings
Secretaryof Labor: Alex Acosta

Immigration / Dreamers
Update on Dreamers and the Muslim Ban

Healthcare
Link Roundup: on the Republicans Healthcare bill
Vox also has a daily newsletter to sign up for.

Get Educated
Link Roundup: Republicans vote to get rid of fair pay and safe workplace rules, tax hikes in Kansas, vulnerable democrats, science on opioids, detransitioning trans people in Wisconsin
Link Roundup: flippable state governments, healthcare, in memory of Sandra Bland, restrictive voting laws, anti-Trump resistance, ACLU grassroots
Trump Trackers - following up on regulatory and administration changes

How is everyone doing out there?

Poll #18085 This week

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

View Respondents

I

View Answers

called my one senator
7 (53.8%)

called my other senator
5 (38.5%)

called my representative
3 (23.1%)

called my state representatives
0 (0.0%)

called my governor
0 (0.0%)

sent a letter/email/postcard
7 (53.8%)

donated money to a cause
7 (53.8%)

went to an in person activist group
5 (38.5%)

participated in an online training/call
3 (23.1%)

went to a protest
4 (30.8%)

.

View Answers

signed up for daily action alerts
3 (27.3%)

took care or myself
6 (54.5%)

committed to action in the coming week
5 (45.5%)

not a US citizen but worked in solidarity in my own community
1 (9.1%)

did something else
5 (45.5%)

Comments

[executrix]

BTW the regular Sunday resistance call had a segment on self-care, including breathing exercises and suggestions for people with PTSD. The speaker was from an organization called Dignity & Power Now. The whole call will be posted soon but in the meantime their twitter is @powerdignity and their hashtag is #300problematic. (Their main issue is civilian oversight of LA sheriffs.)

[sathari]

...okay, I'm embarrassed that I had literally ONLY JUST found out about the Sunday "Ready to Resist" calls--- Sunday's was my first one (and it is EXACTLY what I was looking for in all my faffing about "how do I prioritize my activism?"--- MoveOn has me covered, I see). And, I mean, I'm morally certain that our awesome mods and members had posted about it, and for that matter that I'd gotten emails from MoveOn itself about it, but somehow it just did not register with me until last week when I signed up.

On which note, and also in order to avoid comment-spamming you, I'm going to piggyback onto your other comment that you were discouraged that the people at your ACLU event hadn't heard about another event--- I just had a similar experience at a couple of local events (not to mention that, you know, despite being in this comm and on a bunch of progressive/liberal mailing lists I myself didn't know about something significant, see above)... but honestly it's kind of heartening to me that there are all these little organic pockets of resistance coalescing with each other over time.

I mean, let's face it, the four months since the "Hellection" not to mention the two since the "Sinauguration" do indeed feel like years, but it's not actually been that long in real time, and we've already had some successes (e.g. Pudzer stepped off--- that one alone straightens my spine and puts a dance in my marching step!--- and Sessions recused himself on Russia and the first Muslim ban went down in flames). So it's going to take a bit of time for us to connect with each other--- but we're doing it, little bit by little bit. And the fact that there are even more people out there who care, who are on our side about these shenanigans, is amazing--- it means that our ability to use the tools of democracy, of "we the people", is only going to grow. (I'm thinking, for example, of the last woman who called in to the Sunday call talking about how alone she'd felt in her community and Amanda Johnson was all like, "Here, let me hook you up with like three local groups that I personally know of in your area." That's just kind of how we're gonna be rolling for a bit--- finding each other, getting connected.*)

There's also the possibly-even-more-heartening possibility that at least some of the people we've both met at any given resistance action who didn't know about other activities are newly motivated to resist--- to go full Star Wars, "these are [their] first steps"... in other words, we're not just getting the pre-existing progressive/liberal/otherwise-never-Trump crowd, we're getting new people, first-timers, as it were. So they're just beginning to network/connect with existing groups--- and I daresay we can help with that. ;)

*Can I just take a moment to point and laugh at the whole idea of an organized, coordinated "deep state", whether led by Obama or anyone else, that the current administration is trying to put out as being the origin or root of the opposition to them? For heaven's sake, we're liberals, we don't herd well! If we liked hierarchy and being told what to think, we'd like the current administration... and on the other hand, if we were that coordinated and organized, we'd have won the election.

