in which i scour the internet for signs of resistance and wonder if anyone is organizing a general strike

Where is the resistance? 

My question is not "where is the outrage, why is no one resisting," and so forth.

There is always resistance. I know it's out there. It must be happening. But who is organizing what and where -- that's not visible from a distance.

Looking at mainstream media, we have the usual "hundreds rally", or overviews of one or two Democrats and a scattering of judges.

In the socialist and anarchist media, workers are always rising. The world is always on the brink of a workers' revolution. One fine day they might be right, but they are certainly not a barometer of anything.

I'm also not talking about the so-called #Resistance^TM. The Democrats are ciphers. Utterly absent. Kamala Harris has disappeared. A blatant and obvious reminder that Democrats gonna Democrat: Party Über Alles.

Some Republican voters are apparently angry -- and this is important. Will our side understand the imperative to work with disgruntled conservatives? Or are we too consumed with anger and blame to welcome temporary allies wherever we find them? If Trump and Musk are to be stopped, it will take the active participation of non-fascist Republicans. 

Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a DIY resistance guidebook published by the OSS (precursor of the CIA) in 1944, is the number one search and download on Project Gutenberg. So there's that.

I've been wondering if some federal workers are planning a general strike. Talking on Signal or Discord, forming groups and coalitions. They wouldn't even have to risk their lives by demonstrating in the streets. They could simply stay home. A mass sick-out.

It could build from something barely noticeable to massive over the course of a workweek. 

It could include all federal workers. Office workers. Lawyers. Lab workers. Tech writers. Accountants. Kitchen workers. System analysts. Mailroom staff. Janitors. Statisticians. It should (but of course it wouldn't) include defense workers, contractors, secret service guards.  

Staying home as an act of resistance. Musk wants fewer federal workers, let's see what happens without them.

And then -- in my fantasy -- with federal workers showing the way, we could see a widespread general strike, calling for Trump's impeachment, arrest, prosecution, and sentencing. 

Why the hell not. Every action begins with an idea. Every idea begins with a dream.

Of course it would violate Rule Number One of all serious activism. Has the groundwork been laid? Have coalitions been built? Are people prepared? I'm guessing no, no, and no.

But this is an emergency. Maybe it has to happen organically. Maybe the rules don't apply. 

Or maybe it is happening. 

How can I support? 

thoughts about what's happening in the u.s.

I haven't been able to write anything coherent about what's happening in the US. All I have is a jumble of disconnected thoughts and emotions. Mostly I push them aside, needing to focus on work, union, and family. 

I guess this is a What's Happening in the US Brain Dump. I'm not even going to try to weave it into an essay. Even this brain dump has been sitting in drafts for more than a week.

* * * * 

Last night, a friend and I had our regular semi-monthly video call. This friend works for the federal government, and is queer. They are also really smart: they are leaving the country. 

As soon as our call started, I said: when are you leaving? I said, please don't wait. And we agreed: they won't be one of those families who waited just too long, not reading the signs around them, and were trapped to a horrific fate. The Jewish families who could have left Nazi Germany, but waited too long.

The words that I find myself repeating again and again: we don't know how far this will go. We don't know how far this will go.

Because these people do not respect the rule of law. 

That's the bottom line. 

They do not respect the rule of law, the Constitution, the checks and balances. Throughout my lifetime, throughout United States history, those safeguards, those imperfect systems, have been stretched, frayed, twisted, corrupted. They have been abused and misused. But they have still existed. They have endured. Now we see the final death throes. This putsch does not recognize any boundaries. As my friend said, no guard rails. 

I loathe hearing and reading "we will get through this". Who is we in that sentence? A comfortable middle-class (or above) income, a cis/hetero family, white skin, may get you through it. Just because you're not being rounded up, your kids aren't in cages, you're not being called vermin, your family is safe: "we'll get through this"? Fuck you. 

I'm a Jew. I know in my bones that we don't always get through this. 

And even worse: Jewish people who defend this. Jewish people who care about Israel more than humanity. My loathing for those people knows no bounds.

I remember being shocked and so angry to learn that in some states, after a law is declared unconstitutional, the state keeps the laws on the books and continues to enforce it. A rogue state, if you will. Now we have a rogue nation.

Which is the other thing I keep asking. When will the nations of the world treat the US for it is, a rogue nation? That there no longer exists the US the ally. The US is North Korea. Iran. And Russia, perhaps literally. 

With the Orwellian pronouncement that Ukraine started the "war" with Russia -- 1984 come to reality -- maybe this has begun. Maybe "allies" are re-thinking.

The sight of Elon Musk in the Oval Office shocked me and turned my stomach. 

Living in a country where the economy is so intertwined with the US's brings that home faster. It's easy to talk about a trade war. It's harder to talk about an actual war. Canada has the world's largest supply of fresh water. Water is more valuable than oil. Where will that go?

None of this came out of nowhere. It's been building since the Reagan era. The steady march to fascism. We can be sure this march has not arrived at its destination.

De-regulation, unchecked capitalism, the revoking of what's left of a social safety net. Neocolonialism; corporate colonialism.

Mass incarceration, voter suppression, fraudulent elections. Bush v Gore. 

The constant disinformation, an Orwellian world where white so-called Christian men are victims, and attempts at inclusion are enemies of the state. 

Solidarity with persecuted Afrikaners. 

The Gulf of Mexico, Panama, Gaza. 

Crippling economics are met with scapegoating, and now round-ups. 

The endless war with shadowy intent, a shifting landscape of enemies.

The racism, both wide and deep, stoked into fury by the advent of a Black POTUS. 

Media amplifying the messages 24/7, broadcasting fiction and fantasy disguised of news. (If you doubt this, watch Fox News if you can stand it, or read Naomi Klein's Doppelganger if you can't.)

No conventional forms of protest are effective. No demonstration, no letter-writing campaign, will save Americans from this nightmare. Those forms of protest are only effective within a democracy. Or at least within a country that cares about world opinion. Or at least a country where sanctions can be brought to bear. Or at least. I don't know what.

what i'm reading: prequel by rachel maddow

As I wrote in my last post, there were two relatively new nonfictions that I wanted to make sure I read this year. I wrote about Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein, a complex, multilayered book that is worth the trip. 

The other book is Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism. This is a more straightforward history, and huge cheers and thanks to Rachel Maddow for writing it.  

Few of us know just how close the United States came to an attempted Nazi takeover. And I mean the Nazis, not neo-Nazis, not a generic term for right-wingers. We're talking United States senators on Hitler's payroll. Seriously. Maddow tells the story, and resurrects the unknown, uncelebrated heroes whose prodigious courage and persistence changed the course of history. 

