Me, suggesting hope?
Effective resistance to autocracy is happening all over the world -- how?
Personally, I’ve wanted to leave for a long time, since before Trump. I’ve always felt like a foreigner in my own country, and the culture here, if it can be called that, has gotten steadily worse over my lifetime. And I come from a long line of refugee immigrants, it’s in my blood. This lawless coup is the final nail in the coffin, for me at least, on the topic of wanting to go expat. It’s looking less and less possible for me, but I digress.
I’m not surprised at all by the attack on L.A., but I expected it to happen right before the midterms, so they could declare martial law and deploy MAGA thugs everywhere to shut down the midterms. Focks News, of course, portrays this as violent, criminal agitators who pose a danger to regular folk.
I wasn’t thinking strategically enough. I’m suddenly forced to realize that it’s a more effective move for the oligarchs to start this now. They expect to generate more protests around the country that they can attack in order to generate more violent tv footage and more fake threats. They’ll tire us all out, make us all injured and grieving, deplete our reserves of strength, resolve, money, healthcare, friends and family goodwill, so that by the time the midterms come along and they cancel them to stay in power permanently, we’ll already be too depleted to put up an effective peaceful resistance.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has no choice but to keep fundraising and doing the same things they’ve always done to try to win midterms that I predict won’t even take place.
What will you do when they cancel the midterms? What will you do when they illegally deploy the military against peacefully protesting citizens near you? (I’m expecting similar attacks to happen in Aurora, CO, right next door to me.)
The good news is that resistance against autocratic coup is possible — research seems to suggest that all it takes is 3.5% of the population to actively, peacefully resist the power grab — in jobs, in courts, officially, truly resisting. And resistance against autocratic pushes have been succeeding around the world. Yay! Listen to this June 6, 2025, “On The Media” radio program “Lessons From Hungary’s Democratic Backsliding. Plus, What Makes a Resistance Movement Successful?“:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/lessons-from-hungarys-democratic-backsliding-plus-what-makes-a-resistance-movement-successful
(listen/read before the DOGE creeps somehow get articles like that taken down).
In other great news, Putin’s war crimes-ridden invasion of Ukraine is FAILING. (Although let’s never forget the devastation it has wrought for the people of Ukraine, not to mention the people of Russia.)
See:
June 8, 2025, 18m30s video (longer, but covers the history of the war) on “The Military Show”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpyLQvNsUw4
May 2, 2025, 2m18s video (posted before Operation Spider Web) from Adam Kinzinger (former LtCol in Air National Guard, former Republican Congressman from Illinois, still a patriot):
https://youtu.be/lvVI64jVXuI
June 7, 2025, 4m55s BBC News vid:
https://youtu.be/1YuMxd44Y5o
The survival of Russia as a viable state depends on regime change. It’s either regime change or collapse. Putin is not a “strong leader”. He’s just a psycho thug surrounded by ‘yes men’, which is what you get when you oust (or defenstrate) anyone who disagrees with you, when you have a government that’s based on power heirarchy (i.e. autocracy) and posturing rather than good old inefficient compromise, universal rights, and rule of law. Right thinking people knew this all along and had no interest in picking our own leaders using Putin as a model. Putin was always on the wrong side of history.
The fight in Ukraine is not over until it’s over, though. You can personally DIRECTLY help Ukraine (no middle men) by donating to UNITED24 (established by Zelenskyy): u24.gov.ua (ua is Ukraine). You can specify if you want your money to be applied to medical, military, or recovery purposes. Donation is secure.
Helping Ukraine can only help another oligarch-addled country just south of Canada, because as long as Putin is in power, things are that much easier for Murrican oligarchs to continue in their coup.
You can also directly help the Divided States of America — be part of the 3.5% of peaceful resistors, the minimum required percentage for a successful resistance. Don’t cave. (Note: this is coming from me, someone who has been wanting to escape to another country. It’s not coming from a pie-in-the-sky “it can’t happen here” type. I’ve always been part of that 3.5%. But we need more. We need you! This is our reality.)
I propose that we stay out of their way for now. I propose that we don’t take the bait. Don’t deplete yourself in a knee-jerk fashion that plays into their hands. Normal protests right now are exactly what they want, and will play right into their hands. They know that most of us in the D.S.A. are a lot more eager to march and carry signs than to stand in front of tanks. They also know that the most energetic protesters want to protest energetically right now, and the coup would love to meet them on the streets with their guns and APCs. We must gird our loins and gather our strength intelligently, because the time sure seems to be coming (has already come to those in L.A.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
We all need to have our reserves full when they cancel the midterm elections, or when it becomes clear that they’ve canceled our vote-by-mail systems, wiped the voter registration records, and have deployed election gangs to control who votes in person. There will be armbands, or the equivalent — something only one of their cult would be seen wearing. When that happens, we all need to have the resolve and resources to stand in front of the tanks. The survival of the D.S.A., and possibly the world, depends on it. Plan ahead. Remember the movie “Gandhi”, when the protesters stood and took club beatings, and ultimately shamed the Brits into backing down. This is really the only way. Violence will work for the oligarchs, and so will polarization — the peaceful resistance movements that succeed are the ones that open their arms to law enforcement, military, and religious institution members, chambers of congress and trade organizations, rather than automatically treating them like enemies or irrelevant. Listen to that “On the Media” segment.
A fine newsletter update. I never miss an episode of On the Media, and recommend everyone catch it. Personally, I don't see the GOP getting around the midterms. I know all of their tried and true voter suppression tactics, and so does everybody else. They won't keep us from the polls. And their totally premature efforts to put our military in our streets will only serve to train protestors to keep it peaceful, as I've done ever since the Vietnam war. But be assured, even though I'm more optimistic than you, I am ever vigilant. Carry on the good work.