Erasure

I watched AOC's "What's Happening & How You Can Take Action" video and thought it was really impactful, so much so I decided to write up a summary of the insights, copy pasted below.

TL;TR for what you can do about it:

Know your rights and teach other people their rights
Contact your representative
Help organize for Florida special elections to elect Gay Valimont & Joshua Weil

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

If something like war ever breaks out, engage in simple sabotage when you can. Short preview of link: "Whenever possible, arrange to have the fire start after you have gone away. Use a candle and paper, combination, setting it as close as possible to the inflammable material you want to burn"

However, we're not currently there yet. We don't need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like "contacting representatives" & "organizing for elections" will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.

Also, feel free to copy-paste this excerpt anywhere if you'd like!

TL;TR End

Insights from "What's Happening & How You Can Take Action" by AOC:

Executive Orders are not that powerful: For all the Executive Orders being signed, know that they're not actually as powerful as they might seem. Congress can block Executive Orders, courts can block Executive Orders (you might have heard of this being done for the EO ending birthright citizenship), and they're essentially more limited in scope/permanence than actually signed laws. In fact, much of the EOs Trump has signed are meaningless or completely unconstitutional, which is not a pointless distinction, because as mentioned before, courts are blocking these EOs.

Fascist dictators thrive on perceived power instead of actual power. They want to "flood the zone," pump out so much terrible nonsense the populace becomes overwhelmed and docile. Don't believe them, don't become docile and don't consent in advance. The reason Trump is using Executive Orders instead of actual laws is because he knows he only has a slim majority in the House (218R-215D, ie 2R's could flip a vote, 2 vacancies in FL to be voted on 4/1, 1 R departure in NY-21 to be up for another special election)/Senate (53R-47D/I, ie 4R's could flip a vote), and he doesn't want his perceived power to crumble, such as when 3 GOP Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski blocked an Obamacare Repeal Bill "Health Care Freedom Act" from going through in 2017.

(In this case, by erasing this womans history NASA is doing a little thing called complying in advance.)

Action Being Done by Democrats: Apparently Trump did a bunch of stuff while Congress was on recess, and they only got back in session Feb 5th, which was why there hasn't been much news from democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently released a 10 objectives plan for House Democrats to obstruct the administration

What You Can Do: While I'm sure we're all positively exhausted with everything going on, at a minimum, you can know your rights regarding ICE Raids: Don't let them in without a Judicial warrant signed by a Judge, don't answer their questions even if you are a citizen, don't talk to them without a lawyer. If you have extra energy, you can:

Educate people on their rights by printing up Know Your Rights Cards to hand out
Contact your Representatives urging them to obstruct Trump nominees while Elon is invading the Treasury
Help Organize for the Florida special elections 4/1 for the House of Representatives. While it would be difficult for these +30R seats to flip (Note in the Jan 29th Iowa special election for Senate (a state Trump won by +21) actually flipped to Democrats), even switching a +30R district to a +10R district lets Republicans know their policies are unpopular and they should think twice before supporting Trump's policies. Additionally, there will eventually be another special election to fill a House of Representatives Republican vacancy up for grabs in NY-21.
Help Organize for other Swing Elections near you

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

If something like war ever breaks out, engage in simple sabotage when you can (short preview: "Whenever possible, arrange to have the fire start after you have gone away. Use a candle and paper, combination, setting it as close as possible to the inflammable material you want to burn")

However, we're not currently there yet. We don't need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like "contacting representatives" & "organizing for elections" will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.

Contacting your Representatives: To contact your representatives, you can make a short 2 min phone call to their office, which will either be picked up by a staffer or go to voicemail. Representatives listen to phone calls when trying to get a sense of what their constituents care about, but other forms of contact (email, text, etc) are by and large ignored. Additionally, you should say where you live, because representatives only care about what their constituents think, not outside people. Note that the voicemails only record up to 2 min so be brief. You can find your representatives phone numbers at https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

To express your views to your representatives, the format goes like this: "Hi, my name is [Name] and I live in [City, State, Zip Code]. I wanted to ask for your support on [Policy, Bill, etc]. [Anecdote if you have one to be more personalized]. Thank you for listening, my phone number is [Phone Number] and my email is [Email]."

