February 11, 2017

The Role of Resistance

I am old enough to remember Kent State. And I am old enough to remember how effectively the right-wing establishment was able to de-legitimize the anti-war movement with agents provocateur (and provocateuse,) surveillance programs, counter-intell, planting of false evidence, imprisoning leadership based on (you should excuse the expression) trumped-up charges, and the rest of COINTELPRO machine.

If you think that was dismantled when it was exposed, or even after the Church Committee findings, give yourself a merit badge for naive optimism. Successful counterintelligence programs never die, they just change names, shed a few embarrassing personnel, acquire new tools, reorganize the taxonomy, and carry on.

That's what we're up against, with our resistance. And today I watched this short clip and it crystallized the "why" for me. (The relevant bit is from 00:35 to 01:36)

Transcript:

Piers Morgan: "Calm down, Bill... there is no 'Muslim ban'. If there was..."

Jim Jefferies: "Oh, FUCK off... Fuck off! There's a fucking Muslim ban, he SAID there was a Muslim ban... There's a Muslim ban! "

Piers Morgan: "This is the point... the... this is the hysteria I'm talking about! Eighty-five percent of the world's Muslims are allowed into the country!"

Jim Jefferies: "This is what you do, Piers... you say, 'he hasn't done this, he hasn't done that, he's not gonna do all these things...' Give him a fuckin' chance, mate! Y'know what I mean? Because... Hitler didn't kill the Jews on the first day... he worked up to it!"

>>applause<<

Bill Maher: "All right! I have to stop you all..."

Piers Morgan: (talking over) "There, see? That is the exact... that is the exact ridiculous, hysterical, over-the-top nonsense.."

Jim Jefferies: (talking over) "Not ridiculous! If people got hysterical, in Germany, right away, then it wouldn't have..."

Piers Morgan: (still talking over) "...that is, I'm afraid, making people like you ridiculous! He's not the new Hitler!"

Jim Jefferies: "You just like... you just like that you won 'The Apprentice' and you have a famous friend, mate, that's all you fuckin' like."

>>Several panelists and Maher talking at once, Jefferies repeating 'that's all you like... that's all you like!'<<

Piers Morgan: "Mate, mate... You're losing... I know where you... listen, you're losing your audience, here is why, 'cause you're sounding unpleasant, and you're also..."

Jim Jefferies: (talking over) "I'm not losing my audience!" (to audience) "Am I losing it..?"

>>wild applause, whistles, shrieks of approval, clapping<<

Jim Jefferies: (gives Morgan the finger)

And there you kinda have it. Almost lost in there, but critical: "If people got hysterical, in Germany, right away, then it wouldn't have..."

And he's right.

It wouldn't have.

Tyrants are enabled by silence, which they can spin as acquiescence, even approval.

The role of the resistance is to make it impossible for the GOP regime to make that spin. To make every attempt to delegitimize us ring hollow through persistence and stubborn, principled, peaceful but passionate clarity about what we are resisting:

• We are resisting the promotion of fear and xenophobia and the creation of scapegoats to deny rights to some in the name of 'security for all'.
  
  
• We are resisting the assumption of imperial power by an Executive Branch willfully ignoring the structural checks and balances required by our Constitution, and the GOP-controlled Legislative Branch's supine lack of resistance or even collusion in such perilous usurpation.
  
  
• We are resisting the wholesale and reckless dismantling of a complex structure of laws, regulations, and resources created under due process and review by the mechanism of a democratic republic, for peaceful domestic governance and responsible relationships with other nations.
  
  
• We are resisting the efforts of a small cabal of extreme ideologues to empower a demagogue in the subversion of a deliberative and democratic process for a 'winner take all' power grab.
  
  
• We are resisting the destruction of a flawed but functional structure of agencies and processes to deliver the benefits of civil order, economic regulation, and social progress, in favor of wholesale corruption and cronyism.

We are resisting ALL of it. And that is why this resistance needs ALL of us.

It needs those concerned for the rights of people denied access to the privileges accorded others by reason of gender, race, religious belief/atheism, sexual orientation, age, health, and physiological ability.

It needs those concerned for the principles of law, equity, and constitutional government.

It needs those concerned for the future of our land and our planet to support life in the time of our children's great-grandchildren.

It needs those concerned for freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the power of factual realities, science, and truth to guide decision making.

