resistancepapers-blog

[resistancepapers-blog]

The Resistance Papers IV

The most difficult thing to do is just keep doing.

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

 These, of course, are the infamous words of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell explaining why he invoked an obscure procedural rule to silence Elizabeth in the Senate. Senator Warren was outlining her argument why unrepentant racist and homophobe Jeff Sessions might not be the best choice for the country’s chief law enforcement official. Much has been written about this incident so I won’t rehash it here.

 The critical takeaway from this isn’t that Republican legislators are tone deaf and uninterested in representing the majority of voting Americans (nor is it that women in the highest levels of government are treated with the same disrespect and dismissal as anywhere else in the country, a topic of which I could write thousands of words), the critical message is that those of us who see that the emperor has no clothes must speak our minds, must resist at every turn and must not relent. We MUST persist.

 I understand that this is a lot to ask. On a daily basis we are exposed to new horrors that the government inflicts on the country, from systematically dismantling the public school system to eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency to rushing to replace the Affordable Care Act with a policy that will make insurance more expensive and difficult to obtain for the most vulnerable in the nation. Given this constant onslaught of outranges it is nearly impossible to not become overwhelmed and forgo action for despair.

 But make no mistake, this is what the opposition wants.

 Steven Bannon, white supremacist  and chief White House strategist, has crafted a campaign specifically designed to keep the resistance off balance and reeling. If you listen carefully you can almost hear the cadence: action, action, BOMBASTIC DISTRACTION, action, action.

 But we must not fall into anguished inaction, we must—like Senator Warren—persist. We must do everything we can: call, write, email, march, educate, confront. We must do it for as long as necessary. The stakes are too high to do otherwise.

 The good news is that the timeline we must commit to is not indefinite. Worst possible case, the Trump administration will end in four years. However, we must do everything possible to help it implode far before then—look at the damage done in the first couple of months, can you imagine the destruction that could be achieved over the course of years?

 Take comfort in the fact that we are all feeling ground down, exhausted. How can you see everything that is happening and feel otherwise? But we must steel ourselves and push through. Pick up that phone, attend that rally, send that email.

 We must support each other and continue the good fight.

 We must do the work to reclaim sanity for our country.

 We must PERSIST.

 Yours in resistance,

 ~ Veritas Pugna Publicola

[resistancepapers-blog]

The Resistance Papers III

A tipping point is coming that will destroy our republic–or save it.

As this is written, we are only one month into the reign of President Donald Trump. While he and his administration paint the past four weeks as productive and trouble-free, anyone even halfway paying attention can see that it has been, in truth, the most tumultuous, chaotic transition of power our nation has seen in a century. From deeply controversial cabinet picks to apparent collusion with Russia to the disastrous and unconstitutional Muslim travel ban, the White House is a roiling cesspool of power-hungry opportunists who care about serving their own self interests far more than serving the American people.

And they’re only getting started.

Make no mistake, an unprecedented tipping point is on the horizon. This point will come in one of two forms—one that will destroy our nation or one that might possibly save it.

To understand the former I encourage you to read the short but eye-opening essay by Boston College professor of Economic and Political American History, Heather Richardson. You can find it here.

Professor Richardson points out that American history is accented by “shock events,” that is, unexpected and unimaginable events that threw society into chaos and allowed savvy players to seize power that was otherwise unattainable.

One such event was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that ostensibly started the first World War. A more recent example is the September 11 terrorist attacks. That event, in addition to radically shaking American belief that we are untouchable in our own country, saw the creation of The Patriot Act. This set of laws authorized indefinite detention of immigrants, the search and seizure of private property without consent or knowledge and broad latitude for the FBI to search telephone and email records without a warrant, among other actions. The Patriot Act passed with wide bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate—something that would have been unthinkable for such a dramatic increase in governmental powers under any other circumstance.

