dissent

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Saturday, January 18, 2025
January 18, 2025

Prepping For Chaos

When It Was Quiet [2010]

Overnight rain greatly diminished the amount of snow coverage that has lingered over the past two weeks, but more snow is falling now (7:30 AM EST), and anything still liquid will start freezing soon as temperatures drop quickly. Of course, the kids and I are home for the day so there’s no worry there. Kat’s books are full, though, which could make her trip to Fishers a little treacherous this evening.

I feel as though I need to continuously remind people that driving on ice is not the same as driving on snow, even if you have snow tires. In fact, those studded snow tires make driving on ice all the more difficult. To drive on ice, one needs chains, and chains, by their nature, require driving slowly. Even with chains, however, sliding can occur, and stopping is difficult. One is far safer staying put someplace warm if at all possible.

Cold weather is especially challenging for unhoused people. Finding someplace safe and warm can be difficult. So, I was initially encouraged when local NBC affiliate WTHR posted a list of warming centers for Central Indiana. Then, I took a look at the list. Almost all of them are closed on Sunday and many are closed Monday as well, when temps are below 0F! Is a warming center still a warming center if it’s closed? In my mind, this is an excellent opportunity for houses of worship to open and welcome strangers from the cold. After all, that’s what their deities have instructed them to do. If any are doing that, though, they’re keeping that status secret. There are no worship facilities on the list of warming centers.

The situation for unhoused people is made increasingly difficult as many lack transportation as well. If we get as much as a quarter of an inch of ice on the roads, you don’t want to be on a city bus, either. This makes the need for frequent warming centers all the more critical. The community is better served by having many places helping a few people rather than fewer more disparate places trying to cram in as many as possible.

I don’t understand why more places aren’t opening their doors. This ‘not my problem’ attitude is contrary to how I was raised. Ice was an annual issue in Eastern Oklahoma. Tree limbs became brittle as ice accumulated on them, causing them to fall onto power lines. Power lines often snapped on their own if ice accumulated more than half an inch. The instant power started going out anywhere, my father was on the phone checking on people.

Homelessness wasn’t much of an issue in our small towns, but the number of elderly in houses with little or no insulation was a constant concern. Poppa saw it as part of his job as a pastor to proactively find those without power and get them somewhere safe. Usually, a nearby neighbor was happy to take someone in. If the storm was severe enough to make safe places scarce, Mother would start pulling out the dozens of blankets we kept on hand and make pallets across the floors. It was unconscionable to even consider knowingly leaving someone in the cold.

Now, once one starts mentioning taking care of people, politicians start talking about budgets and how cities don’t have the money to help. Excuse me, how much does it cost to simply unlock the damn doors? The Colts aren’t playing, so why isn’t Lucas Oil Stadium available? How much of the convention center is being used? People who are on the verge of freezing to death aren’t going to complain about the availability of a blanket on the floor of the city/county building or a school gym. There is not a city anywhere in the United States that does not have overwhelming options for keeping people warm. That anyone is at risk of freezing to death is inexcusable.

Compassion is not a weakness. Compassion is a muscle that needs frequent exercise for people to see its strength. There is strength in caring about people you don’t know. Helping those who struggle without expecting anything in return is a major flex. We have allowed lazy fools to control the narrative of being neighborly, helping other people, and caring about those at risk. There are no strong communities, there are no thriving cities where compassion is not at the core of their being.

Capitalism is an enemy here. If one is looking to find profit in helping people, that one is not compassionate but rather greedy. One of the issues plaguing LA in the wake of unfathomable destruction is that too many property owners have raised prices so severely that only the rich can afford safety. There is zero compassion when one attaches a price tag to keeping people alive and well. If we cannot set profit aside to help people in need, we are undeserving of any profit at all.

