Month: November 2025

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Innovation, Mindset, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In response to my Facebook repost of AOC’s suggestion that instead of ICE thugs, we send 5000 caseworkers to the border to help people immigrate the right way, a friend asked, “Do you really feel “calling out” the GOP will make any difference?”

This is how I answered (embedded links were not part of my answer):

There is something to be said for the throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks school of activism. We never know what will be effectual. Did Randy Kehler know when he went to prison for draft resistance that he would directly inspire Daniel Ellsberg to copy and release the Pentagon Papers?

Did Claudette Colvin know in March 1955 when she was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus that only a few month later, Rosa Parks (a trained activist, BTW—her action was NOT random) would repeat Colvin’s action and become the face of a powerful and successful national civil rights movement?

Did whoever said something that opened the mind of a Nazi skinhead know that this particular tormentor (Christian Picciolini) would do a 360 and become a voice of outreach between the Islamic community and the racist right? [NOTE: That incident is not in the BBC link above but was mentioned by Picciolini in a talk he gave to Critical Connections, a human rights group in my area.]

Did the speaker (whose name I don’t know) at my first peace demonstration, at NYU Uptown (now Bronx Community College) on October 15, 1969, have any clue that one sentence of his speech would reach 12-year-old me and turn me into an activist for the past 56 years?

Did I know when I marched at Seabrook in 1977 and spent an incarcerated week as a “guest” of the state of New Hampshire that we were creating a national and international safe energy movement that kept us out of the nuclear fission fiasco for the next 40 years? (We have to do it again, now—that technology is far more about creating new problems than solving the existing ones. I wrote my first book on why nuclear fission makes no sense and updated it after Fukushima. We don’t need it and it’s quite harmful.)

Did the midwives of Exodus, Shifra and Pu’ah, know they were inventing nonviolent civil disobedience and that we would be using it to outsmart dictators more than 3000 years later?

I am an activist because my soul would not let me rest if I weren’t. I’ve been lucky enough to do a few things that worked, including starting the movement that saved a local mountain. But even when it’s defeat after defeat, I keep at it, knowing that if I change one mind or move one person to take action that day, my work has been worthwhile—and if I didn’t, I still made the effort.

Here are a few more examples:

What small step can YOU take that might turn into something much bigger—and where will you get the support to carry it out?

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Ethics: General, General Commentary, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I’m still on Facebook—but I took it off my phone. I also removed Proton and Signal, as well as fingerprint logon from both my phone and computer. Any guesses about why?

Here’s the sad and scary reason: I can no longer trust my government.

The Constitution is supposed to protect US residents against unreasonable searches and seizures. It’s right there in the Fourth Amendment. But the current government is violating that every day. US citizens are being dragged out of cars, homes and workplaces. Immigrants who followed all the rules and have the right to be here are being torn from their families. And of course, those who are here without papers—the vast majority of whom have done nothing wrong and who in many cases have been productive and contributing members of our community for decades are being thrown into gulags under extremely cruel conditions.

All of this is immoral—but it’s happening. This man calls himself a Christian, but his actions show either total unfamiliarity or total nonalignment with the words of Christ. Christ was about welcoming the stranger, helping the needy, breaking down barriers across cultures. Just think about the Good Samaritan parable, embracing the goodness of a member of a despised ethnic group or the—“he who is without sin” invitation that bought an adulteress the ability to continue living.

I’m someone who has always had a low need for privacy and a high transparency level. I strongly suspected in the 1970s when my housemate worked for an anarchist newspaper and I was doing safe energy organizing that our phone was tapped. We were low on the totem pole, so they didn’t waste a good quality tap on us. Our phone made all sorts of noises that our friends’ phones didn’t. I had two responses: One was to be sure I didn’t discuss anything confidential over the phone, including who might be planning what activities. This was easy, because I wasn’t part of a terrorist cell and wasn’t doing anything that would be a problem if the government knew about it. But still, I was careful not to mention people’s names over the phone.

