Social Activism in the Age of Trump: What To Do and What We Are Doing

larry, either use this thread for what it's meant to be used for or take it elsewhere. There's plenty of space for cynical dread in other threads.

Seriously.

ban larry appleton

lol jk

or change dn to SINNICAL DRED (n otha thredz)

My invective was a little beer fueled before. http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/12/do-something The comments here are pretty promising. This is fertile ground to make some bigger changes to hopefully stem this virus from replicating.

That bullshit about Lena Dunham is the virus though - both in terms of its reprehensibility and its eternal nature - as long as there's someone who'd rather believe it than look it up, it'll endure.

Drink better beer!

Why do people keep making this thread unreadable?

look i know the formatting was wack

LOL @ Until "uhhh what?" turns to understanding

there's plenty of stuff you can do. there are plenty of options available. performative theorizing may be helpful for you but doesn't add much constructive to the conversation.

uhhh whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeureka!

This seems useful as a basic step-by-step guide to digital security. Better to shore up everything and lock it down now.

http://marchhare.io/March-hare-communication-security-guide.pdf

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DzOz3Y6D8g_MNXHNMJYAz1b41_cn535aU5UsN7Lj8X8/preview#heading=h.fwfuc1708kuz

http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2016/12/15/trumpism-and-expertise/

thank you

ditto!

Now a site/PDF:

https://www.indivisibleguide.com

I don't know if I'm being overly prissy about this, but I'm getting a little annoyed with the concept of phone calls to non-representative govt individuals as activism, i.e. either calling the congressperson or senator from a district/state you don't actually live in (and hence the person doesn't represent you), or calling, like, the DOJ or something, as though they have a request line on what to investigate or prosecute.

yea im not sure how effective it is, i don't really know. calling your own reps makes sense obv

some reps apparently have systems for tracking where calls/emails come from and ignore the ones from out of district. FWIW I also really hate the idea of calling some mortal enemy like Paul Ryan (unless he is in fact my own representative) to ask him to do anything. Feels like seeking the merciful protection of the czar or some shit.

Also, a thing I was thinking since I've been posting a lot about electoral politics in this thread: while I totally think everyone should vote and should at least minimally follow and participate in electoral politics, I certainly don't think they're the be all end all, and I think people who feel repulsed or not particularly drawn to it but are interested in other kinds of activism should do other kinds of activism, because that's all necessary too.

Went to 4 organizing meetings/social events/reading group things last week. Reminded me of the importance of doing so, b/c I hate the utterly defeated, demoralized, and most of all helpless tone I read either on other threads or on FB. Going outside and to a place where others are gathering who want to do something has an invigorating, therapeutic value that isn't really communicated online.

What makes it worse is the shrieky despair of very pampered Acela-corridor media/pundity-types who now feel completely at a loss and the need to spread their hyperbolic panic around thru their regular columns.

It's like there's no acknowledgement or realization that yeah, shit is pretty fucked up and horrific, but that it's been that way for others already for a long time and they still worked to get something done. Panic and helplessness are communicable, sociogenic things, and these fucks ain't helping at anything except validate everything Gore Vidal said about them being like courtiers at Versailles.

Oh man, that's such a perfect description.

Similarly their own political ineffectuality in this moment is just a continuation of their prior ineffectuality, except that before everything was fine for them so it didn't matter.

On the plus side, one of the working groups I was in focused on defense, both personal/physical/bodily defense and InfoSec. You had multiple people there who were MMA trainers who held thrice weekly self-defense classes trying to focus on at-risk populations, and a vet who wanted to teach basic street-level first aid to everyone she could. She had been an active-duty combat medic in Afghanistan.

Made me wonder about setting up a group and/or training module for the role of "street medic." Build a skill manual integrating what works that was learned from Greece, Egypt, Standing Rock, Oaxaca, Ferguson, etc along with transferable skills instilled from armed forces medical training. Localize into it every language possible.

Going outside and to a place where others are gathering who want to do something has an invigorating, therapeutic value that isn't really communicated online.

this is so true

Suffice it to say, I have very, very strong feelings about (learned) helplessness.