They will try to delegitimize us with this very breadth of scope and concern. They will try to drive wedges among us, find cracks, exploit the concerns of some against others. They will try to out-spend and out-wait us. They will talk over, spin, gaslight, propagandize. They will try to exhaust us, weary us, willfully misunderstand and misdirect. They will mock us, laugh at us, ridicule us. They will pretend to negotiate, and do so in bad faith. They will send the current version of COINTELPRO to subvert and undermine us.

NONE of that will matter, none of it will be effective, if we just keep resisting. If we just persist. In numbers too big to ignore, with voices clear and passionate.

We are doing this. We are "getting hysterical", right now. And staying that way.

We are giving them NO ROOM to turn silence into consent.

This is the role of the resistance.

adamantly,
Bright

February 10, 2017

A Difficult Choice for Democrats (warning: LONG)

Justin Gest, in The Two Kinds of >Redacted< Voters posits a possible opportunity for Democrats to take into account in building strategy for 2018, 2020, and beyond.

The "exasperated", as he calls them, may be up for grabs. That seems to be his term for the white working class folks, including some former Obama voters, who crossed over to pull the lever for >Redacted< to 'send a message' to all those establishment-co-opted liberal elites or whatever they were blaming Hillary for on November 8th.

For now, let's go along with this and leave the role of misogyny (as powerful and perhaps even more pervasive than racism) out of the equation. Let's stipulate there's a big chunk of disaffected, mostly white people who voted for >Redacted< because they were just so pissed off at how their lives look right now, and they connected it with the Democratic Party ticket somehow.

And let's stipulate that Gest's analysis of what he calls the "Nationalist" segment of >Redacted<'s base is permanently out of reach for the Democratic Party.

Then let's state some assumptions about the most basic (and realistic) short- and intermediate-term goals for the Party (long-term goals are important, too, but we'll bring them in a little later.)

Short-term: Two Gubernatorial elections in 2017, NJ and VA, both up for grabs with term-limited incumbents. Worth putting in the effort to take both.

In 2018 on a national level, at a minimum, we may be able to limit losses in the Senate (23 Dem, 2 Ind and 8 GOP up for re-election- with the best efforts I think we'll still end up at least four more seats behind) but begin making gains in the House. Whether we could flip the 23-25 seats needed for a majority, given how thoroughly gerrymandered the district lines are, is in some doubt, but it's possible. Still, seems more likely we'd end up with a nearly-equal split.

On the state level, we need to start flipping legislatures and governors. The stakes are much higher here, as we'll be prepping for the post-Census redistricting. Some of the most gerrymandered states, especially those with large populations, may be vulnerable and that's worth putting a lot of effort into even if it means letting others slide for another couple of cycles. (Yes, I'm looking at YOU, Texas... but also Florida and Ohio.)

Intermediate-term: Depending on how bad the Senate damage is in 2018, we could get close to an equal split in 2020. 50-50 is worth trying for but not terribly likely unless we have a very strong candidate at the top of the ticket. We need to start working on some consensus about that as soon as possible, as another small-field, hard-fight primary could cook us. We could push a majority in the House with a strong ticket, and if we've done our state-by-state work we might be in position to un-gerrymander a few key states after the Census.

Over and above electoral results, major goals should include, but certainly not be limited to, an un-hackable election process, stronger enforcement of voting rights, and some version of Electoral College reform that (at a minimum) gives us proportional rather than winner-take-all electors. (Would it be nice to get rid of the EC altogether? Possibly, although there are still good arguments either way, and it's not likely a winnable fight in the intermediate term.)

Laying out the board this way leaves Democratic Party strategists with a challenge:

How much and what kind of investment do we make in bringing "exasperateds" into the tent? And which ones? (This I include because although Gest's description seems to focus on the urban working class missing their "smelters and mills", without reference to the whole "forgotten rural America" discussion. I group many of the rural folks with the "exasperateds," because their motivations seem similar. See below.)

Picking apart the 'exasperated' mindset, I see three motivational buttons that the GOP and >Redacted< were able to push effectively:

1. Nostalgia
2. Fear
3. Exasperation

Nostalgia. This is the whole "back when it was better" fantasy. When the farm paid enough to send a kid to college. When the plant had those solid (Union, but funny how that's rarely part of the rosy picture in the rearview mirror...) jobs where a guy could put in forty and take a vacation with the family now and then and retire with dignity. When there was a 'real' downtown in the small towns, not just a few big-box stores out on the highway and a lot of shuttered, decaying buildings on Main street. Memory simplifies things. The good things seem brighter and less complicated. The stuff we worried about then is past, too, and so seems less awful in the face of present awfulness we have no idea how to deal with. Which leads to...