While the FBI was focused on the supposed threat of Communism, and any anti-fascist movement was thwarted by virulent antisemites and Nazi sympathizers in the US Congress, Hitler's organization made strategic inroads into the American political system. Much of this was funded (unknowingly and illegally) by US taxpayers. 

Some of the radical right-wingers in this account are familiar names: antisemitic preacher "Father" Charles Coughlin, blueblood Republican Hamilton Fish III*, and renowned Nazi and famous architect Philip Johnson all played substantial roles. But most of the names in this account have been lost to history, especially the antifascist heroes who fought against this very real threat. Readers meet Leon Lewis, a Jewish lawyer who ran a private spy ring that infiltrated the radical fascist White Guard, at tremendous personal risk; Henry Hoke, a direct-mail advertising specialist whose painstaking research collected the hard evidence needed to prove the conspiracy; and activist lawyer O. John Rogge. Legendary journalist Drew Pearson also played an important part. 

Drawing on the work of many historians who have documented this, Maddow reveals that there was Nazi interference in US elections in 1936, 1940, and 1944. Accounts by Hermann Göering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and other high-ranking Nazi officials corroborate this. In fact, the Nazis devoted copious resources to a trio of American-focused aims: to try to keep the US out of the war, to sell the idea that Nazism was preferable to democracy, and to foment antisemitism.

The action took place simultaneously on several fronts. There were United States Senators and Congressmembers on Hitler's payroll. Klansmen controlled armed cells in more than 30 states. Senators and Congress members distributed Nazi propaganda using government mailing privileges, bypassing rules that foreign sources declare themselves. Plots to orchestrate pogroms -- including hanging prominent Jewish Americans from lampposts -- were in the works. Indeed, the isolationist plank of the 1940 Republican platform was lifted verbatim from Nazi propaganda.

Evidence of this was purposely suppressed, as it might undermine Americans' faith in their government. (Ya think?) O. John Rogge's book detailing the evidence was blacklisted from publication for 15 years, then published, buried, and forgotten.

Please think of this next time you hear someone dismissed as a "conspiracy nut".

From Prequel:

This much was certain: Germany had agents at work inside the United States; armed American fascists were being actively supported by the Hitler government; members of Congress were colluding with a German propaganda agent to facilitate an industrial-scale Nazi information operation targeting the American people; critical U.S. munitions plants were blowing up in multiple states.

From Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld, by John Roy Carlson, pen name of Arthur Derounian, quoted in Prequel:

Most of the saboteurs of democracy looked and acted like ordinary men and women, went quietly about their work of destruction, lived on Park Avenue as well as Yorkville [a New York City neighbourhood that was the heart of the German immigrant community], came from our best families, and the most efficient of them were American-born and boasted of their [American] ancestry. . . . These fascist saboteurs could lurk in the pulpit and cocktail lounge, as well as the factory.

Maddow writes in an easy, breezy voice, and she's not averse to inserting her own opinions and sarcastic comments. Along with her impeccable research, that makes for an important yet accessible read.

* A right-wing veteran group says Fish's "detestation of Communism made him slightly less anti-Nazi than might otherwise have been the case". Very amusing.

what i'm reading: doppelganger by naomi klein

There were two nonfiction books in my 2024 reading plan that I wanted to get in by the end of the year. I usually read great nonfiction long after the curve; with my reading habits, anything published in the past decade is current. Both these books were published in late 2023. For me, that's practically hot off the press.

Doppelganger: A Trip Into Mirror World by Naomi Klein, and Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow are both excellent, powerful, essential reads. I'm glad I made them a priority.

Doppelganger is an ambitious work, and very complex. It is also the best work Naomi Klein has done. That's a big statement, considering that at least two of her books defined their eras. No Logo became an anti-corporate-globalization manifesto, and The Shock Doctrine brought into focus a concept now widely recognized: disaster capitalism.

Like many people, I didn't understand why Klein wrote a book about being confused with someone else -- one-time feminist and progressive turned full-blown wingnut, Naomi Wolf, the doppelganger of the title. 

It seemed an odd topic, especially during this time of climate crisis, desperate income inequality, and the rise of fascism all over the planet. Of course I assumed there was more to the book than mistaken identity -- and what an understatement that turned out to be.

The ongoing misidentification of Klein with "other Naomi," as she sometimes calls Wolf, was at first cause for amusement, then irritation and exasperation. But then Klein started probing the confusion. What did it mean to be, not just confused, but often conflated, with someone similar to her in some ways -- two Jewish writers named Naomi -- and yet 180-degrees different. Klein comes to see Wolf as a mirror image of herself -- and the world she inhabits as a mirror image of our own. She uses the concept of the double as a lens through which to see our socially and politically polarized world.

The Mirror World

I've often joked that the right-wing lives in Bizarro World. Only in a place where down is up and black is white could Barack Obama be considered a radical leftist, and an attempt to slow the spread of an infectious disease be called slavery. From The Guardian: 

As well as being Klein's doppelganger, [Wolf] is also a doppelganger of herself. Once a prominent feminist and Democratic party adviser, Wolf is now aligned with the likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and has become part of what Klein calls the mirror world. This is where conspiracies are spread, where left critiques of corporate power are absorbed and twisted so "deregulated capitalism" is framed as "communism in disguise" and "where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far-right propagandists all in the name of saving and protecting 'the children'".

As we are bombarded with the impacts of multiple crises, there is nearly universal anxiety, fear, and often despair. And:

The problem is that for some people, the mirror world speaks to these anxieties better than anything else. Not by seriously addressing the climate crisis but by playing on these feelings for its own ends – an authoritarian political project which is highly nationalist and has elements that are "explicitly fascist" (although not everyone is in the mirror world for this reason).

Take Bannon. "While most of us who oppose his political project choose not to see him, he is watching us closely. The issues we are abandoning, the debates we aren't having, the people we are insulting and discarding." And this focus on popular issues could be his ticket to the next wave of electoral victories, Klein warns.

From an interview with Klein in The Breach:

[Klein:] I think what's more relevant and more interesting for us to pay attention to is the way in which ideas get co-opted and twisted. Everything from "I can't breathe," the slogan of the Black Lives Matter racial justice uprisings, becomes: "I can't breathe, because of a mask." The vaccines are cast as "Canada's second genocide," a direct reference to the genocide of First Nations. "My body, my choice," is about not getting a vaccine. 

