Resistance and solidarity events

I've just learned that Seattle's Stranger keeps a calendar of resistance and solidarity events. Glancing at their list of events for the week ahead, I see a wide variety of things one can attend, ranging from marches (there's one this afternoon, and another later in the week for Black Lives Matter) to rallies ("Stand with Immigrants! An Emergency Protest", which is scheduled for Sunday afternoon) to shows ("Resist! A Show of Burlesque, Bellydance, and Punk Rock") to art exhibits ("Protect the Sacred: Native Artists for Standing Rock") to workshops ("Black Arists Lead: Creative Education for Liberation and Survival"), and much, much more (concerts, fundraisers, etc). If you live in the Seattle area, the link is: http://www.thestranger.com/events/resistance.

Are such calendars being kept in other cities? If you know of additional examples, please furnish a link to them in a comment. I'd love to be able to post other sources that this blog's readers can consult. Such events not only allow you to express your concerns and outrage at all  the injustice and damage and pain that the current administration in Washington is inflicting on the US and the world at large, they also feed your spirits, strengthen your hearts, and enlarge your imagination. (And sometimes even bring amazing insights to your understanding of the world you live in.) Resistance and solidarity are our hope for making a future we can stand to live in.

ETA:

For people in Portland, check out the Portland Mercury's page:  https://www.portlandmercury.com/events/resistances-and-rallies

Orwell's not our go-to guy

One week into the new regime ruling the US, resistance is mounting on all fronts (even in, of all unexpected places, every rank of the Democratic Party), as the PotUS has signed a flurry of obnoxious and inadequately thought-out executive orders, fired the four senior career officials managing the State Department, censored and harrowed employees of the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, and made a series of wild, incoherent tweets and speeches.  (Among other things, of course. My list is in no way comprehensive.) Added to that, a lot of people are becoming preoccupied with rumors circulating furiously about how many top Republicans and West Wing staffers are voicing concern about the PotUS's sanity with reference to the Twenty-fifth Amendment (presumably with special reference to Section 4, which makes provision for the removal of the president should they be found unfit to carry out their duties). I agree, of course, that it's scary to think about the VP's taking over: we know a lot about his place on the ideological spectrum, and we can't help but suspect that Washington insiders would be so relieved to have him replace the sitting PotUS that he'd likely enjoy the proverbial "honeymoon" with both the press and Congress that the sitting PotUS has done his best to sabotage. But let me point out: this all just speculation. Even if the top Republicans manage to make the VP the US's commander-in-chief, we'll need to go on as we've begun. Make no mistake, because he would be disciplined and methodical, the VP would probably actually be worse

And how is it we've begun? With resistance and the organizing of resistance. To quote Rebecca Solnit's report on the first week in the Guardian:

 The word resistance is everywhere. Former labor secretary Robert Reich gives a daily address on Facebook Live called the Resistance Report. The group 18millionrising.org, which represents Asian and Pacific islanders in the US, has launched a “100 Days of Resistance” campaign. The Working Families party reports that on Tuesday more than 10,000 people went to congressional offices to protest against Trump. Climate and human rights groups launched Unstoppabletogether.org to link human rights, racial and environmental justice. Greenpeace hung a gigantic banner off a crane next to the White House: it said “Resist”. Organizers tell me that hordes of people who have never been active before are looking for ways to plug in. People whose immigration status, religion or healthcare needs mean they may be directly threatened are terrified, and in many cases mobilized.

For me, the picture of the US today is one of dawning hope. Congress has been chipping away at us for years, doing incremental damage that many people either did not recognize or simply stomached in silence. The sitting PotUS, in all his unhinged, ill-informed, self-deceiving outbursts, puts a single face on the demand for privilege in all its possible manifestations, visible as it's never been visible before. Maybe 34% of the US public is in accord with his sentiments, but that's as much support as he's going to get. The rest of us know we don't want to live in his reality. I hear that Orwell's 1984 is selling like hotcakes. May I suggest a more heartening choice of reading, one that refuses despair and has a more realistic view of change and possibility? Rebecca Solnit wrote Hope in the Dark back in the chill, gray days following the 2004 election. In it she notes how quickly resistance to power is forgotten, how insistently power crafts narratives that obliterate how often and significantly resistance brings about change. Change begins first in the imagination. And I don't mean in Orwell's imagination, either.

