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Is this on? Is this on?
The events of the last year have been...less than happy making. But now the year is over. And with the change of years, and the change of seasons, come new beginnings. It’s time for us to organize, folks, and for my part, that means kicking the engine on this old series of mine and bringing it back to life.
So as you wrap up your last-minute charitable giving, make plans to get bubbly and balloons for the stroke of midnight, and draw up your list of resolutions, make it part of your plan for 2017 to reinvigorate yourself each Saturday morning at Good Morning Daily Kos, Weekend Edition!
And now, the items!
ITEM! Trump is NOT, in fact, a Russian puppet, part one:
ITEM! Speaking of Trump being a Russian puppet, we should note that Salon was all over this story in September. This really should have been a bigger deal, but let’s face it, before the election, nobody took Trump seriously. Even I thought he was a clown that would be soundly rejected at the polls. Today, we all have to take him seriously.
You might ask yourself, “what do we do about it?” Well, there’s lots we can do — see the poll below — but one thing we can do in particular is to keep hammering the message that Trump is a Russian puppet. The Russian hacking story isn’t going away, not with John McCain demanding an investigation, and by Trump’s dismissals we can make sure this stays tied around his neck.
By implication, we should remind ourselves that we who resist him are the real patriots now. We should remind ourselves that the inexorable toadies, partisans and shitlords who are going to say “love it or leave it” have no standing to tell us otherwise. Go on the offensive, kids!
ITEM! Don’t look now, but Fox News just did the impossible. They were caught lying about food stamp fraud, and they retracted the story and apologized for lying. This is just another way that 2016 has met the bar of, “Did you ever think you’d see the day?”
ITEM! Governments shut down the internet more than 50 times in 2016. And, as we know, Trump has suggested that he might do the same in 2017 to combat terrorism. It is possible, although I believe unlikely, that he could interpret organizing against Trumpism as “terrorism,” and take action to shut off the internet in some places. Fortunately, there are ways to communicate other than internet. For example:
- We can use amateur radio (aka HAM Radio) to communicate important information in real time. HAM allows for person-to-person communication and limited group communication using chat sessions called “nets.” We can use HAM to send not only voice and morse code, but pictures, email, and computer files. And with the right gear, we can do it over very long distances. This doesn’t take a lot of gear. In fact, you can get a perfectly good Baofeng HAM radio for under $100 that uses the two most common amateur bands, 70cm and 2m. There is a catch, of course, and the catch is that the federal government (FCC) regulates HAM radio, and using HAM requires a license. There are other significant restrictions: we can’t encrypt anything or even use a digital signature, we can’t use it to broadcast news or music (it has to be person-to-person or over a net), we can’t use it to say anything disparaging or obscene, and we can’t use it to sell anything (except for our own HAM gear or other limited exceptions). With all that said, the progressive left wouldn’t be the first to use HAM during a protest. The Bundy protest in southeast Oregon had help from HAMs, for example.
- We can use zines (basically, small, self-published magazines) to keep our local communities engaged and informed, and our morale up. I know, I know, it’s so 1990s! But zines helped to build the vital Riot Grrl scene, and are still a part of feminist youth culture. A zine doesn’t have to be fancy: just a stapled together few sheets of paper with a cover of card stock. Of course, you can always get fancy if you want.
ITEM! Trump is going to be a disaster, but as he’s going to find out, being a disaster is hard when you’re dealing with federal bureaucracy. His efforts to undo Obama’s environmental regulations, for example, will take years — if we’re lucky, maybe more years than he has in the White House. Start getting ready for 2020!
MOUSE!
ITEM! We lost a lot of great artists in 2016, from David Bowie to Prince to Carrie Fisher. One that stung particularly for me, however, was NoMeansNo, the Canadian punk rock trio that called it quits this year. If you’re not familiar with them, you could do a lot worse than to watch their performance at the Western Canadian Music Awards last year:
ITEM! If you’re considering last minute donation-making for charitable purposes, please consider FreeGeek, a Portland, Oregon-area not for profit that refurbishes old computers and other electronics, and teaches people how to build their own computers to run Linux Mint. FreeGeek is a 501(c)(3) and your donation is tax deductible.
And now, a word from our sponsor.