Wolf, in particular, her star turn on the right was all about riling up fears about vaccine verification apps. She put out a video saying "Vaccine passports equals slavery forever," and that was what got her on Bannon in the first place, and Tucker Carlson. What she was describing about these vaccine verification apps was surveillance capitalism, and she was projecting it all onto this app, which wasn't true. The apps weren't listening to our conversations and things like that. The only reason why I think it got the traction that it did is because surveillance has been so normalized in our culture, so they're filling a vacuum.

If we think about what [Bannon] did as Trump's campaign manager and chief strategist in the run-up to Trump's victory in 2016, I think Bannon played an absolutely critical role in turning Trump into a certain kind of working-class hero. Certainly not for everyone, but for particularly guys in the Rust Belt, who were really disaffected. They'd voted Democrat many times, back to Bill Clinton promising to renegotiate the trade deals, and just gotten more trade deals. Trump was not somebody who used to talk about free trade very much, but suddenly this became a centrepiece of his platform, that he was going to bring the jobs back, that he was going to renegotiate NAFTA, that he was going to get us a great deal, right? 

This is an important dynamic to understand, because this is only available to Trump, because the Democrats have betrayed voters, ceded this territory. This used to be an issue for the left. [emphasis added] I came up in the alter-globalization movement. It didn't used to be reactionary to talk about these trade deals, but it does point to the fact that this has not been an issue on the left for a long time and it's dangerous to create that kind of political vacuum. 

And from an interview in The.Ink:

[Klein:] I think there is always this kind of dialectic between the rise of a fascist right and the failures of a center-left, a far left, a failure to make alliances but also this opening up of vacuums.

Politics hates a vacuum. Somebody is going to fill it. If there are powerful emotions out there that are being unaddressed, if you're a smart strategist, you will study your opponents and you will speak to those feelings even if you don't actually have serious policy responses to them.

Is it our fault?

I normally hate when people blame the current state of politics on "the failure of the left". I've been hearing that all my life, and it's nothing short of victim blaming. Feminists don't cause rape, war resisters don't cause invasions, and the left has not caused the global shift to the right.

However... under Klein's incisive analysis, this "failure of the left" trope gains a lot of credibility – not as a sole cause, surely, but as one reason baseless and dangerous ideas spread. In fact, she articulates what I'm often thinking and attempting to express. In Doppleganger, Klein writes:

When someone is pushed out of progressive conversations or communities because they said or did something hurtful or ignorant, or questioned an identity orthodoxy, or got too successful too fast and was deemed due for a takedown, their absence is frequently celebrated, as Wolf's exile from Twitter was. But those people don't disappear just because we no longer see them.

If this doesn't ring a bell for you, perhaps you have never openly disagreed with – or merely questioned – a current progressive doctrine. I have, and I found myself quickly on the receiving end of over-the-top vitriol and abuse, complete with baseless assumptions about me, personal insults, and, most importantly, an absolute unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion. The reaction said: if we don't agree 100% on everything, we are enemies. It said: anyone with even slightly different views must be exiled.

In this way, progressive communities grow increasingly insular and isolated, an in-crowd – with an out-crowd (everyone else!) increasingly alienated from important ideas. Gatekeepers jump down people's throat for perceived language slights or for consuming entertainment that has been left-blacklisted – focusing on that, rather than attempting to unify over the larger and more important picture. So increasingly, it seems, the left talks only to itself.

As Katie Roiphe writes in a review of Doppelganger in The New York Times:

In Klein's view, "When entire categories of people are reduced to their race and gender and labeled 'privileged,' there is little room to confront the myriad ways that working-class white men and women are abused under our predatory capitalist order, with left-wing movements losing many opportunities for alliances." She points out that such reductive labeling is "highly unstrategic," since the Mirror World is waiting for people alienated or exiled by the left, offering them forums and sympathy.

People are justifiably distrustful of and angry at governments and institutions. Powerful, unseen forces are manipulating economic, social, and political systems to their advantage. People know this with instinct and with feeling.

And instead of embracing people of diverse backgrounds and worldviews, and helping them find answers from a progressive point of view, the left finds their language incorrect, or their sources trivial, or parts of their lives objectionable. And dismisses them. Then their questions, and their alienation, go unanswered – and are picked up in the Mirror World.

This condescension is not only elitist, disrespectful, and lacking in empathy, it is the opposite of organizing. It is the opposite of movement-building. It is, as noted above, highly anti-strategic. We must meet people where they are. Instead, we demand they find their way to us, in order to become one of us.

In this way the left alienates rather than organizes. And in steps the right wing, responding to the anger, distrust, and confusion with slogans, scapegoats, and outright fantasy.

A word about conspiracy theories

I deeply appreciated Klein's treatment of the concept of conspiracy theories. Conspiracies exist. Everyone reading this should know that. The CIA really did conduct secret LSD experiments on people without their knowledge or consent. The US government really did import and patriate high-ranking Nazi scientists to the United States to capture their knowledge of biological and nuclear weapons (and to prevent the Soviets from doing the same). The FBI really did infiltrate, spy on, smear, and faslely discredit peaceful activists in the civil rights, peace, and women's movements. These things all happened, and so much more. And they were all conspiracies.

Yet so many of us join the mainstream in labelling anyone who questions official stories a conspiracy theorist, lumping legitimate questions and concerns with wacky, unproveable, and outright ridiculous ideas, using that label as a tool to short-circuit complex and important trains of thoughts – and again, leaving the field open to the Mirror World, where conspiracy theories flourish.

* * * * * 

In Doppelganger, Klein takes the reader on far-ranging excursions that weave together a panoply of disparate ideas. Roisin Kiberd writes in The Stinging Fly:

Throughout Doppelganger, Klein blends the personal and the political so seamlessly that it's hard to imagine they could ever be apart. She writes about her autistic son, the historical underpinnings of Nazism, and the state of Israel, all through the lens of the duality at the heart of her book. She tells how some of the same Canadian truckers who took part in a 2021 convoy to express solidarity with that country's Indigenous peoples following revelations about the mass graves of Native children also took part, eight months later, in a trucker blockade to protest an intolerable vaccination mandate. 

This complexity doesn't make the book a difficult read. Klein is astonishingly good at bringing the reader into her analysis step by step, as she peels back layer after layer. This is a fascinating read, well worth your time.

rtod: "what makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed"

Revolutionary thought of the day:

"What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please."

Hannah Arendt, 1974 interview

elections: here some relief, there... only fear

I rarely -- almost never -- write about politics anymore, either Canadian or US. But of course the upcoming US election is weighing heavily on my mind, as it surely is on yours. 

