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This FB post by Rebecca Solnit is the thing keeping me sane this morning,so I’m sharing it here in case it helps you all, too:

“They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.

The Wobblies used to say don't mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don't have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who's upset and check your equipment for going onward.

A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.

People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it's sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”

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ON THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, WITH CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.

February 14, 1776.*******

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.* Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness possitively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.** The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a Government, which we might expect in a country without Government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.*** Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise.**** For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law-giver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least.***** Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.******

*This seems obvious, but even now, people seem confused about the notion that feeling some kind of way about other people is the same as needing laws to declare those people illegal. **You can join your local funny hat club and have meetings to talk about how great your hats are all you like. You cannot force people to wear your funny hats, no matter how much you think they should. For better or worse, government is what happens when you try to inflict your funny-hat-appreciation on people who didn't join your club. ***Ehhhh. Paine was just getting started on the notion of "what happens after monarchy" and we've found a few good uses for government that he hadn't considered. Scientific research, protecting and supporting people who need help, etc. ****John Locke and Thomas Hobbes would like a word. But then, when wouldn't they? *****Taxes are better than the alternative, amirite? ******So we're saying here that if your government is actively making you less secure, actively trying to harm its citizens, actively trying to destabilize the globe in order to give more power and privilege to people who already have at the expense of everyone else, that's a problem. *******Returning to the top to point out that this is either the greatest or the worst valentine of ALL TIME. Happy V-Day, England, I think we need to break up. Here are seventy-six pages on why.

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dear usamerican high schoolers looking for a way to resist fascism: sit through the pledge of allegiance.

no getting up. no looking at the flag.

everyone will be looking at you. you'll be sweating like a fucking hippopotamus. your teacher will sternly tell you to get up. you'll feel stupid and that maybe its not worth it because you're just a kid in a classroom. but I'm here to remind you that there are no real life consequences to detention. there are however real life consequences to resisting a thoughtless performance of nationalism.

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I did not make this; for the source go here.

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25 ways to be a little more punk in 2025

Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality

Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway

Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups

Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay

Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward

Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient

Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative

Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!

Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community

DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!

Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?

Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.

Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability

Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough

Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing

Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work

Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market

Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question

Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them

Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area

Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...

Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable

Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact

Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive

Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people

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Do you have any recommendations from your or loved ones' experiences on how to navigate overwhelming grief, devastation, and rage? As someone who has learned so much from so many of our queer predecessors I am interested to hear how you personally cope (unless you are uncomfortable sharing that level of personal details, in either case—sending love to you and yours).

I am assuming what you are referring to, and I want to face it head on. Can I quote myself? I am going to.

"Today, it became clear to me that the issue is not ignorance. It is not good people who don't understand the consequences of their actions. It is not a lack of middle ground. It is fascism. Fascism has been studied for its draw, and I can't say I understand it. What I can say is that I know what destroys it. Integrity, creation, and community. Integrity in not finding a middle ground to make people more comfortable. In being honest with the people who are most dangerous to be honest to. In knowing who you are and living that truly. It's time to learn to be uncomfortably truthful and not give a single inch. Creation does not just mean going on as you have. It does not mean creating for capitalism. What is needed is creation that upsets, disturbs, and liberates. Create in a way that is so radically truthful to who you are and your worth that the world can't look away. Community is where we find comfort now. Safety is in each other. DO NOT let go of a single person. Fill your lungs with whatever fire starter you need and hold my hand."

Hope this helps. It helped to write.

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So Now What? The Short List.

Breathe. You are still alive.

Sit in the sunshine, today, if you can. The world itself is beautiful. Look: there are birds! There is sunshine, and clouds, and trees. The world is still beautiful, even if our fellow citizens are not.

Do something kind. It doesn’t have to be big: but do something kind. Smile at the supermarket checker. Maybe, if you see someone crying, offer them a hug. Donate some money to your local food bank.

(Are you someone who works from home? Are you, like me, a hermit? Sorry to say it, but being kind means being part of the world: you can’t be kind without engaging with others. You might have to leave the house. You are part of the world—you are not alone. Times like this, this is a good thing. Put some good out into the world, even if it’s entirely solitary.)

