This is an open thread. Anyone is welcome to comment as long as you do so civilly and in good faith.
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I don’t have a lot to say. This is a difficult time. We are in limbo right now. It’s a time of waiting, knowing things are going to be bad, but not how bad.
My cousin shared this article: A Yale history professor’s powerful, 20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency.
I will quote three of my favorites (fair use and all that), but I really recommend reading the whole thing. They are all good ideas.
2. Defend an institution.
Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
6. Be kind to our language.
Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
10. Practice corporeal politics.
Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
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I watched “In Jackson Heights” on my local PBS station’s digital sub-channel last night. You can stream it online (over 3 hours long). It is worth watching to see Frank Rafalian, a property owner sympathetic to the needs of small businesses, break it down as to how gentrification ruins neighborhoods. Or read this article in The New Republic from February, 2016. (But the article does not explain it as eloquently)
Business Improvement Districts Ruin Neighborhoods
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And don’t forget. Today is Elvis’s birthday. Time to take down the Christmas tree.