Chaos is coming. We know this because we’ve been through it before. This time, it comes at us with the forceful support of dozens of billionaires who mistakenly think they have the right to tell any of us what to do. They’re screaming, “We have a mandate!” when all they actually have is a gilded microphone. There is no mandate that does not involve compassion and without compassion, there is no true power to govern.

We can say ‘No.’ We must say ‘No.’ We have a moral obligation as humans to say ‘No’ to all the chaos, all the inhumanity, all the profiteering, all the greed, and all the corruption of the incoming administration. Remember, at all times, that there is no government without the consent of the governed. You are not required to consent. You have every right to dissent and the strongest dissent comes through action, not posting memes on social media.

Dissent. Help someone in need. It really is that easy.

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Morning Update: 07/16/24
July 16, 2024

Cooling Off [2007]

Rain is going to dominate today’s weather and impact how I feel about everything, so let’s just accept that at the front and get it out of the way. Rain started around midnight, then got a little stormy, causing the dogs to decide they needed to rearrange how everyone was positioned on the bed. I think the only one who didn’t move all night was Frankie, the smashed-face wheezer kitty. Frank doesn’t move unless Frank wants to move. I aspire to be more like Frank.

We knew yesterday was going to be hot, so Tipper and I set off to get our walking in around 8:30. We were on our way back when a fire truck whizzed past us. We were then surprised to see it pull over to a house just up the street from where we were walking. An ambulance soon followed. Tipper, being the compassionate soul that she is, was immediately concerned for the older woman who lives there. We’ve seen her several times as we’ve passed. Tipper always smiles and says hi even though the woman never responds. As it turns out, it was one of the younger residents of the home, perhaps a son or nephew, who was having difficulty breathing. The older woman was sitting outside on a bench, out of the way of the paramedics, looking at her phone. Tipper said hi. The woman didn’t look up. Tipper switched her attention to the daycare across the street. “I hope they don’t let the kids play outside today. It’s really too hot for them to be out,” she said in the most compassionate tone. That’s our girl. Always caring for everyone else.

The mail always runs late on Mondays. I assume that’s because there’s backlog from not delivering on Sundays, which seems strange in a modern world. Each morning we get a report from USPS as to what to expect in the mail that day, with scanned images of the envelopes. This informed me that I had two letters coming from Social Security. What they missed was the flat, full-sized envelope that came with them.

The first envelope announced that the date of my monthly SS deposits had changed. No big deal. The second envelope confirmed that my attorney had been paid. I’m sure he appreciates that. The third, full-sized envelope, however, was trouble. The eight-page letter attempted to explain that while I’m definitely disabled according to their judgement, I’m currently unable to receive supplemental income for two reasons:

  1. I live in the mind-numbingly stupid state of Indiana. Indiana, as it turns out, is one of seven states that do not pay any supplement. Nice, isn’t it? The state budget is running something like a $3 billion surplus. I guess that’s because our state legislature is a bunch of stingy old fucks.
  2. I, allegedly, have assets over $2,000 as of January, 2024. This is the one that has me scratching my head. I’ve looked at what the Social Security Administration considers an asset. I have none of them. No home, no car, no life insurance, no investments, nothing paying dividends, no huge retirement program… none of it.

What has me puzzled, though, is whether it is worth contacting the lawyer again (or getting a different one) and appealing the decision. If Indiana doesn’t pay a supplement anyway, is it a waste of time to appeal? I have 50 days to decide, so if anyone has any Indiana-specific information to share, let me know.

There’s also the fact that SSA considers my living with Kat and the kids as a $341/month value. What happens if I move? Do I get that extra money? I do know that any form of financial help with housing lowers your payment regardless of the source. Why? Because the government wants old people to hurry up and die so they can stop paying us what we’re owed.

Of course, it may all be a moot point if Republicans win control of the federal government. While Project 2025 doesn’t outright destroy Social Security, it does raise the retirement age to 70 and opens the door for other cuts, such as letting the system go bankrupt, firing hundreds of employees, and other policy changes that could eliminate any benefit at all.