(I’m not saying you have to talk to people. You don’t. But you have to do something. Pick up some litter! That’s not nothing. )

So that’s two things: Go outside. And do something kind.

Surely, you say, that’s not enough.

And it isn’t. But it’s enough to start with.

When you go to bed tonight, pause and think: did I go outside today, to feel the breeze on my face or look at the moon? And: did I do something kind, something that brought a little good (however little!) into the world?

If you’re like me, you might actually have a hard time answering yes to that question.

Taking yourself out to be part of the world—being purposeful about doing something kind—both of those are actions. They require you to step away from your computer screen and do something. And most of us—myself included!—love any excuse we can get to avoid taking action. It’s much easier to make a sad post to Facebook about the election, or eat a pint of ice cream to make ourselves feel better, or share angry memes via text with our college friends.

But none of those things actually make a difference. They make us feel better, sure. But they don’t do anything. And I think, over the next four years, we’re going to need to get serious about whether our actions just make us feel better, or whether they make a difference.

To be clear: we will need both. We will need to both make ourselves feel better (take care of ourselves) and make ourselves take action (make a difference). So do both! Eat the ice cream—I am! That is important!

But it’s 8 pm where I am, and as the day winds down, I’m holding myself to account. I did take my computer outside, and sat in the sunshine and listened to the chickadees while I worked. But did I do something kind? I’m not sure I did. I did the memes-via-text-chain thing, and the eating-the-ice-cream thing, but nowhere in the course of my day did I find a chance to do something kind for someone else.

And that’s what they want. They want us divided, and demoralized, and isolated. Because divided and demoralized people don’t take action. Kindness isn’t the only thing we need—but we sure as hell are going to need a lot of it in the days ahead.

So I’m going to make myself do one kind thing tonight before I go to bed, and tomorrow I’m going to wake up and do these two things over again. And the day after that, and every day for the next four years.

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the curve

somehow ive found myself in a position where folks come to chuck in times of strife for encouragement. lets get the big part of this conversation out of the way LOVE IS STILL REAL and that is the thing to remember. that north star remains. today there is more to talk about though

existence pushes towards love community and freedom, because CREATION is what we were built to do and creation thrives with these things as fuel. IT GETS BETTER. LOVE IS REAL. however this change comes in up and down waves. its not a straight line and should not be expected to be

some of these waves are short and small, and some of the slopes are years or decades long. there is no mincing words here, we are entering a massive downward wave. the implications are huge and it is okay to mourn that. FEEL THOSE FEELINGS. it is an important part of the ride

the most telling sign post on our slope is this: tromp won the popular vote (or likely will when the votes are done). we can talk POLITICAL STRATEGY all day about electoral college or who should court the center or the left and on and on but ultimately THIS is the real story

to me it signals a TRUE cultural shift. likely conservatives will have presidency, senate, house, and supreme court. WHAT A GIANT SLOPE. HOLD THE HECK ON because we will be riding it for a while, deep into the pit of the void. hold your buds tight, prove love at the local level

but heres the thing, MASSIVE waves have happened before. theyll happen again. mind numbing slopes into the abyss and great soaring leaps into the sky. in fact the inertia almost ALWAYS causes them to happen right after each other. hippies or punks back in the day, buckaroos now

politically we were trapped in a basically fifty fifty trot for a long time, but it was not always like this (just look at old election maps what the heck). to be honest, tromps map looks like one of those old maps right now. and DANG did COUNTER MOVEMENTS blooms from those times

in other words, THERE WILL BE A COUNTER CULTURE MOVEMENT THAT WE HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN OUR LIFETIMES. you are now a rebel for the resistance and the wave that will swing back towards love will awe us in ways we cannot even imagine yet.