My second response was to tell them I knew:  Every once in a while, I’d say something like “Hey, government agents, you must be bored. Go get a pencil. I’m going to give you my recipe for three-minute chocolate mousse.” (The secret is to use ricotta cheese instead of eggs, by the way).

But times are different now. Instead of governing, our government is trying to crush dissent. And they have tools like AI-powered social media scraping that they haven’t had before. I have been a frequent public critic of Trump and Netanyahu, and an occasional public critic of some of Trump’s other friends, like Bolsonaro and Putin. While unlikely, it’s not beyond possibility that I’ve been put on some kind of extra-screening list, and that the government might try to get into my devices even without the judicial warrant they’re supposed to obtain. Low probability, but certainly not impossible.

And just as I didn’t name names over the phone fifty years ago, I no longer tag my comrades in Facebook or show recognizable faces when I’m writing about protests unless I’ve gotten permission.

I deeply resent that all this precaution feels necessary now. We are supposed to be a democracy. Yet, it was exactly this kind of outspoken public speech that led to several high-profile arrests of Muslim foreign students in the first few weeks of the Trump II administration—including Rumeysa Ozturk in my own state of Massachusetts. Yes, I was born here. Yes, I am White. But the thing about fascism is it starts with the most marginalized and spreads to the mainstream population. And even if it wasn’t spreading, it is not okay to yank people off the street and throw them in a hell-hole for exercising their First Amendment rights. Among other things, my phone-cleaning is an act of solidarity.

Meanwhile, the president of the United States has overseen the murder of at least 69 Venezuelan and Colombian civilians for no viable cause, in multiple attacks (as of November 7). He claims they are drug runners, but evidence points to most of them being fishermen. And even if they are running drugs, you deal with that by stopping and searching the ship and seizing it if it’s true, then making arrests and turning to the courts. Not by blowing them off the face of the Earth.

He has called for execution by hanging of six courageous US military veterans in Congress who made a video reminding soldiers that they are not under obligation to follow illegal orders (such as deploying against US civilians)—and in fact are obligated NOT to follow those orders, because the allegiance they swore is to the constitution, not to any thin-skinned power-mad multiple-felon would-be dictator.

He has pressured numerous companies to make settlements that have been labeled extortion or profiteering, illegally using the presidency for personal and family and corporate financial gain, in direct disregard of the Constitution.

And oh yes, he has used the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, rather than actual criminals, wasting millions of our tax dollars for personal vendettas.

At the moment, I’m halfway through a flight from Asia to New York. If they want to look at my social media, they will have to look a little harder, because my phone and computer will be off and I will not turn them on for an agent who doesn’t have proper authorization.

I recognize that this only makes things inconvenient for them. They could easily use their own device to check my social media. They could somewhat less easily impound my devices. I also recognize that the odds are highest that they will ask me where I went and what I purchased—then simply say, as usual, “welcome back,” and wave me through.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have cleared immigration control without incident and be settling down to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. But if they do try to poke into my business, I will at least slow the machinery of oppression down a bit.

POSTSCRIPT: Compared with an hour-long wait in Saigon, the passport control line at JFK Airport was only ten minutes long, we were waved through without any questions, and I’ve reinstalled FB on my phone until the next time I leave the country.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Greenwashing, Mindset, People Helping People, poverty, Science, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , ,
Read. This. Article. It’s one of the most important articles I have read about climate change. Yes, the writing is a bit denser than most of what I share. But it’s still pretty readable. And it’s pretty short. If it feels like a struggle, take a couple of breaths and try again. The author’s points are marginalized in mainstream media and you won’t typically find them.
And along with that critique of Bill Gates’s climate theories, I would point out that the cooling centers he advocates are a Band-Aid on a gushing wound. Far better to prevent the need for cooling centers by switching immediately to REAL renewables (NOT nuclear fission power plants, which he has advocated elsewhere)–and mitigating not just the temperature but the social conditions of injustice that will be much much worse as the planet heats. One example in the article is setting up cooling centers for those on the margins—in other words, people who have no dwelling, who are homeless. That homelessness will in many cases be a direct result of climate change, which creates refugees directly (through crop failures and natural disasters and indirectly (through crime and resource wars).
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was not expecting to be totally blown away by a politician’s victory speech on Election Night. But I was moved to tears several times.