Good, sane people everywhere can only watch in horror and disbelief as the US becomes increasingly bizarre and unhinged. We've all run out of adjectives. It is simply surreal. 

Why I still vote NDP

I had another election on my mind, too. There was a provincial election in BC: the incumbent progressive NDP trying to fend off a Conservative surge. 

There's a lot of anger against the NDP government, most of it based on ignorance and lies from the right, and magical thinking from the left. As governments go, the BC NDP government was as good as it gets. They've been focused on improving life for ordinary Canadians in ways that make a real difference -- healthcare, childcare, housing. 

Their part in the criminalization of the Wet'suwet'en land defenders is very troubling. The pipeline blockaded by land defenders was approved by the elected Wet'suwet'en council, but is opposed by the hereditary chiefs. Amnesty, environmental groups, and many Indigenous allies see this as an end-run around the principles and intent of DRIPA.

It's true that the elected councils are vestiges of colonialism, brought in by the Indian Act. However, they exist, and the Nations elect them. Should we discount elected councils and chiefs because of their origins? Do we have the right to do that -- or are we conveniently siding with the view of the Indigenous people who we agree with? I'm not sure. Whatever the answer to this complicated question, no sitting government will allow a blockade to continue, and no sitting government, of any party, will say no to a pipeline.

Similarly, the BC NDP walks an impossible balance: being too pro-logging for environmentalists, and being too green for the industries (and workers) who would cut down every tree, extract every living creature from the ocean, and uproot every acre of earth in service of short-term jobs and profits. A party that doesn't support logging in BC will never form the government.

I'd rather have a government that allows controlled logging, and also strengthens public healthcare, builds housing, creates affordable childcare, raises wages, and supports workers than a government that allows uncontrolled logging and privatizes everything. The pipeline and the logging is a given. The rest of it is up for grabs. 

A nail-biter

It was a wild election, with some ridings needing automatic recounts and others decided by absentee ballots. The NDP formed the government with the minimum number of seats needed for a majority. The Greens won two seats; with proportional representation, they would have won eight. Our own MLA (provincial representative) lost, the riding flipping to Conservative, which is unsurprising. But most importantly, we escaped the orgy of privatization and cutbacks that would have followed a Conservative win.

US-style Canadian trolls are already trying to manufacture doubt about the outcome, accusing Elections BC of all kinds of malfeasance. 

American insanity, and some leftist insanity, too

About the US election, what is there to say? The anxiety and fear of good-hearted, right-thinking Americans is justifiably soaring. What will happen if Trump wins -- and what will happen if he loses? Fascists are making death threats against election workers and their families. Fascists with a higher level of education have hundreds of lawsuits ready to drop, to slow and attempt to invalidate results. I assume wmtc readers know about this, but just in case, a primer: Republican Party efforts to disrupt the 2024 United States presidential election.

One sad and infuriating bit, for me, is the response of many leftists, exhorting people to not vote for Harris, because the Democrats, like the Republicans, support the ongoing genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

I find this by turns infuriating and depressing.

US foreign policy does not change. There is no "cut the military budget" party. No "stop supporting dictators" party. No "break ties with Israel" party. Trump's love of dictators in Russia and North Korea is only a new variation of the long history of US support for (and often installation of) dictators the world over. Neither party will stop that vile madness.

But to say there will be no difference between a Harris presidency and a Trump presidency is wildly disingenuous, incredibly ignorant, and unforgiveably callous. The socialist activists I know who exhort US voters to shun both parties fall into the third category. 

A Facebook contact recently explained a bit of this thinking: they said that Trump is a symptom, not the disease. I agree. But what do we normally do with symptoms of diseases that have no imminent cure? Do we refuse to treat them, allow people to wither and die, because the disease itself cannot be cured? 

I've heard versions of this all my life. Don't donate to food banks because it allows governments to not provide adequate supports. Don't work with grassroots groups facilitating abortion access, or helping rape victims, don't teach people who didn't finish high school, because those things "let governments off the hook". 

Choosing to help people who have been fucked over by capitalism and patriarchy doesn't preclude working to change those conditions. Can a person who needs to terminate a pregnancy wait for their state to pass better laws? Should we let families suffer from hunger and malnutrition until we achieve a more just and caring society? 

Sure, Trump is a symptom. When looked at through a socialist lens, everything that's wrong with our world is a symptom. And we need to treat the symptom to the best of our very limited ability.

I had to unfollow some really smart, interesting, and engaged socialist activists, because I can no longer bear this peculiarly leftist brand of bothsiding. Right-wing cruelty is on display every day. I expect it from them. This left-wing cruelty is infuriating and heartbreaking.  

Hypocrisy? Not really and who cares

I voted Democrat in 1992, and for a third party in 1996 and 2000. My vote was of no consequence, thanks to the US system, and I was free to not vote for a party I despised. Those who blamed third-party voting for the debacle of the 2000 election are either short-sighted, misinformed, or party hacks.

In 2004 I voted Democrat. I hated the Dems as much as I ever did, but I felt the popular vote count might be important. Turns out it was not, thanks again to the Dems themselves.

That was the last time I voted in a US election.

If I still lived in the US, I would absolutely vote Democrat now. This, and I stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and am horrified and grieving over Israel's extermination of the Indigenous population. I would vote Democrat because it is an emergency.

In her acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Kamala Harris uttered the words "the rights of the Palestinian people". I have never heard a POTUS candidate say that before. Just words, of course -- but words we could try to build on. Not voting Democrat will not help the Palestinian people, but the harm that choice could bring is unfathomable.

As we hold our collective breath: I want to cry tears of joy

On August 1 of this year, I posted this on Facebook. 

It's been 20 years since I last voted in the US and my disgust at the DNC and my feelings about the sham democracy are well documented. But the idea of a brown woman being POTUS thrills me and I will cry tears of joy when she is elected. Just as I did when Obama was elected, even though I knew who he truly was and what his election would (and wouldn't) bring. The US is the US. I'm not expecting anything other. But I want Harris to fucking kick that felon's butt. I want to see a fucking landslide, a decisive victory. I want to cry at her inauguration.

polarization is not the problem. the problem is fascism.

Art by Maaike Hartjes

"The problem today is that society is so polarized. We need to come together and find common ground."

I hear and read this a lot these days. 

In this analysis, opposing points of view are characterized as "extreme". The best option, it is said, lies in the middle. 

This is a deceptive and potentially dangerous belief.

When mainstream views move so far to the right that the ideas, if put into action, would destroy democracy and civil society, then it is our responsibility to oppose those views. 

When bigotry and hate are rallying cries, it is our duty to stand in opposition, and in solidarity with the targets.