but for now, feel those feelings, mourn, prove love, stay safe. do not let the hope i am espousing feel like a distraction from the very real, even deadly consequences of the terrible pit we are plummeting into. it is a horrible day, and FUTURE HOPE does not diminish that, BUT

get ready because that counter culture wave is coming and YOU are a part of it. if you want to shout HECK OFF DEVILS then shout it LOUD, if you want to cry then cry HARD, if you want to love then love with your WHOLE HEART. thats the start of the movement that we dont know yet

when that movement takes shape we will feel the inertia of the curve and it may make us sick from the rollercoaster turn, and that pressure will be uncomfortable and scary, but THEN buckaroo, we will soar, and ill be so dang glad to be holding on tight with you when we do

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INTRODUCTION.

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general Favor; a long Habit of not thinking a Thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of Custom. But the Tumult soon subsides. Time makes more Converts than Reason.*

As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry,) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his own right, to support the Parliament in what he calls Theirs, and as the good People of this Country are grievously oppressed by the Combination, they have an undoubted privilege to enquire into the Pretensions of both, and equally to reject the Usurpation of either.**

In the following Sheets, the Author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. *** The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a Pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly will cease of themselves, unless too much pains is bestowed upon their conversions.

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, **** is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure, is

The Author.

Postscript to Preface in the third edition.

P. S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a view of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independence: As no answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.*****

Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any party, and under no sort of Influence, public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.******

Philadelphia,

February 14, 1776.

*ie, the lurkers (will) agree with me in my DMs/emails/carrier pigeons. **Dude had been in the country for like, thirteen months and spent the first two sick in bed. He had to be carried off the boat by Benjamin Franklin's physician. ***This is a pants-on-fire level of falsehood. For real, T Paine was the master and originator of both side-eye and the subtweet. ****Not untrue, exactly, but definitely a level of exaggeration familiar to anyone who has been introduced to the internet. *****For those of you playing along at home, it had been six weeks since Common Sense was first published, on January 10, 1776. On horseback, it would have taken about three weeks to travel from Virginia to Boston at the time. ******ie, the Editor of a magazine entitled American Liberty. In 1776.

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The inherent tendency of the State is to concentrate, to narrow, and monopolize all social activities; the nature of revolution is, on the contrary, to grow, to broaden, and disseminate itself in ever-wider circles. In other words, the State is institutional and static; revolution is fluent, dynamic.

Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia (via philosophybits)

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Instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a nation should apply itself to reform the system.

Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (via philosophybits)

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It’s a strange cycle, the one between art and revolution. 

Artistic movements change, and we call the changes revolutions, but we mean in this the classical sense, the idea of the universe turning and the old becoming new as the new becomes old: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

Art creates revolutions, pushes them into being by making unsettled unspoken unhappiness visible, audible, tactile. Art changes the way that we experience the world, itself revolutionary in the small moments of experience: Guernica and “Bread and Roses” and Манифест для независимого революционного искусства.

And then art records revolutions, trims them and polishes them and gives them back to us as myth and memoir and fiction and history. Creates itself out of the dust of what we have put aside, and prepares us for the next turn of the planets: La Liberté guidant le peuple, Memorias del subdesarrollo, Aranyer Adhikar, Revolution in Zanzibar.

Over three hundred years ago, it was the will of kings, in a regime change that was neither glorious nor a revolution as we might imagine it. Two hundred years ago, there were those whose occupation was Revolutionary, who spent their lives studying the past and building a framework for the future. 

And almost one hundred years ago, there were artists who found themselves crafting a narrative of change. Actors who waited nervously in balcony seats for the score to find them, who had marched through the streets in search of an empty theater, who sang their roles from the midst of an audience with no idea of what was coming. A composer and a piano on a bare stage, and a show that made some small piece of history.

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Step Six: Write a Letter

Nobody writes letters anymore.

Not true. People write letters, but they only write them when they're angry, when they're unhappy, when they need the moments between the thought and the ink on a page to reconsider.

People write letters when they're on the internet and pretending that there is some difference between a blog post and what we once sealed in envelopes and sent winging off to the far corners of the world. There is no difference, even if we no longer need someone to stand in the room and read out the words to make them come alive.

