Politics

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Some examples of resistance

On April 6, I published a post on “The Resistance” commenting on someone asking where “The Resistance” was. Shortly after after that post, there was a protest in Oregon over plans to log 14,000 acres of forest. This past Monday, my wife told me that there were protesters in Eugene, Oregon blocking the I-5 freeway to protest the Israel-Hamas war. There were also protesters in Hillsboro, Oregon, and later that evening I saw news coverage of multiple protests across the US and the world (see also Truthout coverage (via Denny Henke). The April 15 protests appear to have been a coordinated economic blockade by multiple groups. Looks like there is some resistance going on out there!

PS – see this Instagram post for additional pics

Can the use of semaphore be useful today?

Ken Smith recently wrote about the use of semaphore and RSS in transmitting information. He relates an experience where he organized students to send a message across a university campus. The historic use of semaphore flags was to communicate between ships. In the 18th century, the “optical telegraph” was developed, and messages could be sent from Amsterdam to Venice in an hour. With the development of the electric telegraph, the use of the optical telegraph fell to the wayside.

Today, people can use RSS readers to monitor posts on websites, and use other social media systems (Twitter, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky) to do the same. The rssCloud protocol also provides almost instant notification. I think that the question Ken Smith is asking is “can a group of individuals use this to be able to respond to a crisis“. The answer is “Yes”, but people “would have to be trained to do more than just send or receive a message on the system”.

So – do we choose to do something here? What crisis should we work to avoid?

Democracy is not a spectator sport

Several weeks ago, I read a Substack post with this same title, as well as a Vox article titled “The courts were never going to save America from Donald Trump”. The bottom line of both articles were that the only way to defeat Donald Trump was going to be at the ballot box. But what else should we do? In my post/podcast earlier this week on “The Resistance”, I also pointed out that “doing something else” meant doing more than writing a blog post or a social media post or a podcast. I did review one of the resources I linked to in my resistance post, and it offered 3 concrete recommendations for taking action:

  • Once a month, show up to either a trigger event protest with game change potential or a small, group-led action.
  • Once a week, put pressure on decision makers with phone calls or at town halls.
  • Vote for and do get out the vote work for movement candidates in local, state, and federal elections.

In addition, the resource gives some good guidance about finding or forming a group to take action. Let’s get out there and win this thing!

Where is the Resistance? (post + podcast)

I decided to record a podcast about recent posts from Dave Winer and Ken Smith concerning “the Resistance”.

I am including some links to items I mentioned in the podcast:

Dave Winer’s original comment on Scripting News

Same comment on Twitter, with Ken Smith reply

Another Twitter post from Dave Winer, giving an idea for a resistance movement

Expanded post from Dave Winer

Ken Smith summary (part 1) (part 2)

Threads post from Ken Smith, with Dave Winer reply

Atlanta activism podcast post

Lifelong Activist site from Hillary Rettig

Activism links collected by Andy Sylvester collected as an OPML file

Americans of Conscience checklist for April 5, 2024 – concrete things you can do

“Resistance Guide: How to Sustain the Movement to Win” – Written in 2017, the PDF linked to this page gives a short history of resistance movements in the US and provides ideas.

Activism toolkit by Ken Smith

Lawfare Media: What Justice Scalia Thought About Whether Presidents Are “Officers of the United States” – In a 2014 concurrence and a short letter elaborating on it, Scalia indicated that the president was an “officer of the United States.”

The Big Lie continues in 2024

Kaitlan Collins presses Rep. Norman on 2021 text message calling for martial law

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) about a 2021 text message he sent to Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, pleading for the former president to declare martial law. Norman also references other alleged incidents of voter fraud, which Kaitlan Collins refutes.

Source: CNN

Additional links:

X: Kaitlan Collins post on this video

The New Republic: Republican Rep. Has No Regrets About That “Marshall Law” Text – Years later, Ralph Norman still stands by his infamous text to Mark Meadows after the 2020 election.

South Carolina Public Radio: Leaked 2021 text from SC Rep. Ralph Norman calls for martial law; Congressman says message came from ‘frustration’

The Fulcrum: Scholars unmask Trump election lawyers’ use of falsified evidence – Study finds a cottage industry of bogus claims and statistics – the post links to a working paper (Dropbox link to PDF) analyzing 38 claims of election fraud “…Regardless of the reason why, every claim we analyze fails to provide evidence of illegality or fraud.” (page 3) (via Election Law Blog)