Across the country, people are marching, calling, emailing, suing, resisting in every possible way. And it is working. Here are three ways to know that all the effort you/we are making DO HAVE AN IMPACT. We will not win easily. We will not win quickly. We will win ground one inch at a time, and the cost will be high, but we will win. So – testimony from Pennsylvania, a list of wins and partial wins, and Winona LaDuke on Native American resistance to pipelines. Continue reading
Filed under organizing
UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL EVENTS 1/19, 8 P.M. – At the checkout counter at Target, the clerk noted the Black Lives Matter button on my coat and asked me, “Going to the march?” I told her yes, and she went on to say that the website was down this morning, so she had been unable to sign in. She was talking about Saturday’s Minnesota Women’s March. That’s not the only march this week (and not the only one I plan to go to.)
I’ve noticed that the various demonstrations, while all protesting the incoming administration, sometimes seem to draw from entirely different communities that don’t talk to each other. For example, I’ve talked to friends who are going to the Minnesota Women’s March on Saturday, but haven’t heard of the Resist From Day One mega-march on Friday. I’ve seen calendars that list one or the other, but no calendars that list both. Besides the two big marches, many smaller events also offer ways to join in solidarity. So – here’s my big list of inauguration protests in the Twin Cities, quite likely incomplete, but with plenty of ways to opt in. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Looking toward the new year of 2017, I resolve to resist. Again. Still. Forever.
Resist hate. Resist racism, xenophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism.
Resist greed. Resist privatizing Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and prisons and probation and schools and social services. Resist taking away the very limited gains won under Obamacare. Resist defunding Planned Parenthood. Resist pipelines and fracking and environmental destruction in the service of private profit.
Resist repression. Resist limits on free speech and academic freedom and freedom of ALL religions. Resist defunding of public defenders and restriction of the right to an attorney. Resist registering people by religion or nationality. Resist mass deportations and denial of asylum.
Figuring out what to resist is easy. Figuring out how to resist is tougher. Maybe if I were 16 or 26 again, I could do it all: write letters, sign petitions, door-knock for voter registration and get out the vote, march in the streets, choke on tear-gas, risk arrest, stay up all night writing briefs for federal court challenges to suppression of civil rights, and show up in court the next morning.
I’m not young any more. I don’t have the same energy. And I’ve been broken more than a few times. I get up and keep going, but I can’t go as far or as fast as I once could. (Or thought I could.) Continue reading
Filed under elections, organizing
Four thousand people gathered in Minneapolis on November 9 to protest against Trump’s election. Photo by Fibonacci Blue, used under Creative Commons license.
Yeah, I get it. Wearing a safety pin is a quick-and-easy way to show that you support all the people getting slammed by the rising tide of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. When I grew up, safety pins were a very temporary and unsatisfactory fix when something badly needed mending. Right now, the whole fabric of our community and nation badly needs repair. So here are some things you can do, right now this week in Minnesota, that go beyond the safety pin: Continue reading
Filed under human rights, race
Mary Turck
News Day 