What I do know is that Republicans are prepared to fight for Project 2025. They’re already pushing to make several sections of the plan part of the official GOP platform this week. The plan’s sponsor, The Heritage Foundation, is one of the GOP Convention’s sponsors. Their pockets run deep and they’re prepared for a fight.

That means ordinary people like you and I, who don’t have deep pockets, have to make a lot of noise about the issue to make sure that voters know how dangerous it is. One of the problems, though, is that there is a lot of misinformation floating about and many of us, myself included, have unwittingly repeated it. We need to be more careful about these things. The whole plan is online, making it easy enough to verify information for ourselves. We can’t be lazy and assume that someone else has done the work.

Honestly, the plan doesn’t have to get specific. If it achieves it’s broader guidelines of concentrating power in the presidency (king making), slashing regulations (destroying oversight on any level), and taking a hardline religious agenda (especially involving medical care), then all manner of bad things could/will happen. Republican members of Congress will consider a fall victory as an edict to implement their interpretation of the plan. Never mind that the plan doesn’t get as detailed as has been inferred. Congressional Republicans have already shown a willingness to dangerous things such as discriminate against LGBTQIA+ people, eliminating DEI funding, and permit gun storage within the Capitol. Don’t think for a second that they’ll be more rational come January of next year.

Even if Republicans don’t win in November, we have to be ready for the possibility that they will try to take power by force. My friend Tony painted a frightening scenario:

i saw a bit that made the claim that the speaker will not sit the new house on Jan3, claiming election irregularities and, with the House still under con control, refuse to certify the election on Jan6. The election then goes to the state legislatures…. 26 of which are republican controlled. See where this is going. All the pieces are in place for this coup…

Could that happen? Yeah, it could. How likely it is to happen depends on how vocal we are before the election. We have to let Republicans know that we’re not going to tolerate any nonsense on their part. If they try to usurp power that is not theirs, they have to know that we are going to make every effort to stop them, regardless of what that may mean.

Again, I know there’s a push to tone down the political rhetoric after Saturday’s alleged assassination attempt, but we don’t have to infer violence to stand up to the clowns pushing fascism in our face. We just have to be louder than they are. We can do that.

If we don’t, then why the fuck am I suffering through chemo and all this SSI bullshit? If you’re going to just give up and let whatever happens, then I might as well go ahead and die because you’re allowing the Republicans to create a life in the US that isn’t worth living. I won’t live as a slave to stupidity.

Will you?

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Balancing Dissent With Reality
July 3, 2024

How Long Can You Hold Them? [2005]

When the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down its decision in Trump v. United States on Monday, the entire world gasped. Supporters of the Orange Felon, as we will refer to him in this opinion, were surprised that the decision had gone his way as much as it had. Everyone else on the planet, however, was concerned, not only Americans but both our allies and our enemies. This is not a decision that quietly fades into the shadows and is considered only by legal scholars. This decision has real-world consequences and the potential for those consequences has generated a great deal of fear. Let’s see if we can weed out facts from hyperbole.

First, much of the attention centers around the text of Associate Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor with Justices Kagan and Jackson joining. Let’s look at the first part of that dissent.

Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President, ante, at 3, 13, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.

The most important part of the dissent, which can possibly be used by a subsequent court as a basis for overturning this decision, lies in the last sentence. The Constitution does not even contain any form of or relative to the word immunity. The Court’s majority did some incredible backflips and twisting of the law to create their opinion. Immunity is not Constitutional and that alone is the basis for dissent.

Why? Because the Supreme Court has one job: To decide what is or is not Constitutional. They are not there to make determinations based on what is politically expedient. They are not there to rule on what might be convenient to a contemporary setting. They are not there to fabricate laws that are not elsewhere mentioned. The entire purpose of the Supreme Court and its only authority is in interpreting the Constitution. In this particular case, they have failed in that duty. There is little reasonable question about that fact, only partisan opinion.