Fear. That's a big one and an easy button to push. There's a lot of very real things to worry voters who live from paycheck to paycheck in shitty jobs (if they have jobs at all.) A big helping of fake news, some conspiracy theories, a few scapegoats, and you can direct those fears squarely at the 'uncaring elites sipping their latte's downtown in the Financial District and not giving a rat's ass about YOU.' Sure, most of the things these voters fear have their roots in corporate oligarchy and their GOP helots. But that's effectively obscured when Democrats are easily painted as just as reliant on big lobbyist money, and just as protective of a status quo that gives these voters the fuzzy side of the lollipop. Which brings us to...

Exasperation. This is the most psychological factor of all. Take any of these voters aside and ask them which candidate in their memory made the biggest impression or the strongest connection to them, and you'll get any of several answers. But they'll mostly fall into two categories: First, the candidate who showed up where they were, and looked them in the eye, and seemed to care about what they thought or wanted or even said. Second, the candidate whose utterances, on teevee or wherever, sounded like the voice in their own head. The voice that identifies 'what's wrong' and 'how to fix it.' The stronger the correlation, the bigger the impression. And it's fairly clear that they haven't had that experience with many Democrats.

Democrats' messaging is part of the problem, because we're reluctant to over-simplify complex problems, to propose simple band-aid solutions we know damn' well won't produce lasting results, and very reluctant indeed to promise the undeliverable: return to the 'better time' when everything was simple and right and good and understandable.

Democrats keep wanting to explain and to educate. We keep wanting to respect the minds we know voters must have, even when they're blindly following their emotions. We keep wanting to be honest about what's do-able, what's deliverable. We keep talking about the trade-offs and the costs, and how we can't deliver all of what interest group A wants, without being unfair to interest group B.

But the exasperateds don't want to hear it.

We cannot promise to restore the economy to status quo 1965, when a high school diploma and a (Union) job in a local mine, mill, or factory produced economic security for millions of (white) families. What can we promise, without complications, ambiguities, ifs ands or buts?

We can promise to build a new economy that will provide economic security and opportunity for children through an evolving structure that will put more control in the hands of workers. Instead of relying on big-brother mega-employers to provide both wages and benefits sufficient to allow families to live well, we can ensure the most important benefits (health care, retirement security, educational costs within reach for our children) stay with the worker no matter what. We can invest in employers and businesses who share our vision for sustainable communities of all sizes, from rural areas protecting the land and producing quality foodstuffs, to small towns connected by a vibrant transit and communications infrastructure, to livable big cities full of neighborhoods and opportunity.

We need not push the fear button, but we can tear away the veil of fake news and conspiracy theories, and shine the spotlight of reality sharply on precisely how the GOP is perpetuating the things they fear, and making them worse, for the benefit of the one-tenth of one percent cavorting at Mar-a-Lago and rolling K Street money into Republican coffers. (Of course, we'll have to do a little house cleaning, to make this one really effective, won't we?)

We need to go big on going local. We need to invite the exasperateds to the local Party organization, listen to them, give them a chance to help us. We need to get them running for the most basic local offices. And we need to have our candidates and office holders there at the local level wherever and whenever possible. Listening. Looking into people's eyes. Shaking their hands. Sharing a coffee. Asking "what do you think of this?" and "What matters more to you, if I have a tough choice to make?"

And finally, we need to build a consensus, among ourselves, starting now, for new top-of-the-ticket leadership and what it will look like and what messages they will carry. Now is the time when it's okay to be messy and scrappy and contentious, so yeah, keep arguing. But always with the bigger picture in mind and the reality that every one of us will have to compromise, to give on something that matters to us personally, in order to make a bigger impact.

I'm not saying that we have to give up on our "go to the wall for it" issues. We all have them. And I will never, ever stop pushing for the rights of women to control our own bodies, and the need to save our planet's ability to sustain life. But sometimes I can see past the speed bumps. I will never stop pushing for those things, but if one of them HAS to take a back seat for the other one to make a few steps forward, I'll deal. (And yeah, I'll bring it back around in the long run.)

I said I'd get back to the long-range goals, because they are important. Here it is: There's a trade-off we've all been too willing to make, in the past. A trade-off between "not having to pay attention to the messy bits of government of, by, and for the people" and "worrying about the future of our children." Any snake-oil salesman coming along with a pitch for 'the easy way' has a quick sale when we don't want to have to spend our evenings in community center meeting rooms talking about choices between raising the mill rate and letting the junior high class size creep upwards.

