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Category: Blog
Method 47: Assemblies of protest or support
On April 3, 2020, sailors chanted “Crozier, Crozier!” after Navy Captain Brett E. Crozier was fired for his email to Navy leaders, detailing the service’s failures in dealing with a coronavirus outbreak on the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt.
Method 47 in History
“Strijdom, you have tampered with the women, You have struck a rock.”
– South African Women’s March, August 1956
In South Africa, pass laws were a form of internal passport system designed to segregate the population, severely limiting the movements of not only black African citizens by requiring them to carry pass books when outside their homelands or designated areas. In the 1950s, the primary catalysts of the anti-pass protests were thousands of African women, many of whom had never been involved in demonstrations. In 1956, thousands of South African women of all races marched to Pretoria to stand in support of black South African women, singing to the Prime Minister: “”Strijdom, you have tampered with the women, You have struck a rock.”
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Method 46: Homage at Burial Places
Today marks the 36th anniversary of the unsolved murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. As a Social Democrat, Palme didn’t hire bodyguards or armored cars; he felt that it was important not to create distance between himself and the people of Sweden. On Friday night, February 28, 1986, Palme and his wife Lisbet were walking home from dinner in Stockholm when an unidentified gunman fired a single round in the Prime Minister’s back.
Since then, Olof Palme’s grave in central Stockholm has become a place of homage. To many Swedes, Palme was more than a politician, he was a hero who was responsible for creating Sweden’s healthy welfare system, among other leftwing policies that also made him despised by the right.
To this day, Palme’s grave is marked by red roses, a symbol of Social Democracy.
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Blood Feast / The Rumpus
The latest installment of my column, Turning Purple, is up this week at The Rumpus. “Blood Feast” is centered around my time canvassing in Trump country and the roots of my activism. Check out the photos on Instagram.
“In every story I read to my class, the villains were my student’s uncle, who recognized me at a club, kissing a girl. At parent-teacher conferences the next week, the girl’s parents glared at me with their arms folded, finally shouting what are you teaching our daughter, without saying what they knew. I shook next to the principal, certain that I was about to be outed, arrested or fired. When that didn’t happen, I decided it was time for my third graders to learn about activism. I wanted to find out what mattered to eight-year-olds.”
– excerpt from Blood Feast, The Rumpus
A FINAL NOTE: On Tuesday night, the efforts of volunteers around the country paid off at the polls. If you’re looking for a therapeutic and easy way to get involved in the 2020 election, write to Postcards to Voters to join the party. #PostcardstoVoters
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What’s on my Nightstand: October 2019
Nonfiction
Be Here Now | Ram Dass | Hanuman Foundation
White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism | Robin Diangelo | Beacon Press
Burn it Down: Women Writing About Anger | Edited by Lilly Dancyger | Seal Press
The Cost of Living | Deborah Levy | Penguin Books
PEACE: 50 Years of Protest | Barry Miles
The Wrong Way to Save Your Life | Megan Stielstra | Harper Perennial
Short Fiction
White Dancing Elephants | Chaya Bhuvaneswar | Dzanc Books
The Best American Short Stories | Edited by Roxane Gay | Mariner Books
Poetry
You Should Feel Bad | Laura Cresté | No Tokens
Two Poems by Camonghne Felix | Camonghne Felix | PEN America
Failed Essay on Privilege | Elisa Gonzalez | The New Yorker (listen)
Essay (selected)
Impossible Hope | Amy Bond | The Rumpus
Alt. Latino Playlist: Songs That Shout Protest | Felix Contreras | NPR
It Comes in Waves | Lilly Dancyger | Longreads
How to Lose a Third of a Million Dollars Without Really Trying | Heather Demetrios | Forge
Born Again: Rene Denfeld On The Birth Of Love | Rene Denfeld | Ravishly
Bikini Kill – and my Bunkmates – Taught Me How to Unleash My Anger | Melissa Febos | Longreads
Your Healing Crystals Are Part of the Capitalist Exploitation Machine | Aaron Gilbreath | Longreads
Voices on Addiction: The Promises | Cameron Dezen Hammon | The Rumpus
How to Mourn a Glacier | Lacy M. Johnson
Keeping My Promise to Popo | Anne Liu Kellor | Longreads
Marissa Korbel | Why We Cry When We’re Angry | Guernica (or
A History of My Body | Joe Nasta | ENTROPY
Why I Teach | Viet Thanh Nguyen | The New York Times
Vision | Susan Power | GRANTA
Of Braids and Blades: Fighting the Ghosts of Kashmir | Amrita Sharma and Peerzada Raouf | Wasafiri