Unfortunately, that aspect of the dissent is not where Americans are focusing. Instead, they’re focusing on a later part of the dissent that carries what seems more of a sound bite intended to stir those watching the evening news. Justice Sotomayor writes:

Looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution, the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 246 (1944) (Jackson,
J., dissenting). The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the
majority’s message today.
Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

Justice Sotomayor then concludes:

The majority’s single-minded fixation on the President’s need for boldness and dispatch ignores the countervailing need for accountability and restraint. The Framers were not so single-minded. In the Federalist Papers, after “endeavor[ing] to show” that the Executive designed by the Constitution “combines . . . all the requisites to energy,” Alexander Hamilton asked a separate, equally important
question: “Does it also combine the requisites to safety, in a republican sense, a due dependence on the people, a due responsibility?” The Federalist No. 77, p. 507 (J. Harvard Library ed. 2009). The answer then was yes, based in part upon the President’s vulnerability to “prosecution in the common course of law.” Ibid. The answer after today is no.
Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop.
With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

Justice Sotomayor was so concerned that her dissent, which is thoroughly researched and demonstratively dismantles the majority opinion, might be overlooked, she read the entire dissent from the bench, an act that rarely happens. Almost immediately, the press took hold of a particular question: Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune.

Could a Commander-in-Chief order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival and not face criminal prosecution? As Commander-in-Chief, the president holds unique powers over the military and, within the realms of military convention and rules of engagement, he can order the military to do a lot of things. However, just as the President does not have the power to unilaterally declare war (only Congress can do that), the President does not have the power to order the assassination of anyone.

Why? Because the military does not swear its oath to the President. Every military member, including Seal Team 6 and all other special military operatives, swears their allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. It is the Constitution, not Presidential orders, by which they are judged. Even if the President attempted to invoke such an order, all military officials, from the Pentagon down, would refuse to comply. The President could be angry, perhaps invoke the CIA to carry out the order (if it were on foreign soil), but Seal Team 6 cannot be coerced to assassinate a political rival.

That does not mean that the remaining dangers that Justice Sotomayor mentions are equally moot. Organize a military coup? Only in terms of organizing a military-styled coup utilizing private militias. As we’ve already discussed, the US military cannot and will not take illegal orders from a President. Even if the President were to nationalize the National Guard, as some have suggested he might, they can only be used for restoring and maintaining order within the confines of the Constitution. They cannot overturn an election or deny anyone the right to vote.

However, as we saw with the January 6 insurrection, a President might bring to bear the troublesome and undisciplined power of private militias. Militias exist in a legal gray area. Their establishment is set in the Second Amendment as a means of establishing a military-type force in the absence of a national military.

The Founders believed that “a well-regulated militia” was necessary to keep the federal government from becoming tyrannical. They had good reason to include this in the Constitution because they were all too familiar with how the British military was used against them in the Revolutionary War, and would soon be used again in the War of 1812. The United States was still new, there were still a number of questionable issues to work out. Few fully trusted the authority of a singular centralized government because they’d had such a horrible experience with King George III and the British monarchy.

However, over 200 years later, we’re well past the need for any kind of militia operating outside the established military. The National Guard is generally considered to be the “well-established militia” that the Constitution requires and other private, independently operated militias are looked upon as fringe groups that are more likely to cause trouble and break laws than they are to solve them. As the January 6 insurrection showed, a President can definitely wreak some havoc with a private militia, but any call to create a separate militia specifically to overthrow the federal government would definitely be in violation of the Constitution and, therefore, it would be the responsibility of US forces to put down such an effort, regardless of what the President might desire.

This is not to say that there are not some clear and present dangers to the Court’s decision. There are many. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts thinks that the Court’s decision makes it easier for extreme right-wing conservatives to take over the country. That might be true if a President were to wholly embrace the concept of Revolution that the Heritage Foundation has been pushing since its inception. While the Orange Felon seems to have adopted the Project 2025 plan that the Heritage Foundation created, there are a number of aspects to the plan that are not achievable even with the President’s immunity from breaking the law.

