Honestly, as an individual there really isn't much you can do with your purchasing power about it.
Next national day of protest in April 19. Find the largest one you are able to attend and join in.
vvilld
joined 3 weeks ago
They can secede, with the consent of the other states (meaning an act of the Federal government).
The general theory is that once a state enters into the Union it gains certain privileges and benefits which it would not previously had access to. Things like military protection, federal government investment, the increased power/influence in global politics/economics, etc, etc. Each state is getting things from other states and the federal government at the same time as they're giving things in return. Since it's a two-way relationship, it should take both parties to sever that relationship.
It just seems wrong to me, kind of like not allowing divorces.
I'd argue it's more like requiring alimony after a divorce. When two people are married often one will put their career on hold or de-emphasize it in order to focus on other things to support the marriage (eg stay-at-home parent). When the couple then divorces, the courts recognize that the individual who put their career on hold is now at a sever disadvantage in that they have forgone however many years of experience, advancement, salary, etc. They can't just jump back into the workforce and expect to get a job as good as if they had been working the whole time. And the other member of the relationship (the one who did not sacrifice their career) got the benefits of having someone to manage the home while they could focus on their career.
So the court acknowledges this disparity in the relationship and will require the higher-paid member of the marriage to pay alimony payments to the other as a way to make up for that economic imbalance between them. The higher earning member of the marriage can't just divorce and go about their way without having to compensate the other for the years they spent focusing on the family rather than their career.
This is what the secession of a US state would look like in theory. We tried the whole "one side gets unilaterally decides to break up without mediation or compensation to the other" thing. It was the impetus for the bloodiest war in American history. In order to secede "the right way" (ie without bloodshed), a state would have to go to the Federal Government and ask to secede. The government (which is a collection of representatives of the states and people in the states) then debates and decides on terms.
Of course, this has never been done or even tried. I suspect that pretty much every single state (except maybe California) would find that the benefits of staying in the Union far outweigh the benefits of leaving.
My Samsung Galaxy Buds+ work with gloves. I work construction, so I have work gloves on quite often. The tap to pause/double tap to skip forward/triple tap to skip back works perfectly with work gloves on. Can't say I've ever tried it with winter gloves, though.
What have you been doing?
I am in the streets every chance I can get, and have been for more that 2 decades.
And you're never going to get people on board if the solution (general strike) doesn't meet their material needs. If people have to starve and lose their homes while under threat of arrest or more violent action, you need a way to support them or they won't stick with it. Revolutions are built on mutual aide and community organizing, not empty platitudes and gumption. Or, worse yet, shit posting and cynicism.
Don't limit the size of your movement or it's popular support because you're unwilling to include people who aren't able nuke their lives. If I don't keep my job my children go hungry and lose their home. I'm unwilling to do that to them.
Is your argument is that anyone who is unwilling to nuke their entire life for the movement is insufficiently motivated and shouldn't even bother getting involved?
If that's your stance, then you're just plain wrong and you should probably keep quiet about it because your working against the movement.
Vanguard revolutions don't work. They just replace one set of shitty authoritarians with another. The ONLY way this can ever work is if we make the movement accessible to as broad a swath of people as humanly possible.
I've been a political activist for 22 years now. I cut my teeth on the front lines of the anti-Iraq War movement in 2003. I was at Occupy. I spent my early-to-mid 20s with little regard for my personal safety and financial stability. But nobody keeps that up forever. I'm pretty sure I did it longer than most. But that's not all I want from life.
Yes, fighting fascism is important to protecting my kids' future (I have 2 kids). You know what else is equally important to that, though? Making sure they have a stable home and food on their plates now. And I can't do that if I nuke my life by spending every single day in the streets, losing my job, and getting arrested.
My kids won't have to ask me what I did because they're there with me. Both my 3 yo and 5 yo were at the DC protest on Saturday. And this wasn't either of their first action. My 5 yo was with us at the 2020 uprising when she was less than a year old.
A successful movement takes all kinds. Yes, there are some who can take greater risks and more radical actions, but I'm not at that place in my life anymore and that's fine. If we can't find a way to include people who have other responsibilities in life, too, without insulting them or implying they're not really interested in change, then the entire movement is cooked.
So, thank you for your past service to the cause, but if you don't have anything constructive to say, kindly fuck off.
There were multiple US House Representatives as the protest in DC on Saturday. Several spoke on the stage and others were out in the crowd.
You do realize these are regular ass people who have jobs and rent and mortgages and bills to pay and kids to support? Like, we can't be out on the street every single day.
How often are you out in the streets?
I know it's easy to criticize the media, but, like, they have been reporting on it.
Since it's clear we're talking about the US here, the 1st Amendment clearly states (emphasis added):
It says nothing about citizens, tourists, foreign nationals, etc. In fact, the amendment only limits what Congress can do (and the Supremacy clause extends this to the states). It doesn't say "Citizens have the right to free speech." It says "Congress shall pass no laws abridging the freedom of speech."
It's pretty clear that anyone and everyone has the right to free speech and assembly. The right wingers you're talking about are trying to rewrite the first amendment to justify their fascism.