When political actions offend our core values, we must call them out and oppose them.

And if that appears polarizing, it's not the fault of the people trying to build a better world -- or trying to save the crappy one we have.

The opposite of extremism may not be extreme

The "polarization is the problem" view assumes that both ends of the spectrum are always extreme, and that a common-sense approach always lies somewhere in the middle. 

So as the right wing has become more and more extreme, the definition of "centrist" -- supposedly middle ground -- has moved further to the right, too. In conversations with Canadians, I have been absolutely amazed that this is a novel concept:  people don't  seem to realize that centre is a relative term! 

There is no active extreme left in either the US or Canada. There may be random individuals on the extreme left, but there is no political party representing those views, no widespread people's movement, no groundswell of public opinion. 

The parties and viewpoints that oppose the extreme right are either moderate centre-right (Liberal Party, most of Democratic Party) or moderate center-left (NDP, some of Democratic Party). The Liberals, Democrats, and NDP are only far-left in a Fox News-induced fantasy world -- and through the polarization lens.

Take a look at those parties' platforms, the bills they put forward, how they vote. Not so very long ago, their positions were considered quite moderately liberal. The evidence for that is all around us: it's what's left of the public sector that the right-wing has been demolishing since the Reagan/Mulroney era. Advocating for public healthcare, affordable housing, public education, a fair tax code, green energy, and decent jobs is not extreme. Wanting an inclusive society is not extreme.

Define "greater good"

"We need to come together to work for the greater good." 

This is a familiar refrain from the "polarization is the problem" mindset. But how should those with opposing viewpoints work together -- and why?

I can agree that in Parliament and Congress it would be best if political parties could work together. If a party votes yes for something when they put it forward, and vote no on the same thing when another party puts it forward, that is partisanship. It values party loyalty over society at large. It's counterproductive, childish, and wrong. 

But when parties' values are opposed to each other, finding a so-called middle ground isn't necessarily a reasonable goal. Take healthcare, for example. If one party wants to expand the public health system, and one party wants to privatize it, those two parties can't find a middle ground and they shouldn't try. 

Should the party that wants to expand public health care "compromise" and allow some privatization? Of course not! That party should oppose all privatization and seek to roll back whatever privatization has already taken place. Those are the actions that align with their values, and presumably the values of their voters. Finding so-called common ground would mean betraying their values, their voters, and the public health system.

After hearing "we need to come together to work for the greater good," we must insist: define greater good. 

Can't we all just coalition?

What about a coalition? In most parliamentary systems of government, in countries throughout the world, parties enter into coalitions from time to time. Can Canada do that? Would we want it to? 

I would probably support an NDP-Liberal coalition government, so those parties could work together to defeat the Conservatives. When this was attempted in 2009, it was scuttled by a weak Liberal leader, public ignorance, and propaganda, with a huge assist from the Canadian media. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said a coalition would "overturn the results of an election" -- and no one challenged or corrected him.** (If they did it was not amplified to the point where anyone could hear it.) 

A coalition would be exciting, scary, potentially amazing. Potentially disastrous. Alas, we'll probably never know. It seems highly unlikely that we'll see a coalition government in Canada. But we could try. 

If working together for the greater good means defeating the Conservatives -- who, in the Canadian context, are far-right -- then working together is a laudable goal.

Good guys vs. fascists

All my adult life, I've heard that's it's wrong to think in terms of us vs. them. But I've never believed that. Of course it's wrong when applied to nationality or ethnic background or so-called "race". But my own us vs. them has nothing to do with personal characteristics. My us vs. them is not even about class. It's about worldviews. Values. Right and wrong. 

There are those who want justice, peace, equity. Who want everyone to have a safe and affordable place to live, quality healthcare, quality education. Those who value democracy. Who want everyone to be free to live and love as they choose, to create the families that they want, without government or religious interference. 

And there are those who want profit, empire, and power. Warmongers. Hatemongers. People who believe that where their ancestors were born makes them superior. People who think their life choices should be the only ones available. People who want to reverse social progress. As an old boss of mine, Oz Elliott, used to say: good guys and fascists. 

Being a good guy doesn't mean staying neutral or searching for common ground. It means standing up for what is right.

Polarization is, in reality, resistance. And in the face of fascism, bigotry, and hate, it's exactly what we need.

-----

** For some US readers: A coalition does no such thing. Everyone who was elected is still elected.  What differs is who forms the government.

the end of roe: a day we expected for so long still has the power to shock and stun us

We've been expecting this for 20 years.

More than forty years of anti-abortion legislation, escalating every year and every decade, then Trump, then finally, the leaked draft. 

So I thought I was prepared -- mentally, emotionally. Hell, for more than 15 years I've been saying that Roe is irrelevant for millions of American women. 

We all thought we were prepared.

We were wrong.

Every progressive person I know, every feminist, every advocate for justice -- every message board, every private Facebook page, everyone -- has said the same thing. We are raging. Grieving. Stunned. Horrified.  

I cannot express how angry I am. I'm far too angry to be eloquent. I'm going to the stupid and lazy thing, and capture my postings on Facebook.

Attribution omitted

I had to take a break from Facebook when I started seeing posts blaming the repeal of Roe on people who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

For sure, voting Americans had a stark choice in 2016, a referendum on Trump or not-Trump. About 74 million voters still voted for Trump, and another 88 million (give or take) chose not to vote. A second Trump presidency was the final nail in Roe's coffin.

But for gods' sake, widen your lens. 

The Democrats caused this every bit as much, or more, than the Republicans. 

One party did everything in its power, on all levels, to chip away at abortion rights in preparation for the eventual repeal of Roe v. Wade. They spent untold millions of dollars, unleashed dozens of strategies. Took over one state legislature after the next. Took over school boards. Stacked the judiciaries. Passed the legislation that led to Webster, Rust, Casey, and Carhart II. They were relentless..

The other party couldn't even utter the word abortion. The Democrats' plan to defend Roe boiled down to this: "You must vote for us, no matter what -- no matter what we do or don't do -- because the other party will take away 'a woman's right to choose'." That was never going to be enough. 

As the Republicans turned increasingly radical, the Democrats became what the Republic used to be. The handful of passionate liberals in the party are accused of class warfare and blamed for the success of the radical right.

Perhaps if the Democrats were interested in something beyond getting elected -- if the party actually cared about defending liberal democracy -- we wouldn't be where we are now. Or at least we would have stood a fucking chance.