The Heritage Foundation possesses no special power that you, I, or other progressive organizations don’t already have. They are a private entity that makes a lot of noise by saying absurd and ridiculous things. Form an organization that says equally absurd things about conservatives and they’ll get the same amount of righteous hand-wringing that Project 2025 is getting now. At the end of the day, organizations like this only have the power that YOU, the voter, give to them. If you don’t fund them, if you don’t vote for the candidates they support, then they become absolutely powerless and no amount of Presidential immunity can help them out.

What’s more concerning is the international response to the fact that the US President now how qualified immunity for “official acts.” The Court’s decision puts us in questionable company with other countries who hold their Presidents immune from prosecution. Among those: Russia, China, Chile, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Rwanda, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan, none of whom we should be any too anxious to emulate.

 Rosalind Dixon, a professor of law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, told the New York Times that the decision was “out of line with global norms.” She further said, “I think that what is occurring in the United States in terms of the court’s ruling and the presidential election should be of grave concern to all of America’s allies.”

“If the U.S. president is free from the restrictions of criminal law, if he has that level of criminal immunity, the other leaders of the allied nations cannot trust the U.S.,” said Keigo Komamura, a professor of law at Keio University in Tokyo. “We cannot maintain a stable national security relationship.”

Adam Shinar, a professor of law at Reichman University in Tel Aviv, said, “If this decision came down in the 1950s with Eisenhower as president, would we be as concerned or as outraged? Maybe not,” he said. “If we don’t trust our politicians to do good things anymore, then we need other things to step in, for example the criminal justice system. But if we have declining trust in our political institutions at the same time that there is growing immunity for our politicians, there’s a problem with that.”

Indeed, the question of whether any US President can be trusted is an issue as long as the Court’s decision on immunity is allowed to stand. How can we trust our own President when lying to Congress, an act for which previous Presidents have been impeached, is no longer a crime for a President who believes they are responding within the duties of their office? The ambiguity of the decision opens the doors to any number of potential crimes and misdemeanors for which, up until now, a President could be removed from office.

President Biden responded Monday night pretty much as one might expect. Speaking from the White House, he said:

You know, at the outset of our nation, it was the character of George Washington, our first president, that defined the presidency.  He believed power was limited, not absolute, and that power would always reside with the people — always.

Now, over 200 years later, with today’s Supreme Court decision, once again it will depend on the character of the men and women who hold that presidency that are going to define the limits of the power of the presidency, because the law will no longer do it.

I know I will respect the limits of the presidential power, as I have for three and a half years.  But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law. 

I concur with Justice Sotomayor’s dissent today.  She — here’s what she said.  She said, “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.  With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” end of quote.

So should the American people dissent.  I dissent. 

The dissent of the American people should be loud. There should be posts on social media. There should be calls to members of Congress. In my opinion, there should be marches in city streets. We have to respond loudly and demonstrably to make sure that everyone in power knows that we do not take this decision lightly. SCOTUS broke the very law they are mandated to uphold. There is nothing in the Constitution that justifies the ridiculous decision granting any level of immunity to the President or anyone else.

Don’t give into the fear. Stand up, my friends. Yell. Scream, Stomp your feet. And by all means, VOTE! THIS is how we dissent!

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Photography  /  PotD
Strong Women: A Gallery
January 22, 2017
charles i. letbetter - strong women

Beauty and glamor does not make a woman any less powerful

charles i. letbetter - strong women

Over the years, I’ve photographed hundreds of thousands of women. Many were beautiful models, but many were not. Every last one of them, however, has been a wonderfully unique individual. So, when someone comes along disparaging women in any way, I tend to take offense. I despise the stereotype of the air-headed model who doesn’t know anything more than how to look good. Sure, there have been a couple over the years who seem to match that description, but the vast majority are far from that. Even those who might appear somewhat clueless are usually hiding strong qualities that are not immediately evident.

