It’s true—United we stand

Protesting Trump’s cabinet outside Senator Cornyn’s office. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Stephanie from Austin TX

In a world that seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, fueled by hatred and helped along by the capacity for a nuclear holocaust and destruction of environmental sustainability, what do you do?

You can wallow in rage, hatefulness, and vengefulness, wrecking your own mental health and hurting people around you, or

You can join with like-minded individuals who value love over hate, peace over war, compassion over vengefulness, justice over exploitation. You can link up with people who can foresee what will happen to enormous segments of life on earth if greedy exploiters of its resources and promoters of divisiveness are not reined in.

For those of you open to doing something to confront the wages of greed and the destructive isms of the time, one movement you might consider joining is the Indivisible movement.

One of the things I like about the movement is its emphasis on stopping Trump’s platform, the specific things he and his henchmen want to do that will make life worse for millions of people and the earth on which we live.

A lot of the energy in the current resistance movement targets Trump the man, the symbol of the greediest of the one percent of the one percent; the icon for the dispossessed, the disillusioned, and the distraught; the reincarnation of the cataclysmic fascism of the last century.

What I value in the central Indivisible credo is its emphasis on stopping inhumane, unjust, and destructive policies—executive orders, laws, and dis-regulations that hurt innocent people and the environments in which most people struggle to survive. If you can improve the policies, the procedures, the ethics, then individual representatives of greed and destructiveness can do less damage.

Looking for an optimism boost?

Visit the Indivisible Guide to Stopping the Trump Agenda.

Download the Indivisible Guide

Learn more about its efforts to mobilize resistance to the Trump agenda http://billmoyers.com/story/how-the-indivisible-movement-is-fueling-resistance-against-trump/

Check out youtube videos of local actions

 

It’s still working!

Trump Muslim Ban Protest – Turner Park – Omaha, NE. 29 January 2017. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Shelby Bell from Omaha, NE, US.

Fascism may be once again on the rise, but democracy is not dead yet, and YOU can help democracy prevail—which is a whole lot more sensible than giving in and bowing down to the forces that would like to lead the country into World War Three, further enriching the alt-conservative billionaires, and finalizing the transformation of the United States into the WASPMR (White Anglo Saxon Protestant Male Republic).

Look! Listen! Smell! Resist is in the air.
Write! Call! Join! Protest is everywhere.

Here are some of the opportunities arising to help Take America Forward.

Join the Facebook #TheIdesOfTrump postcard writing campaign.

Spread the word about the General Strikes being planned for February and March 8

Watch for updated reports on other plans for General Strikes .

Keep your ears open for opportunities to make your views known at local town meetings as was done here and and at local community protests as was done here on Inauguration day at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, MA.

And keep the faith. Nonviolent activism has a long history of success.

P.S. Even if you are not expecting any imminent invitations from the White House, draw courage from the examples of the Boston Patriots who declined Donald Trump’s invitation to come celebrate their Super Bowl victory at his humble new abode—including, as of now, the following: Chris Long, LeGarrette Blount, Alan Branch Dont’a Hightower, Devin McCourty and Martellus Bennett.

Watch for our enemies (We are they.)

Protest at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Terminal 4, in New York City, against Donald Trump’s executive order signed in January 2017 banning citizens of seven countries from traveling to the United States (the executive order is also known as “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”). January 28, 2017. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Rhododendrites.

Note from Kathie: Wherever possible, we attempt on this blog to provide psychological perspectives on violence and nonviolence.  Today, we share this slightly condensed Open Letter from Canadian Psychologists regarding Donald Trump’s travel ban.

“We as Canadian professors of psychology and practitioners condemn the executive order signed on January 27, 2017, to ban people from specific countries from entering the U.S. We also condemn the right wing rhetoric, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and xenophobic actions that are dominating political discourse in the U.S. and some European countries.

[We] believe that the following principles have been well-established:

1. When people feel secure and accepted in their society, they will tend to be open, tolerant and inclusive with respect to others. Conversely, when people are discriminated against, they are likely to respond with negative attitudes and hostility towards those who undermine their right. Rejection breeds rejection; acceptance breeds acceptance.

