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:

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

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

1. 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:

1. Educate people on their rights by printing up Know Your Rights Cards to hand out
2. Contact your Representatives urging them to obstruct Trump nominees while Elon is invading the Treasury
3. 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.
4. Help Organize for other Swing Elections near you

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

1. 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!

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."

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.

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 been said better by other people but the general understanding of the right’s use of “DEI” is as a convenient blanket slur.

It’s typically used against Black and Hispanic people the most, followed by trans people, but any/all women are convenient extra padding under the bus tires of their bigotry and insecurity.

Remember that their fascism is based in feelings of superiority in addition to fear. Use that against the cowardly bastards. They can’t stand to see someone “undeserving” do as well as or better than them, so they try to mow it down.

Fuck ‘em.

EDIT: It seems like Rose Ferreira is of Hispanic descent, hailing initially from the Dominican Republic then moved to NY and eventually secured an internship at NASA, and is now an astronomer and aerospace engineer. It seems like her NASA page got reinstated, maybe after backlash. She’s awesome. Hell yeah for the Streisand effect.

Women and visible minorities are often given the absolute worst conditions for getting out of the shit cycle started by white dudes. This can mean that they don’t have great scores on tests and stuff and that can look like they are, by default, not as smart if you’re the kind of person whose brain is barely firing enough to allow you to breathe.

So you extend that out and suddenly it’s “wait if they get hired at all and they’re not as smart that means they don’t deserve it!”. DEI does, I’m sure, bring some people in that might not be the best candidates but it never brings in people who are unqualified for the job like the racists believe, and the even the metric for “best” on paper is clouded by the aforementioned lack of support.

They’re connected because these people believe that there’s no way a straight white male would ever lose to a minority or a woman despite the fact that most of the people who believe it are huge losers barely stumbling through life while ignoring the fact that they are supported by everyone else.

I’m a straight, white dude whose parents can financially support me when I need it shit’s hard enough as-is. To act like I don’t have serious privilege and like so many people don’t have it even worse than me…god I can’t even fathom that level of self-centered egotism.

Erasure of DEI programs? DEI doesn’t erase I just wanna make sure I’m understanding you properly.

Now I'm confused, what does DEI stand for? I thought it meant Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

I prefer them in the light of justice rather than scurrying around with the darkness.

DEI is an attempt at merit-based hiring. The only difference is what the definition of merit is. The definition that is based on past achievements is biased towards those who have previously had better opportunities, not necessarily better skills. DEI takes a look at the potential of someone in the context of how well they've done with respect to what has been available to them.

Someone who has a GED instead of graduating high school on time might have had opportunities closed to them because they had a reason for dropping out of high school (e.x. had to help family by getting a job), so it wouldn't be equitable to judge them harshly for not having as strong of a resume as someone who had a "conventional" experience and was given more opportunities fresh out of highschool because they could afford to take an unpaid/low pay internship, instead of focusing on taking care of a family.

Nothing about either situation really can tell you about an applicants potential in the field or their work ethic or anything. But 9 times out of 10 the one who was fortunate enough to finish highschool on time will be ahead in the selection process for no reason other than they didn't have life get in the way of their career.

DEI won't be able to magically tell you which candidate is better, but it can allow employers to level the playing field and use different metrics to measure merit that might be less biased against people who have had nontraditional lives through no fault of their own.

Why are you against Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in the hiring process?

Complaining about the platform she used completely misses the point.

Try to avoid writing any songs or singing, I fear you may be tone deaf.

Lucky for you, you'll never experience erasure. Because you'll never matter.