So, for today’s gallery, I decided to choose a group of photos specifically highlighting some of the strongest women I’ve known, specifically focusing on images from 2003-2008 just to keep things under control. Among those, you’ll find photos of Cherokee women quilting and doing beadwork. You’ll also find the late Anne McCaffery, author of the Dragonriders Of Pern series. You’ll find musicians, dancers, actors, designers, accountants, lawyers, immigrants, and so many others that I can’t remember them all.

If I were to include all the strong women I’ve ever shot the gallery would go on for pages. They are the rule, not the exception. Enjoy.

[Remember, click on an image to view the gallery in slideshow mode.]

[tg_masonry_gallery gallery_id=”9692″ layout=”contain” columns=”4″]

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Design Your Own Dissent
January 22, 2017
charles i. letbetter - Design Your Own Dissent

Not every day is a march but every day can be dissent

charles i. letbetter - Design Your Own Dissent

I’ll admit, I was amazed yesterday. Over one million women showed up in cities around the world to protest the policies and rhetoric of the 45th president of the United States. What quite literally started as the frustrated rant of a grandmother in Hawaii grew to the largest global protest ever.

The Women’s March on Washington proved a number of things. One is that women care a lot more about issues than old white men realized. Another was that women can show up in record-setting numbers and still be peaceful. Unlike protests on Friday that resulted in 230 arrests, the District of Columbia’s homeland security director, Christopher Geldart said there were no arrests in relation to the Women’s March. Third, it proved that women are tireless when fired up. At 8:00 PM last night, long after the march was scheduled to end, there were still thousands of women marching, chanting, and waving their signs.

Most importantly, perhaps, yesterday’s protests proved that the single voice of dissent can make a tremendous difference. One might feel alone in their opinion at times, and there will always be someone who will try to tell you that you’re wrong, but when you speak up you might just find that millions of people around the world agree with you. Your voice and your opinion matters.

Now, the question is where do you go next? How do you continue your dissent in a manner that is both effective and appropriate? The energy from the Women’s March was terrific, but how does one keep that energy going when there is laundry to be done, meals to cook, pets to feed, chores to do,  and a career to chase? The true effectiveness of the Women’s March on Washington is not in the number of people who attended, but in the change it produces going forward. Dissent cannot be a one-day matter; it must be continual and persistent or it does no good at all.

Fortunately, we live in a time where we don’t necessarily have to march every day to make our dissent known and for it to be effective. We just happen to have some ideas.

Join A Group Of Like Minds

If you didn’t read yesterday’s article, Do You Really Care? then please put it on your list of things to do today. If you have not downloaded Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda, we strongly recommend doing so. Much of what I would put under this heading is covered in those two documents and I really don’t want to be overly redundant.

That being said, however, one of the most powerful forms of dissent is to organize. I’m not saying you have to be the leader. I’m not saying you have to have regular meetings. Having coffee with a couple of friends who feel the same as you can be effective, though. The power of being in a group, even if it’s small, is the support and encouragement and affirmation that comes from being with those who have the same concerns, share your worries, and are looking for their own voice. You help them, they help you, and the dissent grows stronger every time you get together.

The energy in the Women’s March on Washington is a good example how a group can be effective. Of those millions of people who marched, how many would have done the same thing if they knew they would be alone? Very few, I’m sure. A single protestor holding a sign doesn’t get much attention in D.C. A group, however, has the ability to make more of an impact. One person shared her rant with 40 people. Look what happened.

On a smaller scale, being part of a like-minded group gives you much of the same energy. Share what you’re doing as an act of dissent. Talk about the responses you get from members of Congress and others you encounter. Share your worries. Encourage your friends. I know this doesn’t sound like much, but revolutions grow out of a couple of people sitting around having coffee and a danish. Find someone. Get together.