How can you defend a right you can't even fucking say? 

the end of roe and how we got here

With the unprecedented leak of the SCOTUS draft brief, and official confirmation of the politicization of the Court, we see the final nails pounded in the coffin of Roe v. Wade -- a turning point which somehow still shocks many people, despite the exceedingly clear regression to this point over the past 40 years.

Given this, it seems strange to me that I haven't blogged about abortion rights in more than two years.

Strange, because this is the issue I care most about, above all else. 

Strange, because I've spent a good portion of my life thinking, writing, organizing, and supporting abortion rights and abortion access.

Strange, because I am angry and hurting about this. But I suspect I am angry at different people than many readers may be.

Partly I stopped writing about Roe and US abortion rights because I feel I have nothing left to add to the discourse -- nothing to write that I haven't written again and again. Here in 2018, I re-ran my essay from 2005. No matter how many ways I find to say it, it comes down to two points.

One. Abortion rights are essential to human rights, to justice, and to basic equality for all people. Abortion rights are the sine qua non of women's freedom, and the bottom line of equality for any person who can become pregnant.

Two. Roe v Wade is meaningless for millions of American women, and has been for decades. Abortion rights have been steadily impeded, eroded, and erased for more than 40 years, a process that began with the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976, gathered momentum when Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, and has barrelling downhill ever since. This includes the 16 years of Democrat presidencies. 

And partly I stopped writing about Roe and US abortion rights because I have been so angry and frustrated that people were -- with extreme laws passed in Mississippi and Texas --  now finally paying attention. That sounds counter-intuitive and is not a good way to approach activism! But I just could. not. stand it.

1976 Hyde Amendment (only affects poor people, so who cares)

1984 Global Gag Rule (only affects poor people in other countries, so who cares)

1989 Webster; 1992 Casey -- both losses for reproductive freedom, but left Roe intact, so who cares

And on and on. (Start your timeline here, then here.) As long as Roe had not been overturned, most liberals and Democrats were willing to look away. 

For a majority of Democrat voters, the most important thing to know about abortion rights were: vote Democrat because of the Supreme Court, because we can't let them overturn Roe v Wade.

And while the majority obsessed over Roe, Roe became increasingly irrelevant. 

I'm not suggesting Roe actually is irrelevant.  But it's been hollowed out. It's a shadow. A shell.

The anti-abortion-rights movement had everything it needed to succeed. 

They were extremely organized, extremely well-funded, and very strategic. They got their people elected to state legislatures and began to work the system, passing every type of abortion-rights restrictions anyone could dream up, taunting the court challenges, knowing that eventually, with enough states becoming hostile to abortion, they would accomplish their only objectives: increasing numbers of low-income women and pregnant people would lose control of their reproduction, and the country would move one step closer to overturning Roe v Wade.

The anti movement has had other factors in its favour. In addition to money, organization, and strategy, they had the Democrats. Abortion became a dirty word, replaced by the euphemism "a woman's right to choose". Bill Clinton said let's make abortion "safe, legal, and rare" -- with little or no attention paid to the myriad laws, supports, and resources it would take to make such a thing possible.

They had the "muddled middle" -- to use Katha Pollitt's excellent expression -- whose discomfort with the idea and reality of abortion made it easy to look away. Shamed by stigma created by anti-abortion-rights zealots and the media who support them, most were happy to look away.

There are other reasons, too.

Roe v. Wade was never a strong ruling; it was always vulnerable to attack. The right to abortion is more secure in Canada -- although it is often under threat and must always be protected and defended! -- because the 1988 ruling in R v Morgentaler is a much broader decision. 

The US's obsession with states' rights, and the right wing's expert exploitation of it, have left millions vulnerable, not only on reproductive justice, but on so many fronts.

The US's lack of an organized healthcare system leaves millions vulnerable to assaults on reproductive freedom. If you lack basic healthcare, that's going to include a lack of access to reproductive needs.

The mainstream media's adoption of the disgusting lie "pro-life" -- the greatest PR coup of the modern world -- did untold damage. 

But be assured of one thing. Our side has been planning for this for decades, too, with abortion funds, underground networks, and direct action. It's a much more successful strategy than voting Democrat.

As always, the Guttmacher Institute is your best source for data on all aspects of reproductive justice. 

If you want to help, donate to abortion funds: National Abortion Federation, National Network of Abortion Funds. Canada has one, too.

If you live in a free state and have the resources, you can host a person traveling for abortion from a slave state. It's incredibly important and deeply gratifying work. NNAF can help you find a network. 

this should have been the biggest landslide in u.s. history. instead we are holding our breath.

To quote a headline I saw tonight, what should have been a landslide has turned into a nail-biter. No matter what the outcome of this election, we can clearly see that about half of all American voters have asked for another term of DJT. 

It is stunning, bizarre, baffling, and deeply depressing.

You could perhaps explain away voting for him once. (I can't, really, but for argument's sake, we can say they didn't know, or they hated Hillary Clinton that much.) Now, after four years of this torture, of this outrage, of this tweeting buffoon, of this laughingstock, who has wreaked havoc on the country and the world in countless ways: millions of Americans ask for more of the same. 

A re-election campaign is essentially a referendum on your first term. DJT should not have taken one state. Not one. This should have been the biggest electoral and popular-vote landslide in American history. Instead, it will come down to the wire, and to counting every absentee and provisional ballot.

How can this be?

Is this all down to Fox News? The Ministry of Truth, piped in 24/7 on the telescreens. Unlike Winston Smith, however, Americans can choose a different source.

Not long ago I was speaking with an American friend who said, "It's not just the government. It's the people. It's knowing that so many of my fellow citizens feel this way," that so many Americans subscribe to these views. Are so profoundly ignorant. Deny reality.

This is very, very sad. And very scary.

all eyes on the united states: election day and beyond: the dark side laid bare

Election day in the U.S. tomorrow. My American family and friends are all quietly freaking out. The whole world is quietly freaking out. 

The massive turnout through mail-in voting and advance polling are very good signs. Thousands who didn't vote in 2016 have already voted in 2020.

Personally, I think it will be an anti-Trump landslide in the popular vote, and a decisive win in the electoral vote. Not that anyone should put any faith in what I believe! In 2016, I told anyone who would listen that the Republican party would never nominate Donald Trump, then declared that there was no way he would be elected. I'm in good company there: no less a maven than Fran Lebovitz did the same. 

The biggest question isn't the outcome of  November 3. It's what happens on November 4th, and 5th, and 10th, and months on, until January 20, and possibly beyond. 

Trump has been inciting his minions to question the legitimacy of the election, and as the results come in, that will only escalate. How will that play out? How will the corrupt, partisan judiciary be activated? How much violence will there be, and who will contain it, and how? How far will Trump go, how far will his troops go, will they be organized? 

