How Do We Prepare for Tyranny and the Revolution?
"Truth must be assembled." -Heinrich Böll
When an earthquake makes a rip in the ocean floor, people on land must move to higher ground before the resulting tsunami reaches shore. Sometimes, there’s not much time to think— the move has to be made at once. That’s why we plan for catastrophic events ahead of time. That’s why we make escape routes and post them on highway signs.
I feel like we’re experiencing the political equivalent. We’re now inside the thin sliver of time between the electoral quake and its impact in our lives. We know how dangerous the situation is, but we don’t know what to do or which way to run. Furthermore, it’s awful to realize that we did not properly prepare for this and there are no known remedies and no visible higher ground.
Meanwhile, talking heads drone on about how Don did this and how Don wants to do that. The devil is not in these details. Not today. The dark intentions and the actions borne of them are all plainly evident, like shit stains under harsh white light.
Day by day, tyranny takes hold. It does not arrive like a long-awaited guest one night. Bit by bit, it finds its way into our media and political systems like a virus and is normalized in that process. When it takes hold, the sickness becomes the new norm. Our weakened federal government and widespread corporate corruption have become utterly normal. As people already well accustomed to this degraded state of affairs, we barely flinch at more of the same.
Flinch Harder!
Systems of control are as devious as they are clever, but even the most complex system can be infiltrated and dismantled. Systems busters, rise up! It’s imperative that we remake America into a more conscious and just place. But how? There are no answers coming from mainstream media or from inside the Beltway. Nevertheless, there’s a copious supply of instruction and inspiration available to us.
I recently watched Noam Chomsky on Masterclass and in various segments found on YouTube, including the documentary “Requiem for an American Dream.”
I read and highly recommend Douglas Rushkoff’s Program Or Be Programmed: Eleven Commands for the AI Future.
I also like to keep up with the musings of Sarah Kendzior, a St. Louis writer with an acute sense of what’s happening and how to navigate it. In her piece, “The End of Days Inn,” she writes:
Facts are difficult to find, process, and make available. Yet those of us who like to think still agree on their importance.
Don Trump isn’t going to jail for his crimes.
Crime and corruption pay.
Greed kills.
Do you see why people run from facts?
E.B. White’s Head
Previous generations of Americans had to deal with slavers, Indian killers and land grabbers, foreign and domestic fascists, the KKK and Jim Crow, Senator McCarthy and his blacklists, plus countless other dark forces in our society.
Our best writers address these maladies. In 1940, E.B. White—author of Charlotte’s Web—wrote about the rise of fascism in Europe and the writer’s role in a sick society.
A writer goes about his task today with the extra satisfaction that comes from knowing that he will be the first to have his head lopped off—even before the political dandies. In my own case this is a double satisfaction, for if freedom were denied me by force of earthly circumstance, I am the same as dead and would infinitely prefer to go into fascism without my head than with it, having no use for it any more and not wishing to be saddled with so heavy an encumbrance.
I do enjoy the cold snap his New England wit (and am ever grateful that he kept his head).
Let Freedom Ring
To amend the United States Constitution, three-fourths of the states must ratify a proposed amendment. In January 2020—nearly five years ago—Virginia ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, becoming the final state needed to add 170 million women and girls to our Constitution.
Yet, we continue to wait for Joe Biden to help make the ERA the law of this land.
Kati Hornung, executive director of VoteEquality, wrote in USA TODAY, "President Biden has the rarest of opportunities to cement his legacy of equity and equality into the Constitution. He simply has to instruct our national archivist to publish equality in the Constitution. That's it."
Why the delay? Is this the wrong political moment? It seems the moment couldn’t be more ideal. The war on women is raging. How about women (and the men who love them) get a big win on the eve of the Violator-in-Chief’s second term?
Lagniappe
Cuba's power grid has been plagued by frequent outages in recent months, with more than half of the country experiencing power cuts during peak hours. The outages are primarily caused by fuel shortages and aging infrastructure. [Source: NPR]
Nearly every state provides journalists with at least a qualified privilege to withhold the identity of confidential sources, but there is no federal privilege, and Trump has opposed a bipartisan congressional bill that would create one, the so-called PRESS Act. [Source: The New Yorker]
Texas is currently developing a host of high-tech industries that require enormous amounts of electricity, from crypto-currency mines and artificial intelligence to hydrogen production and seawater desalination. Now, powerful interests in the state are pushing to power it with next-generation nuclear reactors. [Source: Texas Standard]
French lawmakers passed a no-confidence vote against the government, throwing the European Union's second-biggest economic power deeper into a crisis that threatens its capacity to legislate and tame a massive budget deficit. [Source: Reuters]
Political chaos in South Korea has raised the concern that a key US partner on Indo-Pacific strategy, semiconductor supply chains and combating Russia’s assault on Ukraine might become the latest victim of democratic backsliding. [Source: Financial Times]
China banned exports to the United States of the critical minerals gallium, germanium, and antimony. Gallium and germanium are used in semiconductors, infrared technology, fiber optic cables, and solar cells. Antimony is used in bullets and other weaponry. [Source: Reuters]
On Nov. 1, Texas hospitals that accept Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Plan coverage started asking all patients about their immigration status and whether they are lawfully present in the United States. [Source: Al Jazeera]
A cardiologist in Houston, posted a TikTok encouraging his followers to ignore the state’s new citizenship status question. “My proposal to everyone who’s seeing this is, just know that you do not have to answer this question.” [Source: San Antonio Express-News] #RESIST
Battling the rising tide of tyranny and preparing for the revolution means doing all we can where we are—holding true to our values and each other.
Happy holidays and thanks for being here now,
When you are ready to grow a mission-based organization, spark a social change movement, or invest in an arts or culture project, let me know. I’d like to help.