I personally have just called my senators to let them know I want them to vote NO on advancing/approving all Trump nominees, and that I supported them continuing obstructionist actions including the 30hr filibuster against Russ Vought, Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget pick. Florida 4/1 Special Elections for 2 House of Representative Members: Summary, trying to elect Gay Valimont (D) District 1 & Joshua Weil (D) District 6. You can sign up to volunteer on their websites (linked) if you'd like.

New York-21 Eventual Special Election for 1 House of Representative Member: Elise Stefanik (R) will be vacating her seat to become the U.N. Ambassador for the Trump administration, after which within 80-90 days a special election will be held for a new House member. While it's somewhat of a pipe dream, if Dems win all 3 of these House seats up for grabs, it puts the House at 218D-217R.

I hope this helped you get a sense of what you can do, feel free to copy-paste this anywhere if you'd like!

Fascist dictators thrive on perceived power instead of actual power. They want to “flood the zone,” pump out so much terrible nonsense the populace becomes overwhelmed and docile. Don’t believe them, don’t become docile and don’t consent in advance.
Well said
Thank you very much for the effort you put into this post.
This is incredible, thank you!
Is it only AOC being vocal?
- No, she's just the one with most of the followers
- I would say AOC has a very emphasized presence in media that often allows her to break through into headlines despite corporate media's tendency to never cover anything good a Democrat does ever and instead push this narrative that 'if Democrats can't manage to pass some legislation it's Democrats fault for not doing enough and if Republicans do something awful it's Democrats fault for not stopping them.' The stereotype goes if Democrats hold rallies across all 50 states it's radio silence, but if Trump breathes it gets 24/7 news coverage at work to normalize him, etc.
  To be honest I'm a bit guilty of this too. I don't actively search for what members of Congress are saying/doing, and I originally only watched AOC's video because it was being shared around on social media. That being said, I decided to search around a bit to see what members of Congress are saying:
  Here's Bernie Sander's YouTube, he's been talking about oligarchs lately
  Ilhan Omar saying Trumps executive orders don't have support from GOP in Congress on CBS News
  Ayanna Pressley at a rally speaking out against Musk
  Plently of complaining from inside the halls of Congress like from Greg Casar
  TL;DR: I would say AOC is probably the best at messaging directly to the people, and perhaps other members of Congress aren't quite as effective as her, but a lot of them are still doing something even if we don't always hear about it
  
  Thanks for doing the legwork!
- I've seen Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders speaking up, too.

If someone starts a revolution I'd join the fight. "And just because he's a worker, no class can free him but his own. The emancipation of the working class is the task of the worker alone."

Isn't that part of the problem? Everyone is waiting for the revolution to start. Everyone is waiting for the next Luigi. Everyone is waiting.
Nothing's getting better, but someone will come and fix all these problems any time now and I'll be on their side!
- Are you volunteering? 😅
  That's the thing, though. As long as most people can comfortably skate by, that's exactly what they'll do. But, push come to shove, should things get bad enough, that's when revolt happens.
  
  No, I'm not volunteering because I don't think either thing will work. But the people calling for those things to happen are waiting for someone else to do it.
  Also, how are things not bad enough right now? They're sending people to Gitmo. Trump and Musk fired people who are responsible for safeguarding our nuclear weapons because they didn't know what they did. People didn't even notice despite it being all over the news. Or at least they didn't notice enough to pick up their torches and pitchforks.
  And that's just the latest horrific thing he's done in the past three weeks.
  So what's it going to take?
  
  ~2 days without food, for most people, I assume
  
  Starving people don't have much energy to violently revolt.
  
  Tell that to the french
  
  Why on Earth do you think the French Revolution happened because of a famine?
  
  Only takes eating one rich person to get them back up though.
  
