2231
Erasure
(mander.xyz)
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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So how much longer before we get pissed enough to start doing something about it? I’m a white CIS heterosexual male and this is infuriating to me. This isn’t correction of DEI policies. This is blatant sexism and racism. Fuck these nazis.
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:
Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:
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:
Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:
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!
Well said
Thank you very much for the effort you put into this post.
This is incredible, thank you!
Is it only AOC being vocal?
I would say AOC has a very emphasized presence in media that often allows her to break through into headlines despite corporate media's tendency to never cover anything good a Democrat does ever and instead push this narrative that 'if Democrats can't manage to pass some legislation it's Democrats fault for not doing enough and if Republicans do something awful it's Democrats fault for not stopping them.' The stereotype goes if Democrats hold rallies across all 50 states it's radio silence, but if Trump breathes it gets 24/7 news coverage at work to normalize him, etc.
To be honest I'm a bit guilty of this too. I don't actively search for what members of Congress are saying/doing, and I originally only watched AOC's video because it was being shared around on social media. That being said, I decided to search around a bit to see what members of Congress are saying:
TL;DR: I would say AOC is probably the best at messaging directly to the people, and perhaps other members of Congress aren't quite as effective as her, but a lot of them are still doing something even if we don't always hear about it
Thanks for doing the legwork!
No, she's just the one with most of the followers
I've seen Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders speaking up, too.
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."
Isn't that part of the problem? Everyone is waiting for the revolution to start. Everyone is waiting for the next Luigi. Everyone is waiting.
Nothing's getting better, but someone will come and fix all these problems any time now and I'll be on their side!
Are you volunteering? 😅
That's the thing, though. As long as most people can comfortably skate by, that's exactly what they'll do. But, push come to shove, should things get bad enough, that's when revolt happens.
No, I'm not volunteering because I don't think either thing will work. But the people calling for those things to happen are waiting for someone else to do it.
Also, how are things not bad enough right now? They're sending people to Gitmo. Trump and Musk fired people who are responsible for safeguarding our nuclear weapons because they didn't know what they did. People didn't even notice despite it being all over the news. Or at least they didn't notice enough to pick up their torches and pitchforks.
And that's just the latest horrific thing he's done in the past three weeks.
So what's it going to take?
It's going to take a direct impact on peoples' lives. If the average person can continue to go to work, get a paycheck, and overpay for but afford groceries for their family, that's what they're going to do.
And if that never happens? If things get really bad but not that bad for Americans?
Still sounds like waiting for someone else to do it.
You're not wrong.
~2 days without food, for most people, I assume
Starving people don't have much energy to violently revolt.
Tell that to the french
Why on Earth do you think the French Revolution happened because of a famine?
Only takes eating one rich person to get them back up though.
What are you talking about? Luigi isn't a leader. He's just a guy who snapped.
Remember when I said he was a leader? Because I don't.
The problem is, where do we start? We've been, er, "taking the L" for so long, when are we going to start giving the L?
Look into your local PSL or DSA. Us socialist are on the top of the leaderboard for Nazi killing and it's not even close. Join the SRA too. This shits not going away with votes. Fascism doesn't let you vote it out of power.
I do not recognize those acronyms, but would like to know more! Can you point me in the right direction?
Party for Socialism and Liberation (Marxist Leninists) Democratic Socialist of America (DemSocs) Socialist Rifle Association (All leftist welcome)