New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall astutely plays out some likely scenarios: "How Far Might Trump Go?"

The very fact that we're asking these questions is stunning. It's the first time in any living person's lifetime that a peaceful transfer of power after a US Election Day is not a foregone conclusion. The last time this much instability rocked the United States, a big chunk of the country seceded and declared war. 

It's stunning, yet it's also fully consistent with the country's trajectory over the last decades. This blog is full of declarations that the US is becoming a third-world country, and it continues to tumble in that direction.

No matter how long it takes to quell the violence, no matter how long it takes to get Trump out of the White House, the US has been changed, permanently. And I don't mean changed by Trump. He was merely the agent that lit the match. As a dear friend said recently, "What's most disturbing is that so many of my fellow citizens subscribe to these beliefs".

The darkest depths of the US empire are often not visible to the mainstream. They play out in places like Abu Ghraib and My Lai, on grainy black-and-white lynching postcards. They happen "over there" or in "the past". 

The darkest side of the US has always been visible to its Black citizens, and to anyone willing to bear witness: from everyday occurrences like DWB stops, stop-and-frisks, and summary executions of Black people by police (who are then exonerated), to squads of militarized police blinding peaceful protestors. The economic brutality has been laid bare, too, bringing us spectacles like for-profit prisons and the criminalization of poverty, to name just two random examples. (Good piece on this: Jamelle Bouie, "Don't Fool Yourself, Trump Is Not an Aberration".)

For many Americans, before 2016, these things were invisible, or exaggerated, or aberrations, or history. Now it's all out there. And there's no getting it back in the bottle.

To state the obvious: the toxic stew that Trump incited and ignited -- the economically dispossessed, the profound and intractable racism, the violence, the pathological worship of individualism -- and the rage, the shame, the ignorance that drives all it -- won't go away. But where will it go? How far will it go? 

Only one thing is certain: anyone who says they know what's going to happen is full of shit.

"fine. biden. but this is bullshit."

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Donald Trump is the single greatest gift the Democratic Party could ever hope to receive. 

The Democrats have finally achieved their most sought-after position: every thinking person must now vote Democrat, no matter what. They can now run whoever they want with whatever consequences that will have, because the alternative is an existential threat to the country itself. Both parties, of course, have always been an existential threat to other countries, but this time every person living in the Empire is up against it.

And this will be the gift that keeps on giving for as long as the party exists. All hope of organizing and building an alternative has ended, certainly for as long as can be forecast. 

All the Democrats have to do is overcome the vote suppression, election fraud, threats of violence, actual violence, and the Electoral College, and they're safe from democracy and progressive thought forever. It's no small task, but this time, at least, they appear motivated to try.

I thought Trump would never get the Republican nomination. 

Then I thought Trump would never win.

And now, a third thing I thought I'd never see: Joe Biden can become the next POTUS and we'll all be happy and relieved.

* * * *

When it comes to choosing not to vote for either of the ruling parties, I understand most perspectives, because I've stood at all of them at different times.

I was raised in a very progressive household, where the accepted wisdom was to vote for the most progressive Democrat in the primaries, then hold your nose and vote for whoever got the nomination. My father -- the prime political influence of my youth (yeah, the same crap dad you've heard about had great politics, as long as he didn't have to live by them) -- believed that the "democracy in the streets" at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago is ultimately what brought us Nixon, the escalation of the war in southeast Asia, and everything else that came with it.

In my early 20s, I was still arguing that "a vote for x is a vote for x" -- as in, a vote for the third party candidate ultimately helps the Republican get elected.

After Bill Clinton fucked us over, I started seeing the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans as window-dressing, started caring more about building a movement for a new party as more important than enabling the second-worst corporate shills, and voting for the military industrial complex.

Besides, the Electoral College made my vote moot anyway. Voting in New York State, I didn't influence the election, so I could choose a protest vote while working to help elect the Democrat candidate in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the nearest swing states. 

* * * *

And I don't buy, and will never buy, the simplistic myth that support for Ralph Nader brought us Bush, and even more will I never buy that support for Bernie Sanders brought us Trump. 

The blame for Trump lies in many things -- vote suppression, fraud, the Electoral College -- but above all, the blame lies with the hubris, arrogance, and essential antidemocratic orientation of the DNC, which nominated one of the most hated people in modern American political history. 

We can argue all day about why people hate Hillary Clinton and whether or not it's deserved (I personally think she's the American Margaret Thatcher), but the fact is that she is hated and was hated, and she couldn't possibly have won. But the DNC was more concerned with itself and its own existence than with -- well, with anything else.

And then progressives are blamed! Supporters of Bernie Sanders! That is rich. Rather than listen to the clamour of, you know, the voters, ignore them, then blame them.

* * * *

Donald Trump is the single greatest gift the DNC has ever had. 

I've seen nothing to dissuade me from this belief, and everything I observe every day confirms and re-confirms it. Because now there truly is no choice. Everyone who doesn't support fascism must vote for Joe Biden.

Joe Fucking Biden! For crissakes! Joe Biden is everything that's wrong with the Democrats all rolled up into one doddering idiot. He was a ghost through all the primaries, then one day, out of nowhere, he's the man to beat and can't be beat and Bernie who, Elizabeth who? Whatever, the Dems and the media fixed it up and now we want everyone to vote for him, yay!

The one good thing I can come up with about him is that he's preparing to fight for the vote. Thank fucking christ someone is prepared to do that, after fucking Al Gore (who supposedly would be saving us from climate change right now, if not for Ralph Nader -- people actually believe that!) and fucking John Kerry rolled over like two sacks of corporate-funded jellyfish.

And then we will all be so happy and grateful and relieved that Trump is (eventually) out of the White House and we'll be so happy that a Democrat is in the White House and everything will go back to normal. 

Normal invasions and occupations. 

Normal infinitesimally small economic improvements. 

The normal liberal social fiddling and window dressing that bring a few well-placed victories to continue the appearance of progress. Sure, equal marriage is very important, but that heralds a more just society to the same extent that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 did.

* * * *

And if we all continue to repeat the lie that progressives and third-party voters brought us Trump, we will never have to worry about the threat of Sanders or anyone like him again. (Sanders, a Democrat, by the way! Not even trying to pretend otherwise, yet we are still so threatened by him?) And I'm told that AOC and The Squad prove that it's not business as usual in the Democratic Party! Say what? Howard Dean says hi. Greetings from Paul Wellstone. From Tom Harkin and Dennis Kucinich. From whoever, they've always been there, the left-leaning Democrats, bringing the left-leaning voters into the fold, serving their powerless purpose. 

