The Women's March on Washington. It's hard to believe that this took place a month ago as I'm writing this entry. A lot of feelings were vented, but has it yet led to anything substantial? Probably not. The protesters were marching against Trump, and not FOR anything in particular. And this is where the problem lies. Trump's opponents are still divided. We think of women's rights, LGBTIQ rights, immigrant rights, but we're not focusing on what should be the core issue - Human Rights and how to achieve them for all. Each of these causes is important. But without a central focus, our opposition wins.
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In order for progressives to win both the cultural war and the ideological war being foisted upon us, we need to make sure that no one accepts any of the lies coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as anything other than what they are - tools being used to get the common person to stop paying attention to a critical press, and to only focus on what Trump claims to be truth. This is dangerous, as an honest free press is the most important check and balance against government overreach when the public feels empowered.
Right now, we're seeing attempts from the Trump administration to disempower groups that have traditionally been disenfranchised in the USA: Poor People, Blacks, Latinos, Gays & Lesbians, Transgenders, and Women. Ignore the rhetoric from both sides of the political aisle. We have an Attorney General who was once voted down by the Senate for being too racist to have a judicial seat. We have a Secretary of Education who has no clue how public education functions, and wants to replace the public school system with private schools. We have a Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who has never run an organization of any size. Virtually all of his civilian appointees are there to destroy the departments which they are supposed to run. We've already seen protections once held by the LGBT community overturned by the new Attorney General, as he won't defend protections established by the prior administration.
It's easy to give up hope. But the progressive movement needs a set of tactics that can be used to
- Maximize the impact of any protest.
- Prevent Trump's bullying of dissenters from being seen as "normal".
- Stagger large scale protests, so that people stay sensitive to the protest message.
- Disrupt the potentially authoritarian status-quo from being accepted as "normal".
- Develop a rotating focus on key issues, having an entire coalition protest one issue at a time, and preventing messages from becoming tired.
There is much more that can be done. But the people must stay alert to any lies that are being spewed as part of this administration's propaganda campaign. And then, they must expose those lies for what they are, using as much humor as possible in order to deny this regime the social legitimacy it craves.
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Every year, there is a "mooning" of Amtrak trains as they pass through a California town. The "Mooners" (not to be confused with "Moonies", who are affiliated with a Korean Church) line up along a 2 mile stretch of track, and expose themselves when an Amtrak train rolls by. Might we want to consider mooning Trump's motorcade to show him the respect he deserves? It's one idea among many we should be thinking about - we need the attention of the press, and we need to find as many non violent, but media catching methods possible. Hopefully, we will find a few things that work well, and will use them as long as they work well....