  It's going to take a direct impact on peoples' lives. If the average person can continue to go to work, get a paycheck, and overpay for but afford groceries for their family, that's what they're going to do.
  
  And if that never happens? If things get really bad but not that bad for Americans?
  Still sounds like waiting for someone else to do it.
  
  You're not wrong.
- What are you talking about? Luigi isn't a leader. He's just a guy who snapped.
  
  Remember when I said he was a leader? Because I don't.

The problem is, where do we start? We've been, er, "taking the L" for so long, when are we going to start giving the L?

Drop the Democrats and support the Green Party.
- No. Fuck the Green Party. They've disappeared immediately after the election like they always do, and we will not hear about them again for another four years.
  They are not a real party.
  
  Can someone explain why all this hatred for the green party? I don't know anything about them but I wouldn't be surprised if the reason for that is active silencing.
  
  They are a fake party that comes out every four years (after primary season, when they could have become an actual viable candidate in our broken two-party system), to be a spoiler candidate that siphons votes from the Democratic party.
  Every time.
  Then they disappear for four years, and re-appear again at the same time during the next presidential election cycle and do it all again. They are not a serious party. If they were, they would have actual candidates running at state and local levels. They would participate in the primary process and/or campaign to switch away from First Past the Post system.
  But they do none of that.
  
  They exist merely to help an incumbent conservative president win by siphoning votes away from disgruntled progressives. They come out of the dark at election time, then disappear after the election, like demented cicadas.
  
  Hahahah ok I understand how that is what practically happens, but where do they stand politically? What I mean is, this time we saw Harris support fracking and guns, having a lackluster response to Israeli aggression - to say the least - buddying up with Liz Cheney etc etc. Do people who are disappointed by this right turn have any reason to turn to the greens? If not, is there anyone else?
  
  We haven't disappeared. The media only covers us when we're running presidential candidates.
  
  What positions have the green party been elected to? I don't mean nationally I mean state side.
  
  Here you go. Currently, 161 Greens hold office in the United States.
  
  Oh cool, then I'm sure you guys will start campaigning right away with some new, serious, progressive faces to go against democrats in primary elections?
  No? You'll be gone until 2028?
  Prove me wrong.
  
  Do you mean midterms? Primaries are done within parties.
  Again, we are running candidates, but you likely haven't heard about them because, like I said, we only get coverage during presidential elections.
  
  Well until we get rid of first past the post, they have zero chance as a third party. Their only real chance would be to primary with the major party that they most align with.
  Also, just because you can find one or two examples of green party candidates, does not mean that they are a real party. There is more to a political party than just allowing a person to use your party's name while campaigning.
  We need a real, grassroots, progressive party. The Green Party could clean up their act and become a serious party, and they'd still be shit because the name carries so much baggage. There are a whole lot of people who have been burned and will never vote Green Party again for the rest of their lives. Everyone would be better off with a new party.
  
  Cool. Let me know when this new party of yours is bigger than the Greens, and I'll join it. I'm only a Green because they're the best party out there. If something better comes along, I'm there.
  
  The green party is nonexistent, any party is bigger than the green party
  
  https://www.gp.org/help_elect_a_green_to_the_milwaukee_common_council Here's an example of them trying to get someone elected to local office.
- PSL is the only actual revolutionary party in America that I know of right now. The green party is a joke.
- Go piss in the wind! The US Green Party is not the same as the European versions, with exception to the turd and loser, Joschka Fischer.

Look into your local PSL or DSA. Us socialist are on the top of the leaderboard for Nazi killing and it's not even close. Join the SRA too. This shits not going away with votes. Fascism doesn't let you vote it out of power.

I do not recognize those acronyms, but would like to know more! Can you point me in the right direction?
- Party for Socialism and Liberation (Marxist Leninists) Democratic Socialist of America (DemSocs) Socialist Rifle Association (All leftist welcome)

Fuck these nazis.

Are you going to storm the Capitol like your granddads stormed the beaches of Normandy? Are you going to only bitch about it on the internet, or are you actually going to do something about it - storming the Capitol not necessarily has to be a part of it - you can plan a better alternative.