The long range goal is a better understanding, for all of us, of the trade-offs between the value of getting exactly what we want for ourselves, and living in a community where everyone shares benefits, responsibilities, and choices. The long range goal is a clearer understanding of how big and complex and interdependent all the various parts of our economy are on all of us, and how many diverse gifts and requirements we all bring to the table to balance among ourselves. It'll never be easy and it'll always be more work than we want to do.

But in this political environment, I think it's our only positive choice, as a long-term goal. We can disagree on which of several states or districts we should put the most effort into for those 2017 governor's races, or which immigration strategy will serve us best in the 2020 race. But if we keep the long term goal in mind, we'll make better short and intermediate-term choices, and have better success. Of that, I'm confident.

long-windedly,
Bright

February 9, 2017

Arizona Mother Deported to Mexico After Living in U.S. For 21 Years

Source: TIME

Guadalupe Garca de Rayos who inspired protests in Phoenix, Arizona, when she was detained Wednesday during a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was deported to Mexico on Thursday morning.

Garca de Rayos, a 35-year-old mother of two, came to the United States illegally when she was 14 years old. She has been required to regularly check in with ICE officials since 2008, when she was caught using a fake Social Security Number to gain employment.

Her attorney, Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado, said he was informed of her deportation Thursday by the Mexican consulate but had few further details. Maldonado had filed a stay of deportation on Wednesday to keep her in the country, but he said ICE officials never responded to it, though they told him they would take it into consideration.

"She just has all the equities that would necessitate finding humanitarian reasons to grant her a stay in this country," Maldonado said in a press call on Thursday.

Read more: http://time.com/4665860/arizona-deportation-mexico-guadalupe-garcia-de-rayos/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter

---

I do not understand why this story is not front-page on every media outlet that is concerned about what will happen as >Redacted<'s brutal, authoritarian anti-immigrant policies are implemented.

This is a mother being torn from her American citizen children.

Deported.

Those two children were there, as their mother was pushed into the back of an ICE van, behind the mesh. They saw their mother's face, pulling away from them.

A crowd was trying to stop this. Many were arrested. It was on television.

WHERE IS THE WALL-TO-WALL NATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE?

Where is the outrage?

This will happen, again and again and again. Families torn apart. Parents taken from their children by uniformed government officers, confined and deported.

It will keep happening.

This is where the [Redacted] policies hit the street. This is where the racist, xenophobic supporters of tyranny voted to send us: To have government officials cruelly rip families apart.

If we do nothing, it will become a routine.

If we ignore this case, there will be others.

If we do not say, loudly and repeatedly, "THIS IS NOT AMERICAN", the weasel-talking policy shills will get away with tut-tutting about breaking eggs to make the "security" omelet, and co-opt high-sounding rhetoric about the "rule of law" sometimes requiring hard choices.

NO.

We can NOT let that happen.

passionately,
Bright

February 5, 2017

I'm wondering how Homeland Security is liking their boss right now.

A little story to illustrate how I think they must be feeling.

Back in the 1980s I worked for a Community Action Agency. These were the organizations formed all over the country during the War on Poverty in the 1960s and 70s, to be the local administration for Federally-funded programs such as Head Start, Senior Dining, Energy Assistance, etc. They were required to have a tri-form Board of Directors that included 1/3 representatives appointed by local officials (such as County commissioners, mayors, etc.) 1/3 representatives selected of/by those participating in the services, and 1/3 'other'- usually business, advocacy, etc.

CAAs were NEVER uncontroversial. They came out of the gate scrappy and conflicted and always accused by whoever felt they were getting the fuzzy side of the lollipop of being 'sellout' or 'co-opted' or 'out of control' or whatever the flavor of the month was. Some did have those issues. Most of the ones I knew didn't. We as staff just tried to keep sorting through the ever-accumulating morass of rules, requirements, regulations, etc., imposed by whichever party was trying to help or hinder our work at any given time, and do our damnedest to deliver the programs as well as we could to as many as we could.

Given the built-in conflicts of that Board structure, you can imagine that we were never without a vigorous minority-from-within, criticizing staff, executive leadership, board, etc. We went through three Executive Directors over the course of about six years.

I remember the last one I experienced. The Board seemed fairly pleased with his resume and his interview, the senior staff had a chance to meet with him before the board finalized his hire and were guardedly optimistic in the 'well-he's-not-the-worst-candidate-we've-seen' sense.

So they hired him. And he promptly scheduled a meeting with all senior and middle management staff.