This is the opposite of a top-down conspiracy; it's a bottom-up grassroots groundswell--- we're a whole bunch of little voices that started whispering "No, no, no," on 11/9 (or before)--- and gradually, bit by bit, we're hearing one another, and those whispers, that may have started as denial or despair... are turning into a roar of... well, democracy.

[executrix]

This is what democracy looks like...being all up in the grill of our (dubiously) elected legislators!

I don't know if it's true, but last month the Wall Street Journal reported that the Democratic National Committee is being taken over by Sanders-nistas, which *I* found very heartening.

If you go to something billed as a Movement event in Jersey City, it's almost guaranteed that the mayor will show up, and in NYC there's a good chance that the mayor will. Rallies nationwide are frequently headlined by US Senators--a level of opposition among elected officials that took a DECADE to build in the struggle against the Vietnam War.

[sathari]

This is what democracy looks like...being all up in the grill of our (dubiously) elected legislators!

PREACH. We're citizens, they're our public servants--- up in their grill is just our natural habitat!

I don't know if it's true, but last month the Wall Street Journal reported that the Democratic National Committee is being taken over by Sanders-nistas, which *I* found very heartening.

That wasn't the impression I got attending the DNC meeting, which was heartening to me, since I'm very much NOT a Bernie-fan and much prefer a more centrist "there is room in our camp for everyone who's concerned about the foundations of our system of governance and/or their personal well-being under the current administration" kinda critter. (But I'm even less a fan of starting a fight with an ally, much less in the political equivalent of a burning house, so I'll stop there. ;) )

If you go to something billed as a Movement event in Jersey City, it's almost guaranteed that the mayor will show up, and in NYC there's a good chance that the mayor will. Rallies nationwide are frequently headlined by US Senators--a level of opposition among elected officials that took a DECADE to build in the struggle against the Vietnam War.

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D This is joy and wonder. *dances* Better than that, this is what democracy looks like. (I've been reading all the Watergate stuff all of it, and it's freaking hilarious how much both Haldeman's The Ends of Power and Woodward and Bernstein's All the President's Men look uncannily like the current administration.)

[executrix]

There was a best-selling work of fiction, by Ira Levin, "The Boys from Brazil" that posited a bunch of youthful Hitler clones running around. Possibly some of Nixon's cells were scavenged for some unholy experiments...

A rising tide lifts all the boats, and Trump is managing to make *Nixon* look good.

ETA: Unfortunately, though, they don't really work for us--they work for the corporate donors. To an extent, we're trying to use the Tea Party weapons of showing up for everything, constantly hassling elected officials, and being obstructionist about everything *against* them. But it's important to remember that the Tea Party is less grassroots than AstroTurf--*we* don't have billionaires funding us.

[sathari]

I'm cackling at unholy experiments with Nixon's cells. And, yeah, seriously, this man does indeed make Nixon look good. Hell, I've had kind words for GWB in the past few days, and I've been known to call his administration "Bushreich." Must the Republican Party keep lowering the bar for itself? (Also, there is something downright Kafkaesque about the fact that someone mentored by a good buddy of Joe McCarthy's now has ties to Russia. Like, we could probably replace fossil fuels with the energy from a turbine powered by the spinning that McCarthy is doing in his grave.)

And, yeah on the tactics--- though honestly, I've been doing a little general historical poking, and frankly I'm increasingly convinced that it's less that those tactics belong to the Tea Party and more that that's just kind of what Americans are supposed to be doing with our elected officials in general--- politics is sort of supposed to be, if not our favorite fandom, then at least second-favorite (or our favorite hatedom, depending ;) ). Because when you get down to it, we've done rather a lot of this sort of thing in our history, clear back to the nation's founding.

[executrix]

Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, and there used to be a lot more gestures toward respect and collegiality. I mean, Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland was "let's all cooperate and be friends!" tantamount to bringing a plastic butter spreader to a gunfight. With somebody who hunts rabbits with an assault rifle. And the Republicans didn't even come up with some bogus reason for not confirming him, they wouldn't even vote.

[tassosss]

So I think one thing we'll try to do here is at the very least put upcoming trainings in the weekly round up in a more calendared way. The ACLU training snuck up on me too even though rydra_wong had posted here about it. It got lost in the scroll back.

[sathari]

That is fantastic! I really appreciate everything you are all doing to keep us informed!