The Monday after

Okay, we've gotten out into the streets in numbers. We did that to lift our spirits, show us we're not alone, and to gird our loins. More than one journalist who's worked in Russia has advised USians that one of the most effective weapons in the autocrat's arsenal is misdirection. Senior accomplices in this administration's dissemination of disinformation and misdirection, Spicer and Conway have been loudly proclaiming "alternative facts" that at least half of the US public already know are lies. In the meantime, the White House has been busy issuing executive orders that need our attention. Today, "surrounded by other white men," as the Huffington Post puts it, "President Donald Trump signed an anti-abortion executive order that has far-reaching consequences for women's reproductive health access world-wide." If you're old enough, you'll probably remember the despicable gag order that the Reagan Administration first initiated; this order forbids anyone at an NGO receiving grants from the federal government from even mentioning abortion to the women it serves. (Needless to say, it's not a matter of federal money actually paying for abortions.) The PotUS also signed an order freezing federal hiring. And one of the very first orders he signed, on Saturday, halted a planned rate cut for government-backed mortgage insurance.  

Of course, other news is of interest, too: Today, a group of constitutional-law professors filed suit against the PotUS on the grounds that he is in violation of a the Foreign Emoluments Clause, a provision in the US Constitution. I'm feeling doubtful that this suit will get very far, since the professors will probably not be granted standing, and if they are, will face a barrage of objections to anything but the narrowest interpretations of the clause brought by the army of attorneys who've long been living handsomely off their employer's highly litigious habits. But I'm glad they did. This PotUS has more conflicts of interest than an ordinary mortal could keep track of--besides being the only president in recent history to refuse to make his tax returns public.

In the meantime, allow me to point you to three excellent pieces to feed our spirits. First, The Guardian has printed a transcript of the speech Angela Davis gave in DC on Saturday. She begins, "At a challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans people, men and youth who are here at the Women’s March, we represent the powerful forces of change that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism, hetero-patriarchy from rising again..." Read the rest here.

Second, let me point you to Mistinguette Smith's "Some Notes on Resistance." She begins:

Three days ago, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Within hours, he delivered an ominous, nationalist speech and presided over a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue; signed a vague Executive Order to reduce the costs of the Obamacare to insurance and drug companies; and removed all references from the White House web page about health care, LGBT equality and civil rights. The next day, in response, almost three million people across the globe — half a million of them descending upon Washington D.C. — demonstrated for women’s freedom, self-determination and human rights. Among the largest protests in US history, long time feminist activists and women new to organizing and street protest unleashed their voices and power in a collective vow to resist.But today is Monday. Many of us are putting away our pink pussyhats, wondering what we can do to prevent settling back into business as usual. 

And finally, Tananarive Due gives us this powerful essay: "Surviving President Tr*mp: Lessons from the 1960s & Octavia E. Butler." She begins:

In the late Octavia E. Butler’s near-future novel Parable of the Sower, a teenage girl,  Lauren Olamina, is the only person in her thinly protected community who sees how fragile their way of life is, how susceptible to destruction—and no one will listen until it’s too late.

In a way, my late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, who braved jail and teargas in the 1960s, was like Lauren Olamina: warning of dire consequences if communities and organizations didn’t work to stop the threats of Jim Crow, segregation and voting restrictions. My mother and father, “Freedom Lawyer” John Due, were willing to die for a better future for their children. My mother forever warned of efforts to “turn back the clock.”

Well, the clock has turned. Now another Really Bad Time has come. It’s the time Butler warned us about, when even the fascistic presidential candidate in her novel Parable of the Talents (the second Parable novel) used the phrase “Make America Great Again.”