This brings us to the Muslim travel ban architected by shadow president Steve Bannon and gleefully put into action via executive order by the President. By any measure the executive order was poorly crafted and hastily executed, sowing confusion and frustration among TSA, Border Patrol agents and Homeland Security—not to mention the thousands of travelers, green card holders and refugees that were inconvenienced, detained or turned away altogether.

There are few that agree that this executive order will actually make Americans safer; certainly not the 1,000 diplomats and State Department officials who signed a dissent memo speaking out against the ban. The memo reads, in part, that the ban “will not achieve its stated aim of protecting the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States given the near absence of terror attacks committed in recent years by Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan, Somalia, Sudanese, and Yemeni citizens who are in the US after entering on a visa. This ban will have little practical effect in improving public safety.”

Then why put it into action at all?

As Professor Richardson wrote, “[a shock event] is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won’t like.”

During the campaign Trump said explicitly that he wished for “a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” As president, this desire was confirmed on live television as presidential lackey Rudi Giuliani said in no uncertain terms that he was working with the administration to establish a travel ban, even though they had to go through the annoying fuss and bother of doing it “legally.”

Here is where I depart from Professor Richardson’s analysis of the travel ban. Because I don’t believe this is the Trump administration’s shock event. That is yet to come.

At best, the Muslim ban was a ham-handed attempt to appease Trump’s base. At worse, it was a trial balloon to test how far the administration can push the extremes of executive order powers to set the stage for future actions.

The actual shock event, when it come, will be much, much worse.

It appears that the Trump administration is doing everything possible to ferment mistrust and hatred of our nation, especially among the Arab world. It is my belief that they truly hope for a horrible attack to happen on American soil, the more loss of innocent life the better.

When this shock event occurs the Trump administration will immediately call for a vast and all-encompassing consolidation of power within the executive branch. Simultaneously they will attack the judicial branch for challenging the original executive order in an attempt to limit the checks and balances on this consultation. Trump has already set the groundwork for this after the 9th Circuit Court put a national hold on the ban, tweeting “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system!”

And that moment—God forbid that it ever comes—will dramatically define the future of our republic.

Granted, it will be tempting to react in anger to another attack on our homeland, to wish violence upon those who did violence against us. This is what happened on September 11, 2001. In our rush to seize an eye for an eye we gladly gave away freedoms for the false promise of additional security. We are fortunate that George W. Bush power hungry or deranged enough to use this event to fashion himself Ultimate Honorable Leader. I firmly believe that Donald Trump would and will take this step if given half the chance.

This moment, if and when it comes, will test our resolve in a way it has never been tested before. It will require us as a nation to set aside pure furious retribution in favor of something more profound. It will require us to resist our baser instincts so that we may safeguard the future of democracy in our nation.

This will be our ultimate act of resistance. Because we won’t be fighting against the clearly incompetent and buffoonish Trump, we’ll be fighting against ourselves. Americans are innately violent and vengeful people—after all we took our country by violence (against both the British and Native Americans), protected the world through violence in two world wars, and engaged in violent actions in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, to name a few. This tendency toward violence is written into our very constitution as the right to keep and bear arms.

Some of this violence has been justified, even necessary. And despite our violent natures we are, of course, also capable of great acts of science, peace and empathy. But when we are threatened or injured, it is not to our better angels that we automatically look.

When this shock event occurs, we must redouble our efforts. We must demand that our lawmakers act with conscience and forethought. We must make it clear that it is our singular demand that our nation does not become incontrovertibly hardened by hate. This is not to say that we should not protect ourselves or retaliate against our aggressors. We are still the United States of America and we will not quietly suffer the death and destruction of our people or property. But our retaliation must be tempered with wisdom and justice.

We must fight the undeniable desire to settle the score at any cost. We must defy the breaking down of checks and balances and frightening consolidation of power. We must oppose Emperor Trump.

We must RESIST.

Yours in resistance,

~ Veritas Pugna Publicola

[resistancepapers-blog]

The Resistance Papers II

Resistance starts with a call to arms. This is ours.

 THE RESISTANCE MANIFESTO

We are the resistance.