Letters once brought revolutions, and there's no reason that they can't do so again. No reason that your words can't start a movement. Can't change someone's mind. Can't build a new perspective.

So. Take your manifesto, and break it down into pieces. Find the most important one, and write a letter. Add your evidence, the facts and details that your research has brought. Explain your reasoning, and do it clearly, do it succinctly, do it using all the passion and belief that you hold close.

At the end, when you've taken this one important ideal and brought it forward as best you can, ask your reader to do something. Ask them to act, ask them to shout, ask them to forward your words, ask them to write a letter. Give them the tools they need to follow your advice.

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Step Five: Draft Your Manifesto

Karl Marx took a risk, when he sat down and turned a lot of difficult ideas into a clear and quotable statement of ideals and predictions. Thomas Paine started small, with arguments about work/life balance and civil servant wages, but it took his efforts at translating the Enlightenment into slogans to kickstart independence. Sophie Scholl's words outlived her, outlived her organization, outlived the regime she rejected—as did the words she tried to share on behalf of others.

Actions, without language, are left for others to interpret. They can be turned and colored and spun into fairy tales or farce, tragedies or triumphs, comedies or calculations. It's not enough to effect revolution, if no one remembers why it was necessary.

For posterity, for those who will come later and ask themselves why you've done, not just what you've done, get your story straight. Write it in pencil, because you're going to change your mind later—maybe not about the big things, but about wording and sequence and relative importance. Maybe about the big things that you can't know yet.

For your cause, know that the only way to convince people is to be convinced, and to accept your own arguments.

You cannot accept arguments that haven't been articulated yet, and neither will anyone else. More importantly, no  one should. It is not up to the culture around you to magically understand what you need, and you'll wait until you die for that to happen. It's up to you to figure out the best way to show apathetic, confused, uninformed people who don't care why—and how—they could.

For yourself, this is a first draft. It will be terrible, and you'll look back and wish for better phrases and ideas. You'll want to have been better, but the secret is that you'll always want that.

If you don't, why do you try at all?

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.

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Step Four: Think.

Open your eyes. Take a moment. Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? What matters to you? Why?

Make a list, draw a picture, write a song. Pace out your ideals as you wander your neighborhood, and don’t just offer yourself the easy fruit—follow your options as far as they lead, spend some time turning over what is and what could be in your own mind. This isn’t procrastinating, it’s planning. It’s taking time to divide the moment from the movement.

Look around, and find something you can change right now. Something small.

Do that.

Easy enough, right?

Try something bigger, something tougher, something further. Something that takes a day, a week, maybe even a month. Come back to it day after day, chip away at the root, watch as a change comes slowly but inevitably. Get up, even on the mornings when it seems impossible, and push until the world changes shape, just a tiny bit.

Still easy?

Now, sit down and think again. What comes next? What else can you do?

Local, national, global—what are the issues you see looming, the ones that keep you awake at night? Will they take a year to correct? A decade? A lifetime? Will you be able to see your efforts at all, or will you need to trust that your imagination is sufficient, that your best will someday be enough?

Are you still willing to throw yourself into the attempt?

Make another list.

Start somewhere.

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Step Three: No, seriously, do your homework.

Find out what you're up against. And once you've done that, find out what you're following. A possible (by no means exhaustive, and subject to review and addition in the future) list:

Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future

Sekhar Bandopadhyay, From Plassey To Partition: A History Of Modern India

Catherine Besteman, Violence: A Reader

Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

Donald T. Critchlow, American Political History: A Very Short Introduction

Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict

bell hooks, Feminism Is for Everybody

Rosa Luxembourg, Reform or Revolution

Michael D. Richards, Revolutions in World History

Eric Selbin, Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance: The Power of Story

Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action

Nick Sousanis, Unflattening

Jeremi Suri, The Revolutions of 1968

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women

And, for purely selfish reasons related to the secondary purpose of this tumblr:

Craig Nelson, Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of the Modern Nation