I don't doubt their sincerity, and their belief that they can create change. And perhaps something entirely new will happen. If I turn out to be wrong, I'll be thrilled to admit it.

* * * *

In case you're not reading carefully, I'm not suggesting that anyone who votes in the US should do anything except vote for Biden. I personally have not voted in the US since 2004 and I never will again. But those of you who do, this time there is literally no choice.

Fine. Biden. But this is bullshit.

11 (more) things on my mind about the protests in the u.s.

In April, I wrote a post called "11 things on my mind about the anti-police-violence and anti-racism protests". For reasons unknown to me, it's one of the most widely-read posts I've written in a long time. So here's an updated list.

1. When governments respond to protests with violence and intimidation, and the protests only grow, a movement has reached another landmark of growth and development. This is happening right now, and it's exciting!

2. Protest by middle-class and middle-aged citizens is so heartening to see, and possibly another milestone. The so-called Wall of Moms, and the "dads" with leaf blowers and hockey sticks, are crucial pieces. Their courage will embolden so many others. No change will happen until and unless the middle-class is onboard, so get onboard!

3. Veteran resistance is so powerful. I wonder about resistance within the active military.

From my work with the War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada, and from extensive reading about war resistance movements, I know that military resistance is always much bigger than civilians might ever imagine. Those courageous men and women are badly needed, right now.

4. I hope organizers are working on tactical nonviolence training -- not because I think protests must always be nonviolent, but because it will build movement power.

Nonviolent protests command a huge amount of attention, and focus attention on the one-sided violence against the protesters. We have a cultural memory of the power of nonviolent protests from the U.S. civil rights movement, and consciously linking the present protests with those famous scenes is strategic and powerful. I'm not inside the movement on that level, so I don't know if this is already happening, but I hope it is.

5. People are educating themselves about racism. Books like How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo are on bestseller lists and have long hold queues at public libraries. Libraries are posting antiracism reading lists. Antiracism book clubs and discussion groups are popping up. This is amazing and so beautiful.

6. A repeat from that April post: the US was founded on protest. Every important, positive change in the United States has been born of protest. Protest is as American as racism and gun violence. Which is stronger? We shall see.

7. How far will the crackdown go? How far down the spiral into a police state will the current occupant of the White House and his lackeys take the US?

8. What will Trump do when he loses the election? If enough people vote to counteract all the fraud, vote suppression, and black box voting, Trump will lose, and Biden will be elected. If that happens, will Trump leave peacefully?

9. And if he doesn't, will other countries condemn the US? Will the UK, Canada, and other countries with a long and friendly history with the US punish and sanction it? What would it take?

10. In my heart, hope wrestles with cynicism.

For so long, I have felt the situation in the US is beyond hope. Then Occupy. Then Black Lives Matter. Then the Fight for 15. Then Idle No More. Then Extinction Rebellion. People organizing. Against racism. Against a brutal economic system. Against environmental destruction. People organizing knowing that these are all connected. I feel a tiny glimmer of hope.

Then I think about what "winning" in the US would look like. For so many people, a Democrat in the White House -- hell, a sane, thinking person in the White House -- will be enough.

And I despair.

Then I see the uprisings, and I have hope.

Then I think... and I despair.

(Of course, how I feel is irrelevant.)

11. The future is unknown. No one knows what the future will be, no matter how much certainty they put in their words or their voice.

The future has not been written yet. If Trump is having this much trouble squashing resistance in Portland, what's it going to look like in Brooklyn, or Philadelphia, or Oakland, or St. Louis?

This is why it's so important to organize. And that's exactly what BLM and FF15 and all the solidarity networks have been doing.

Who knows, maybe after organizing and winning small victories, changing R to D won't be enough. Maybe people will demand more.

11 things on my mind about the anti-police-violence and anti-racism protests

1. Most violence is not being committed by protesters.

What percentage of protesters are violent? Filter for police provocateurs, filter for white nationalists, filter for random thieves hiding under cover of mayhem. All of those exist at mass protests and have been proven to exist countless times.

What percentage of actual protesters used violence? 0.5 percent? I have been to my share of protests, and I doubt it is even that. 0.05 percent?

What percentage of media coverage is about violent protests?

2. Most violence is being committed by police.

Police, wearing military-grade riot gear, are attacking peaceful protesters, even destroying their safety supplies.

And while it's true that they were egged on by the cowardly redneck who lives in the White House, blaming him is misplaced. This problem is as old as America.

3. The media's unrelenting focus on whether or not protests are violent is almost exclusively reserved for protests by African Americans -- and in Canada, by Indigenous people.

4. If police want to show the world that the racist violence in their ranks is caused by a few bad apples, they are doing a very poor job. Right now the bad apples could fill an orchard. I would think police have a compelling self-interest in behaving honourably.

5. When the three police officers who watched Derek Chauvin murder George Floyd were arrested, and charges against Chauvin were upgraded, protests had been going on continuously for nine days.

Without visible and sustained public outrage, it never would have happened. As a friend of mine said on Facebook, we had to burn the country down to get them arrested.

6. White people who hate racism must make the leap from not being consciously racist to being consciously anti-racist. Although it is now socially unacceptable to say racist remarks in public, this has not brought large numbers of white people into the battle against racism. White people, we are needed.

7. The only reason we know George Floyd was murdered, and the only reason we know that Christian Cooper did not threaten Amy Cooper's life, is because there is cell phone footage. There is absolutely no reason to believe that police violence against African Americans is worse now than it has been historically. We just weren't able to see it.

And often, even when we are able to see it, the "justice" system does not care. The people who maintain that system do not care.

8. Canadians, get off your high-horses and do the work of dismantling this country's racist systems. The Indian Act. Residential Schools. Missing and murdered Indigenous women. Racial profiling. Carding. Two days ago, social media in Regina was warning people about a black man breaking into a car. It was his own car.

This headline from The Beaverton (Canada's answer to The Onion) sums it up. But it's not satire.

9. The strength of the protests, the pace at which they spread, the determination and persistence of the protesters, makes me incredibly proud and grateful.

10. The United States was founded on protest. All progress in the US was born from protest movements. I dare you to prove otherwise.

11. White people: you are needed. This civil rights movement must be your movement, too. Don't try to lead, don't steer, don't whitesplain. Show your face, swell the numbers, prove that African Americans are Americans. Flood the streets with your white faces alongside the brown and black ones. Prove what kind of society you want to live in.