And it's always learned, isn't it

an invigorating, therapeutic value

You make it sound like this is a $5 massage you got in the basement of a Chinese restaurant.

your mom is a $5 massage I got in the basement of a Chinese restaurant

Yeah, you're right. What I'm saying here is this whole self-growth, self-fulfillment crap is the problem. Same deal with Occupy Wall Street, it was about self-expression more than self-sacrifice for the public good. F that noise. Sounds like those guys were doing good work, but this mindset takes me back to all the other ineffectual movements of the recent past.

But it comes down to using your phone and tablet and computer to communicate first just to agree on a time--social media is _real good_ at turning people out en masse--but then to shut the thing off and actually head there.

(Best to switch off your phone and leave it at home or in a faraday phone, tho, if you're going to a demo. Every smartphone has a tracking device built in by design.)

Yeah, you're right. What I'm saying here is this whole self-growth, self-fulfillment crap is the problem. Same deal with Occupy Wall Street, it was about self-expression more than self-sacrifice for the public good. F that noise. Sounds like those guys were doing good work, but this mindset takes me back to all the other ineffectual movements of the recent past.

― larry appleton, Monday, December 19, 2016 4:35 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

experienced organizer larry appleton weighs in

hey guys larry's here

larry, can you fuck off to the Mourning thread, at least

seriously

xxp

Damn straight, man alive. I've had a successful track record doing public interest work, with real people's lives made better against injustice, and it wasn't fun, it sucked. Nerve wracking and basically just a fight against depressing bullshit. Nothing toe-curling and luxurious about it, no personal therapeutic value, or glorious, it was draining and involved personal sacrifice.

If you're doing it for yourself, for therapy, for self-expression then what we'll get is another Occupy Wall Street. Whatever, don't listen to me, make the same mistakes over and over again, I don't care, I'm not even playing this game anymore.

you seem to have ... some issues

I regret that I have but one FP to give for my message board

Yeah, you're right. What I'm saying here is this whole self-growth, self-fulfillment crap is the problem. Same deal with Occupy Wall Street, it was about self-expression more than self-sacrifice for the public good. F that noise. Sounds like those guys were doing good work, but this mindset takes me back to all the other ineffectual movements of the recent past.

Well, I bring up the therapeutic value because it has a beneficial side-effect to actually meeting and doing something. i wanna throttle some commentators Bloom County-style just for the continued despair and this self-pitying victimization fetish. Yeah everybody had a shock or some trauma to some level, but continually to fixate on it offers no material benefit aside from justifying just sitting there.

And since there are countless of column inches needing to filled and 800-word blog posted filed by lunchtime, you have this horde of really comfortable yakking types just spewing out their fevered handwringing impulses because everybody else is doing it.

Of course, Horizontal structures/consensus/Occupy-style organizing have their own issues(in legion), but that's a different subject. What I'm talking about has only the high-visibility actions as only a fraction of what needs to be done, but it's high-viz which means cameras are there which we means we most easily remember only the really vivid public display aspects of this. We weren't there ourselves.

faraday phone

Correction: Faraday bag, rather.

Like this, maybe:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01BY9H5H6/

Yeah, alright. The left/liberals have this problem with politics being about self-fulfillment and self-expression. "Wasn't that protest so much fun?!? We had hoola hoopers and bubble machines. It was great! Check out these costumes we wore!" I remember overhearing that around Occupy Wall Street.

So when I hear "therapeutic", I guess I'm hearing that. It's a mindset that's failed a thousand times before, and will fail a thousand times hereafter. This stuff should be putting a knot in your stomach, I don't see how it could be therapeutic at all.

larry has now clearly established for us that he has an outsized sense of his own superiority and he feels entitled to it. is that you, gabneb?

I have an outsized sense of seeing my ideas work in the real world.

We should all hasten to put our stomachs in knots, based on your experience, then?

It's about being prepared for hard, difficult work, not the release of personal tension. If your mind is set to self-fulfillment, therapeutic value, self-expression, then people will bail the minute things get difficult. If you prime people with a mind set of self-sacrifice for the greater good, people will be more willing to go further.

rephrase it two more times larry I don't think people understood what you were getting at

Eh, whatever, this the last time I'm going to post in this thread.

http://www.nataliedee.com/012506/maracas.jpg