Storming the Capitol is what the MAGA morons did. I hope the left is smarter than that.
- Yeah me too. Storming anything is not likely the solution. If we get to the point of all out violence a lot can be lost in a short amount of time. But organizing protests or work stoppages can and do work with enough participation. But there’s the problem, enough participation. I don’t really know what the solution is but I am willing to participate even if it hurts. This shit ain’t right.
  
  The original comment is a dumb way to say it. But fascism doesn't let you vote it out of power. Fascism doesn't respond peacefully to peaceful protest either. Organized resistance will require violence in response to the inevitable violence of the state. The key word here being organized. The time for peaceful organization and voting has passed. Once fascist are in power the only thing to be done in the political arena is meant to delay while an organized resistance force can be formed. I highly doubt that will happen. But history tells us that this is the only viable option. All other efforts are only meant to delay. But if you're only delaying and not organizing actual armed resistance than your delay is without purpose.
  Storming the capital is dumb. Hardening your local neighborhood with an armed resistance and safe harbor for the targets of the fascist is where efforts should be put. This is about saving lives and building allies locally. It's the best place to put effort right now to protect the first targets of the fascist. Right now that is undocumented people. But they won't stop there. They never do.
Typical American response. Yeehaw you gonna kill some people er what!?
Attacking each other is not going to solve this problem because the wealthy have been pitting us against each other for a long time now. It was the wealthy that caused WWII and every other major war where everyone but them ends up dying.
I agree there are better alternatives.
You have to figure out how to reach people and get them off of the social media and bullshit news.
Someone like that I would say, "who told you that? Mark Zuckerburg? That guys a fuckin' greedy little creep. Fuck that guy."
But you can't be too much of an asshole, you have to "rib" them and act like it's kind of funny.

So how much longer before we get pissed enough to start doing something about it?

Says the guy making no note of anything he is doing about it.

The people in power aren't going to do anything about it because they want it this way.

Half the regular people also want it this way

Of the people left, somewhere around 50% don't care either way.

And of the last people left who do care, probably at least half of those aren't doing anything < this is presumably where you are.

You can't just sit around and expect everyone else to be as angry or angrier than you and expect everything to work out because THEY'LL do something about it.

Half the regular people also want it this way
Only 28% of adults voted for this and lots of Trump voters just wanted the cheaper groceries that Trump promised them (he lied).
So please don't spread the lie that Trump has majority support or any kind of mandate. He doesn't. Over a 100 million people didn't bother to vote because they have no faith or hope that voting can improve their lives. They aren't wrong. At best, electing Democrats is just a stay of execution.
- Only 28% of adults voted for this
  Uh, isn’t that how American elections work? It’s decided based on the proportion of people who voted, not on the proportion of all adults. Trump won the popular vote 49.9% to 48.3% with the second highest number of votes in U.S. history. I don’t think any democracy divides votes by the total number of adults. How would that even work?
  
  It does mean that not much more than 28% of the adult population support him though.
  So he's enacting all these democracy eroding changes for techno-authoitirians/fuedalists off of less than 1/3rd of the US's population's support.
  Elections don't care, nor does policy. But it is closer to 1/4 than 1/2 of people who can even begin to be said as his supporters. Despite what the media cycle might imply.
You can't really assume people aren't organizing themselves just from a post like that. Its also bad for opsec to just post what you are up to online. Plenty of people are, there just aren't enough people as people are stuck in the mindset that the systems haven't collapsed yet so there is no need to build up a safety net.
I said “we” dumbass.

Well let's see... This country has been dealing with these issues for the entirety of its existence, so the time to start doing something about it has long passed.

It's also now. Now is the time. The best time was before. The next best time is now.
right, let's just lie down and die then, fucking brilliant reasoning there
- Struggle your whole life then see how much of you is left to keep fighting. Death is the only path to peace.
  
  i assume you're willing to go first, to show how great it is?
  
  I never seem to succeed, but if I ever do I'll let you know how it is.