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flor san roman

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flor san roman

Category Archives: Politica

The Protest is the Point

19 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by Flor in Politica

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america, fears, news, politics

Given that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote last November by nearly 3 million, I feel safe in saying that I stand with the majority of the country in trepidation over Trump’s inauguration tomorrow.  We don’t want this. We don’t deserve this.  This shouldn’t be happening.

I look on in horror as the Republicans work to strip away a health care system that got me medical attention that I sorely needed and shudder to think how friends who have worse health will get by.  Ethics were never Trump’s strong suit and already the GOP have made an effort to reduce ethical oversight in Washington.  I can easily imagine the Republican-led Executive and Legislative branches working to dismantle the EPA, the Department of Education, and worker protections and rights overseen by the Department of Labor.  Goodbye, any effort to protect the environment. Today it was made known that Trump intends to cut the National Endowment for the Arts. Foreign affairs don’t look much better as Trump has already been all too willing to shoot his mouth off about military efforts, both on-going and non-existent, and made international faux pas in an effort to aggrandize himself at the cost of decades of carefully crafted American statesmanship.  Every day news headlines from the incoming administration have sent chills through me.

This is, of course, to say nothing of Trump’s horrifying comments about women, Mexicans, black people, the disabled, Muslims, etc, and how they’ve emboldened white supremacists, re-branded as “alt-right,” and even put the KKK back in the news.

Talking with friends, all I can say is that I genuinely don’t know what is going to happen.

But I will march against this, because it shouldn’t have happened.  Slim margins in several states tipped the electoral college his way.  How could that happen unless the electoral college is inherently unfair.  In less populated states a single vote carries more weight than in a heavily populated state.  How can that be possible in a so-called democratic country?  And for the $10million question: How can this have happened twice in the last 16 years?

I will march against this abrogation of democracy because our Declaration of Independence notes that government power comes from consent of the governed.  And we did not consent to this.

I’ve been asked why even bother when demonstrating doesn’t do anything.  I guess many people are too removed from having to take persistent action to effect change in their country.  No, protests aren’t direct action.  Direct action is getting right in the way of business as usual and forcing it to deal with you – blocking entry to government buildings, laying down in the road so buses returning undocumented immigrants to Mexico can’t move, etc.  The protests that strive to avoid breaking laws are indirect action.  They’re about solidarity and about being heard.  Anyone who has ever watched their silence get mistaken for agreement knows the value of speaking up, being visible.

The point of protesting is to protest.  So you don’t stew in your own home, so you don’t despair that you might be the only who feels like you do, so your community is forced to recognize where you stand.

And with any luck it bolsters those in the halls of power who might present an opposition to the forces being protested.  Call it a political gambit, or maybe a drive to be popular with the protesters, but gaining political support is no small matter.  I can only imagine right now what it feels like to be a liberal Representative, surrounded by Republican Congressmen who now have a good shot at realizing their dreams of squeezing government services until they pop. How intimidating it must feel.  Perhaps millions of people around the country taking to the streets will bolster their will to oppose and counter Republicans.

For people who still want protesting to have utility beyond speaking out in public, the Civil Rights hero and Congressman John Lewis says, “Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Stepping out, raising your voice, being visible, is a challenge to the status quo.  It attracts attention.  It attracts trouble. The powers that be would prefer if their power and authority were never challenged; they like to behave as if your silence equals agreement.  I will not let them be mistaken as to where I stand.

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Social Networking in the Time of Politics

23 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Flor in Politica

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me, observations, politics, social networking, society

Oh Facebook, I wish I could quit you.

I have to write this over here, trying to do anything on Facebook is destroying my calm faster and faster every day.  I’ll try to keep it short because I’m just reacting, I don’t have anything real to say for myself – or rather, I don’t really have the time.  This is just a few thoughts I need to purge myself of.

I’ve gotten enough benefit from using Facebook that I find it worth the bother.  It is a lot of bother though.  I hate most of its infrastructure and if I could redesign it I would probably tear it all apart and start from the ground up.  It’s honestly a terrible tool, but the only one with a critical mass of users, and as far as modern agoras go, that’s all that matters.

So it has let me keep in touch with a few people and it has connected me with people connected to career and creative interests.  So all that is very valuable and I’d be loathe to give it up.  I have to balance that good against the crap design whenever I get so frustrated I think of quitting Facebook.

The thing pushing me to walk away from Facebook now is politics.  It doesn’t have to do with how Facebook is designed, and everything to do with how people are acting and what they’re writing on FB that’s trying every last bit of my patience.

I hate scrolling past awful, attack-oriented macros while I’m barely getting to work on my first cup of coffee.  I hate reading what otherwise lovely and delightful friends and family are saying about people who disagree with them politically.  I hate the joy people are taking at watching the opposition tear itself apart (NB, the opposition of *both* parties).  I hate seeing the sincere comments people leave about wishing for actual violence and real bloodshed among Americans.

And I HATE that people aren’t taking ownership of their words and implications. When liberals take specific glee at the violence at Trump rallies and openly hope the Right’s love the 2nd Amendment comes to violent riots and EXPLICITLY wish for murder to “thin the herd,” I am sick to my stomach.  When I listen to conservatives offering apologia for Donald Trump’s blustering misogyny and racism because “whatever it takes to beat Hillary” I am beyond disgusted.

Politics is all compromise.  It requires working with the other side, that’s the whole damn point.  Trust me, as a dedicated Green-party member and someone who very resentfully lives a capitalist lifestyle, I can tell you with certainty pure idealism leaves no room to actually do anything.  I don’t care if you have to “hold your nose” to get somewhere with someone, the point is you’re getting somewhere, not digging deeper the same shithole we’ve been festering in for years.  Compromise is necessary to civilization.  How am I the only person who caught that in Government class?

What the hell are people thinking? Is that supposed to fix something?  Is letting people know your disdain for them really going to set you up better after the election?  Is venting your thoughts really going to make you a better person?  Is it going to encourage anyone to “shape up?”

Or is it going to ingrain the meme of “liberals are X, and conservatives are Y?”  Is it going to encourage more repugnant rhetoric that doesn’t always stay verbal?  Is venting really about something you have on your mind or is it going along with what friends are already chanting?  Is it going to inspire and give solace to people with short fuses and ready armaments?

I’m fucking frustrated.  Americans, I know you’re better than that, I’ve seen it for myself.  Generous and funny, creative and decent…  I can’t believe that you’re going along with it.  Is forgetting all about “by the people for the people” in favor of “us vs them” really what we need right now?  You know that “they” are really us, right?

What the fuck are you people doing??

 

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