At which he started straight off by telling us that the one thing that really got on his wick was seeing resources that SHOULD be going to help people in communities who really need them, supporting "poverty pimp" staff people collecting checks and getting fat off the public funding, and WE WEREN'T GONNA HAVE ANY OF THAT HERE, WERE WE?

I kinda imagine the Homeland Security staff is feeling just about as warm and loving toward their new boss as we all left that meeting feeling about our new boss.

reminiscently,
Bright

February 4, 2017

Just Wondering: What is this Bigoted Twitfuckery Costing Me?

I am a taxpayer, after all.

Thousands of visas and green cards were cancelled at a moment's notice.

I have worked in a public bureaucracy. That can certainly be done, but it sure as hell ain't cheap. You can bet that consulates and embassies all over the world had staff on overtime.

Customs and Immigration, airport security, other federal agencies had to mobilize hundreds, maybe thousands, of extra staff, again at a moment's notice, in airports all over the world.

That doesn't come cheap, either.

Then, tonight, all those visas are being reinstated again...

WHAT AM I PAYING FOR THIS SELF-AGGRANDIZING PANDER TO NUMPTY XENOPHOBIA??

angrily,
Bright

February 2, 2017

Dear Democratic Party Leadership

Right now, we have some choices to make, and 'not making any of them' is also an option but it's the worst of the lot.

How do I know?

I pay attention to the rhyme and rhythm of history. So, I think do some of you. It can be hard to tease out the relevant riffs from the cacophony when you're stuck in the middle of its din, as y'all are. But from out here in the cheap seats, the acoustics are a bit different.

Let's lay a couple of sets of facts (the basic kind, not the "alternative" version) side-by-side:

In 2009, Democratic control of the Legislative branch was precarious. Senate seats were in play and the majority was hardly filibuster-proof under then-in-force rules. The Executive Branch was in the hands of a Chief Executive who had already demonstrated willingness to uphold established economic powers and structures, and compromise with moderates, even against the strongly-expressed disapproval of the more progressive wing of his Party. A fair number of Cabinet seats had already been confirmed to moderates. Although the brand-new Chief Executive had certainly made some controversial moves and choices that could be characterized as missteps by political observers, by and large he was demonstrating great competence at navigating the complexities of the Federal bureaucracy.

Of course, he was also, let's be blunt, here-- black. Given the racist gangrene festering in the GOP's base, it was enough to ignite a resistance movement, fanned by a 'gray eminence' coalition of special interest cash and organizing sophistication from Randite Oligarchs, extremist Christianists, long-established WhiteWing hate groups, and conventional Wall Street fixers. They envisioned a 'grassroots' resistance movement they could hand-puppet into helping their legislative minority checkmate anything and everything that came out of the new Administration. It took a good 6-7 months to gin up enough grassroots outrage to get their people into the streets, but they succeeded.

Inherent in that vision, however, were two catastrophically unfounded assumptions: First, that they could direct and control the scope of their 'grassroots' movement solely against the Democratic White House and Congressional majority; and second, that there was sufficient cohesion, as well as competence, in their legislative minority, to maintain the appearance of pandering to the resistance while protecting the status quo.

We all know how that turned out, don't we?

In 2017, GOP control of the Legislative Branch is sufficiently solid under the rules currently in force to act with impunity, assuming they can maintain any semblance of cohesion. The Executive Branch is in the hands of a Chief Executive who wasted no time at all in abundantly demonstrating apocalyptic incompetence, malignant ignorance, mental instability (at best) and a complete lack of willingness or ability to function collaboratively with any other interests than his own.

It took less than 24 hours for the largest in-the-streets demonstration of resistance in American history to unfold, and while any number of progressive institutions and organizations are participating and organizing their own constituencies, there is no 'gray eminence' coalition here. This is not grassroots-over-astroturf, it is the real thing. In numbers and power unprecedented in modern history, and it is not going away, it will not "lose steam", and there is a very long and increasingly hot summer ahead.

Currently, this resistance movement IS focused exactly where the coalition behind the Teeper resistance would have liked their useful idiots to stay focused: Checkmating anything and everything that comes out of the new Administration.

Democratic Party leadership, the tiger is in the streets.

Learn from history.

Find a way to grab its ears, climb aboard, and be part of it.

Because what a much smaller group of passionate resistance fighters did to the GOP when they believed that Party's leadership was failing them is a backyard barbecue fire compared to the forest fire smoldering in the Democratic Party undergrowth now.

prognosticatorially,
Bright

February 2, 2017

A Polite and Sincere Request to the White House Staff

Dear White House Staff,

Y'all are in position to do your fellow-Americans, especially those serving in the military and their families, a profoundly powerful, even lifesaving, service.