Inherited Anger | Marisa Siegel | Burn it Down
Spines of the Finwoman | Lidia Yuknavitch | The Rumpus
Interview / OpEd / Review
Experiments show this is the best way to win campaigns. But is anyone actually doing it? | David Brookman and Josua Kala | Vox
About That “A-Word” Barbara J. King on animal emotions, anthropomorphism, and the future of the planet | Mark Moring | Orbiter
President Trump is at war with the rule of law. This won’t end well | Rebecca Solnit | The Guardian
Real Life – Brandon Taylor | Review | Publishers Weekly
“I wanted my characters to inhabit spaces outside what’s expected for queer and trans people—especially joyful spaces.” Talking to author Claire Rudy Foster about their new book – Shine of the Ever | Lisa Walls | ISTORIALIT
Verge – by Lidia Yuknavitch | Review | Kirkus Review
Why the Trump Impeachment Inquiry Is the Only Option “After all, Americans have seen this playbook before. During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called on Russia to find emails he hoped would embarrass Hillary Clinton: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he bellowed then at a campaign news conference in Florida. Mr. Mueller subsequently showed that Russian agents tried to hack into Mrs. Clinton’s personal servers that same day … that Mr. Trump was not dissuaded by the response to Mr. Mueller’s findings from seeking political aid from another foreign source suggests he has learned nothing except that he is free to try anything — that a president may use the office as he chooses to promote his re-election.”
The Editorial Board | The New York Times
Magazine / Journal / Newspaper / Pamphlet
No Tokens | Issue No. 8
Lesbian Connection: free to lesbians worldwide, but the suggested donation is $7/issue (more if you can, less if you can’t), May/June 2019 issue
The New Yorker
The Week
TIME
Music
El Machete | Ani Cordero | Spotify
Random
Postcards to Kentucky Voters #DitchMitch (It’s a fantastic stress reliever – sign up here.)
lip balm
ginger cookies
earbuds
cold cup of coffee
AA battery
Pixel eyewear
list of Horsham Township Council candidates
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VOTER REGISTRATION DAY: Take the quiz!
Today is National Voter Registration Day. How much do you know about voting and elections? Take CNN’s quiz. Another easy thing you can do today to help is to share the link to this page on usa.gov.
Tweet it out or share it on Facebook.
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Method 45: Demonstrative Funerals / Report on the dangers of being a climate activist
A note on the image for Method 45: On August 19, Iceland held a demonstrative funeral for Okjökull, a 700-year-old glacier. Okjökull lost its status as a glacier in 2014, and is now a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
Today, as sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg leads and inspires the world in a climate strike, there’s a disturbing new report that shows darker proof of her bravery. In July, Global Witness released a report that showed that in 2018, more than three people a week died defending their land or our environment:
- In 2018 Guatemala recorded the sharpest rise in murders, which jumped more than fivefold to make it the deadliest country per capita.
- The Philippines had the highest number of killings of any country this year, with at least 30 defenders murdered.
- Mining was the worst sector, causing 43 deaths, though deaths related to conflicts over water sources also surged. Attacks driven by agribusiness, logging and hydropower continued too.
- Private security groups, state forces and contract killers – sometimes working together – are all suspected of carrying out killings.
On Tuesday, the activist group Extinction Rebellion staged a demonstrative funeral to mark the end of Fashion Week in London. According to CNN, Bel Jacobs, a former fashion editor who now belongs to Extinction Rebellion, told CNN that Tuesday’s protest was organized to “lay to rest the toxic system that is destroying us all, and to mourn those who have already lost their lives and those still to lose their lives to the effects of climate change.”
Today’s Student Strike is Method 62 of Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action. Since beginning this project a year ago, every time it’s time to do a new post, I’ve never had to look far – these methods are being used every single day, all around the world.
“For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and the ecological crisis. But we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer.”
– Greta Thunberg
A note on the image for Method 45: On August 19, Iceland held a demonstrative funeral for Okjökull, a 700-year-old glacier. Okjökull lost its status as a glacier in 2014, and is now a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
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