We are old, young, black, white, yellow, brown and green. Sporting dreadlocks, clean-shaven heads and everything in-between. Standing out in a “She Persisted” t-shirt or going unnoticed in a tasteful pantsuit. This diversity makes us hard to identify—and that’s the point.

We are everywhere.

It doesn’t matter if we’re getting into a bigot’s face, quietly texting our senators or taking to the streets—we are all here and ready to fight. Some of us have been fighting for decades, others of us have just joined the fight. It doesn’t matter—we’re all here now. We refuse to stand by quietly while the freedoms of our friends, family and coworkers are systemically stripped away.

We are prepared to fight.

We stand for rational thought, science and facts. We believe in respect for others, safeguarding the environment and putting principles ahead of profits. We are fighting for our children, our families, our friends and ourselves.

We are resolute.

We refuse to bow to fear, uncertainty and doubt. These are the tools of autocrats. The more propaganda pumped out by the opposition the more we look to verifiable sources and actual experts in their fields. There are no “alternative facts.”

We question authority.

We will no longer allow lies and misdirection to distract us from our purpose. Shouting at ideologues who refuse to acknowledge what is right in front of their faces is pointless. We put our energy into actions that generate results.

We are undeniable.

Our weapons are phone calls, emails, letters, marches and yes, even tweets. We will use every tool available to make a difference. Because the opposition has given control to self-serving billionaires who seek only to enrich themselves. 

We say NO.

No to sidestepping issues of ethics and constitutionality. No to using fear and lies as a management style. No to white nationalists controlling the executive branch from the shadows.

Never before in the history of our republic have the stakes been so high. This is a fight that we don’t just want to win—we have to win. Because this isn’t a battle of different ideologies or styles of governing, this is a fight to maintain the freedoms guaranteed by our constitution.

We do not relent, resign or relax.

We RESIST.

Yours in resistance,

 ~ Veritas Pugna Publicola

[resistancepapers-blog]

The Resistance Papers I

Fight for what’s right or lose everything. The choice is yours.

We find ourselves at an unprecedented moment in history. The United States of American has elected a man to be president who is anti-science, anti-intellectual, bigoted, thin-skinned and wholly unqualified for the job. The pundits have spoken at length about how we got here—but the hows and whys no longer matter.

What matters now is action. Fighting back against the increasing alien environment that is attempting to swallow our country. Isolationism, xenophobia, racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism… these are not American values.

We face a great opposition. We have been smacked in the face with the awful realization that so many of our family, friends and coworkers effortlessly looked past blatant fear-mongering and manipulation and voted for a demagogue who looks only to enrich himself. It is difficult to see our loved ones with new eyes. But denying what is right in front of our faces is foolish.

We are done attempting to understand and reconcile with the opposition. Their candidate promised to limit the freedoms of others and they looked the other way. We are better than they are. Does that sound arrogant? Too bad. The opposition lost the ability to claim the higher ground when they elected a petulant narcissist who keeps the company of neo-Nazis and self-serving opportunists.

We are angry and we are going to stay angry. But more importantly—we are resolved. Resolved to continue to fight until the bitter end. Because make no mistake, the very future of our republic is on the line. We will emerge as a stronger union recommitted to democracy or will be find ourselves shackled and beaten down. Those are the only options before us.

The time for discussion and introspection is over. We have a great responsibility to shout the truth over a deafening cacophony of lies. We must fight tooth and nail to reclaim what has been lost: honesty, accountability, compassion, and integrity.

The fight will be hard. The fight will be exhausting. We must commit to standing arm in arm to hold the line against an onslaught that is now only just beginning. We must give our all to resist the hatred, fear and uncertainty that has thrust our great nation into this position.

Together, we are an undeniable force for change. A bright spark in the dismal clouds that have cast our country into shadow.

We must support each other.

We must love each other.

We must persevere.

We must RESIST.

Yours in resistance,

~ Veritas Pugna Publicola