Of course, it does ask a great sacrifice of you, and please don't think we're unaware of the cost.

However, if you COULD, at least once a day, express amazement, admiration, and astonishment at the enormous size of your boss's massive genitalia, just think of all the lives that you would be saving.

If several people a day reminded him of just how enormous, intimidating, massive, impressive, and powerful his junk is, he might not feel compelled to pull it out and wave it around at other world leaders, activate plans for risky and superfluous military operations, and other activities that end up putting others in harm's way.

Do your best, please. Keep the magnifying glasses in the desk drawers, and practice not giggling or smirking when uttering lines like "It's just so much more YUUUUGE that any other world leader's ever!"

All of us who value the lives of our service members thank you in advance.

Sincerely,
Bright

January 28, 2017

How [Redacted] Could Make Himself a Hero in One Announcement. And beat Obama's popularity...

...ratings, to boot.

It could be done.

Pretty easily, actually.

And very, very simply.

The White House could call a press conference to announce they have a replacement for Obamacare.

A perfectly viable, tested replacement that would take little time to implement and would be easy for ALL Americans to understand and participate in.

Medicare for everyone.

And the crowd goes wild.

And >Redacted< goes down in history as one of the most popular Chief Executives EVAH.

With popularity ratings (okay, temporarily, but really, isn't that all he needs?) BIGGER than Obama's.

He could do it.

But of course, he won't.

amusedly,
Bright

January 25, 2017

Just under 90 days. Is it possible to organize....?

Tax Filing Resistance?

If the Septic Sphincter has not released his returns by April 15th, can we organize a major non-filing protest?

I'm thinking back to the tax protests of the Vietnam era. They couldn't be that widespread (because it's a serious violation with a serious penalty attached,) but for those who are willing to put that kind of skin in the game, can we make a movement out of it?

Publicity, legal defenses, setting up escrow accounts for 'good faith' payments, that kind of thing?

Even a "don't pay until he releases the returns or at the VERY LAST MINUTE ON 4/15" movement would have some serious impact.

I have a relative who used to work at the IRS and IIRC, they count on a fairly large number of people to file early because they're owed refunds. But one thing that means is that as soon as the return is filed, the rest of the filer's withheld and/or estimated payments are released for use. And they have one less to process in the days immediately following the deadline.

So the IRS would have a Big Sad if we all said "not until he shows us his!"

Could it be done?

curiously,
Bright

January 20, 2017

DON'T MOURN! ORGANIZE!!

The night before he was to be put to death on a trumped-up murder charge, labor organizer Joe Hill sent a telegram to his friend Bill Haywood of the IWW: "Goodbye, Bill, I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!"

Many of us will die.

When the hard-fought gains of decency, humanity, and equity are ripped from our nation's statutes by the greed of oligarchs and their lackeys, we will die.

When the hope of a better future is crushed by the selfish fear of the privileged, we will die.

When it becomes clear that we will not be silenced, we will die.

When they cannot sweep us from the streets, we will die.

When they cannot still our songs of freedom, we will die.

When they cannot make us acquiesce to our own oblivion, we will die.

And then...

WE

WILL

WIN

But for this to happen, we have to understand the price. And be willing to pay it.

Death will not be demanded of all of us.

Prison will not be demanded of all of us.

Pain, privation, destitution, will not be demanded of all of us.

But those things might be demanded of any of us.

And what WILL be demanded of all of us is to ORGANIZE.

To UNIFY.

To be willing to pay that price, and to put our time, our energy, our creativity into the fight. To be willing to risk the harder sacrifices, and make the hard choices.

I promise you this, this truth which has been proved through generations, from Joe Hill to Martin Luther King, and before and since: IF we do this, IF we are willing to look out over the devastation, dry our tears, take one another's hands, and march into the future together, determined to bring back all that we are losing now, no matter what the cost to ourselves...

WE WILL PREVAIL.

And not only will we win back what we lose tomorrow, but we will take the next steps, into a greater future yet. A future of compassion, equity, sustainability, dignity, humanity, and common well-being.

A future of knowing, caring about, and being cared about by our neighbors, our communities, our institutions, and our leaders.

A future where the legacy of those whose work is being rolled back now will be raised up in respect and love.

So take Joe's words to heart.

Some of us will die.

If it's me, I'm proud to stand with Joe. So don't mourn!

ORGANIZE!

passionately,
Bright