2.  When individuals of different cultural backgrounds have opportunities to interact with each other on a level playing field, such equal status contacts usually lead to greater mutual understanding and acceptance. Creating barriers between groups and individuals reinforces ignorance, and leads to mistrust and hostility.

3.  When individuals have opportunities to endorse many social identities, and to be accepted in many social groups, they usually have greater levels of personal and social wellbeing. Individuals who are denied acceptance within many social groups usually suffer poorer personal and collective well-being.

In addition to supporting these three principles, we note the following:

A. Global humanitarian crises do not happen overnight. Such chaos begins in small steps, which may appear benign, somewhat acceptable and even justifiable under given conditions. The world witnessed too many humanitarian crises during the last century.

Not speaking out against such events right at the outset contributed to the escalation of evil and its dire consequences. The current immigration ban applied to seven predominantly Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen) may not be felt by majority of Canadians. However, it can contribute to the escalation of the unfair treatment of a wide range of groups.

B. Studies show that blatant “us vs. them” categorizations contribute to prejudice, discrimination, group polarization and intergroup antipathy. We argue that it is in no one’s interest to narrow the membership of “us” (e.g., Canadian, American, or European) and to widen the membership of “them” (e.g., Muslim, Mexican, members of the LGBT, feminist, and refugee communities). Such polarization leads to fear, rejection, and discrimination, with the negative consequences noted in the three principles described above.”

Signed: John Berry, Ph.D., Queen’s University; Gira Bhatt, Ph.D., Kwantlen Polytechnic University; Yvonne Bohr, Ph.D., C.Psych. York University; Richard Bourhis, Ph.D. Université du Québec à Montréal; Keith S. Dobson, Ph.D., R. Psych., University of Calgary; Janel Gauthier, Ph.D., Université Laval; Jeanne M. LeBlanc, Ph.D., ABPP, R. Psych.; Kimberly Noels, PhD. University of Alberta; Saba Safdar, Ph.D., University of Guelph; Marta Young, Ph.D., University of Ottawa; Jeanne M. LeBlanc, Ph.D., ABPP, R. Psych.

RESIST, YES—BUT RESIST WHOM?

“Dark days ahead for the United States as a result of the Presidential Election, 2016.” This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Bee Certain.

In the terrifying Alice-in-Wonderland days of a new President with little understanding of the Constitution and no respect for principles of social justice, the slogan RESIST has gone viral, as well it should. The big questions are: RESIST WHOM? RESIST HOW?

Although the focus has been on Donald Trump, who so far has seemed to attract adoration and loathing in large quantities, but has many pundits have increasingly pointed out, Trump is a symptom and an outcome of problems that have been besieging the American political system for generations.

The millions of Americans who are horrified by Donald Trump as President need to address the factors that led to his (mis)election and that could enable him to put his noxious plans into effect.

Some very good advice on this issue comes from an article entitled “How to stop an autocracy” by Ezra Klein on Vox .

Klein’s thesis is that “The danger isn’t that Trump will build an autocracy; It’s that Congressional Republicans will let him.” And the threat is not autocracy but “partyocracy.”

Klein offers some excellent insight into the wisdom and intentions of the creators of the Founding Fathers, and an extensive analysis of david Frum’s Atlantic article  “How to build an autocracy”

In his discussion of the role of the U.S. Constitutional separation of powers in curbing excesses by the Executive Branch, Klein tips his hat to authorities in the Judicial system who are challenging the legality of Trump’s anti-immigration efforts; however, he puts particular emphasis on the corrective balance that could be exercised the legislative branch–i.e., Congress.

One of Klein’s main concerns, which he believes the Founding Fathers failed to anticipate, is the pernicious effect on checks and balances that can accrue in a rigidly two-party system in which the goal of each party is essentially to pursue its own agenda and try to subvert the other party.

Looking for ways to resist the Trump agenda? I recommend that you read Klein’s full article and send your comments about it to this post on engaging peace.