Whether you like his politics or not, you have to acknowledge his oratorical skills—both in the crafting of this speech and in the delivery, where he comes across to me as humble, inclusive, and committed. And if speaking is any part of your communications (which it should be), there are a lot of lessons in this speech.

The politician is Zohran Mamdani, just elected as the first Muslim mayor of New York City—a municipality with more population than 38 of the 50 US states.

You can view it at https://www.c-span.org/program/campaign-2025/zohran-mamdani-election-night-victory-speech/668370 (including the sweet family moment at the very end) and read the full transcript at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/nyregion/mamdani-speech-transcript.html (I had to set up a free account to see it).

He hits high notes immediately, quoting Eugene Victor Debs, “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.” Debs ran for president as an open socialist—from his prison cell. Then Mamdani hits us with this powerful and poetic paragraph centering his working-class base:

Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.

Next, a hat tip to his opponent, who he wishes “only the best in private life.”

Then came the only thing I would have edited out: “But let tonight be the final time I utter his name, as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.” His deeper meaning is ambiguous, but it could be seen as holding some resentment, not wanting to even speak the opponent’s name again. I would have skipped the first clause and jumped to “We have turned the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.” When I listened, I misheard the word “utter” as “honor,” and that may color my negativity toward the bit about not speaking his name.

But he pivots immediately to his mandate for change, for making the city affordable, and for including marginalized populations:

Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city, who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties.

He then tells stories of a few people he met during the campaign: a man who has to commute two hours each way because he can’t afford to live in the city, another who can’t afford to take a day off, and a woman who says she’d lost her love for her city.

His inclusiveness and focus on the glowing future expand to his enormous volunteer network:

This victory is for all of them. And it’s for all of you, the more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force. Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again. With every door knocked, every petition signature earned, and every hard-earned conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics… To my campaign team, who believed when no one else did and who took an electoral project and turned it into so much more: I will never be able to express the depth of my gratitude. You can sleep now.

Then he acknowledges just how ambitious his goals are:

Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia: an agenda that will freeze the rents for more than two million rent-stabilized tenants, make buses fast and free, and deliver universal child care across our city.

Years from now, may our only regret be that this day took so long to come. This new age will be one of relentless improvement. We will hire thousands more teachers. We will cut waste from a bloated bureaucracy. We will work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered.

Safety and justice will go hand in hand as we work with police officers to reduce crime and create a Department of Community Safety that tackles the mental health crisis and homelessness crises head on. Excellence will become the expectation across government, not the exception. In this new age we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another.

From there, he segues directly into something even more ambitious: confronting a hostile federal government and the bigots who enable it—those who want to sow division and hatred, while he calls for unity and invokes, one after another, Jews and Muslims (two other groups who are often at odds on certain issues)—leading first with the community that he is not a member of, but that I am:

In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light. Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too.

And we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism. Where the more than one million Muslims know that they belong — not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.

No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election. This new age will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.

This next bit could sound like bravado—I’d love to hear some specifics on HOW he will meet those high expectations—but to me, it comes across instead as another call for unity and actual bravery: being willing to stand up and be counted—and looking ahead to what future would-be dictators we will need to organize against:

They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us.

Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.

After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.

This is not only how we stop Trump; it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up…

So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them. A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.

If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme, and let us build a shining city for all. And we must chart a new path, as bold as the one we have already traveled. After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate…

He goes on to poke a bit of fun at himself, listing several characteristics that would have been thought of as liabilities—then proclaiming, “I refuse to apologize for any of this.”

And he concludes with inspiration: another strong call for hope:

Let the words we’ve spoken together, the dreams we’ve dreamt together, become the agenda we deliver together. New York, this power, it’s yours. This city belongs to you.

Again, I suggest that you watch the speech, take notes on what you feel did and didn’t work, and think about what you can bring to your own presentations.

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