Want to be part of something larger? Try the Women’s March 10 Actions for 100 Days.

Start A Dissent Blog

There are a lot of ways a person can speak up online, but a blog remains one of the most effective, even outside of social media. The reason is that social media is “in the moment.” People see what has been put there in the past two minutes, but have more difficulty finding material posted days, weeks, or months earlier. Blogs eliminate that problem. Blogging platforms do a great job of automatically indexing everything you create so that it’s there and retrievable at all times without too much fuss or bother.

Another great thing about blogs is that you don’t have to be a professional writer and you don’t have to attend to it every day. You can work your blog around your own schedule, in whatever manner you want, with content of your own choosing. There are no rules about what you can or cannot say or how you say it. Curse. Scream.  Whisper. You formulate the voice you want to express and then set it out there for the world to see.

How do you get started? We strongly recommend wordpress.com for most people. WordPress is a powerful publishing platform used by large sites such as the New York Times and the brand new Obama Foundation. A lot can be done with WordPress if one knows what they’re doing. However, most people don’t have that knowledge and, quite honestly, don’t want to be bothered with the time and expense of operating a full website. WordPress.com solves that problem. You can create your own blog there, on their servers, with very little effort and no expertise. You can make it large, you can keep it small, it’s all up to you.

From there, it’s just a matter of letting people know you’ve created something. Social media is good for that. Share your article with your friends. In fact, I’ll make you a promise: tag me with your dissent blog posts and we’ll share them as well. As we share each other’s content, the dissent grows and becomes more public. The power of a single voice becomes stronger.

We can help you with this one. Don’t be afraid to ask.

Hold Politicians Accountable

Let’s get real for a brief minute here. Politicians have never been the most honest group of people in the world. Whether they’re American or Mexican or French or Gambian, lying is something they all do extremely well. Our memories tend to be short on these matters, but misinformation coming out of the White House is almost a tradition. What has changed is that we can no longer afford to brush aside those lies and exaggerations. We can’t let the president or anyone else in the administration get away with deliberate and intentional lies about what they’re doing or the facts surrounding an issue.

Holding politicians accountable is a very powerful form of dissent right now because it’s not something we’ve done on a large scale before. Sure, there have been organizations such as Snopes that have cropped up in recent years, but to the extent that they don’t force their information onto a politician or anyone else, they need people like you and me to help spread the word. There are plenty of other sources as well. The Associated Press regularly fact-checks major speeches, whether by the president or anyone else who is getting national attention. Major newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post have huge archives with which they can check the accuracy of historical claims. The resources are there.

What has to happen, though, is that you and I have to be the ones to hold politicians feet to the fire both publicly and privately. Share fact-checking posts on social media. Confront your members of Congress with facts through email or letters. It is not enough that the information is being published, politicians need to know that you are paying attention. They count on the overload of information keeping you confused and uncertain of what they’re doing. One of the most powerful forms of dissent comes when you say, “Senator, I know you’re lying and I won’t tolerate it.”

Let ’em have it.

Use Social Media

Social media may be the most publicly accessible form of voicing one’s dissent there is. Generally free and open to everyone, the ways in which you can voice your dissent are innumerable. You can be as creative as you want, use almost any format you want, and address any issue you want. The world is open to hearing from you and the more unique you are in voicing your dissent the more powerful your voice can be.

