rtod: a folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it

Revolutionary thought of the day:

"I think real folk stuff scares most of the boys around Wahsington. A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it, or it could be whose hungry and where their mouth is, or whose out of work and where the job is or whose broke and where the money is or whose carrying a gun and where the peace is -- that's folk lore and folks made it up because they seen that the politicans couldn't find nothing to fix or nobody to feed or give a job of work."

Woody Guthrie, in a 1940 letter to Alan Lomax, quoted in Woody Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein

in which i scour the internet for signs of resistance and wonder if anyone is organizing a general strike

Where is the resistance? 

My question is not "where is the outrage, why is no one resisting," and so forth.

There is always resistance. I know it's out there. It must be happening. But who is organizing what and where -- that's not visible from a distance.

Looking at mainstream media, we have the usual "hundreds rally", or overviews of one or two Democrats and a scattering of judges.

In the socialist and anarchist media, workers are always rising. The world is always on the brink of a workers' revolution. One fine day they might be right, but they are certainly not a barometer of anything.

I'm also not talking about the so-called #Resistance^TM. The Democrats are ciphers. Utterly absent. Kamala Harris has disappeared. A blatant and obvious reminder that Democrats gonna Democrat: Party Über Alles.

Some Republican voters are apparently angry -- and this is important. Will our side understand the imperative to work with disgruntled conservatives? Or are we too consumed with anger and blame to welcome temporary allies wherever we find them? If Trump and Musk are to be stopped, it will take the active participation of non-fascist Republicans. 

Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a DIY resistance guidebook published by the OSS (precursor of the CIA) in 1944, is the number one search and download on Project Gutenberg. So there's that.

I've been wondering if some federal workers are planning a general strike. Talking on Signal or Discord, forming groups and coalitions. They wouldn't even have to risk their lives by demonstrating in the streets. They could simply stay home. A mass sick-out.

It could build from something barely noticeable to massive over the course of a workweek. 

It could include all federal workers. Office workers. Lawyers. Lab workers. Tech writers. Accountants. Kitchen workers. System analysts. Mailroom staff. Janitors. Statisticians. It should (but of course it wouldn't) include defense workers, contractors, secret service guards.  

Staying home as an act of resistance. Musk wants fewer federal workers, let's see what happens without them.

And then -- in my fantasy -- with federal workers showing the way, we could see a widespread general strike, calling for Trump's impeachment, arrest, prosecution, and sentencing. 

Why the hell not. Every action begins with an idea. Every idea begins with a dream.

Of course it would violate Rule Number One of all serious activism. Has the groundwork been laid? Have coalitions been built? Are people prepared? I'm guessing no, no, and no.

But this is an emergency. Maybe it has to happen organically. Maybe the rules don't apply. 

Or maybe it is happening. 

How can I support? 

thoughts about what's happening in the u.s.

I haven't been able to write anything coherent about what's happening in the US. All I have is a jumble of disconnected thoughts and emotions. Mostly I push them aside, needing to focus on work, union, and family. 

I guess this is a What's Happening in the US Brain Dump. I'm not even going to try to weave it into an essay. Even this brain dump has been sitting in drafts for more than a week.

* * * * 

Last night, a friend and I had our regular semi-monthly video call. This friend works for the federal government, and is queer. They are also really smart: they are leaving the country. 

As soon as our call started, I said: when are you leaving? I said, please don't wait. And we agreed: they won't be one of those families who waited just too long, not reading the signs around them, and were trapped to a horrific fate. The Jewish families who could have left Nazi Germany, but waited too long.

The words that I find myself repeating again and again: we don't know how far this will go. We don't know how far this will go.

Because these people do not respect the rule of law. 

That's the bottom line. 

They do not respect the rule of law, the Constitution, the checks and balances. Throughout my lifetime, throughout United States history, those safeguards, those imperfect systems, have been stretched, frayed, twisted, corrupted. They have been abused and misused. But they have still existed. They have endured. Now we see the final death throes. This putsch does not recognize any boundaries. As my friend said, no guard rails. 

I loathe hearing and reading "we will get through this". Who is we in that sentence? A comfortable middle-class (or above) income, a cis/hetero family, white skin, may get you through it. Just because you're not being rounded up, your kids aren't in cages, you're not being called vermin, your family is safe: "we'll get through this"? Fuck you. 

I'm a Jew. I know in my bones that we don't always get through this. 

And even worse: Jewish people who defend this. Jewish people who care about Israel more than humanity. My loathing for those people knows no bounds.

I remember being shocked and so angry to learn that in some states, after a law is declared unconstitutional, the state keeps the laws on the books and continues to enforce it. A rogue state, if you will. Now we have a rogue nation.

Which is the other thing I keep asking. When will the nations of the world treat the US for it is, a rogue nation? That there no longer exists the US the ally. The US is North Korea. Iran. And Russia, perhaps literally. 

With the Orwellian pronouncement that Ukraine started the "war" with Russia -- 1984 come to reality -- maybe this has begun. Maybe "allies" are re-thinking.

The sight of Elon Musk in the Oval Office shocked me and turned my stomach. 

Living in a country where the economy is so intertwined with the US's brings that home faster. It's easy to talk about a trade war. It's harder to talk about an actual war. Canada has the world's largest supply of fresh water. Water is more valuable than oil. Where will that go?

None of this came out of nowhere. It's been building since the Reagan era. The steady march to fascism. We can be sure this march has not arrived at its destination.

De-regulation, unchecked capitalism, the revoking of what's left of a social safety net. Neocolonialism; corporate colonialism.

Mass incarceration, voter suppression, fraudulent elections. Bush v Gore. 

The constant disinformation, an Orwellian world where white so-called Christian men are victims, and attempts at inclusion are enemies of the state. 

Solidarity with persecuted Afrikaners. 

The Gulf of Mexico, Panama, Gaza. 

Crippling economics are met with scapegoating, and now round-ups. 

The endless war with shadowy intent, a shifting landscape of enemies.

The racism, both wide and deep, stoked into fury by the advent of a Black POTUS. 

Media amplifying the messages 24/7, broadcasting fiction and fantasy disguised of news. (If you doubt this, watch Fox News if you can stand it, or read Naomi Klein's Doppelganger if you can't.)

No conventional forms of protest are effective. No demonstration, no letter-writing campaign, will save Americans from this nightmare. Those forms of protest are only effective within a democracy. Or at least within a country that cares about world opinion. Or at least a country where sanctions can be brought to bear. Or at least. I don't know what.