There are, however, some caveats to this method. There are millions of people on social media, which means the volume of messages is heavy. There are a lot of things out there that don’t need to be repeated and are not deserving of the attention one has to be careful. Here are the guidelines we use for our own posts:

  1. Verify everything you can before sharing. We’ve gotten caught occasionally jumping the gun and posting something that wasn’t quite true. A couple of years ago, that was no big deal. Apologize, remove the post, and move on. Today, however, given the tremendous influx of fake and misleading news, we have to be ever diligent and double our efforts to make sure that what we share is accurate.
  2. Don’t be distracted by trolls. When you post something controversial or something that doesn’t sit well with some “friends,” comments are often made that start with phrases such as “Yeah, but what about …” or “That’s something a [derogatory name] would say,” in a deliberate attempt to diminish the impact of the post by pulling an argument away from the message. Don’t fall for it. When it happens, either delete the comment (you can do that) or block the person. Don’t take them on. Don’t argue with them.  That’s what they want. Remove them and continue.
  3. Use hashtags when they’re appropriate. I’ll admit, when hashtags first started becoming a thing, I didn’t like them. They seemed stupid and unnecessary. What I’ve learned over the past few years, though, is that they actually do serve a purpose, especially when one is talking about something topical and trending. People are much more likely to see what you’ve posted if it contains an appropriate hashtag such as #SpicerFacts or #WomensMarch.

Another issue that is extremely important in social media is sharing. Each of us has a rather limited audience that is a fraction of the total number of friends or followers we might have on any given platform.  When we share what each other has posted, we enlarge that audience and spread the message of dissent. The more we share, the broader the dissent becomes. Don’t be afraid. Share liberally and watch the dissent grow.

Visual Aids

A quieter but still effective form of dissent can come in the visual elements you wear or place around you. Now, let’s be a tiny bit careful here. Your workplace may have rules regarding the display of anything that might be considered political or controversial. Check if you are not sure of your employer’s policies. However, that being said, to the extent you can do so without getting fired, wearing buttons and t-shirts, posting signs and stickers that voice your dissent are very powerful. You don’t have to say a word for people to know where you stand. The more people see such forms of dissent, the more likely they are to join in the dissent, making it all the more powerful.

I’m personally of the opinion that the strongest visuals are those you make yourself, but then, I have tools to make them look good.  Not everyone has the time or motivation to create their own. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of places across the Internet that sell buttons and stickers. Cafe Press probably gives you more choices across a number of different products, from buttons to stickers to t-shirts and more.

There’s also the option of purchasing bulk buttons and stickers and distributing them to like-minded people. My personal preference is for buttons simply because my experience has been that people tend to put stickers in places where they’re not wanted and the stickers are difficult to remove. Buttons can be transferred from one piece of clothing to another and generally don’t tend to violate as many corporate dress policies.

Don’t Be Afraid To Be Extreme

To what extent you take your dissent may well depend on your lifestyle. Not everyone can be extreme in their dissent, but those who can shouldn’t be afraid to do so. I’ve already seen a couple of tattoos and at least one person has had “resist” cut into their hair on the side. Things such as car wraps are a little expensive for most of us, but are still an extreme form of dissent that is definitely going to get noticed (and make cause your insurance rates to go up).

Extreme can also come in the groups which one chooses to support. From Planned Parenthood to the ACLU to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are dozens of major organizations that are providing a voice of dissent. Each of these non-profits rely on donations. While they are happy to accept even the smallest amounts, an extreme donation from those who can reasonably do so can make a tremendous difference in voicing your dissent. Yes, it can be a bit scary, but it is worth it.

And Finally …

Don’t be afraid to inject some humor into your dissent. There’s plenty to be had and the effect of humor on dissent can be extremely powerful. Here are some examples we pulled from the #SpicerFacts stream on Twitter.

See? We can have fun and still make our point loud and clear.

How you design your dissent, the means and the methods which work best for you, is totally subjective. There are numerous options and choosing what is going to be effective depends largely on your lifestyle and level of comfort and passion. What’s most important is that we not let up in making our voice heard. Now. Tomorrow. Next week. Next year. Every time someone in this administration and this Congress attempts to infringe on someone’s rights, to deny equality to any group, to implement policies that are not in the best interest of the American people, we have to be there, loud and strong in our dissent.

We are just getting started. Together, we can resist.

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